Sunday, January 3, 2010

Star Blazers Now: Space Battleship Yamato Live-Action Film Coming



Step into the way-back machine and join me as my father takes me to the cinema in the late 1970s to see Space Cruiser Yamato, a Japanese anime -- and no one here even knew what anime meant in the 1970s -- featuring a World War II submarine (which appealed to my Greatest Generation father) that was retooled into a spaceship (which appealed to Science Fiction Geek Supreme me) that could go find a way to save planet earth.

The movie amazed me back then. I've since bought the films on DVD and watched them with considerable disappointment. I've had to admit that I was probably under 10 years old at the time I saw Yamato the first time, so my standards weren't exactly world-class. Still, it was so much better than the low-quality limited-animation cartoons we were being fed on TV here in the United States -- and it had a real story that lasted feature-length -- that it was a milestone animated film for me.

Therefore, I was pleased today to learn that there is a live-action film being made of the Yamato story, and it looks quite good. The film is slated for a December 2010 release in Japan, if I'm reading the news correctly. No idea yet when it'll be available in the United States (probably only in very limited release and/or on DVD). For one fan's perspective, Fanboy.com provides a short commentary on the film preview (video above).

If you read Japanese, maybe you can get more info (and tell me about it) from the official web site.

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