Space Battleship

This latest production of Reiji Matsumoto's classic series deserves high ratings for its production value especially considering its low budget of 12 million USD, which is less than a fifth of average Hollywood motion pictures.

In the year 2199 earth is under attack by planet Gamiras and is hopelessly contaminated by radiation. One day they receive a transmission from planet Iskandar with a plan for warp engine and a wave cannon. In their last hope, people of Japan uses this information to transform battleship Yamato - a world war II relic that is now exposed out of a dried up sea bed into a spaceship. They set out to Iskandar which exists in the great Magellan nebula in hopes of finding an answer to earth's problem.

I see touch of Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica in the overall looks and feel of the props, ships and the battle sequences, but it's certainly the very best special effects science fiction I've ever seen to come out of Japan. I'd say that Japanese sci-fi have finally come of age in this movie.

The final sequence of this movie is very Japanese in my opinion, and might be over melodramatic for the international audience, but the movie was made for the Japanese viewers, so I don't have any problems there.

Takuya Kimura has a habit of stretching out the ending of a word when calling out orders, and speaking dramatically which sounded odd at times, and the dead pan acting of Meisa Kuroki could have been more charming, but overall things were believable and didn't mess up the story.

Beautifully done movie with real feeling of being out there in space, with unbelievable special effects considering its budget. This is certainly the best sci-fi movie to come out of Japan, and is Toho's new masterpiece.

I have to say that i think one of the best things to take away from this movie also seems to be one of the things which nobody considers.

I'm not familiar with the original series or comic so i can not attest to its being good or bad in that sense. What i am familiar with is the historical significance of the battleship Yamato and the symbolism and slight role it played in WWII for the Japanese People. Japan had one of the most powerful navies (and arguably the most powerful)in the world at the beginning of hostilities in the Pacific theatre of WWII. By the 6th of April 1945 when the Yamato left port for the last time, the Japanese navy had been ravaged, they had lost most of their carriers and cruisers with only about 10% of its original naval forces remaining. The Yamato and a few escorts were to attempt to attack the now Allied occupied Okinawa in a near-futile attempt to deal a blow to the US fleet. She was destroyed en-route to the battle by relentless air attack by the US and never got to use her 9 46cm batteries, the largest in existence at the time. This story is about hope, honour, and the tenacity of the Japanese people as a whole. Of course it was corny, they raised the hulk of the ship out of the ground! And besides bearing a resemblance in spirit its clearly not the actual ship, its about 5 times as large. The acting was perfectly appropriate for the type of story this was and despite a few drawn out scenes i was still very entertained. Sure, some of the CGI at the end was, to quote another review, "dodgy", but for the most part actually pretty good. But, thats not what this movie is about.

Its about the symbolism of a desperate mission which only a Japanese navy would have taken, its about remembering history, and its about transferring it to a modern setting of hope prevailing in a time of despair. Enjoy the CGI, enjoy the space battles, don't worry about the inconsistencies with weapons and apparent inept "Gamillas" forces towards the end (maybe new recruits?),and instead enjoy the heroes and unmistakable, "fight to the last man" mentality and Japanese spirit which comes through in every scene.

While I'll grant you similarity in the setting of a space cruiser named after a famed WWII ship in space (USS Enterprise was a famous WWII air craft carrier, senkan Yamato was a famous WWII battleship), beyond that, nothing about Yamato has anything to do with Star Trek other than Matsumoto Reiji may have been inspired by it.

That said, no further invocation of American media landmarks is necessary in discussing this title.

The film was entertaining. I didn't look at the clock until the end. At times, the film was a bit melodramatic but all-in-all the movie was good.

The special effects were very good. I've heard it said this was a low budget film. I can accept that assessment. But the story telling was decent and conveyed the starry-eyed intensity of the comic nicely!

There were some downs but the only one I'd bother with was the romance between the main character and the ace pilot. It hit me like a pizza delivery scooter from outside my peripheral vision. Never saw it coming and didn't quite understand it.

In the end, I enjoyed it and I'd recommend people familiar with the comic/anime series check it out.

12 Million Dollars to produce Yamato? Money well spent, I'd say!

Even though it takes place in limited spaces what is there, looks good. Imagine making Yamato with a Transformers budget. That would give time to bring to life the lengthy battles from the original series. Especially the scene, fighting the subspacemarine would be interesting to see in a sequel.

What I liked about the movie is that it has characters. Somewhat cheesy and over-dramatizing characters at times, but that's Anime for you. There are some actual hero's voyages here involving more than cutting a distance between point a and b. There is the personal story of every character that makes this movie connect on more than an action level, in its best moments.

In its worst moments there are a lot of things I don't understand. Enemies there and then gone. A lot of stuff involving "why didn't they do it" scenarios on either the human or alien side. Plot vagueness might be a good way to call them without giving anything away.

The overall picture is recommendable to any Sci-Fi fan. It feels like they crammed a lot into it and don't always succeed with it. As has been said, the ending is kind of a drag, but it's alright. If I were to chose between this and Transformers, Yamato would make the race due to better story development, more interesting characters and a higher entertainment factor. I guess the Japanese acting is a bit stiff at times, but there is this sense of serenity about it, which makes it yet believable and enjoyable to the end.

In all honesty, I cannot say a lot of good things about this movie. It seems to be a mashup of a few Sci Fi films from the past decade or so, directed in the style of Michael Bay.

Seriously I was half expecting to see Bruce Willis reprise his role or Kodai's last line to be "We Win, Gracie"

It was as if they had planned to do a great movie, Saw the stunning success of Star Treks' reboot and thought "yeah the Yamato franchise is tired as hell,. let's kick it in the guts and see what reworking we can do"

The best analogy is ST but Kirk being replaced by Kirk's Dad and the USS Kelvin at the end and thats it.

there were some original bits but more likely as not cribbed from a few hits. I don't mind reverse stealing of film ideas tho..

It's the execution I found so annoying with this film.Wanting. The acting was on a level best found with year nine drama students, the dialogue was overly melodramatic at best and while the CG was great its attempt at Galactica Style character discovery and analysis fell down horrifically flat. Seeming forced and contrived.

The worst part is I KNOW it could have been a paradigm better than what it was. Ought to have gotten Ron Moore to rework the script and storyline. They did take some JJ Abrams directly in as much using Real ship settings for some parts like the hangar decks. It may even be salvageable, if re edited. At around 120 minutes it was Overlong without being special because of its length. It could be made that bit punchier if sped up, and hopefully a better film. BSG had loads of talking and not a lot of Battle CG and it was widely regarded as one of the best TV shows of the decade,.. not just a good sci fi show but a great regular show in and of itself.

The SBY reboot i think needs a reboot