Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974) User Reviews

1970's Apocalypse....

[zillabob · 6/10 · 17 September 2008]

Depending on which version you see, it's either an epic masterwork or, a truncated mess. Originally, the film was a 1974 follow-up to the highly successful SUBMERSION OF JAPAN(1973). By this time, revenues for Godzilla had been falling and Toho saw more money in the disaster film genre. PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS was the next great, epic they did. The original cut is quite long and details the events that lead to world destruction by nuclear weapons. They had to work some monsters in there so what we get are giant slugs(about a foot or two long) and, giant bats(looked about four feet across). Details the story of a family in Japan-a 1970's polluted country-and how the excesses of pollution, famine and finally, war, effect them. Ostensibly, it's a loose remake of THE LAST WAR from 1961, by Toho. It even features stock footage from that film. There are some quite remarkable effects-a convexed reflection in the sky, of Tokyo thanks to a polluted and sweltering greenhouse effect which has occurred. A terrific matte painting of snow covered pyramids. And, later, a nuclear-blasted landscape of earth wit two VERY weird mutants scurrying for food. It was quite epic for it's time and a long film.

In 1983 or thereabouts, Henry G Saperstein's company UPA(which had under it's belt five Godzilla films and some other Toho works) acquired the film and edited it down to a scant 90 minutes, and re-framed it, and had it narrated in the style of the old Sun Classic Pictures and those strange pseudo-documentaries that got wide releases on secondary markets in the US through the 1970's. They even named it THE LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH(kind of like THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH, another 70's pseudo-documentary) The result is kind of a mess, and while it retains some of the cool imagery, it jettisons a lot more making scenes jump along inexplicably and the whole thing becomes a "THis was just a possibility. We can change the future" kind of ending. It then was sold directly to VHS and TV so it wound up appearing usually very late at night on the old TNT "100% Weird" and AMC(when they showed a lot of old retro movies).One scene that was excised, for a time, in the Japanese LAser Disk print was that of the mutant humanoids fighting over a worm. It was such a disturbing scene that Toho removed it after complaints from Hiroshima survivors and such. So it made the US print highly sought after even in the truncated and panned and scanned form(the US VHS and LD copies were from a 16mm print) in Japan. Later, Toho would restore the scene.

Perhaps the US holders of the film, Classic Media, will see to releasing this film in it's full Japanese version.

Not nearly as bad as most people think

[Vigilante-407 · 5/10 · 18 July 2001]

I think the main reason a lot of folks look at Last Days of Planet Earth as a bad movie is that it really is a "message" picture...and a Japanese message picture at that. Message pictures really don't hold up well outside the era they were filmed in.

The early seventies were filled with doom & gloom films like this...look at Toho's own Godzilla Vs. the Smog Monster. This movie is wreathed in the prophecies of Nostradamus as well, so you can fit a whole lot of "message" in.

The film has a lot of good shots and some good SFX (the reflected city and the final apocalyptic scene are both well executed), but the US dialogue track makes the whole thing sound pretty lame. I'd love to see a subtitled version of it to see what the picture really was supposed to be about.

Wacky end-of-the-world entertainment

[ChungMo · 5/10 · 15 February 2004]

Having seen this in Japanese on the big screen back in the early eighties and later on TV, I can say that it's pretty strange no matter what the US dub did to it. The best I can say however is the film is very entertaining in a bad movie way.

The audience I saw it with at the Japan Society here in New York City laughed at a lot of the film and this included a number of Japanese. The strangeness of the film starts with the weird inclusion of Nostradamus as a way to explain the social commentary the film makers were clearly trying to get across. Why it didn't occur to them that Nostradamus would just turn the whole shebang into a big fantasy farce is only clear when you see the bizarreness that follows.

Entire traffic jams blowing up from one car crash. New Guinea wildlife mutants. Motor cycle gangs gone suicidal and driving off cliffs. Japanese mobs rioting for rice. Scientific / paranormal explanations going hand in hand. A final apocalypse sequence that lasts for 15 minutes but is entirely made up as if the movie has become a documentary. The acting is very over the top sometimes and other times it's very, very restrained. There's a few "Speed Racer" type reaction shots that don't play well on live humans here in the US.

