Eureka Blu-ray Film Review

Message from Space (1978) • Blu-ray [Eureka! Masters of Cinema] — space opera chaos with too many ideas and not enough time

An embattled planet, on the edge of doom, sends an SOS, and an intergalactic team comes to its rescue.

I’m old enough to remember radio DJs in the UK raving about a new film they’d seen while over in the US. They recounted how people were queuing around the block to see it, sometimes for a second or third viewing — coming out of one showing and joining the line for the next. The buzz around Star Wars (1977) was a phenomenon in itself. Images from the movie were appearing in newspapers and magazines around the world long before any international distribution deal.

When that buzz reached Japan, the studio executives at Tōei booked themselves onto a flight to Hawaii to see what all the fuss was about. They were taking notes.

On their return, they immediately drew up plans to make Japan’s own action-packed space opera and get it into cinemas before Star Wars reached their screens. Up…