Listen up, Nerd Nation: Space Battleship Yamato was designed specifically and precisely for you. It is absolutely, positively, 100% nerd bait: filled with stuff that’ll push your buttons.
Naturally, I loved it.
First, it’s from Toho Studios. As every nerd worth his GPA knows, that’s the home of Godzilla and The Seven Samurai, Steamboy and Ikiru. Second, it owes its production design to the ‘Battlestar Galactica’ reboot, which was the nerd television event of the last decade. Third, and most importantly, it rips off Star Wars with more style than Lucas did. This movie has it all: hotshot fighter pilots who must learn the meaning of responsibility, inscrutable aliens out to destroy the planet, and even a beautiful but straight-laced love interest who’s just one kiss away from melting into a soft-focus fantasy woman.
Space Battleship Yamato delivers all of this on a good-enough production budget. It showcases performers such as The Hidden Blade’s Reiko Takashima, Sukiyaki Western Django’s Toshiyuki Nishida, and 2046’s Takuya Kimura. And it does it all in a tone that makes it of a piece with any good space adventure movie you can recall. It’s light, it’s fun, and it knows exactly what it’s about. It’s nerd bait, sure, but consider me hooked.
5 comments:
the original space battleship yamato anime was out about 3 years before star wars.
Interesting. Do you happen to know if it was any good?
I watched the original Yamato anime (it is available from Netflix) and it's just okay.
Where did you find this? My wife liked BSG and I'm intrigued - it's not showing up on Netflix at all.
Sorry, Dave. It was the in-flight movie on a trip from Tokyo to New York. I don't know where you'd find it here.
You can buy it on Amazon if you don't mind the $20 investment.
Post a Comment