Space Battleship Yamato

(Originally Written March 1, 2015)

Special Note: As quickly as they have returned, the "Classic Reviews" are almost finished.  This means ive gotta find something else to fill the Tues-Friday posts I do each week.  But also, im going on vacation this weekend into mid next week and while im reasonably certain I will have WiFi, I don't want to miss an entry for the week.  I can work on getting material together over the weekend no problem since I hardly post Saturday and Sunday.

That being said, youre getting a double dose of reviews today.  See you all next week for Macross Plus: The Movie and the last 3 Classic Reviews I have left

2199 AD.  Earth is nearing it’s last days.  Constantly bombarded by high level attacks from an Alien race known as the Gamilas, the end is inevitable for humanities homeworld.  That is until a mysterious artifact crashes to the planet offering the distant possibility of salvation on the distant world of Iskandar.  With no other options, Earth’s military pours all of it’s resources into the one remaining battleship that can both make the journey and withstand the Gamila’s constant assault, the Space Battleship Yamato.  The journey will be long and friendships will be forged and tested in fire but does salvation or annihilation await Captain Okita and his gallant crew on the world of Iskandar?

Based on the 1970’s Anime of the same title (or known as Star Blazers in the United States) Space Battleship Yamato is a nice nod to the Anime shows of olden days with a modern twist.  And on many levels it works, on others not really as much.

It has to be said right away that the production design on this flick is astounding.  Sure there are a few visual cues and set design choices that more than just mirror the recent remake of Battlestar Galacitca, especially the ships interiors and pilot suits.  But beneath that, the look and feel of the fighters, and the main ship costumes look like they were brought right out of the Anime classic.  This goes especially for the variant colored bridge crew uniform that look Voltron esque (Yamato and the original Go Lion Voltron Anime were around the same time).  Important elements like the Yamato and Captain Okita look definitely like they were given the most attention to detail so they looked as close to their inspirations as possible.  The battles in space are a lot better than some of the on the ground shootouts.  The Gamilia’s look about as good as you could make them but, I don’t know, the settings of Iskandar just look too out of place given how much time we spend on the ship or in structures on Earth that look like amazingly built sets.  In this case, too much green screen wasn’t the best idea.

The cast helps sell the old school feel as well.  The core group is given enough story and screen time to get by with a crew of hundreds around them.  And while they all have their conflicts, some more personal than others, I like that this really got along overall.  There wasn’t a shady saboteur or the douchebag who would endanger the mission for glory.  No the crew of the Yamato knows whats at stake and put aside common tropes like that for the sake of getting the job done…or when the script just needs them to move along.  I loved them all, especially the gung ho commander leader Saito and the cute ace pilot Yuki.  Okita was a definite fav as well not just for his look but for his look on life in the world now and how he regrets doing some things but not everything as it has been all for trying to win his homeworld more time.

I will say that the story moves pretty brisk and sometimes too quickly.  But again that’s kind of the downside of adapting a twenty some odd Anime into a two hour compilation or Live Action feature.  Yamato isn’t the worst when it comes to this but some moments could have been given some more room to breathe. And that ending…it’s hard not to go into too much detail about it without spoiling it.  But man it dragged and dragged and dragged and…seriously in the amount of time it takes things to get going the Aliens should have blasted the planet to kingdom come and back a few times over.  It kills any built up momentum from earlier in favor of some serious drama and easily becomes the weakest part of the entire film.

The ending aside, this film is more enjoyable than I thought it would be, not perfect but definitely passable.  The ending made me groan a bit and I wonder why Aerosmith was chosen to have a song featured…kind of like Lenny Kravitz in Returner or the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the Death Note films…but it’s not a bad nod to the classics that helped make Anime what it is today.  No Yamato means no space fairing odysseys like Macross or Gundam.  And for that I’ll give it that odd arm salute…or just that haphazard one Okita gives the crew towards the end (favorite moment of the film hands down).

7/10