The agony of influence: Kaijû daisenso (1965)

[randy_byers]

So I was watching this movie, aka Invasion of Astro-Monster, aka Godzilla vs. Monster Zero last night. Yes, it's a Godzilla movie, but the interest to me was that it was mid-'60s science fiction with cool '60s alien outfits and flying saucers and the usual great Toho miniatures and special effects. You see, there's another planet, called Planet X, lurking behind Jupiter, and the aliens who live there want to conquer Earth, but they tell us they are our friends, they want to help us cure cancer. When it got to the point where these clearly evil aliens (just look at them!) were professing their friendship to Earth, I immediately thought of Tim Burton's science fiction comedy, Mars Attacks! (1996). Croaking in an evil alien voice, "We come in peace. We are your friends," is a favorite past-time of mine. But check this out, the aliens from Planet X are of course technologically superior to Earth people, and when they finally stoop to conquer, what is it that finally defeats them? SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS: An irritating noise developed by a nerd inventor who thinks it will be useful as a personal alarm for women in trouble. This idea is treated as a laughingstock by everybody but his loyal girlfriend throughout the movie, but when the noise is played in the vicinity of the evil aliens, they shriek and fall to the ground writhing in agonizing pain! This is clearly where Burton got his idea for using Slim Whitman's "Indian Love Call" as a weapon against the aliens in his movie. Why, Wikipedia even reminds me that there's a scene in Mars Attacks! where the Martians are watching a Godzilla movie as they orbit Earth. QED.

Anyway, this important matter of influence aside, I was rather proud of myself when I saw the Japanese title of this movie on IMDb last night and recognized that the English title has nothing to do with it. I'd previously seen "daisenso" in the movie title, Yôkai daisensô, which is translated as The Great Yokai War. So this one would be something like The Great Kaiju War, which would make sense, since it features three kaiju (or monsters), Godzilla, Rodan, and King Ghidorah in a two-on-one battle. And sure enough, one of the alternate titles listed on IMDb is The Great Monster War. You see, Godzilla is teaching me Japanese!

Comments

[profgeek.livejournal.com]

Domo arigoto, Godzilla-san. Nyoto konishiwa!

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Um. Chotto matte kudasai!

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Gojiru inna neckutie!

Gojiru playa basaballru!

I'm getting the spelling wrong, but "neckutie" and "basubalru" are English loanwords into Japanese.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

One of the interesting things is that Invasion of Astro-Monster has a Euro-American actor playing one of the leads, and he's overdubbed to speak Japanese. However, his name is Glenn, pronounced in a typically Japanese way (i.e., something like "gren") and every once in a while one of the Japanese characters will use an English word like "okay" or "goodbye" just to confuse things. There were some loan words in the mix too.

[alces2.livejournal.com]

For some stupid reason, this immediately comes to mind. Doomo Arigatoo Mister Roboto. Then I find this web page with its lovely background. Of course Styx reminds me of the movie Big Daddy. Maybe I should find some work to do.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I share your disease, although on the plus side "matte kudasai" always makes me think of King Crimson.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

I'm on nodding acquaintance with a former member of King Crimson. He's a music lecturer at the university I work for and a couple of years ago I helped set up some macs with various bits of music hardware and software for him. So he's one of those people I say "Hello" to if I pass him in a corridor.
Fascinating eh?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Depends on which former member of King Crimson it is.