There's a lot of SFX footage pulled from other Toho productions, The Submersion of Japan (Tidal Wave) and The Last War (1961!) being the obvious ones. However, the movie is so visually disjointed by the end that it doesn't really make a difference. It's interesting to compare this to other Japanese fantasy films of the same era that toss modern-day Japan into chaos. It seems that the consensus was the Japanese would loose their self-control and become a violent mob.

The music is good in an unusual way and the pacing of the film is enough to keep you watching even though it's sheer idiocy (for a good cause, though).

This film *still* gives me creeps!!!

[Akiosan · 13 February 2003]

I remember seeing Catastrophe 1999: Prophecy of Nostradamus (or on Brasil TV, Catástrofe: Palavra do Nostradamus) when I was a little kid, and every time something happened, like Mutants on the attack or cataclysms would happen, I remembered running from the room, screeching at the top of my lungs, heading for my bedroom closet! I swear, my sister is sucha psyco for showing me this film when I was at an under ripe early age.

Forget Stephen King! I think the people whom worked on Catastrophe 1999 could just be a great creep out, despite some dated themes..... ...whew, that was a bit melodramatic *heh heh*

Two versions yielding two different movies

[a666333 · 7/10 · 12 September 2014]

I would like to add my voice to those pointing out the contrast between the original long Japanese version and the shortened American version. It is not just a question of length. They are two different movies.

The Japanese version is balanced, thoughtful (believe it or not) and even has some subtle moments. It also leaves room for hope. There is something working in this that is very much lacking in the gargantuan excesses, overcharged adrenalin and endless CGraphics of recent Hollywood disaster indulgences.

The American version teeters between silliness and extreme depression. The dated effects and miniatures might turn you away but if you accept those and watch it through, it hammers away with hopeless imagery. As stark and as semi-cartoonish as the images might be, they are clearly recognizable as being rooted in aspects of the real world or its possibilities. If one is looking for a film to motivate a suicide pact to finally be put into action, this is it.

A remarkable oddity

[JohnSeal · 2/10 · 18 January 2000]

I have a bad feeling that this started out as a serious indictment of man's destruction of the Earth's environment. Unfortunately it was treated no better by it's American distributors than any other Toho daikaiju epic. The dubbing is as bad as ever, the pan and scan transfer makes the film almost unwatchable, and there are lengthy (dull) expository passages that probably played better in Japanese. I'd like to see a widescreen print with subtitles. Good music by Tomita, at least!

Misunderstood and misrepresented disaster epic.

[dotdman · 10/10 · 4 May 2004]

Nostrodamusu no Daiyogen was released originally in 1974 and subsequently banned in its homeland due to two scenes graphically depicting the aftermath of radiation exposure. The Japanese censors thought that the two scenes were far to reminiscent of the Hiroshima bombing to be seen by the public at large. Toho has since disowned the title, which has never been legitimately released in its original and unaltered form.

Catastrophe 1999, the international version of the film, was played in Europe and elsewhere. The film was cut from 114 minutes to 85, mostly removing important characterization scenes and the heartfelt speech of the Japanese Prime Minister that occurs in the final minutes of the film. This cut is still available on VHS in some European nations, but is hard to come by.

In the 1980's, Harry Saperstein (responsible for the US television releases of films like War of the Gargantuas and Frankenstein Conquers the World) got a hold of a print and butchered it into a cut several minutes longer than the international version (88 minutes) but lacking even more of the important scenes in the film. The original introduction was recut beyond repair, most of the references to Nostradamus and his prophecies were removed, and a makeshift ending was tacked on that minced scenes from the original Japanese ending and other parts of the film together. Paramount released a VHS and laserdisc of this version under the title The Last Days of Planet Earth and it is still played on television occassionally.

Thankfully for fans of Japanese cinema, someone located an unadulterated timecoded print of the film and has since made the original 114 minute version available, albeit only in Japan. I managed to snare a copy through an import service. The differences are astounding. Gone is the choppy editing of the international and US versions of the film, vanished is the dubbing, and what's left is one of the finest Japanese disaster films of all time. I can say for a fact that those of you who have only seen the Last Days of Planet Earth or Catastrophe 1999 prints of the film have, in fact, not seen the film at all. Judging the film by watching these butchered versions is not only difficult, but nearly impossible.

