Prince of Space



"Prince of Space: "Enough of this! When will you ever learn? Your guns won't work on me!" Phantom of Krankor: "Shoot him!''"

A group of chicken beak-nosed space men from the planet Krankor who refuse to wear underwear underneath their suits are led by their leader, Phantom, to invade Earth. But a superhero named Prince of Space (actually a bootblack in disguise) arrives to defeat the spacemen. His superpowers include a magical laser-proof grill lighter, reasonable skipping ability, and the knack for saying some variant of, "Your weapons are useless against me!", which is apparently quite accurate, although he dodges their laser blasts anyway, just to be safe. Although the weapons of the aliens are indeed useless against the Prince of Space, the Phantom continues to fight, and many plot twists (including capturing a group of elderly scientists) ensue.

Prince of Space is a 1959 film, edited into existence using footage from two earlier Japanese movies, Planet Prince and Planet Prince - The Terrifying Spaceship which may explain why the plot is a bit wonky. The films were in turn adapted by Toei from a live-action television series of the same name, though with many differences such as a new costume for the main character. The original TV series was a follow up to the extremely popular Moonlight Mask superhero series, though it also borrowed liberally from the Super Giant film serials of the time. The television series even had the main character wearing a costume identical to Super Giant. The Prince of Space character is somewhat iconic in his home country. The two films actually retell a story arc from the television series featuring the Phantom of Krankor.

For the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, please go to the episode recap page.

"Phantom of Krankor: Give everyone four hours off!"
 * Alien Invasion: By the Phantom.
 * Not quite, the Phantom comes to Earth to steal the plans to make the stuff he needs to invade the Earth properly.
 * Aliens and Monsters: If by aliens you mean guys with chicken nose prosthetics and no undergarments and by monsters you mean weird lumpy guys with their zippers showing.
 * Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Guardian, which looks rather like a giant Ferengi made forty years early. Its ears are big.
 * Benevolent Boss

"Phantom of Krankor: "I've got you now, ya SCUM!""
 * Big Bad: Phantom of Krankor
 * Catch Phrase: "Your weapons are useless against me!"
 * Clark Kenting: Wally actually does wear a mask in his Prince of Space identity, but he's still woefully inept at keeping it cool and allaying suspicions. "Wait, how did Prince of Space get in here and-" "NEVERMIND THAT, GO!"
 * The aliens themselves, on Earth, disguise themselves with big goggle glasses (to hide their alien eye-shadow) and mouth filters (to hide their chicken-noses).
 * Compilation Movie: The US version of the film was cobbled together from two films covering the same material, leading to an even more incoherent plot.
 * Cool Ship: The prince and the Phantom.
 * Do Not Adjust Your Set: The Phantom says this when he takes control of Earth's televisions.
 * Dub Induced Plot Hole: In Japan, their weapons weren't useless against the Prince of Space, which is why he dodges so much.
 * Easily-Thwarted Alien Invasion: One guy in spandex with no super powers scares off the entire invasion force.
 * Empty Piles of Clothing: Ssssort of. The alien death ray leaves behind hats, helmets, and guns, but not uniforms.
 * Evil Laugh: Phantom of Krankor
 * Expy: Prince of Space is a character created in the wake of the success of Super Giant.
 * Fake Nationality: Obviously Japanese people with English names.
 * And, in some cases, Hollywood New England and/or Big Applesauce accents.
 * Good Hair, Evil Hair: The Phantom has an obviously evil mustache while the Prince is extremely clean shaven.
 * He Also Did: Katsuhisa Hattori, who composed the music for the original TV series and films, would go on to produce the scores for a number of anime TV series and movies, including Infinite Ryvius and Argento Soma.
 * Immune to Bullets: The Prince claims this numerous times, but he still constantly dodges and runs away from them anyway. See Dub Induced Plot Hole above; it's supposed to be that he's so good at dodging and/or deflecting energy rays that they're useless against him rather than pure immunity.
 * Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: After the Phantom reveals his automated defense system the Prince dodges the dozen plus guns by doing absolutely nothing.
 * Large Ham: Or in this case, chicken.


 * Laughably Evil: Phantom of Krankor.
 * The Load: The scientists
 * Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me: Only in the dubbed version, however.
 * MacGuffin: The rocket fuel
 * Made of Explodium: A ridiculous amount of things explode easily in this film.
 * Magic Pants: The disintegration rays of the Krankor aliens instantly cause humans to vanish, but but for some reason leaves their hats and guns intact. There's not even a token pile of dust!
 * Mask Power: The Prince himself.
 * Parrot Exposition: Apparently being a brilliant scientist requires constantly asking your captors to repeat themselves ad nauseum. There's a reason the trope name used to be "Prince of Space, sir!"
 * Playing with Fire: The Guardian
 * Plot Hole: If The Phantom Of Krankor Could observe the Humans from space, and peek into anywhere in the world, why didn't he just observe the creation of the formula and take notes? Of course, this blatant lapse in logic vanishes upon the realization that Phantom is a total clod.
 * The villain travels through space to the planet Earth, so that he can steal a formula for rocket fuel that will allow him to... travel through space. This is even lampshaded in the film itself, by a group of journalists who ask the head scientist why such an advanced race needs Earth technology. The scientist's explanation - their fuel technology lags behind ours - is wholly unconvincing.
 * How did Wally zip ahead into the apartment to leave that note warning the kids to run?
 * Rubber Forehead Aliens: In this case, it's aliens with rubber chicken noses.
 * Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: The Phantom claims that the planet Krankor is "half a million Earth miles from Earth". The moon is 240,000 miles away.
 * Oddly enough, that would explain how they could have better spaceships but worse fuel. They found out humans had the good fuel and planned their design around the short-range raid.
 * Secret Identity: Wally the bootblack.
 * Shoe Shine, Mister?: Prince of Space is a shoeshine boy.
 * Shooting Superman: At one point even the Prince laments the stupidity of the villains constantly shooting at him when their guns won't work on him.
 * And Krankor always has one, and only one, backup plan for when the Prince declares (and demonstrates) his immunity to their guns. It's usually some version of, "Blast him!"
 * Space Clothes: For an advanced civilization that can make spaceships, not inventing underwear is a mysterious oversight.
 * Well...there don't seem to be any women around...
 * Superhero: As superheroes go, at least he has powers and knows how to use them. Unlike a certain Puma themed superhero.
 * Throw It In: A bird lands on top of the laser gun of the Krankor ship, and stays on it ever as it starts twisting around. Doubles as a They Just Didn't Care since the filmmakers didn't seem motivated enough to stop filming in order to remove it.
 * Toku: The original films and the TV series that spawned them.
 * Unfortunate Names: Krankor. It really sounds like "crank whore" or "crack whore" when one first hears this.
 * Unusual Ears: The giant man creature on the planet Krankor has enormous, Ferengi-like ears.
 * Villain Ball: The aliens. C'mon after being told repeatedly their weapons won't work. He still gets shot at.
 * Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him: Krankor threatens to dispose of the kidnapped scientists by putting them in individual space capsules and launching them into space.
 * Or, you know, throw them into space without the capsules.
 * Or, y'know, shoot them? Unlike the titular Prince, I think it's pretty reasonable to assume their guns would work on them.