We’ve looked at a variety of different media types over the last few weeks as I’ve tried to branch out in order to review things that maybe might be a little more foreign to you guys, and I’m pleased to say that the response has been really good. Thank you, readers, for helping make this blog a successful one! If not for you, I would simply be writing to entertain myself, which, believe me, I would totally do anyway, but this is a much more rewarding arrangement! Our subject matter this year has basically been geared towards American media, and I can only recall doing two foreign films in the past. So today we’re going to take another little trip across the vastness of the Pacific to that lovable little archipelago, Japan. They brought us weird fetishes, strawberry Kit Kat bars, and anime, and we love them for it! Or despite it depending on which noun you evaluate there. I’ve actually been sitting on this one for a while because I had wanted to watch the show that the movie is based on before reviewing the film, but DVDs of the show are prohibitively expensive, and none of my alternative sources turned up anything useful so we’re just going to do this!
Today we’re looking the full length, live action movie Space Battleship Yamato. In case you’re not aware the movie is based off of an anime of the same name. Now, where anime is involved, things can get a bit murky when it comes to stuff like which show within the mythology we’re referencing, and whatnot. The original SBY anime has had something like four spin-off TV series, and six animated films, as well as an OVA (original video animation), in addition to the live action movie that we’ll be discussing here. For our purposes, we’re just going to look at the original show as that’s the primary source for material that was used in film. Oh and in case this wasn’t confusing enough, as sometimes happens with popular Japanese shows, an English dubbed version ran in America as well. It was call Star Blazers. Now that we finally have all of that out of the way, let’s take a look at Space Battleship Yamato, shall we?
The film opens in the year 2199, five years after first contact with a species called the Gamila. The Gamila’s idea of first contact involved declaring war, and working to systematically destroy the ecosystem of the planet Earth. Which we see during some prologue action. At this point, the surface of Earth is totally uninhabitable so humans, and the remaining flora and fauna that they saved live underground. They used to also live in space stations orbiting high above the Earth, but we’ll get back to that. Anyway, humanity seems poised on the brink of extinction when our hapless hero, Susumu nearly gets impaled by what he thinks is a meteorite. However, it’s revealed to be a mysterious alien device. The Earth Defense Force seizes control of the device, and Susumu so that they can study it. Typical military, am I right?
It’s established that the device contains engineering schematics for a faster than light drive system, and coordinate for a planet referred to on the device as Iskandar. The device itself also has the innate ability to decrease radiation. Armed with these bits of information, the Space Battleship Yamato is pressed into service, and a worldwide call is made for crewmen to man the ship. Susumu volunteers, and is made the leader of the same fighter unit that he led way back in the day. He even gets his old fighter back. That’s important. The ship gets its staff, and plans are made to launch, but in true action movie fashion, the Gamila are on to them, and launch a ginormous meteor at the ship launch site. Little did the Gamilia know, the Yamato comes equipped with a secret weapon. It’s got a devastating mega cannon mounted to the front of the ship! It’s theoretically capable of destroying planets, but they don’t actually cover that in the film. But, the ship destroys the meteor, and makes for a daring escape. However, the Gamila have different plans and they launch a fleet of fighters at the Yamato. This sequence is astounding! There’s this massive space battle going on, the Yamato has turret mounted guns that are raining hell on everything within reach, and the fighters are zooming everywhere, and in the meantime, the Yamato is trying to make a jump so that they can regroup from the fighting.
The fighter squad, led by Susumu, take off to help defend the ship. There are some pretty sweet sequences that result from this. Anyway, one of the other pilots in the squad, Yuki, has been knocked unconscious, and is drifting towards certain death. She’s Susumu love interest so he defies orders in order to save her. They narrowly make it back to the ship just as it jumps, and Susumu gets thrown in the brig. There’s some expositional stuff, and Susumu does a lot of sit-ups. Then it’s announced that the next jump will be for Iskandar, and everyone aboard is given a short time to contact loved ones whom they will probably never see again. We find out that Susumu has no family to contact, and we find out a few touching things about some of the side characters as well. Ultimately, it all boils down to Susumu leading an exercise to deflect asteroids away from Earth. During one such exercise, Susumu’s squad accidentally deflected an asteroid into one of the habitat satellites. Susumu’s parents were on board.
