Hachigatsu wrote:
1.Scuffed up, non-streamlined off-white spaceships doing WWII dogfights (previous Toku spaceships were sleek and colorful, like "rockets/flying subs vs saucers".)

WW2 Dogfighters were the rigor du jour of SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO (1974) — and BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE before that — in fact, the Yamato's fighters were the Cosmo Zero and the Black Tigers — complete with combat-style markings. The Cosmo Zero was white with red markings, and the Black Tigers were black and yellow.

2.Villains flying around in planet-sized fortresses that can blow up whole planets with 1 shot. (MESSAGE's "deathstar" owed more to SPACE 1999, though.)

Look no further than E.E. Doc Smith's Lensman series — which had already been translated into Japanese (along with multitudes of science fiction stories long before STAR WARS was released, including Asimov's Foundation series. There are at least six such devices: "super-atomic bombs"; rendering a planet "loose" (inertialess) and directing it into a star; a "nutcracker", maneuvering two loose planets to crush a third; a "negasphere," an antimatter planet; "Nth space planets" from other dimensions which travel at superluminal speeds and can be used to ram planets or stars (creating supernovas) - there was even the worrying possibility that these could cause the Big Crunch in zero time; and a "sunbeam", a way of concentrating most of a sun's energy output into a narrow beam — this one a defensive-only weapon against nutcrackers and negaspheres. Of these, the Nth-space planet is considered the most lethal as its speed and inter-dimensional nature leaves no means to defend against it; this knowledge precipitates the final battle in Children of the Lens.

There have been several episodes of live action and animated series in Japan, in which villains used planets and other cosmic bodies, natural and artificial, as weapons against Earth — it's an old science fiction trope, not unfamiliar in Japan — and certainly not unfamiliar to the writers/consultants on MESSAGE FROM SPACE, which included noted science fiction authors such as Yukio Noda (1933-2008). Noda was a an award-winning writer, linguist, translator, science fiction author, space science commentator, and TV producer, who started in science fiction as a translator for the Japanese editions of Edmund Hamilton's stories (Captain Future and Star Wolf, etc.), after becoming fascinated with American science fiction literature in the late 1950s. Interestingly, he later wrote the Japanese novelizations of the STAR WARS trilogy.

3. Said superfortress having 1 hard to reach vulnerable spot where 1 missile can destroy the whole thing. Heroes fly their space jets into a tight space to do just that.

The Achilles' Heel is one of the oldest story devices in literature — i.e. Siegfried and the Dragon.

4. Heroes guided/aided by mystical supernatural force rather than technology.

Every heroic ninja story; primarily the tale of Jiraiya (from the folklore and Kabuki play) as retold in the 1966 production of THE MAGIC SERPENT, which features the young protagonist's parents slayed by the villain — a master of the dark arts — and is rescued by a shapeshifting ninjitsu master, who lives as a hermit in the mountains. He trains the young boy in the ninjutsu arts and shapeshifting (along with a young girl, who turns out to be the villain's daughter), so that he can take revenge and reclaim his father's fiefdom and return peace to the land. When the villain kills the old hermit, the young Jiraiya sets out on his fateful mission — to raid the villains' stronghold.

Sounds and awful lot like STAR WARS, doesn't it? Many early Japanese superheroes — as modern or as space-age as they may look — owe a lot to their folklore roots, and often display feats of magic rather than technology, per se, including throwing beams of light from their hands or using telekinetic powers.

5. Comical emotional robots. Before STAR WARS, most movie robots didn't display much emotion.

Japan has a long tradition of "emotional" and/or "comical" robots, starting with Osamu Tezuka, who seemed to create both in his manga "Mighty Atom" — first published in 1952 — later known to the world as "Astro-Boy". Another manga, Kenji Morita's "Marude Dameo" (1964-67), was about the titular boy inventor who creates his own scrap-metal robot — and the mischief both get into — which became a highly-rated live action (and a later animated) television series. MARUDE DAMEO was the precursor to dozens of later such live-action series, mostly penned by Shotaro Ishimori (CYBORG 009), such as GANBARE!! ROBOCON (1974-77), ROBOT 911 (1977), MASTER ROBOT 8 (1981-82), BATTEN ROBO MARU (1982-83), and MORIMORI BOKKUN (1986). On a more serious note, there are the super android with human emotions in KIKAIDA (1972-73) and KIKAIDA 01 (1973-74), as well as ROBOT DETECTIVE (1973), all live-action series developed for television by Shotaro Ishimori.

Of course, the R2-D2's closest cousin is Analyzer — the quirky, brilliant, comedic automaton — who falls in love with Yuki Mori in the animated series SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO (1974-75). There is one especially poignant episode that focuses on the Yamato's sole robot — and his love for a human woman: Episode 16, "PLANET BEEMERA: CONDEMNED CONVICTS OF THE UNDERGROUND PRISON!!", originally broadcast on January 19, 1975.

6. Some music themes sound very similar to cues from STAR WARS.

SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO featured symphonic music before STAR WARS.

7. Swordfights in a futuristic setting.

Flash Gordon was there in silver underwear. In Japan, Ultraman and many other similar characters, pre-STAR WARS, used beam weapons in the shape of spears, javelins, and swords.

8. Beam weapons that shoot like machine guns.

Look no further than SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO (and before that, ASTRO-BOY, SPACE BOY SORAN, SUPER JETTER, etc.).
I'm well aware of the varied influences on both films, so please don't patronizingly say that I have STAR WARS blindness or that I lack the proper context to know what I'm talking about.  The difference is that STAR WARS blended all those elements listed above an entire year before MESSAGE FROM SPACE did.  Are you really trying to deny that MESSAGE FROM SPACE, which plays just like a carbon copy of STAR WARS and was released a year later, wasn't trying to blatantly copy and cash in?  Even Leia's cinnamon-bun hairstyle was copied exactly for Peggy Lee Brennan's character, and her name is even "Meia".


Last Edited By: WaverBoy Nov 17 10 5:07 PM. Edited 1 times.