I remember as a child I used to sit down at 5:00 pm every week day and watch Star Blazers. I absolutely loved that series, both the original and the second season where they were up against the Comet Empire. In a way I would love to be able to watch them all over again so many years after watching them, however it just seems to be impossible to find a video store that actually has them on the shelves, and since I really only want to watch them once, I don't want to fork out over $100.00 to purchase the DVDs.
Anyway, the story goes that Earth has been attacked by an alien race that is bombarding the planet with meteors and the Earth is on the brink of extinction. However, at the last moment, they receive a message from a distant planet that contains the schematics for a wave motion device that will allow them to travel to that planet to retrieve a device that will rejuvenate the Earth, so the people of Earth take an abandoned battle ship, the Yamato, turn it into a space ship, and put the wave motion engine into it and set off on a journey to attempt to save the Earth.
This movie is basically a cut down live action version of the cartoon series. Personally I must say that I actually preferred the cartoon series over this movie because, simply, the length of the series enabled me to become so much more attached to the characters. I would rather spend the time sitting down and watch the episodes over a long period of time than to watch this cut down version of the series. Further, a number of things had changed from the original movie, in particular the fact that the Gamelons had become some sort of energy creature that used humanoid shells to move around.
I guess that a lot is lost when one attempts to take a series and truncate it into a movie, in the same what that a book is generally truncated into a movie as well. There is a difference in that a movie is much more restricted than a book, while a book tends not to be anywhere as visual as a movie. At least with a movie you are able to actually see the events rather than attempt to conjure them up in your mind, which is not necessarily a bad thing. In some cases, such as Game of Thrones for instance, I am happy that they are making a television series so I don't have to read the books (at least just yet).
Anyway, there are still a number of memorable things about this movie, such as the captain who I remember as seeming to always be sitting in this box in the bridge from which he never moved, except for when he became sick. However, too much was simply cut out (which is not surprising), and the pretty much killed off most of the major characters by the end of the movie. What the series enabled us to do was to grow attached to the major characters so that when they died there was much more of an impact, however the shortened version simply did not enable us to develop such an attraction. However, as mentioned, since it can be difficult to find the series, this movie is probably the second best thing. However, after watching the movie I simply want to get my hands on the series again.
Anyway, the story goes that Earth has been attacked by an alien race that is bombarding the planet with meteors and the Earth is on the brink of extinction. However, at the last moment, they receive a message from a distant planet that contains the schematics for a wave motion device that will allow them to travel to that planet to retrieve a device that will rejuvenate the Earth, so the people of Earth take an abandoned battle ship, the Yamato, turn it into a space ship, and put the wave motion engine into it and set off on a journey to attempt to save the Earth.
This movie is basically a cut down live action version of the cartoon series. Personally I must say that I actually preferred the cartoon series over this movie because, simply, the length of the series enabled me to become so much more attached to the characters. I would rather spend the time sitting down and watch the episodes over a long period of time than to watch this cut down version of the series. Further, a number of things had changed from the original movie, in particular the fact that the Gamelons had become some sort of energy creature that used humanoid shells to move around.
I guess that a lot is lost when one attempts to take a series and truncate it into a movie, in the same what that a book is generally truncated into a movie as well. There is a difference in that a movie is much more restricted than a book, while a book tends not to be anywhere as visual as a movie. At least with a movie you are able to actually see the events rather than attempt to conjure them up in your mind, which is not necessarily a bad thing. In some cases, such as Game of Thrones for instance, I am happy that they are making a television series so I don't have to read the books (at least just yet).
Anyway, there are still a number of memorable things about this movie, such as the captain who I remember as seeming to always be sitting in this box in the bridge from which he never moved, except for when he became sick. However, too much was simply cut out (which is not surprising), and the pretty much killed off most of the major characters by the end of the movie. What the series enabled us to do was to grow attached to the major characters so that when they died there was much more of an impact, however the shortened version simply did not enable us to develop such an attraction. However, as mentioned, since it can be difficult to find the series, this movie is probably the second best thing. However, after watching the movie I simply want to get my hands on the series again.