I encourage anyone with interest in the film to locate a copy of the 114 minute cut. It may not be for everyone, but those that even slighly enjoyed either of the cut versions are sure to find infinitely more to enjoy in the original Japanese version.

the most underrated toho film of all time

[sogoishi · 10/10 · 6 April 2004]

The largely inferior American bastardization is a genuine travesty. I recently saw the original 114 minute Japanese language version on glorious widescreen. I must say this film packs a serious wallop. Unlike the US version which goes for the throat in the first ten minutes, this version takes time to properly develop it's characters and set up the mood. The film opens up in feudal Japan with a descendent of Nishiyama (Tetsuro Tamba)being persecuted for bringing the writings of Nostradamus into the country. His father was also persecuted during WWII as he predicts the rise of Hitler. The opening credits are chilling, one of the best intros I have ever seen in a movie. The music by Isao Tomita is one of the best film scores ever produced. I hope Toho ends the studio ban. This year marks its 30th anniversary and it's been banned for over 20 years. What are they so afraid of? Their are plenty of films over there more offensive to sensitivities than this film. This is a very different kind of Toho film and the US version obscures it. There's graphic violence, brief nudity and the handling of its subject matter is unflinching. Many of the scenes presented in the US version that appear nonsensical, pointless and mediocre are all explained here. The actors do a fine acting job (Seven Samurai and Godzilla's Takashi Shimura makes an appearance as a doctor) and Kaoru Yumi is a real hottie. The director Toshio Masuda and screenwriter Yoshimistu Banno (the Godzilla vs Hedora director) do a splendid job balancing beauty and the grotesque. this film is SUPERIOR to all other disaster films because it has heart, spirit and a brutal go-for-the-throat approach. The filmmakers were fearless making this. Lastly, Teruyoshi Nakano's special effects are superb to say the least, but admittingly some scenes dont work (the giant bats and the little girl jumping incredible heights). The traffic jam explosion scene is amazing. There's some stock Footage from The Submersion of Japan and The Last War, though. A subtitled print has to exist somewhere. I really hope classic media does a wonderful job on the DVD release.

A failed attempt at science fiction that saw Doomsday.

[emm · 2/10 · 4 April 1999]

We can expect more IMDb user coverage on LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH, and tons more that fall into the "schlock" category. And for a good reason! This one is about as bad as, say PLAN 9, and may just be the worst science fiction production imported from Japan. Why science fiction? Is it because Earth is under peril from natural and man-made disasters that is described in the prophecies of Nostradamus? This is a classic example of a plot used heavily in these movies, minus the seer's words. In fact, you can always expect ANYTHING to happen, making EVERYTHING go wrong in the plot without a trace. It all ends up as an in-depth documentary that focuses on the stages of mankind's existence in the final days, spoken by an overpaid voice actor who needs his lips glued with Mucilage. Read the Weekly World News and you'll soon find out that feeding on fear is such a silly idea after all. Anybody else want to comment?

it's great!!!

[bomba6 · 22 May 2001]

Oh, what a wonderful movie!!!! I loved it!!! Ok, special effects are a little weak, but the script was terrific!!!

The Japanese version is a masterpiece. The American cut is an insult

[The_Keeper_of_Angela_Baker · 10/10 · 29 August 2003]

"The Great Prophecies of Nostradamus" is an epic tale of a world gone wrong, a family trying to keep it all together during a crisis, and a man's tireless efforts to save humanity from itself. In its original form, the film is an apocalyptical masterpiece. The plot and story (what story there is) moves along very quickly and the viewer is instantly pulled into the characters' dying world. I can't think of any other end-of the-world picture that is as terrifying, haunting, petrifying, and beautiful all at the same time. The movie manages to slide along all those moods effortlessly. Despite it's maligned reputation at home and in the west, "The Great Prophecies of Nostradamus" is one of the best films Toho has ever made. Everyone involved with the project should be proud of what they've done.

