Gorath (1962)
In 1976, a drifting star named Gorath is discovered to be on a collision course with Earth. Although it is smaller than Earth, its enormous mass is enough to destroy the planet totally. A mission sent to observe Gorath is destroyed after the ship is drawn into the star, with a later mission barely escaping the same fate. However, Astronaut Tatsuma Kanai is left in a catatonic state due to his near death experience. Unable to destroy the invading star, Earth's scientists undertake a desperate plan to build giant rockets at the South Pole to move the planet out of Gorath's path before it is too late.
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Fantastic!
A story that's too fascinating to pass by...
Blistering performances.
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Another gem from Toho. This time a giant meteor called Gorath is on a collision course with Earth. After being discovered by the Japanese space team, scientists here on Earth try to figure out how to stop it . Putting aside their differences for a while, we come up with a plan to literally move Earth itself!Even though I have never seen the original Japanese version- which supposedly includes a giant walrus, there is enough going on that this would not matter. There are sequences set in space that feature a spacewalk that happened in real life a few years after this film was shot. There is a fantastic sequence involving the construction project at the South Pole that features some first rate model animation with all those great Aurora choppers and Revell ship models we all built as kids.Honda and Tsubaraya are in top formagain. This one deserves to be better known. Call it a Kaiju film without a monster, it still is great entertainment and is far more entertaining than the much later "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" Check it out!
U.S. version GORATH editor @Brenco Pictures was none other than KENNETH WANNBERG in his 'salad days', who's of course gone onto be John Williams right-hand man as music editor on STAR WARS, et. al. (an interesting thematic link). I once asked him about it and he said way back then he carried around a print of GORATH in his car trunk as part of his resume.Certain U.S. release advertising states "in stereophonic sound", which I can assure you is domestic wishful thinking (the same applies to Brenco Pictures distributed THE HUMAN VAPOR). Not so the original Japanese release, which can boast (authentic) stereo track.Frederick S. Clarke, late CINEFANTASTIQUE mag. editor/publisher, said he thought GORATH contained the best Toho Co. special-effects work of all their outer-space films. I agree.Stan Timmons (BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA in print) remarked he thought the dubbed-voices in the English GORATH version sound all like old Rocky & Bulwinkle cartoons. Well yes, they do.And GORATH actor George Farness, mentioned in another viewer comment, not only has a major role in THE LAST VOYAGE, but also narrates that film.Director Ishiro Honda did GORATH immediately before KING KONG VS. GODZILLA in 1962. Yes this truly was the golden age of TOHO. But from what I've heard in the past this film's not highly regarded by fans in his home country.
This Japanese take on the kind of story first pioneered by "When Worlds Collide" and done less effectively in later years in "Meteor", "Armageddon" etc. has been called Toho's greatest sci-fi movie ever by some. It's certainly a fairly intelligent effort overall, done with top of the line (for its time) FX. I was glad to see it in its original Japanese format, widescreen with subtitles (and with the rather pointless scene involving giant walrus Magma) and found it quite entertaining overall, certainly the equal of "When Worlds Collide" and light years ahead of the American takes on the story that followed. My only quibble was why Gorath was referred to as a "star", when it is clearly too small to be so categorized, and should have been referred to as a runaway planet (was Toho afraid of getting sued for ripping off "When Worlds Collide" if they categorized it as a planet?).Fans of the wonderful 1960 disaster movie "The Last Voyage" will recognize George Furness, who played Third Officer Osborne in that film, as the UN Secretary-General. Furness was a lawyer living in Japan who had enough acting talent to not only play westerners in Japanese movies, but to get good roles in American movies shot in Japan like "The Last Voyage" too.
This movie just proves that the main theme of Science Fiction movies in 1997 is not a new thing. The idea of large planetary bodies crashing into Earth has been a sci-fi movie idea since the time of When World's Collide.Gorath is a planet (which looks like a small star) that is on a collision course with the Earth. Mankind unites to come up with a rather unique way to avert total destruction. It's not Armageddon or Deep Impact...but if often seems better acted than either of those huge-budgeted B-movies.