Alternate Titles: Earth Defense Force
Year: 1957
Director: Ishiro Honda
Special Effects Director: Eiji Tsuburaya
In The Suit: Haruo Nakajima & Katsumi Tezuka

So first of all, let's answer the question of what The Mysterians is doing in our Godzilla Chronology project. The answer is that we're covering every Toho film that touches the Godzillaverse in some way. And this film features Moguera.

In the Heisei series, the mechanical M.O.G.U.E.R.A will be introduced, so it's good to see the character's roots here. Also, my first experience with the idea that Godzilla was part of a larger "universe" was the 1988 Nintendo game. I'll show you what i'm talking about, but first i have to ask a few preliminary questions.

First, will you fight the enemy?

Second, will you fight Moguera?

Ok, thanks. Sorry if that seemed redundant but with NES games we just like to be absolutely sure. So here you go:

In addition to Moguera, and of course the more obvious choices like Mothra and King Ghidorah, the game features a lot of additional unexpected choices, like Varan and Gezora, and mini-bosses that include Mantango, Dogora, and Goten. So you'll see that influencing the movies that are covered on this site (which basically boils down to any Toho movie with a Kaiju in it plus a few that don't, and the one exception of Gorath since as far as i know it has no ties, even tenuously, with Godzilla).

With all that throat clearing out of the way, on to the movie!

This is not the first color Toho film, but it is the first to be filmed in glorious "Tohoscope". Tohoscope is Toho's response to CinemaScope, and is basically a technique for filming wide screen movies, and you can see why that would be useful for movies featuring giant monsters stomping around in cities and fighting each other.

The movie begins with an introduction to the majority of our human cast, most of whom will look familiar to us.

Astrophysicist Ryoichi Shiraishi is played by Akihiko Hirata who we've seen in Godzilla and Rodan already and who will soon be in Varan as well). His friend Joji Atsumi is played by Kenji Sahara, who was the lead in Rodan and who will be a regular recurring Toho actor. Atsumi's dancing partner is Etsuko Shiraishi, Ryoichi's sister, and she is played by Yumi Shirakawa, who was also Sahara's girlfriend in Rodan. And finally we have Shiraishi's ex-fiancee, the almost non-verbal Hiroko Iwamoto, played by Momoko Kochi who played Akihiko Hirata's not-quite-fiancee in the original Godzilla too.

One movie for each of them to be the one who breaks off the engagement - that's fair.

There's a case to be made for a kind of reincarnation in the Tohoverse, with characters maybe being forced to relive their roles over and over again until they get it right. But Shiraishi isn't doing any better with his love interest this time: he's broken off the engagement and refuses to dance with Iwamoto (an idea pushed on them by their inconsiderate friends; i mean they know the engagement was broken off!). Atsumi tries to find out why Shiraishi has broken off the engagement and is generally acting funny, but that line of questioning is interrupted when a forest fire breaks out. An investigation determines that the trees are burning from the roots. The villagers are unable to stop the fire, perhaps because they are armed with nothing but bicycles and no water.

And determination!

Later, Atsumi returns to his observatory, where he tells the senior astronomer there - Dr. Adachi, played by another recurring favorite, Takashi Shimura...

....that Shiraishi has inexplicably decided to stay behind in the village. He hands Dr. Adachi an unfinished report from Shiraishi. It's a report about the Mysteroid, a mysterious asteroid. The report includes a theory that the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter used to be a planet. The observatory then gets a phone call telling them that there's been a massive landslide at the village where Shiraishi was staying, and we cut to an awesome scene of the earthquake, bigger in scale than the one we saw in Rodan and this time complete with intricate model buildings.

Atsumi heads back to the village. He's informed along the way that the earthquake may have been deliberate, the evidence for that being that the entire area is now radioactive. Amazingly, Atsumi doesn't panic and wonder why he's being driven to a radioactive area without a radiation suit. When we arrive, we see a group of researches down in a pit, all completely unprotected and running around with a Geiger counter. We're relieved to find out that the radioactivity has receded today, but it's not like anyone knew that until they went down there. A quick shot shows us some bubbling stuff but no one reacts to it and we then cut away to another scene with that never being explained.

