trixie30 I have no idea if my title above constitutes a spoiler.As a serious movie, I give it a 1. As a comedy-farce, it's so much better. Now, I'll admit part of the reason I found it funny was because my hubby sat here doing his own Mystery Science Theater 3000 commentary.I swear the "for the good of the whole" riff and so forth was inspiration for the ST:NG Borg. Of course, "taking over the human race" plots are not remotely new, but the "for the good of the universe; no war, no pain, you must join with us" deal is so reminiscent of the Borg that it's even funnier to me.

MartinHafer While this is a rather poor sci-fi film, for the time it wasn't all that bad. While compared to the artistry of "2001" which debuted just two years later it comes up severely lacking, all sci-fi from around 1966 was pretty shabby compared to the groundbreaking "2001". So, cut this cheesy Italian film a bit of slack when it comes to special effects! Now I am not saying it's all that good a film. But, at least it is watchable."The War of the Planets" begins in the near future. Space travel is routine and things look a bit like "The Jetsons" in this film. However, when a strange greenish cloud-like 'thing' appears in the sky, BAD things will follow! A group of astronauts are transformed into zombie-like people--who are A LOT like the "Star Trek" notion of The Borg. In other words, the infected people all think as one and are emotionless jerks. Can they be stopped or will everyone become duller than Dick Cavett on Valium?! The film has the usual 60s fare--the usual sort of spacey outfits , silly paranoid plot and sexist banter. It's all a bit silly but for fans of cheesy sci-fi (and I am one), it's all enjoyable silliness. Not all bad--and the plot idea wasn't bad at all.

John Seal It's not even close to being the best spaghetti science-fiction film ever made - far from it, in fact - but Antonio Margheriti's War of the Planets is another refugee from TNT's 100% Weird that recently popped up commercial free (and sadly pan and scan) on Turner Classic Movies. Starring American expat Tony Russel - who got his screen start as a bartender in Elvis' King Creole - as the commander of Earth's space forces, War of the Planets is a very low-budget story of alien invaders attacking our solar system from their base on Mars. The aliens, ever mindful of the filmmakers' need to keep costs down, are represented by dry ice and flashing green lights. The great Franco Nero co-stars and there's a suitably spacey Angelo Francesco Lavagnino score.

macabro357 (aka: WAR OF THE PLANETS)Caught this one on TCM and it's typical for Italian space operas of the time, with the notable exception of Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (1966). The main problems are that the script is so poorly thought out, that it was probably written as they filmed each scene on the spot. And the sets look so low budget that even Ed Wood did a more credible job with PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. At least Ed's film was 'entertaining', unlike this boredom.Aliens in the form of green smoke and flashing lights take over orbiting space stations around the Earth. It brainwashes some people into committing acts of sabotage while others are just left immobile with a little green tinge to their skin. I guess they did this to keep the film budget down. It's up to the Earth space forces led by Tony Russell to save the world from the aliens and with pretty Lisa Gastoni (as well as dumb #2, Franco Nero) by his side, we are treated to one of the cheapest looking space battles in cinema history.I also notice that this film has the MGM logo at the beginning of it. They must have been so desperate for product in 1965 that they had to resort to importing Euro turkeys like this one. Besides which, Anthony Margheriti did much so much better in the horror genre that he should have stuck to it. So if you're into MST3K-type effluent (which I'm not), then this is the film for you.2 out of 10