LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH
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| Not Rated
| | Copyright 1974 Toho International
| | Reviewed by Andrew Borntreger on 'a long time ago'
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- Doctor Nishiyama - Scientist extraordinaire, this guy has all the answers, trouble is no one listens.
- Nishiyama's Wife - Lays around sick for most of the film, her honest purpose is to die so Nishiyama can grieve and show his humanity.
- Mariko - Nishiyama's daughter who gets knocked up by Elvis. (I'll explain in a minute.)
- Elvis - Photographer guy with big hair. No idea what his real name was, but he does kind of look like "The King."
- Nostradamus - Prophet who never saw this bad movie coming.
- Giant bats, giant slugs, giant leeches, giant weeds, and bird eating trees - Products of our abusing the planet.
- Lots of Hypothetical People - Fodder.
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Prophecies are dark and muddled things, often confusing to those trying to interpret them. We all understand that, it's in the rules. Motion pictures about prophecies seem to fall under the same statutes, at least in Toho's book.
Of all the confusing silliness, this film is honestly all over the place. Complaints you ask? Oh, I have grievances, not the least of which is I don't know half the people's names in this movie and I watched it three times! Of the people whose names I do know only about half of them matter! Nishiyama's chubby little assistant for example, he is "Yahari" or something to that effect, but the photographer guy who appears in half the movie and gets Mariko pregnant? No idea!
The movie shuffles its way through silly plot point after silly plot point, most of which are related to pollution. Even the radioactive cloud hovering over New Guinea is attributed to it. Who the hell has been dumping that stuff? Pennsylvania again? (Three-Mile Island joke for you slow ones.)
We do get treated to some truly amazing creatures, especially the giant slugs which are barely contained by troops using flamethrowers. A foot long slug is impressive, but salt costs about fifty cents a pound.
Shifts from what Nishiyama and family experience to grand catastrophes are numbing, though I did find myself humming snippets of Godzilla theme music on occasion. When finally all hell breaks loose and nuclear missiles fly I was so relieved, since it meant the end (of this movie) was near.
This is just a small part of Bangs and Whimpers, make sure you read these other great reviews for "End of the World Films:"
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| Things I Learned From This Movie: | |
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- Nostradamus was a Japanese man.
- Giant slugs can only be stopped with flamethrowers.
- Sex makes women cry.
- Dark subway tunnels promote wild and amazing plant growth.
- When blizzards hit Hawaii there is a problem.
- Pygmies love airplanes.
- Blood is stored in VeryFine juice bottles.
- If the Concorde ever explodes in midair it will destroy the Ozone Layer.
- Just when you think things couldn't get any worse the 60's are back.
- A traffic jam made up entirely of Ford Pintos is trouble waiting to happen.
- After nuclear war anyone in a military bunker will be dead, but their fingers will be on the button, seemingly glued there.
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- 6 mins - Hey kid, dying of respiratory failure? Have some candy...
- 15 mins - You three can't stop this old man?
- 18 mins - Look, I don't care if these two idiots are in love, let's get on to the next scene.
- 21 mins - Why is there a radioactive cloud over New Guinea?
- 22 mins - My thoughts exactly.
- 51 mins - Godzilla should come tromping out of the water about now.
- 53 mins - Hot Wheels cars!
- 67 mins - You may only join this mob if armed with a stick.
- 72 mins - Wipe your nose for goodness sakes Nishiyama, how can I feel sorry for you with that hanging out?
- 77 mins - Don't touch her baby, er fetus!
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| | Audio clips in wav format | SOUNDS | Starving actors speak out | |
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| File | Dialog |  | lastdays1.wav
| Narrator: "Nostradamus forecast that Armageddon would come in the Twentieth Century, the days in which we live."
| | lastdays2.wav
| Nishiyama: "We've no idea what made those slugs grow to such an enormous size. Anyway, in Japan now days how many of us know what's in the food we eat?"
| | lastdays3.wav
| Scientist1: "Look at that! I never imagined a tree like that could even exist!"
Scientist2: "Normally it wouldn't; it must be some kind of mutation."
Scientist3: "That's right, probably caused by radioactivity."
| | lastdays4.wav
| Nishiyama: "Politicians are human beings like any others!"
| | Theme Song | Listen to a clip from the soundtrack. | |
| Click for a larger image | IMAGES | Scenes from the movie | |
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| | Watch a scene | VIDEO | MPEG video files | |
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| | Leave a comment | EXTRAS | Buy the movie | |
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| Last Days of Planet Earth
Reply #9. Posted on November 25, 2006, 04:10:12 PM by barry kaufman
Out of curiosity, I searched Last Days of Planet Earth and badmovies.com was one of the first listings on the search engine. Badmovies.com is as superfluous and annoying as the Medveds' "Golden Turkey Awards". The type of criticism that approaches older, lower budget films as inferior and takes cinema completely out of cultural context. Mostly a product of the film brat generation, which loves to label unworthy films as "cheesy"(I hate that word), yupster "bad movie" lovers wouldn't know an inspired film unless somebody else told them.
That being said, Last Days of Planet Earth is certainly a flawed film. But while it is clumsy at times, the oppressive atmosphere of dread and pessimism make this an oddly compelling piece. There are some impressive special effects (the chain reaction traffic jam explosion), and some not-so-impressive ones (the little girl who can jump 20 feet into the air). My main complaint is that the tacked on conclusion following the nuclear holocaust and grotesque radioactive mutant feeding frenzy is a cop-out.
Finally, the atrociously dubbed dialogue is the fault of domestic and/or UK distributors, and has nothing to do with the Japanese film as it was originally produced.
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| Last Days of Planet Earth
Reply #10. Posted on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM by grin
There is one thing this movie teaches us.
If the Concorde ever explodes in midair it will destroy the Ozone Layer.
No really. Go run screaming from your homes! You must see this movie. As dumb and cheesey as it apears today, it's also quite good and artsy in parts. Chilling too.
No...wait.....yeah it was just bad.
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| Last Days of Planet Earth
Reply #11. Posted on November 25, 2006, 04:09:49 PM by Steven
It's one of those fun bad movies. It's horrible, yet, you can't stop watching it. I am even thinking about trying to find it, and buy it myself.
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| Re: Last Days of Planet Earth
Reply #12. Posted on May 29, 2008, 12:02:27 AM by minjofu
As kooky as this film was, I remember catching the last part of it, the part with the little mutant people, at like 3 am one night.. well, I woke up to them on my television rather, and for some reason they creeped the ever loving crap out of me..
.. well, so did the monkey people at the beginning of 2001:ASO ..
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