During this little aside thing, Yamato manages to capture a Gamila ship, and inspect it. There’s a weird thing where the creature operating the vehicle hijacks the brain of one of the fighter squad guys, and sends a message to the rest of the fleet regarding Yamato’s plans. Susumu is called to the captain’s quarters where there’s a conversation about how the captain is dying. He asks Susumu to assume command, which Susumu initially refuses because he’s upset at the captain, whom he believes used Mamoru, Susumu’s brother, to save his own hide, also because the captain informs him that there’s no device that can reverse the radiation on Earth, and the whole mission was pointless. However, Susumu realizes, as his brother did, that the knowledge and experience that the captain possessed were Earth’s best chance of survival, and so Susumu reconciles his feelings and takes command.
Yamato makes their jump, and arrive at Iskandar only to find it crawling with Gamila! They’ve been bamboozled! Just kidding, turns out that they simply jumped to the wrong side of the planet. That’s kind of the big reveal of this film. Sorry… Spoilers! The Gamila and the race that sent the message are the same race. A plan is made to use Susumu’s custom ship, which can’t be tracked by Gamila technology at low power, to dive for the planet center. The Yamato will jump in and clear a path as well as lend distraction. So that’s what they do. A bunch of marines board some drop ships, and the fighter guys run escort, and the Yamato acts as cover/distraction/Trojan horse for this task force. Many uninteresting characters die, but our main cast make it to the caves below the surface! The marines launch some vehicles to protect the personnel while they journey, but most of them get mowed down before the party reaches their destination. But when they do reach the destination, they are not disappointed. One of the benevolent aliens seizes control of Yuki, and uses her to communicate some exposition, which basically boils down to the planet breeding two races. The Gamila love the barren wasteland of death, and the Iskandar love life and peace.
The being tells the group that they’ve essentially turned Yuki into a device that can rid Earth of its little radiation problem. Win! And it sends them on their way. There’s some central node thing that I think can shut down the bulk of the Gamila, and so while Susumu gets Yuki back to Yamato, a couple of entertaining, but ultimately expendable guys offer to blow up the core thing. They die in a blaze of glory, or should I say blazer of glory! Oooooh…. Yeah that was awful. My apologies. But in true anime fashion, they die gloriously. However, the ordeal is far from over. The crew of the Yamato has to get back to Earth and let Yuki loose on the surface so that she can fix the planet. In order to do that they have to beat the boss battle. There’s one massive ship orbiting Earth with more firepower than you could shake a stick at. They sit between Yamato and Earth as if daring Yamato to try and make a run. The mothership launches a thing, and the thing jams the mega cannon! Now all Yamato has are puny little, just kidding, they’re still respectably sized guns. They just won’t be terribly effective against the mothership. And so Susumu order everyone still alive to evacuate and he plots a course for ramming speed.
There’s a flash, and roll credits, but as we do, we see Yuki on the surface of a lush a vibrant planet, and she’s playing with… Her son? Yean so apparently we’re meant to assume that Susumu and Yuki got it on and she got pregnant and bore him a son. I mean, I guess it’s possible, but the way that the film presents the story, you just have to wonder, when did they have the time? But, it’s a happy ending, and a satisfying conclusion nevertheless.
Alright, so this movie is based on an anime. Let’s all remember that. As far as the story goes, I think the film does an exquisite job of cramming 26 episodes worth of material into one two hour feature. All of the elements are there: the Gamila, the escape to Iskandar, the romance between Susumu and Yuki, and the declining health of the captain. It’s all there. Some of it has been… abbreviated, but it all gets touched upon. Again, this film is based on an anime, and all of the wonderful elements that we’ve all come to love about the genre are well represented here. There’s the cheesy overacting, the over-the-top story lines, the soap opera quality romance, and they even manage to sneak in some over-the-top action sequences complete with gratuitous use of slow motion. I applaud the cast because they captured the anime experience perfectly. Now let’s talk about something that may go against some of what I’ve stated in the past:
I know in the past I’ve mentioned that I’m not typically a special effects guy, and especially when they involve CGI. However, without deviation, this film delivers absolutely gorgeous visual effects. From the vehicles, to the landscapes, everything in this film is rendered exceptionally well. That capture is a CG model, but it has weight to it, it has deep, and rich textures, and it looks like a practical model. I tip my hat to the VFX crew of this movie. They did an astounding job! Also, the composer did a bang up job on the score, and as an added bonus there, Steven Tyler has a track that plays in the film. Overall, I’m going to have to recommend this one, at least to the anime fans out there. As a casual fan, I really enjoyed it. As a Robotech fan, I can only hope that when the live action version of that film happens, it’s at least half as good as this one. It’s a fun watch and kid appropriate. Bonus! Take a look sometime, and stick around to see what we step in next week!
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