We move on to where some villagers are excited to find dead fish flowing down a stream, scooping them up with their hands presumably to eat later. The police detail with Atsumi leaves one guy behind ("I'll leave it to you", the captain says, as the poor policeman just sort of nods), and they head to another area where they find that the ground is so hot that the tires on their jeep are smoking. It's confirmed that this whole area is radioactive, so of course the characters just keep kneeling on the ground, touching it, and casually wondering what's going on. Thankfully, Moguera emerges from a nearby cliff wall before all these people's hair and skin starts falling off.

Fleeing from Moguera, one of the cops steps slightly off the road and falls into what turns out to be this huge pit. Oh my god! He didn't just fall into a pit. He fell out of the movie! Maybe someone should have put a cone or a bumper there or something? Atsumi rescues the guy, and then they flee on foot, after emptying a revolver into Moguera. The 150 foot robot of course is completely unaffected.

Stop shooting at the robot with your hand guns! Just run!

When Atsumi gets back to town, he's told that Hiroko has arrived, and we next see her taking a bath, apparently in the police station. While she's bathing, Moguera attacks the town and the power goes out, so Hiroko has to retrieve her with a candle.

It is the weirdest scene. Just really out of place with way too much time spent on a naked woman bathing and then having to get out of the tub in a hurry. And that's before you ask why she's taking a bath at the police station.

The call goes out: "Defense Force! Protect the town! The town! The town is in danger!"

But it takes a while for Defense Force to get there. First, Moguera gets to engage in some rampaging destruction.

He's got that cool fan blade on his back, although sometimes you see it...

...and sometimes you don't.

Since Defense Force doesn't arrive right away, the guys trying to put out the fires turn their hoses on Moguera, but it doesn't have any effect. Eventually the army arrives in force, but despite coming with bazookas, heavy machine guns, and tanks, we first see the troops attacking with single fire rifles. Doesn't seem like a sound strategy, and indeed it is ineffective. Things get more like it when a guy shows up with a flamethrower with the greatest range ever. He blasts that thing and, miles away, we see the stream of the flame hitting Moguera. Director Ishiro Honda actually does a good job showing cause and effect, panning between the flamethrower and the scene with the monster and for once things don't look like they are happening in two entirely different countries.

Meanwhile we see one of the machine gun guys half-heartedly feeding ammunition into his weapon, with a bored expression like, "My job is so pointless. Why didn't i go to Med school like my parents said i should?".

As the army fights Moguera, the citizens of the town casually make their way across a bridge, and eventually Moguera is lured onto the bridge and the bridge is destroyed, causing Moguera to fall and seemingly get deactivated.

Why is there always a bridge to cross during an emergency evacuation? If they're not crossing a bridge to exit their village, it's several busloads of people on a tour of a bridge. Why are they always touring bridges???

During the battle, Atsumi and Hiroko notice some UFOs in the sky.

It's unclear what the army does with Moguera after the battle. We'll see in a second that they bring a piece of the creature to a conference, but they don't seem to have otherwise put any kind of guard around Moguera or made any attempt to dismantle him and as we'll see towards the end of the movie, he'll wind up back with the bad guys again.

It's announced at the science conference that the piece of the monster is "a chemical product". This is met with murmurs of astonishment. Too soon, you guys. Wait a minute longer. "But it hasn't been made on Earth yet." Ok, now you can murmur with astonishment. It's also said that the robot was controlled with radio waves and it's also discovered that there is "activity" on the reverse side of the moon. At this point Dr. Adachi starts taking Shiraishi's unfinished report more seriously and leads the authorities to a lake where the report said that the Mysterians had a hidden base. The base arises not from the lake but from the earth a few miles away. It's a giant dome, and after emerging, a message is heard: "To the people of Earth. Let us avoid useless warfare." Dr. Adachi, Atsumi, and a few other scientists are invited inside the dome. They are warned that it is cold, so they are given capes to wear. And we get a look at our first Mysterian.

All of the Mysterians are basically wearing Power Ranger costumes.