I'd like to give special recognition to Yoko Tsukasa's performance as the doomed Nobuo Nishiyama. Out of all the actors in the movie, Tsukasa is the most shortchanged. A good 45-50% of her screen time was cut from the original version of the film, and even more so from "The Last Days of Planet Earth" (in which she's reduced to essentially a cameo appearance). Tsukasa's first foray into Toho's fantasy output was as Princess Tachibana, who is harassed by the Yamato no Orochi in "The Birth of Japan" (aka "The Three Treasures"). Tsukasa has appeared in many prolific pictures for Toho including "Yojimbo", "47 Ronin", "Don't Call Me a Con Man", "Battle of the Japan Sea", and was seen as recently as this year's "Lucky Ears". Her role as Nobuo merely requires her to love her family and little else but she is masterful in playing it (it's nothing but appropriate that the audio track used when she dies is named "Death of a Loving Thing"-that wraps up Nobuo's character fairly well). Speaking of which, her death scene is another one of the highlights of the film. She puts Ali MacGraw's similar death scene in "Love Story" to shame-instead of whining to her husband about various life concerns, Nobuo bravely faces her death without fear and comes off as one of the most honorable characters in the film. As with much of the picture, this sequence is inexplicably cut to shreds in both the international version and "The Last Days of Planet Earth".

The cinematography by Rokuro Nishigaki is particularly well-crafted. In the original Tohoscope format everything looks top-notch, whether it's Feudal-era pagodas, brilliant sunsets, or a couple running along a shoreline with the sea shimmering nearby. It's a shame that in "The Last Days of Planet Earth", the horrible pan and scanning destroys what is a beautifully-shot picture. In fact, the U.S. version looks faded, worn, and just plain ugly.

One tenuous complaint lodged against the film seems to be that it's too preachy. People who've only seen "The Last Days of Planet Earth" would certainly get that impression-the new narrator's nonsense (who nearly destroys the picture) IS preachy; he constantly reminds us about how the end is coming over and over again. However, "The Great Prophecies of Nostradamus" is merely a straightforward cautionary tale showing us that this is what we're doing to ourselves and we need to stop it in very much the same manner as Ishiro Honda's original "Godzilla" begged for a cease to atomic testing. Despite being based upon a prediction of our own doom, the movie itself is cautiously optimistic, firmly believing that humanity can pull together and overcome the odds.

We know now that Nostradamus was wrong and the world did not end in 1999. I know for sure that when I first saw the film that it terrified me as a child and there are many others who saw the film who feel the same way; it's filled to the brim with nightmare material-nuclear annihilation is still a very real threat. However, Nostradamus is basically a small part of the movie and can easily be overlooked. The fact that the film was made in 1974 and that it's still just as relevant today is quite jarring-the lesson this film wants to teach still needs to be learned, regardless of prophetic hooey.

Note 1: Avoid "The Last Days of Planet Earth" at all costs. Find the international cut or the 114-minute Japanese version if you can.

Note 2: Despite what various sources claim, Keiju Kobayashi is not in any cut of this film

An Incomprehensible Truth

[NoDakTatum · 2/10 · 1 November 2023]

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel giggly. That Nostradamus was one smart dude. Everything he predicted came true. Hitler, World War II, the rise of Communism, reality television- the true global problems that we face today were foreseen over five hundred years ago. According to this film, Nostradamus not only resembled a Japanese man with a fake beard, but his accuracy was so dead-on, his predictions can be taken as stone cold fact. That being said, the world was supposed to end already. This dubbed 1974 Japanese effort, released here in 1979, has a big agenda, a sprawling story, and no character-credited cast on the VHS version. A Scientist has noticed the local people are getting sick because of pollutants in the water and air. Giant slugs appear, all of the ocean's sealife dies, yet Scientist's Daughter is aroused enough to sleep with a news Photographer. This coupling plays an important role later in the story. As deformed children begin to be born, an unexplainable, and unexplained, atomic cloud appears over Papua New Guinea. A United Nations investigative team disappears there, so Scientist and Photographer go looking for them, finding the team has turned into cannibalistic savages. The planet's atmosphere, and the film's special effects, worsen. A new ice age seems imminent, but global warming also comes roaring back. Developed countries fight with undeveloped countries, East fights West, and I fight to keep my soda from shooting out my nose from laughing too hard. Scientist's Daughter turns up pregnant, Scientist rushes around trying to warn everyone of the global catastrophe, and Photographer rushes around snapping pictures, although he never reloads his camera, develops the photos, or sends them to any news outlets. The viewer is finally treated to a look at how the world will end, unless we change things NOW. Trust the science!

