Space Battleship Yamato (2010) Review
Apr. 30th, 2012 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiThe other day a friend showed me the live action remake of Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers). I was pleasantly surprised by the film's overall quality and would definitely recommend it to space opera fans, whether they have an attachment to the original or not.
I am a shade too young to have grown up with the anime, so the story was new to me. Basically, it is a tale of Earth being occupied by aliens and the valiant ship's crew that goes on a daring journey to find a technology that will help. There are no big surprises in terms of plot, character types, themes, etc. But I was quite impressed on two counts:
1) The production values are quite high. The production has been likened to the reboot of BSG, and it really does look similar, though more slick/less gritty.
2) The acting is a couple of cuts above what I generally expect from live action Japanese sci fi/fantasy popcorn movies. It is significantly better than the acting in the live action Death Note films (by and large). There are some weak links, including the leading lady, who--in fairness to her--was not given much to work with. But Takuya Kimura as Kodai showed a great deal of range and even, where his hero script permitted, subtlety.
So let's talk about Kodai, because he is both a great strength and great weakness of this movie.
Kodai suffers from hero script. He is classically rammed down our throats as the wild, rebellious yet honorable, brilliant, audacious, sexy, self-sacrificing, righteously angry yet self-critical, charismatic, flying ace, captain, hero dude. This damages the story (and his character) in two ways. First, he has to do silly things to prove he's heroic (hollering angrily about the bitter injustice on board the ship's bridge, etc.). More pervasively, there must be no character who can challenge him (intellectually, emotionally, personally) lest we think he is not the hero. (A partial exception is the old captain, who is presented as wise but is terminally ill and mostly out of play.) This unfortunately fills the story with bland friendships and blander, though thankfully brief, romance.
On the other hand, the acting, as I've said, is really quite good, and the silliness is overshadowed by decisions that actually make sense (in a sci fi popcorn movie way). And all in all, Kimura kind of carries it off, creating a genuinely charismatic character with some depth who one can care about. It makes me wish they'd gotten a whole series, because Kodai would probably have improved in a serial format that didn't have to devote so much space to establishing heroism. And other characters would likely have gotten much better development.
Of course, the film preserves the original series's historic "Yamato" connotations. There is much national pride and heroism, and I found it quite nice. I remarked to my friend that I might rather like to have world saved the Japanese. And given their advanced place in alternative energy research and the like, that may not be especially far fetched.
I am a shade too young to have grown up with the anime, so the story was new to me. Basically, it is a tale of Earth being occupied by aliens and the valiant ship's crew that goes on a daring journey to find a technology that will help. There are no big surprises in terms of plot, character types, themes, etc. But I was quite impressed on two counts:
1) The production values are quite high. The production has been likened to the reboot of BSG, and it really does look similar, though more slick/less gritty.
2) The acting is a couple of cuts above what I generally expect from live action Japanese sci fi/fantasy popcorn movies. It is significantly better than the acting in the live action Death Note films (by and large). There are some weak links, including the leading lady, who--in fairness to her--was not given much to work with. But Takuya Kimura as Kodai showed a great deal of range and even, where his hero script permitted, subtlety.
So let's talk about Kodai, because he is both a great strength and great weakness of this movie.
Kodai suffers from hero script. He is classically rammed down our throats as the wild, rebellious yet honorable, brilliant, audacious, sexy, self-sacrificing, righteously angry yet self-critical, charismatic, flying ace, captain, hero dude. This damages the story (and his character) in two ways. First, he has to do silly things to prove he's heroic (hollering angrily about the bitter injustice on board the ship's bridge, etc.). More pervasively, there must be no character who can challenge him (intellectually, emotionally, personally) lest we think he is not the hero. (A partial exception is the old captain, who is presented as wise but is terminally ill and mostly out of play.) This unfortunately fills the story with bland friendships and blander, though thankfully brief, romance.
On the other hand, the acting, as I've said, is really quite good, and the silliness is overshadowed by decisions that actually make sense (in a sci fi popcorn movie way). And all in all, Kimura kind of carries it off, creating a genuinely charismatic character with some depth who one can care about. It makes me wish they'd gotten a whole series, because Kodai would probably have improved in a serial format that didn't have to devote so much space to establishing heroism. And other characters would likely have gotten much better development.
Of course, the film preserves the original series's historic "Yamato" connotations. There is much national pride and heroism, and I found it quite nice. I remarked to my friend that I might rather like to have world saved the Japanese. And given their advanced place in alternative energy research and the like, that may not be especially far fetched.