We are told that they are indeed from "Planet No. 5", which was destroyed 100,000 years ago due to atomic war. Some escaped and moved to Mars. There's a weird and cool undercurrent to the head Mysterian's voice while he's talking; i guess the idea is that's his real language and what we're hearing on top of that is the result of some kind of translation device.

The Mysterians are advanced beyond our understanding. But they're only making themselves known to us now because Earth is preparing to visit the moon and Mars (ah, the days of hope and the belief in the progress of science) and some (crazy) people are already selling plots on Mars (this was an actual thing!). More to the point, the Mysterians would now like a small strip of land 2 miles in radius near Mt. Fuji. Oh, and your women.

See, due to the results of the atomic war, the Mysterians have high quantities of Strontium 90 in their bodies, and 80% of their children are born "abnormal", so they have to "dispose of them". They'd like access to Earth women so that they can i guess impregnate more people and increase their odds. But the request isn't just to have access to our online dating sites; they've already picked out the specific women they want, including three women they already kidnapped during the Earthquake that they caused, and our two lead female characters. They nonetheless assure the Earth scientists that they are pacifists (kidnappers, maybe, and people who don't mind destroying an entire village or sending a giant robot on a rampage through a town, but pacifists nonetheless. The Mysterian-to-Japanese dictionary may need some revision.)

A total of zero "good" characters were at all concerned about any of the kidnapped women. They're not even mentioned again. If it weren't for the two main characters getting kidnapped, too, these other poor women would prolly never be seen again.

The scientists are released to bring back this message. At the home of our two lady characters, we also find out that the Mysterians have the ability to transmit messages via television sets, and we find out that Shiraishi is now with them.

The All Shiraishi channel

The Japanese Defense Force reject the Mysterians demands and launch an attack on the dome. Lots of bombing and shooting with no affect and also no response (and also lots of repeated footage), but after a while the Mysterian's flying saucers show up to counter-attack the planes and the dome starts firing back with a lightning beam. This results in some cool special effects as the dome's ray starts melting various army vehicles. But there are some choppy scenes showing the dome, like as if there are missing frames, and it's also possible that in addition to the same footage being reused repeatedly from this film, some of the scenes here are reused from Rodan. There's also some visible blue screening around a tank that drives forward and crashes into an underground cave.

A post battle analysis says that the Mysterian's heat-ray contains strong gamma rays. Its strength is ten thousand Rontgen per hour. And its destructive power is equal to that of the great Japanese earthquake of 1923. I'll leave that to you to decipher.

Is that the German Rontgen or the French Rontgen?

Attendees are also given what appear to be diagrams of Easter eggs; i guess it's the schematics of the dome, although it's unclear how they got that. Someone comes up with the idea to build an "Electron gun" which might penetrate the dome's defenses.

And now we get to the heart of the message of the movie. While it's been focused on Japan so far, we now have Dr. Adachi giving a speech saying that America and the Soviet Union now face a common foe. And that's really what this movie is about, how the Earth's superpowers in 1957 were threatening to destroy the world, the way the Mysterians destroyed theirs, and we need an external threat to unite the planet. In fact we also get this message directly from the Shiraishi channel. They turn on their TV to talk to him and the US generals say, "Aren't you ashamed?". He responds, "I'm a scientist" (i guess there is no shame in the pursuit of science!) and then says that the Mysterians are here to stop the nuclear war which they predict will happen in 20 years on Earth if nothing changes.

And if noting else, the Mysterians succeed in having the Earthlings put aside their differences for the moment and form the "Defense Force of the Earth". At another meeting, this time of global leaders, the Mysterians' two weaknesses are laid out. The first is distance, that the dome's ray weakens and is useless beyond 9,000 feet. And the other is heat. This one is a bit of an intuitive leap. We did see that the scientists were asked to wear cloaks in the dome because it was cold. But the Mysterians were wearing cloaks, too, and a full suit of body armor. So how did the scientists know that Mysterians were weak to heat? Because in the Tohoverse, scientists know everything.

