Day 143: "Crew of the Yamato, the Earth is ours."

As my Facebook friends are aware, I have been on a bit of a nostalgia kick lately.  One of my favorite shows from when I was a kid was the Japanese import Star Blazers.  A sprawling space epic, Star Blazers was translated to American from the original series Space Battleship Yamato.  For years, I wanted to see it made into a live action series or even a movie, just to see that badass ship fly just once more.  Well, in 2010, it happened.  Space Battleship Yamato was released in Japan, and now onto my list.  The story is really to in depth to cover adequately here, but the gist of it is this: Earth has been bombarded by radioactive "Planet bombs" for several years by the aggressive Gamilas.  The government receives an invitation from planet Iskandar to come and retrieve a device which will rid the Earth of all toxic radiation, making it habitable again.  The government rebuilds the World War 2 Japanese battleship Yamato as a spacecraft, arming it with some of the most destructive weaponry in the galaxy.  The group sets out on its mission, cue story.  The story is not without its fair share of melodrama, and lots of it, but the space battles are everything the sci-fi geek in me could have ever wanted.  I only wished that there was more.  The effects were fantastic, Yamato looked exactly as I would have imagined it would in reality.  The battles were sufficiently epic, with only the sound design being the slight drawback.  Seeing the ship in action, and the Black Tigers squadron dogfighting in space again, it was like being in front of the TV after school again.  The filmmakers got just about everything right, and the stuff that isn't right, they did better. 

Other than the overly dramatic interpersonal relationships, the merely passable acting, and the inexplicable Steven Tyler end credits song (I kid you not, THAT Steven Tyler) I absolutely loved this movie.  This was my Transformers, only a thousand times better.  If you are a fan of Star Blazers, Anime, or even science fiction in general, see this movie, assuming you can find it.  It wasn't easy, but it was SO worth it.  9/10.

See you tomorrow, and GO WATCH A MOVIE!!