a.k.a. Nosutoradamusu no Daiyogen / The Last Days of Planet Earth
company: Toho Co. Ltd
year: 1974
runtime: 114′
country: Japan
director: Toshio Masuda
cast: Tetsuro Tamba, Toshio Kurosawa,
KaoriuYumi, Yoko Tsukasa
not on home video
I was in sixth grade when I first saw the film reviewed herein, and it scared the hell out of me. For weeks thence my mind was tormented by absurd visages of weeds pummeling their way through concrete subway tunnels and of mammoth bats swooping out of the skies – drug addled teenagers, volcanic disturbances, and nuclear disaster all followed suit. It was a strange time and the first, I’ll admit, that I began taking environmental concerns seriously.
Even at that age I had realized, perhaps better than most adults viewing the same film today would, that THE LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH was a “message” picture. That message was scrawled in bold across its 88 minutes, using scenes of disaster on a global scale as ink, and I read it well. “All of this is your fault,” it said, and I believed it.
THE LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH had quite a long and troubled journey to my sixth grade eyes. It began as Toho Studios’ answer to the overwhelming popularity of the superior disaster effort, SUBMERSION OF JAPAN, in 1973. Always quick to make a buck on the next big craze, Toho rushed into production a sequel in theme only – this time the world would be their playground. Taking the resurgance in popularity of supposed-seer Nostradamus into account and bankrolling the talent of GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER director Yoshimitsu Banno as writer and assistant director ensured that the resulting film would be original at the very least.