*nods*

Since this is now a movie about the world uniting to fight a common foe, we have a number of white actors speaking in English (it's funny to hear English in a non-English movie because it's usually deliberately slow and simple, so that non-English viewers that understand some English can understand it. I imagine it's the same the other way around, too.). And in the global meeting, we have everything being said first in Japanese, and then repeated in English. Except the translator at the meeting is awful. After the discussion of the weaknesses and the decision to make a heat ray, the English translator says what i think is the following: "Therefore we just go and study for these points. And accomplish the tactics with our powerful heat ray.". But Min hears, "Compile these tactics for our purple heat ray". The heat ray doesn't turn out to be purple, that's all i'm saying.

And Shiraishi wasn't actually pink, either, and yet, on the All Shiraishi channel...Sometimes you just can't trust your lying eyes is all i'm saying.

The subtitles can of course be a problem too. In the next scene, which with no explanation features Atsumi and some other soldiers in an underground bunker, the dialogue goes entirely like this:

We'll report on the matter later.
[Look out the window at the dome; dome does nothing]
A command was issued, wasn't it?
Was it suspended?
A war has already begun.
A quiet war...
There are no cannons, aircraft, or tanks...

Until the next scene, when we do indeed see cannons, aircraft, and tanks.

Why were they even in the bunker? They could have observed the bombing from headquarters where everyone else was.

I also think we're missing out because sometimes i hear the world "Mysterians" in the Japanese audio but it's not in the dialogue. And i swear that at least once i heard "Moguera", but that name actually never appears in the subtitles; going by that alone, the big robot is never actually named in the film.

We next see these two giant rockets hovering in the sky, literally just kind of floating with no movement. Suddenly, one lights its cannon and thrusts forward. I don't know how it stays in the air, let alone chases the flying saucers. I got a little confused at this point, but it seems like these rockets are named Alpha and Beta. And despite the fact that they are supposed to be hovering out of the dome's range, one of the rockets is destroyed. 9,000 feet was a lie!

This second attack on the dome is repelled, and the Mysterians now demand a piece of land 75 miles in radius instead of 2.

The debate now turns to the use of the H bomb, which Dr. Adachi argues against (because he knows it will wake Godzilla!). But luckily a new device is invented that can repel the dome's ray and shoot its own. But it only has a 1 mile range and can only be used for 75 minutes. According to the subtitles, the device is called a Marcalite Faps, but a search online says that it's really Markalite FAHP (Flying Atomic Heat Projector). Going forward, we will be referring to all satellite dish type guns as FAHPs.

The plan is to add the FAHP to Alpha so that it can be deployed behind enemy lines.

But...that's totally within the 9,000 feet minimum safe distance!

Meanwhile, in addition to demanding more land, the Mysterians are taking matters in their own hands regarding the need for women. A stealth mission is undertaken to kidnap our two female leads, both of whom faint at the slightest touch of the Mysterians and are captured with no resistance. Dr. Adachi hears that the two ladies are kidnapped and he just kind of shrugs his shoulders and says that he can't stop the attack. Honestly this the most chipper we've seen Takashi Shimura in any of the movies he's been in.

At this point, i had been under the mistaken impression that Hiroko was his daughter (again), so you can imagine the outrage i expressed at his complete lack of concern. Not that his attitude is all that much better even if she is just his employee. "I hate to give them up, but I guess I'd better start looking for a new assistant."

We're also suddenly told that the Mysterian's underground fort is almost finished. How we learned that is unclear.

Here's is the rocket that deploys the FAHPs.

And again according to an online search, that is not Alpha. It's a Markalite GYRO rocket. So either i misunderstood something or the translation is bad again. But despite being free of giant monsters, the end battle between the FAHPs and the dome is pretty cool.

The FAHPs do a lot of damage. At one point, the Mysterians cause a flood that knocks down one of the FAHPs and also floods a nearby town (even though all civilians within a 75 mile radius were supposed to have been evacuated). Unfortunately, after some cool footage of water destroying a beautifully detailed set of models, it's followed up with some badly superimposed water over some live action footage, and doesn't look so good.

Meanwhile, Atsumi heads into a cave that he discovered earlier that leads to the underground Mysterian base. His goal is to rescue his lady friends (and it turns out that a lot more than five women have been kidnapped; the Mysterians have been busy behind the scenes). While he's down there, Atsumi grabs a gun and starts blowing up machinery at random, causing huge explosions. He's even got himself a hat so that he can be a true action hero.