The film makers' hearts are in the right place. Their tactic is to move the viewer to change their polluting ways by dramatizing "what could happen." The fatal error is "what could happen" is so silly, I quickly learned not to take anything shown seriously. The film is less than ninety minutes but its constant fade-outs and ominous narration indicate it was edited down from a longer work. Most of the visual effects resemble unused miniature sets from an old "Godzilla" movie spontaneously exploding for no reason- dig that fiery traffic jam scene! Centering global catastrophe around a handful of characters has been done well ("Deep Impact"), and it has been done badly (any Roland Emmerich film). "The Last Days of Planet Earth," or "Prophecies of Nostradamus" or another of the twelve different titles for the film, falls squarely into the bad camp. The next time you believe that global warming does not exist, and you wonder why you should feel guilty about your porch light while elite celebrities and leaders are able to use private jets to crisscross the globe warming the globe while warning of the warming of the globe, then heed the words of Nostradamus! You can start by recycling this video cassette.

brilliant but bruised (in the U.S.)

[Kabumpo · 10/10 · 10 January 1999]

This film is so powerful that it was successfully banned in its native country. Unfortunately, horrible dubbing and sound mix, commercial fade-outs and other tampering have cheapened the film into only a hint of its original brilliance. The film sports a unique score by Isao Tomita, which, for me, defines the essence of decline in the penultimate year of the 20th century we are now in. Unfortunately, bad choices in American narration cause erratic volume changes which decrease the effect. Critics attacked it for the distinctly seventies fashions which are, as predicted, back in vogue. The film was actually not written by Yasumi, but updated from his script for _Sekai Daisenso_ (_The Last War_) and credited to him out of respect. Perhaps if the film, which is minimal on narrative and seems a forerunner to the work of Godfrey Reggio, were given a widescreen and subtitled reissue (and what better time than this year), respect for the film would increase. It pulls out all the stops with disasters, including the pestilence of giant slugs (which are simply giant slugs, like though that plague India, not flesh-eating or blood-eating as detractors of the film would like you to believe) and plants that tear through subways (and no, they do not eat people as some reviews claim). Nature takes things back from the city, young people find solace in random sex, wanton drug use, and suicide. Traffic jams wreak havoc as people get out of control, food rations are torn away as people believe there are shortages, while luxury beef diets continue, and Nishiyama believes they are all related to the prophecies of Nostradamus. Bizarre effects ensue, like snow on the pyramids, and people's highest morals are challenged. What we have is a work of cinematic brilliance torn apart by an American distributor until what results becomes fodder for MST3K. Know what neurofibromatosis looks like?

DOOM!

[BandSAboutMovies · 10/10 · 29 January 2022]

In 1969, Tsutomy "Ben" Goto was writing for women's magazines and watching the moon landing. That's when he remembered reading about man walking on the lunar surface in the quatrains of Nostradamus*.

Michel de Nostredame was a French astrologer and physician, but also a seer who wrote Les Prophéties, a collection of 942 quatrains - a poetic stanza made up of four lines with one having alternate rhymes - that allegedly predicting future events. Worrying about being arrested and trotured in the Inquisition, Nostradamus obscuring the meaning of his prophecies by using word games and a mixture of other languages such as Greek, Italian, Latin and Provençal.

At the time, people thought Nostradamus was either evil, fake or insane. After all, if he was so good at predicting the future, why didn't he predict that he'd suffer from the gout? He did have one admirer. Queen Catherine believed in him so much that she made him Counselor and Physician-in-Ordinary to her son, King Charles IX.

The Japan of 1974 was gripped in pre-millenial tension that one has to assume was exacerbated that they alone had had two examples of nuclear fire dropped on their country in the past century and here we were, on the precipice of an even more frightening future. Goto's books were perfect for the country's insecurity and vulnerability.

