Live Action Yamato On The Way!

[droosan]

Heads up: the live-action Space Battleship Yamato movie from 2010 finally hits the north american home video market on April 29th .. in a Blu-ray / DVD combo pack from Funimation.

This release is subtitled, only .. primarily because Takuya Kimura (the actor/idol singer who portrayed Kodai) has a specific clause in his contract which states that he can never be dubbed by another actor..! Thus the french, german and italian releases have been 'sub-only' as well.

I bought the japanese DVD back when it was released. The movie is rather well-done, for the most part (and the SFX are incredible) .. but IMO, it lacks the 'epic' scope of the original series.

The biggest 'disappointment' from my perspective was the compromise of depicting the robot Analyzer (aka "IQ-9" in Star Blazers) as a glorified 'iPad app' AI for most of the film -- only to receive a tangible mechanical body for one 'all-too-short' sequence.


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The more-recent animated re-make of the entire first 26-episode TV series -- Space Battleship Yamato 2199 -- does a much better overall job of capturing the essence of the original show .. while still changing bits & pieces and adding to the 'mythos' with new characters, and a surprising amount of focus on the Earth-Gamilon conflict from the aliens' perspective.



There's no word yet on whether SBY 2199 will see a stateside release, yet, unfortunately .. but trust me: it's well-worth seeking-out. Happily, the japanese Blu-rays of the series contain an english-language subtitle track..! I'm not sure how that came about .. but it certainly helped me to justify the cost of importing them from Japan.


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Analyzer is much better-realized in SBY 2199 than in the live-action movie .. but lacks the quirky 'personality' he'd sported in the original show. Instead of a random robot seeking to escape life as a mere appliance and pursue a life of adventure and romance in outer space, he is re-cast as the 'autonomous sub-frame' of the Yamato's central computer system .. with his roles as an assistant to Sanada (Sandor) and Sado (Dr. Sane) largely usurped by two of 2199's new female characters.


I recently re-watched the first two 1970s/80s TV series (The Quest for Iscandar and The Comet Empire), and was inspired to build a CG model of the little guy:

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I'm not sure why, or what I'd ever actually do with him .. but, hey: it was a fun way to spend a week, or so.

[Randall]

I've never seen the original show, but am keen to check out the movie. Patience has won, as I was about to order a European release. Amazon pre-order for the US version is under 10 bucks.

So, I suppose it'll take a few more years for the Gatchaman film to come out here, too, eh?

[droosan]

Probably so.

I'm frankly kinda surprised that it took over three years for Yamato to get here, myself. I'd thought the residual nostalgia for Star Blazers was stronger than that.

Hopefully, the live-action Gatchaman won't be quite as long a wait ..

[eddievalient]

I'm still waiting for an official US release of the Phoenix Wright and Animal Crossing movies. I've watched unofficial subtitled versions, but it would be nice to have them on the shelf with my other movies. The games are decently popular here, so I do wonder what's taking so long.

[GeorgeC]

I've never seen the original show, but am keen to check out the movie. Patience has won, as I was about to order a European release. Amazon pre-order for the US version is under 10 bucks.

So, I suppose it'll take a few more years for the Gatchaman film to come out here, too, eh?

From what I've seen of the live-action Gatchaman ---
it just looks awful! Haven't read a lot of reviews, honest, but the general tone seems to be mixed. Stick to the first TV series if you don't want your childhood memories soiled!


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I've seen the live-action Yamato film for the third time in the last two years.

I picked up the US/Funimation Blu ray release because it was cheap at Best Buy... They're selling it in-store for $15 US. The other store that had it in stock priced it for $25.

And yes, the US Blu ray release DOES have an English audio track... I watched the majority of the film in the original Japanese for reasons I'll go into later.

The CG quality is so-so at points (like most CG is in sci-fi/superhero films in general nowadays) but I am VERY impressed by what they managed to achieve in a sci-fi movie with a budget under $30 million! Outside of maybe Star Trek VI, I don't think there's been a major American sci-fi film made for under $30 million for at least the better part of two decades.

This film has the heart and spirit of what I remember from the animated Yamato/Star Blazers. That's an achievement in-and-of itself. How many film adaptations miss the mark completely and lack the heart of the original TV/comic book sources? That's what I hated about The Amazing Spider-Man... totally lacking in the heart that the original comics had (but which Raimi managed to capture in at least two of his Spidey films).

I can't really judge the acting in Yamato that well since I'm not Japanese and don't understand the nuances in the language anywhere near as well as English. I can say this, though --- IF you're gonna watch Yamato on the Funimation Blu ray release, stick with the original Japanese audio with the English subtitles. I gave up on the English dub because it just didn't fit the live-action footage well at all. Dubbing animation is one thing but I've rarely seen it work well for live-action films. The English voices rarely match up well with the live-action actors. It was just too unpleasant for me to sit through it with the English audio.

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I was under the impression that they might be making a Japanese live-action follow-up/alternate reality sequel to this film.

(There's a precedent for this... The second Yamato was remade as the second season/series of Yamato TV with an alternate ending. Certain events of the live-action film could be ignored for a reboot in the sequel, too.)

This could very well happen because this film was a box-office success in Japan. The Yamato property is very much alive again in Japan now.

The rights to Yamato/Star Blazers have been picked up for a US live-action film. I wouldn't hold my breath on it happening any time soon. Both Macross and Battle Angel have been held in cinema production limbo for well over a decade each, too... The Macross film has been started and restarted multiple times since the mid-1990s. The money must not just be there to do what the producers would like... That's a been a problem with the US/Robotech live-action film for quite a while, too.

[GeorgeC]

It's a bit later, but here's a bit of news related to the real-life Battleship Yamato...


Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, funded an expedition that found the ship after 8 years of searching...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/national/ ... ailsignout

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_b ... ip_Musashi


There's some boasting about the find of this ship as being equivalent to the search for the Titanic, same historical significance, yadda-yadda. I'm not so sure about that, honestly. From what I gather/understand, the Yamato had more significance culturally to the Japanese than either of its sister-ships.

BUT I do agree with Allen about one thing... The generation that remembers events like those surrounding this ship is getting smaller every year and there are TONS of World War II-related shipwrecks which have yet to be discovered.

That list of undiscovered wrecks includes the remaining sister ship of the Yamato-Class => http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_a ... er_Shinano

This is NOT a typo. Shinano was originally built as a battleship but modified into an aircraft carrier during building after it became obvious that carriers were replacing battleships as THE primary capital (surface) ships in naval warfare. Shinano itself never had a proper shakedown cruise so the true capabilities of that ship were never realized.

Shinano was the largest vessel ever sunk by a submarine. It was also the largest aircraft carrier built until the USS Forrestal (CV-59) was commissioned in the 1950s.