The jaunty angle of the hat is key.

Towards the end of the battle, the Beta rocket is deployed with the long awaited electron gun, but it's unclear if it really has any effect as things were already going pretty badly for the Mysterians at this point.

By the way, as far as i know, we have the original version of the Mysterians film. But the Wikipedia page for this movie describes the plot very differently, with no mention of an electron gun.

Back in the Mysterian's base, Shiraishi shows up to help Atsumi and all the captured women escape. He claims that he was "tricked" by the Mysterians. But he's decided to stay with them anyway. Anything to avoid marrying the non-verbal girl in any movie, i guess.

They're just too different. He likes communicating with words. She doesn't. It could never work.

As he leaves, he says, "Don't use science in the wrong way. Don't repeat the tragedy."

Towards the end of the movie we finally get to see Moguera again, but he resurfaces only for a quick ignoble defeat, as a FAHP cannon just kind of falls on his head.

The sad, sad end of Moguera.

Having been defeated, the Mysterians fly back into space. The Earthlings show no mercy and start blasting them with their electron gun, but it looks like most of them still manage to get away. UFOs fly off into space. "They're trapped in space forever", it's said, but isn't that true of us all? I mean, the Mysterians did resettle on Mars 100,000 years ago. Are they really that different than us being "trapped in space" on Earth?

At the very end we see one more object floating into space, and Atsumi says that it's a satellite which will protect us from any more Mysterians.

Overall, there's definitely a little less Kaiju action than i want from our Toho movies (and the inclusion of this movie also means we're going to have to sit through its completely Kaiju-less sequel, Battle in Outer Space) but the sci fi elements are fun and the battle between largely inanimate objects somehow still manages to be entertaining enough and at least give us plenty to shout at the television about.

The Wikipedia page also says that Moguera wasn't originally supposed to be included in the film and that he was supposed to look different (elements of the unused design were instead re-purposed for Baragon), but i'm glad that things worked out the way they did because i think Moguera looks cool and the movie would be less fun without him.

By the way, here is the Mysterian's space station...

...and even if there was no other reason to include this movie in our project, the footage of a spaceship flying to that station will be reused so many times in the American version of King Kong vs. Godzilla that this alone would merit inclusion.

I always thought they were fish flying into the station. Space fish.

Godzilla Drinking Game
	Someone thinks it's a good idea to drag a giant monster across the ocean on a raft (giant eggs count).
	Attacking planes fly directly at a monster, with no possibility of avoiding a crash even if the monster didn't swat them down.	You know, i don't think any planes were deployed against Moguera.
	People refuse to believe in the existence of a giant monster even though they've already acknowledged that Godzilla exists.
	A submarine explodes.
	Teens have a dance party on a boat. Two drinks/head smacks if they get attacked by a monster during the party.
	The government is completely ineffective when faced with a corporation doing something illegal.
	A humongous lumbering monster manages to sneak up on someone. Two drinks/head smacks if it's the army and they're supposedly using radar.	Moguera does surprise Atsumi and the police while they're inspecting the radioactive road that melted their tires, but he was cleverly hidden inside the mountain at the time.
	A scientist suddenly figures everything out with little-to-no information and explains it all to everyone.	"The Mysterians are weak to heat!"
	A monster suddenly grows in size just because.
	People expose themselves to major amounts of radiation with no concern.	See above! A good portion of this movie has people just rolling around in radioactive areas willy-nilly.
	Everyone suddenly knows a monster's name. Two drinks/head smacks if everyone else nods appreciatively and repeats it.	Quite the opposite! At least in this version, no one seems to know Moguera's name!
	Army missiles can't seem to hit a 150+ foot monster and instead explode harmlessly around it.	The army is able to hit Moguera fairly often this time. It doesn't have much effect, mind you, but they do hit him.
	A woman falls down for no reason.	A double-faint. What is with these women?
	Bad dinosaur science. You have to give a little leeway for the time period, but pretending a children's picture book is a scientific journal is always worth two drinks/smacks.

Monsters Appearing: Moguera