This is also when the idea of 1999 started worrying people. After all, a major disaster was coming in the last year of the millenium, even though the millenium didn't really end until 2000. The book said that Japan would suffer an oil crisis, a trade war wih America, a devalued yen, the rise and fall of real estate in Tokyo, volcanos and earthquakes.

By Predictions of Nostradamus: Middle-East Chapter in 1991, Goto had written seven books on the subject (he eventually wrote ten), he had sold 5.4 million books, even if critics said that his work was "Nostre-damasu," which uses the Japanese word damasu, which means to deceive**.

Meanwhile, Toho was nearing the end of Godzilla's Heisei era and was looking for something new to get moviegoers into the theater. They'd already followed Hollywood's disaster movie template to make Japan Sinks, which was the most popular movie in the country in 1973 and 1974, making double what its closer competitor did. It was so successful that Roger Corman and New World Pictures bought the rights, threw in Lorne Greene and released it as Tidal Wave.

For this movie, Toho took a glance at a book written by Shinya Nishimaru, general manager of the Food General Office within the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and Goto that saw a dismal future, filled with no food and an environment that began to turn against humanity.

Written by Yoshimitsu Banno, who also made the apocalyptic Godzilla vs. Hedorah, and Toshio Masuda, who directed Tora! Tora! Tora! About Japanese and American naval conflict, as well as Be Forever Yamato, which is an anime that has a Japanese battleship rise into space, along with help from Toshio Yasumi (The Last War) in just ten days, this movie points to the dual scope and economy of Toho.

Scope: It's the end of everything, so it was shot on all of Toho's visual effects soundstages***.

Economy: It features footage from The Last War and Tokyo Sinks, while its destruction was recycled again as destructive scenes in The Return of Godzilla and Deathquake.

In the Japanese cut - oh man, there are six versions - the movie gets started in 1853, as Genta Nishiyama begins preaching the prophecies of Nostradamus before he begins to preach that Japan will end its isolation. Killed for heresy, his children hide the book and his family continues to tell of the prophecies, like a World War II descendant who is interrogated about the defeat of the Axis.

Let's smash cut to 1999. Dr. Ryogen Nishiyama has been analyzing all manner of bio-phenomena, like large mutant bugs, kids getting psychic powers from drinking zinc-heavy water and ice showing up in Hawaii. Trust me, this movie is decades ahead of Don't Look Up and a million trillion times more entertaining, as no one believes that natural disasters are about to be unleashed and things like nuclear clouds in New Guinea will create giant leeches, bats that feel like they came out of A Lizard In a Woman's Skin and cannibalism.

There's also an incredibly dark scene where a fisherman, realizing that the oceans will never sustain life again, realizes that his life has no purpose, so he walks into the waves to die as his sons fight to save him.

From catastrophes both large - SST jets exploding over Japan and unleashing the full power of a hole in the ozone layer and snow in the Middle East - to small - dying family members of the central cast making the end of the world personal, this movie takes a downbeat turn quickly, but somehow, this is all set to a score that can only be described as transcendent. Or paradoxical. Or great.

In between all of this death and destruction, we learn that the young people have decided to take their fates into their own hands. As they take tons of drugs, they draw lots and sacrifice themselves by climbing into the sails of boats, dressed in kabuki makeup, crashing into one another. They also line up on motorcycles and one after another jump into oblivion and the dead sea, all set to guitar driven fuzz rock.

By the end, nuclear war has broken out and our planet is a desert where mutant humans still kill one another, learning nothing.

Then, as if Bobby Ewing had just finished his shower, we learn that this has all been a speech that Dr. Nishiyama was giving to the Japanese Diet. The film ends with this credit:

The story you have just seen was a work of fiction. The events it portrayed, however, may take place in our world. It's up to you to take action to ensure the these events do not come to pass...

A Japanese version of Prophecies of Nostradamus played Japanese-language theaters in the U. S. in 1979 and 1980, while UPA acquired the rights to distribute the film on home video and television. The American version, The Last Days of Planet Earth, was released on VHS and laserdisc in 1995 by Paramount.

