Don't worry: I'm not denying your acumen in regards to the kaiju/Japanese SF genre.

I'm not worried about that -- I am only interested in the facts and keeping them straight, no matter who is dispensing them, as long as they are true.

What I meant to say was War in Space probably wouldn't have been made without the release and subsequent runaway success of SW. This is supported by the Nakano interview when he says he was instructed by Tanaka Yuuko, after them seeing SW together, to make a space movie.

Actually, the unprecedented runaway boxoffice success of SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO, domestically, was more of the motivation. STAR WARS was the icing on the cake in terms of exporting any potential film. Despite the terrible translation of the Nakano interview on the DVD, which leaves out a lot of data, like repeating that the focus was basing THE WAR IN SPACE on KAITEI GUNKAN (Atragon).

There is certainly an influence of Atragon in it, as well (I'm less familiar with the Yamato stuff): just look at the Gohten (the good guys big ship in WiS). War in Space was definitely made by folks who had seen Star Wars, but I see more home-grown Japanese influence than from SW.

One cannot underestimate the tremendous influence that YAMATO had in Japan -- it spawned the Anime Boom, which helped to spread the genre to the four corners of the world. Check out this link, from the official STAR BLAZERS website, and especially read the 1975-1977 entries:

www.starblazers.com/html.php?page_id=85

Heck, I'd argue the influence of the original Battle in Outer Space as an influence on Star Wars. I mean, just look at the final big battle in BiOS...!

Yup! In fact, Kip Doto and I wrote about that very idea in an article on BIOS in Issue #8 of Filmfax. :)
August Ragone
kaijupro@yahoo.com