The Mysterians
It’s the 1950s and movies are dominated by nuclear paranoia, Communist paranoia, and UFO paranoia. Toho had already delved into nuclear paranoia, and the U.S. more than had Communist paranoia covered, so UFOs it is! Were they successful? Let’s find out!
We start off with an astrophysicist named Shiraishi, his ex-fiance, her sister, and our protagonist Atsumi having a night on the town at a festival. Everyone’s dancing and having a good time and then Atsumi pulls the proverbial record off the needle and suggests that Shiraishi dance with the ex, because nothing breaks the ice like suggesting that ex finances dance with each other. A nearby forest catches fire, and just like in Rodan, three red shirts jump into action. Again, this goes about as well as you’d expect. Astrophysicist/apparently park ranger jumps into action.
Fast forward-We see our protagonist Atsumi talking with another astronomer named Adachi. Adachi talks about Shiraishi’s theory about a hidden planet in the solar system cleverly called “Mysteroid”. Oh yeah, and they casually throw in the information that Shiraishi died in the fire.
Well, crazy things start happening after that. Flying saucers appear from the moon, earthquakes destroy a lot of real estate, and the ground where the earthquakes occur turns out to be radioactive. So radioactive in fact, that when they investigate the site, the tires on the jeep start to burn!
“Good think I wore my radiation- proof pants today”
After a quick Geiger counter inspection of the ground, the doofiest looking robot in cinematic history busts out of a mountain.
The giant robot (Moguera) starts blasting the hell out of everything in sight. This also begins a proud tradition that would be continued in King Kong Escapes of giant robots that make irritating noises the entire time they’re on-screen. The military gets together Japan’s top scientists and determine that someone is behind these events, yes even the robot. Cut to Moguera wrecking a nearby village’s shit. The military goes through their obligatory conventional weapon battle with the monster. This is about as effective as it usually is, but then they employ a never before tried strategy: knock the monster over. And hey, guess what, it works!
Seriously?
Team science decides to look further into the matter. Adachi decides to do this dressed as a distinguished Southern gentlemen for some reason.
“I do declare, these doin’s are powerful mysterious!”
At this point, a big ass mysterious dome and a mysterious voice mysteriously requests to see the very five scientists that looking at it. The military guys smell a trap, so they ask if the mysterious people in the mysterious dome are going to kill the scientists. They said no. That story clearly checked out, so the scientists were on their way.
Insert Wizard of Oz joke here:
The brave fellowship of scientists approach the dome, where they are treated to some good ol’ extraterrestrial hospitality.
Once inside and caped-up, the scientists meet the aliens within, who claim to be from the planet they call Mysteroid. They refer to themselves as Mysterians. So, did they not have any sort of identity until some jackass named them? It could have just as easily gone like this:
Scientists: Who are you?
Aliens: Were from the planet Butthole. We’re the Buttholians.
Scientists: Pffft!
Aliens: What?
Scientists: Nothing, nothing…it’s nothing.
The Mysterians claim that they don’t want war, and they only want a two-mile strip of land to live on. Their other requirement is that they be allowed to…wait for it…marry earth women! Apparently their bodies are full of radiation and most of their babies are deformed. They also demand five specific women, two of which happen to be one of the scientists girlfriend and her sister!
“That’s right, we demand to procreate with your girlfriend. Also, as soon as an African-American joins our team, we’re clearly going to make him the Black Ranger”
Man, these guys have no game at all. They never really specify why they need those five. Like if they had said that they had superior genes, or they were compatible with their blood type, or hell even if they just liked their hair, it would have at least justified it somehow. They really just wanted those five women to needlessly raise the stakes in the movie. And really, they didn’t have to demand any women. If the Mysterians had just advertised that they needed women to procreate with, I guarantee there would be women somewhere that would step up to the plate. And at the risk of sounding sexist, if there are lady Mysterians, I’m sure there are guys that would be more than willing to pony up too.
Mankind collectively decides “nuh uh” and launches an all out assault on the Mysterians mystery dome. For some reason, the film departs form Ikfukube’s music and Berlioz starts playing. French composers always make me think of space battles. There’s a pretty prolonged battle sequence in which the army gets its ass handed to it and the mystery dome remains unscathed. Then as a retaliatory measure, some of the Mysterians show up at their target ladies house and:
This shit happens:
Descent
Ascent
So, now the Mysterians have their women. The military unveils their newest weapon in the fight against the Mysterians: Marcalite Farps, which is probably the most ridiculous name for a weapon ever conceived. I tried to see if “farps” was some sort of cultural thing I was missing. No luck. Maybe it was an acronym for something really badass like:
Friggin’ Awesome Raygun Power System
or
Forced Arbitrary Ridiculous Plot Surprise
Nope, just a dumb name.
Anywho, the marcalite farps (which will be henceforth referred to as “farpy”) are sent into action. We don’t get to see exactly what farpy looks like, until we see this:
Intimidation gives you the edge in any battle.
So, we sit there, waiting to see this crazy ass robot kick some ass, but instead it just breaks up into a couple of satellite dishes. These farpys sit around the mystery dome and reflect the dome’s deadly rays right back at it. One would assume that after getting their rays reflected back at them once or twice, the Mysterians would change-up their tactics, but no. They just keep blasting away again and again. Their one tactical variation is they send a second Moguera to burrow underneath a farpy to destroy it. The farpy falls on the 2nd Moguera and destroys it instead!
Honestly, Moguera, you are the shittiest robot in cinematic history.
Okay, maybe not THE shittiest…
Dear God, this battle scene goes on for a long time. Mystery dome fires at farpy, farpy fires back. Meanwhile, the supposedly dead astrophysicist helps the captive women escape, teaches all of us a lesson about the dangers of misused science, the military blows the Mystery Dome up, and boom, end of movie. The scientists ride off into the sunset in their environmentally friendly rocket ship.
Seriously, is Uncle Buck driving this thing?
The pace of this film is pretty slow. The battle sequences against the dome are really stretched out and not that interesting. Big deadly machines that are totally stationary just aren’t that intimidating.
Exhibit A
The acting is pretty par for the course. There are a couple of white guys in this movie, one of which speaks fluent Japanese. This is a good thing, because his acting in English is horrendous. “Fire…the..ray”…It’s like those three words take every bit of effort he has to get out. The special effects are pretty decent for the time. If nothing else, Toho puts up some pretty amazing destruction sequences. There’s one scene with a flood in particular that’s pretty amazing.
Sploosh
This movie was the first of many Toho sci-fi movies that involve aliens. One thing that the studio would do much better with in later movies was giving the aliens some sort of personality. If they’re riddled with radiation, a dramatic reveal of what they look like would have been effective, but no. It’s difficult to fear an antagonist who’s only discernible identity is “cape”.
“Our belts are awesome too!”
That brings us to Moguera. Yes, he looks ridiculous, but he’s kinda gloriously ridiculous. Like, if there’s a poster child for 50’s sci-fi, it’s Moguera. There’s one sequence where a woman in a bathtub sees him silently walk by her window, while she stays quiet as to not attract the robot’s attention. It’s actually kind of an eerie scene. Really, the movie could have used more Moguera. It could have made for a more badass battle at the end of the movie instead of making it into the most easily defeatable monster in the history of film.
For Toho’s first foray into aliens, it could have been worse, but it also could have been a lot better. Later films would use aliens much more effectively. This is another movie that I would absolutely recommend to the hardcore fan, but that’s about it.
HisandHerGodzilla 