Rumour has it that Space Battleship Yamato star, Kimura Takuya offered to reduce his own salary so more could be spent on the film itself and better position it as a rival to the likes of Avatar. True or not, the movie cost around two billion yen to make – a huge amount in Japan, even though it doesn’t come close to the most expensive Hollywood films. Was it worth it?
I didn’t know much about Space Battleship Yamato going into the movie, except it was based on an anime series by Leiji Matsumoto. If pressed, I would have said it was about a battleship named Yamato in space. While the ending may be as familiar to Japanese audiences as the connection between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker is to me, I wasn’t aware of it. It was a shock.
The opening was stunning. For most of the action of the first half, they seem to have eschewed the standard CGI in favour of model shots with enhanced backgrounds featuring the kind of star formations you can find on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. At least, I believe these to be model shots, despite the advertised “80% CGI” claim. If it’s really CGI, it’s brilliant.
There is also one incredible shot of the underground city where Kodai lives. It appears on screen for maybe ten seconds, but the detail is all there.
The basic plot is simple, but the specifics are tough to follow, possibly because the Japanese is a level above what is normally required. There’s a mixture of nautical and sci-fi terms which are fairly challenging and you just know that they would consist of a string of ten kanji if written down. I had the same problem with Ghost in the Shell: Innocence.
The earth has been scorched beyond repair by aliens, and humanity only has about a year before the radiation reaches their underground city. However, despite the destruction of all greenery, there are still cats. One day, a capsule said to be from a planet called Iscandar is dropped on Earth and is found to contain a message which states there is a way to reduce the radiation levels. The same message instructs humanity on how to equip Yamato with a hadou engine which allows them to warp through space from Earth to Iscandar.
Kodai is a former pilot and the younger brother of a space captain who was killed in combat. He re-enlists and bravely notes the ship doctor has a cat. Once aboard, Captain Okita eventually recognises Kodai’s earnestness and sense of duty and hands the ship over to him on his deathbed. Kodai faces difficult decisions as captain, but the final one is the most difficult of all and the film stays with him throughout his decision-making process.
As for the final scene… I didn’t know it and I’ll assume you don’t want to know it either. All I will say is that we’re in flu season in Japan and there was coughing throughout the film until that final moment. The music dropped away and so did the sounds of the audience members. Complete silence throughout the theatre.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this combination before in a live action movie — a hard sci-fi aesthetic, space opera action and the morality of a Japanese war film. The mix is unique and visually amazing, with a real ‘lived-in’ feel to the technology.
The cat survives, by the way.
Official Space Battleship Yamato website (Japanese)
“Star Blazers” Anime Site with Movie Updates (English)
Or, if you want to see more movie reviews by me, check out Ghibli’s Karigurashi no Arrietty, Kamui Gaiden or the entire ‘movies’ tag.
Totally agree, finally watched it now that it’s out on DVD, I didn’t watch the original series either, and the ending, I was completely speechless and totally captivated. All in all, I think it was a well balanced film, given the theme and the material with which they had to work with, and Kimura delivered a perfect performance, as usual.
Thank you for reading my review. I don’t know how many people expected the ending, but it seemed like most of the people in the cinema didn’t know.
Nice review, actually quite interesting to read, specially because you haven’t seen the original series.
The original series consists of 3 seasons and 4 movies (1st season, 2nd season, 1st movie, 2nd movie, 3rd season, 3rd movie, 4th movie), and they all link very well in this order.
Actually, there are other 2 movies, the first is a compilation of the first season made for the cinema and the second, that would “end” the series. The success was so big that the 2nd movie was forgotten and its plot became much more detailed, so they made the 2nd season and so on.
The 4th movie (anime) was made in 2009, made to give the series a follow up with actual anime style.
The plot of the live action is quite different from the original series (or the first movie). Many interesting points were left behind, and some of them i actually think would fit quite well in the live action.
Perheaps for big fans (like me) the live action movie lacks some important features that appeared even in the first movie, that was a compilation of the first series and lasts about 2 hours and a half.
But the movie is very well done, with nice BSG-like star battles, and the plot, even being different from the original in some points, was well built.
I’m curious as to what was missing for you. As I’d never seen the anime, I didn’t particularly feel anything was missing or that I was missing some important details. Certainly it does better than some Hollywood movies, where things don’t entirely make sense unless (as fans of the film will tell you!) you watch the DVD release and they include those deleted scenes.
Overall, I found it very enjoyable and with some great battle sequences.
big fan of the japanese original also the american version, the film is not dorkgasmic after the first 25 minutes, plus the countdown to earth zero should have been included
still very much tokusatsu standard cheesy acting william shatner will fit right in, except for the actor playing chief engineer tokugawa, the only race left on earth seemed to be only japanese heavily borrowed elements from jj abrams trek and starwars
this movie is a disappointment as in santa-gave-me-a-popgun-and-I-asked-for-a-freezeray kind of disappointment
better spend on a well detailed expensive scale model of the argo/yamato instead
then dream of a better american/japanese remake, with a non korean actor playing derek “wildstar” kodai, mark strong paul bettany luke goss gary oldman as desslok, anthony hopkins brian cox john rhys davis liam neeson as captain avatar, masi oka ken jeong as dr sado scarlet johansson emma stone jessica biel mila kunis as nova…………………until then I stick to animes dubbed or subtitled but not desecrated like the gospel according to harmony gold