Space Battleship Yamato, known better on this side of the pond in its televised English Dubbed version Starblazers, is seeing a live action adaptation to be released very soon.
This really excites me, and while the effects still look a little rough, they are at very least up to par with Battlestar Galactica’s TV standards, which is fine by me. I’d like to see them polished up a bit.
I am very encouraged to see this, so I hope a copy finds its way to the North American market!
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I am glad to see that so many people are throwing away the “It’s not up to hollywood’s special effects” because I have to say outside of “Tron Legacy” I have not been looking forward to a single SciFi movie from hollywood in years. Look at “Star Trek”, “Transformers”, “War of the Worlds” or any other new SciFi movie, they are ALL special effects orgies that only throw in a cheap plot so that they can justify 90 minutes to 3 hours of the stuff.
Look at the old Star Wars movies and some of the other old time SciFi, they had to hold the audiences’ attention with the story because they had to create all their effects of budgets that todays producers would claim is impossible to use for those movies.
Toho has had decades of experience using minimal budgets to produce enjoyable, rich movies. So just turn off your mind set that if it doesn’t have 60 explosions per second and a new digital effect minute its a cheap meaningless movie. Try actually following the plot on any movie and you might enjoy it more then just following the flashing lights.
I am hoping for a BSG feel too. Already I notice the underground world is not as cheery as in the cartoon. It looks like they are more like living in hell, which would be realistic. I hope they find ways of incorporating some of the music from the cartoon, to me that is what really made the show.
I use to watch Star Blazers at 6 am and at 3 pm everyday. It stuck with me too for a long time. Very happy to see a live action version.
Now, time for the “Battle of the Planets”/”Gatchaman” live action!! And then, well, the list gets pretty long as I have watched a lot of japanime {>..<}
Looks awesome. I wish they’d make a US version. Star Blazers is a big part of my childhood.
Back in ’79, when Channel 5 wasn’t FOX but home to re-runs, and anime, I caught my 1st glimpse of
Star Blazers, and was I impressed.
This was very Star-Wars like, but with a totally different feel….and serious…there were no
Coyotes scheming to capture Roadrunners in this cartoon.
In fact, I thought Star Blazers ripped off the Death Star’s Super Laser w/ the Wave Motion Gun,
but, I later found it it is more likely that Mr. Lucas ripped off the Japanese! Way to go George!
Few (if any) of my friends even knew about it at the time, but I was hooked.
When the 2nd season arrived, it blew me away more so than the 1st.
Gotta love that Comet Empire.
And then I grew up, graduated HS, then College, and started working.
I never forgot Star Blazers, but I lost hope that it would ever capture the imagination quite the same way
it did back in 1979.
As an aside I usually explain my enjoyment of the recent Battlestar Galactica as it was THE closest you
could get to STAR BLAZERS / YAMATO in terms of filmed entertainment. From me, that is a compliment.
Then around the mid ’90’s Disney bought the rights, and it looked like that would change….only for
that project to fall apart. When I read the script, I was elated that it never made it to the theaters.
Now, this past January, when I saw the teaser I nearly had a seizure. The Red Arrow on the white flight
jacket simply made my day. I could not believe that it was finally making its way to the Silver Screen
LIVE ACTION NO LESS!
After this trailer, I was flabbergasted; I could have been knocked over w/ a feather; shocked and awed;
brought to a higher plane of existence.
I simply cannot wait for this to find its way to an American theater….
I wish the cast, crew and studio an entire Battleship of success and ticket sales….may the lines form
around the block! Yamato Hishin!
Somewhere, John is very happy.
As for people saying this doesn’t look up to Hollywood standards: there’s a lot more to a good movie than just digital effects. What asian cinema sometimes lacks in budget it more than makes up for with imagination and creativity (remember: no asian cinema, not Matrix)
Visuals look pretty decent and on par with BSG. I only hope the writing will be half as good. Also, from the few Japanese produced live action sci-fi films I have watched, many times the acting seemed too over-the-top and overly dramatic to the point of cheeziness. I hope this series will be different and have a more subtle and serious tone like BSG.
WOW since when the Host for the original iron chef is an actor….that guy looks just the same. but to be honest I grow up with the serie and it was very good I really for a world release and to be a real homage to the original
Difference in “jap and amer cineme is apparent.” I doubt you’ve watched enough movies from Asia to make a generalized statement like that. Maybe in certain aspects of production values and special effects…but watch a Japanese drama versus an American one and see if there is much different. Actually, watch Infernal Affairs (Hong Kong, yes) compared to The Departed. Asian version far superior.
Anyway, to the matter at hand. Let’s compare this to Star Trek, just to make things easy.
Space Battleship Yamato budget: $24 million
Star Trek budget: ~$150 million
Based on this trailer, I doubt that Star Trek will be 6 times better than Space Battleship Yamato. And I bet it will have a hell of a lot fewer lens flares :P Effects aren’t everything.
Anyway, I can’t wait for an American release!
Here, here! I totally agree. Thanks for writing a proper response to his comment.
This trailer captures all the imagination I saw from the old cartoon as a kid. I’m really looking forward to it.
“this looks great”
compared to what?
I admit some of it looks really good but then I see the other half of it and the difference in jap and amer cineme is apparent.
was not liking this bullets or w/e hitting the targets but some of the scenes look amazing.
It can’t just look great? I have to compare it to something?
Jesus, is ANYTHING in existence ever satisfactory or said right for you?
Guess not Rodney
This looks great. This is Japan’s answer to Star Trek.
NICE!!!