At the end of the 22nd century, planet Earth has been laid to waste by decades of radioactive planet bombs launched by the all-conquering Gamilas. The surviving human population has resorted to elaborate underground cities to survive, but the radiation will soon reach a point beyond which the surface of the Earth cannot protect them. All life on Earth is doomed.
Captain Juzo Okita, one of the Earth Defense Force’s most seasoned leaders, commands a futile action against Gamilas forces which have now gained a solid foothold in Earth’s solar system. The battle quickly turns against the human forces, and with only two ships left of the fleet he led into battle, Okita orders a retreat. The captain of the other ship, Mamoru Kodai, disobeys direct orders and covers Okita’s retreat – at the cost of his own life. Only Okita and his surviving crew escape the slaughter, and the Gamilas presence in the solar system is left unchecked.
Susumu Kodai – Mamoru’s younger brother – ekes out a meager existence on Earth, collecting scrap metal from the radioactive surface for the war effort. Something slams into the ground near Kodai, knocking him unconscious and knocking his protective gear off. When he comes to, Kodai finds a small capsule of unknown origin – and is even more surprised that, without his protective suit intact, he hasn’t died of radiation poisoning.
Once decoded, the capsule turns out to be a message from the distant but peaceful planet Iscandar, with complete instructions for building a new propulsion system which will make the journey, as well as a powerful weapon far beyond anything presently in Earth’s arsenal.
Lodged in the surface of Earth, in an area that was once the floor of the Pacific Ocean, lies the great World War II battleship Yamato, which is secretly being refitted into an advanced, one-of-a-kind starship using Iscandar’s wave motion engine design. In a last-ditch effort to save Earth, Captain Okita assembles an all-volunteer crew to make the journey to Iscandar. The Yamato will either bring back the means to return Earth to her former glory… or it will help humanity survive by relocating the best and brightest to another world before Earth’s fiery end.
screenplay by Shimako Sato
story by Yoshinobu Nishizaki
directed by Takashi Yamazaki
music by Naoki Sato
Cast: Takuya Kimura (Susumu Kodai), Meisa Kuroki (Yuki Mori), Toshirô Yanagiba (Shiro Sanada), Naoto Ogata (Daisuke Shima), Hiroyuki Ikeuchi (Hajime Saito), Tsutomu Yamazaki (Juzo Okita), Shin’ichi Tsutsumi (Mamoru Kodai), Maiko (Aihara), Reiko Takashima (Doctor Sado), Toshiyuki Nishida (Hikozaemon Tokugawa), Toshihiro Yashiba (Yasuo Nanbu), Kazuki Namioka (Saburo Kato), Takumi Saitô (Akira Yamamoto), Takahiro Miura (Furuya), Kensuke Ohwada (Kenjiro Ota), Kana Harada (Sasaki), Saaya Ishikawa (Shima’s Wife), Miyû Sawai (Higashida), Natsuhi Ueno (Tobita), Megumi Shôji (Hoshino), Ryohei Aoki (Jiro Shima), Yôsuke Asari (Ando), Yumiko Fujita (Saito’s Mother), Isao Hashizume (Heikuro Todo), Masatoh Ibu (voice of Desler), Kisuke Iida (Nanba), Marika Matsumoto (Nishina), Keisuke Minami (Kazuhiko Sugiyama), Kenji Motomiya (Space Cavalier), Satoshi Nikaido (Okita’s son), Shunsuke Oe (young Susumu Kodai), Kenichi Ogata (voice of Analyzer), Kôichirô Takami (Akira Nemoto), Takeru Taniyama (young Mamoru Kodai), Miyuki Ueda (voice of Iscandar)
Review: An eagerly-awaited live-action version of the seminal ’70s anime series, Space Battleship Yamato is an interesting exercise in what’s been kept intact from the original anime vs. what’s been changed due to the realities of producing the same story in a live action movie with heavy CGI.
Having spent so much time battling the Comet Empire base at Brumis, the Argo crew risks a warp inside the solar system to reach Saturn in time. Captain Gideon of the Andromeda welcomes the former renegades back to the fleet, and orders Wildstar to take the Argo and several other ships and outflank the Empire’s oncoming fleet of carriers. He also orders Wildstar to make sure that the most direct route of escape for any surviving Empire ships will lead them to Saturn, where the Andromeda and the rest of the Earth fleet will be laying in wait. Sandor and IQ-9 tag along with the advance, discovering the Empire fleet lurking near one of Saturn’s moons. Wildstar orders the rest of Argo’s Cosmo Fighters to launch, and personally pilots a fighter to lead the Black Tigers into battle.written by Keisuke Fujikawa & Eiichi Yamamoto