The Cinematheque

“Stands as a high point in the Showa Godzilla series.”

Janus Films

Godzilla goes off-world in this delectably high-concept space opera, a co-production with American animation company UPA. In the year 196X (a perplexing timestamp that suggest the series occurs in a deliberately alternate present), two astronauts touch down on the mysterious Planet X and there encounter its inhabitants: the Xiliens, a computer-controlled race driven underground by Monster Zero (aka King Ghidorah, the world destroyer of the last installment). Their plea: in exchange for borrowing Godzilla and Rodan to help defeat the three-headed terror, they’ll provide humankind with a cure for cancer. But can the Xiliens be trusted? (They can’t.) A retro, Roddenberry-esque romp of a creature feature, Astro-Monster ushered the series into full-blown cosmic territory, granting license for screenwriter Sekizawa Shinichi (already a veteran of the franchise) to let his imagination run wild. Hollywood actor Nick Adams co-stars as a spaceman in love with an Xilien in disguise.

In Japanese with English subtitles