There are a ton of differences, with much of the gorier moments taken out like the cannibals eating one of the scientists, the flesh falling off the arm of a zombified man, an American voice-over for the regatta of death, nuclear missiles being launched, the mutants and a human biting into a snake - amongst many other excised scenes and narration changes.

While available for release in the U. S., it's doubtful that the full movie will ever be seen here outside of bootlegs (shh - I have one with six different cuts of the movie****). The cannibal scenes and the mutant battle were cut everywhere outside of Japan and as of 1980, those scenes don't appear in Japan outside of a bootleg - released by a Toho employee - of a cancelled VHS and laserdisc release in 1988.

The film was cut down from 114 to 90 minutes thanks to all of the edits.

Sadly, the sequel Prophecies of Nostradamus II: The Great King of Terror was never made, a movie in which Goto analogue Tsutomu Goto would try to rech out to the spirit of Nostradamus to save the world. Toho did make Nosutoradamusu: Sen ritsu no keiji in 1994.

*Century 9, Quatrain 65: "He will come to go into the corner of Luna, where he will be captured and put in a strange land. The unripe fruits will be the subject of great scandal. Great blame, to one great praise."

**Thanks to Japan Today for this fact. They also shared an amazing article about Ryo Tatsuki, a manga artist who published The future as I see it, in which she predicted that "around 2020, an unknown virus will appear, reaching its peak in April; it will then vanish but reappear 10 years late," as well as the deaths of Freddie Mercury and Pricness Diana. Obviously, Nostre-damasu will never die.

***During filming, a pyrotechnical accident caused a fire that burned down part of the main visual effects soundstage, an apocalyptic event all its own that destroyed many of the costumes and props from earlier Toho films, including the original Mogera costume from The Mysterians.

****You can also download it from the Internet Archive.

Misunderstood Movie

[Maciste_Brother · 10/10 · 4 February 2000]

People don't watch Last Days of Planet Earth (American title) with the right mindset. It's a surreal, absurdist experience. It's a movie that works in the subconscious. What you see is not what you're suppose to feel or get. In other words, it's not only about the end of the world but much more. On face value, the film doesn't seem to make any sense but in your subconscious, it makes sense. Only after watching the whole film and mulling over it a day or two, that the film's real intent will creep in your mind and hit you, whether you like it or not (and most people don't like what it says about them or society, and so they're very negative towards it).

Nosutoradamusu no daiyogen is a masterpiece! A one of kind film experience. And the music score is one of the best I've ever heard.

Transcendental. Clairvoyant. Visionary.

[cleveblakemore · 10/10 · 23 September 2022]

The Americans butchered it. If you see the original Japanese movie you will realize you are watching one of the most incredible apocalyptic flicks ever made. The shocking imagery and the setting is far more relevant to our world now than it was then and it almost seems comical some times how prescient the film was about the last days.

The final scene with the two mutant children fighting in radioactive ash over a worm of some kind was really disturbing. Toho should be very proud of the original, it is one of the best things they ever made.

I don't know how the author of the script knew what our days would be like but it's an uncanny look at the future in the 1970's that was revealed to be spot-on for the 2020's. The gender bending youth who literally become obsessed with suicide by jumping their motorbikes off a cliff into the ocean is just too close to the bone to right now.

P. S. The score by Tomita is possibly the best music score I ever heard in a 1970's film. It is sad, evocative, dramatic, heart rending and exciting at just the right times and with just the right emphasis. It is never maudlin and seems to draw forth the very essence of what is meant by an end-time eschatology.

Cool Flick!

[wjack · 8/10 · 16 August 1999]

I know a lot of people don't like this movie, but I really enjoyed it. I'm not a big sci-fi fan, but there is something about this one I really enjoyed. The special effects are cheesy, and it gets silly, but I really got a kick out of it.

"The Last Days of Planet Earth", despite what you may read, is great!

[Atragon · 10/10 · 30 December 1998]

I'll tell you, the screeches this movie gave for MST3K must've been pretty quiet because I certainly didn't hear them. Doesn't matter since MST3K is the most annoying show on television. This is very much underrated by people. I was entertained by this movie and that's all that matters. See the this movie if you can find it.