DVD review: Warning from Space

[Xenorama ™]

this is the Alpha version, but if anyone has a different DVD of it, please post away. let's try to find the best ones out there.

picture looks OK to me, and the sound is clear. you can tell it's an old print though. still the best looking one i've seen, although that's not saying much.

[Xenorama ™]

well, that was popular. i'll try a different one next.

[Shonokin]

I never seen it... how's about Message from Space? ;D

[Xenorama ™]

that one's not out on DVD yet! i keep hearing it will get some kind of release, but it may be as an R2.

[RedKing]

Not a bad disc at all.I love Alpha dvds even with alot of their masters taken from VHS sources-for 5bucks a disc and so many super rare 30s,40s,50s and 60s movies-who cares!! The copy of WARNING FROM SPACE that i recorded from TV in 1986 on a local UHF channel's Theater Bizaare has brighter colors,but my old video doesn't look as good picture quality-wise,so it's a fair trade.You know,on a tangent here,but,speaking of old UHF local late night monster movie shows,where i lived we couldn't get cable until 1990 when i went to college,so all through my childhood and highschool i had the Big 3 networks ,PBS and later 2 local UHFs,one of which became a Fox channel when that network started,and in all those years,there was always something cool on TV with just those 6 channels than there is today with the 150 or so channels I have now,15 years later! That's just pathetic!Why aren't more of these old movies and Tv shows on anymore?? We need a channel like Boomerang is for classic cartoons from the 30s through the 80s only this channel would do the same for Cult movies and TV from the same time period!

[amphiboid]

Well, um, they made better movies back then, didn't they then, then! Now we're smothered in expensive 20-million-dollar studio cheeseburgers. Give me some of that old-fashioned low budget schlock any day.

I got the "Dollar Video" version of "Warning from Space" from Big Loots, and I love the thing. It's fuzzy and faded, but it was a dollar (and came with another sci-fi movie on the same disc!). Can't beat that price.

I hadn't seen this film since I was EIGHT or NINE. And that was a LONG LONG LONG time ago, like almost thirty years. Oh my goodness! But I remembered it from the picture on the box. "It's those Star Creatures! The people holding the sticks up to make the arms pointy! Oh yeah..." And it was nice just to see it for the memories.

[Gwangi]

As RedKing said, the color is somewhat faded (you can tell immediately since it does have that red background for it's opening credits, and in the Alpha DVD it looks more pinkish).

The AIP logo is also missing from the beginning. (I got the video from Sinister Cinema years ago). And the sound is just about the same.

I'm probably one of those few who love this movie, and if I were to choose between the video and DVD, I'd have to say the video only because the color doesn't look so faded.

[Xenorama ™]

i like the movie as well. i can always transfer your video, if you ever want me to!

[WaverBoy]

Alpha's cheapo DVD of WARNING FROM SPACE is better than nothing, but barely. This looks like it was mastered from a VHS cassette which in turn was mastered from a faded 16mm TV print. The opening scene with the starfish aliens in their ship looks REALLY bad, considerably worse than the rest of the print, with even more faded color. Another later, similar scene with the starfish aliens in their ship looks exactly the same. This second scene starts at 26:58. Both these scenes look like they're from a different print originally than the rest of the film. Also, these two scenes are blatantly panned-and-scanned, while the framing on the rest of the film seems ok. This leads me to believe that possibly the film was originally to be made in scope, and a few scenes were filmed that way, but later changed to full-frame. Sort of the reverse of VARAN. Does anyone know what the hell the actual aspect ratio of WARNING FROM SPACE is supposed to be?

Edit: I just found this at the IMDB:

"This was the first science fiction film produced in Japan to be shot in color and anamorphic widescreen (Daieiscope). It beat Toho's big widescreen (TohoScope) science fiction spectacle, Ishiro Honda's 'Chikyu Boeigun (1957)' , into theatres by almost two years."

Ok, if the whole film was in scope, why does the framing in those two scenes I mentioned look noticeably worse than the rest of the film? I didn't detect any panning or scanning during the rest of the film, only during those scenes. At least up to the point of the second shipboard scene...haven't gone through the whole thing yet. If it is actually a scope film, then the Alpha DVD is even more of a substandard presentation. The colors in this film are lovely (though you can't really tell from this DVD). WARNING FROM SPACE desperately needs a real DVD release.

[celamowari]

The Japanese version of WARNING FROM SPACE (UCHUJIN TOKYO NI ARAWARU) is definitely not in any kind of scope format. It's Academy ratio, pure and simple. I couldn't tell you if the problems are due to different prints being sourced for the Alpha DVD or in the original film, as it has been too long since I watched it.

For the record, the first color/scope Japanese SF film is CHIKYU BOEIGUN, aka THE MYSTERIANS.

[Xenorama ™]

could be the titles being overscanned due to the habit of US broadcasting. it was standard practice to enlarge the picture of all movies being shown back then because some sets were so small. they may still be doing this sort of thing still, but i hope not.