Starman : Sci Fi Royalty.... or not-an incoherent ramble.

 Today's pick from the public domain vault is the first in the Starman series "Atomic Rulers". Originally the first two installments in the Japanese made Super Giant franchise circa 1956, America bought up the films a number of years later and combined 'em into one movie, dubbing the dialogue into English and renaming the hero Starman, finally releasing the finished product in 1965. Super Giant was Japan's very first superhero to grace the silver screen, taking a cue from the superman serials of the late 40's and building their own superhero brand to the delight of thousands of happy lil' Japanese children.

"Hi, I'm Starman, and I'm gonna kick your butt."

This being the first entry in the series, it lacks that danger from outer space element that makes the series so great, the writers instead opting to go for a much more realistic threat, atomic weaponry. The saga begins with the narrator talking about how some alien dudes made Starman out of the strongest steels and sent him to Earth to stop the use of nukes, as even the alien dudes from the far away Emerald planet fear the almighty power of the split atom. After that the movie is pretty much your standard espionage movie, just with people in ridiculous outfits on occasion, and one guy who can fly, repel bullets, bend a gun like it was a toy, and withstand a small nuclear explosion. There are some great 'roll the film backwards to make cool stuff happen' shots in the movie, that are so pointless that they're highly laughable, but the shots of Starman flying still put the late 90's Sunday afternoon show Night Man to shame. Seriously, did you ever see Night Man?  The visual aesthetic of the show was somewhere between late 90's era Skinemax and Days of Our Lives. Garbage.

Atomic Rulers, not unlike Gojira (released the same year in Japan), is a bit of a parable for U.S.- Japan relations of the day. In 1956, the atomic bombing of Japan just 11 years earlier was still a very fresh wound, and the writers of the movie had a bit of a chip on their shoulders about it. Nearly all the bad guys in the movie were American, and their mission was to conquer the world via nuclear blackmail, evil nuke wielding white dudes...... I guess it's a little more in your face than a mere parable....

Starman (Super Giant) really set a precedent, paving the way for the super hero genre in Japan, setting in motion the course of events that lead to the invention of the likes of the Ultraman, Kamen Rider, Metal Heroes and the Super Sentai Franchises, without all of which I would be a lost soul today. Being one of the oldest  showcases of the Tokusatsu genre should make Starman cinema royalty, but alas the Starman series has been banished to the bargain bin at your local (insert superstore name here), but that's also how I discovered the greatness that is the likes of Atomic Rulers, Invaders from Space, Attack from Space and Evil Brain from Outer Space, ranking high above the likes of Ricky Jones and company. Damn you world.

"We should be more famous than we are, and not just used as stock footage on 'Through the Wormhole With Morgan Freeman', Agreed?"