First, the history. Before Star Wars, before Japanese SF animation as we know it, there was Space Battleship Yamato. A 26 episode series that aired in 1974, a year George Lucas has said he was in Japan watching a lot of TV, it was initially somewhat of a failure. A two and a half hour compilation movie was released the same week Japan got Star Wars, though, and beat it at the box office. Three TV series (brought to the US as Star Blazers) and five movies later, the franchise died a natural death in the early 80's.

The year is 2199. For five years, an alien race has been launching meteors at the Earth, covering it with radiation. Humans have been forced to move further and further underground, the surface now a cratered wasteland. Earth will be uninhabitable within a year. Out by Mars, the last Earth fleet is getting its butt kicked, only one ship making it home. Just as all is lost, a strange probe lands on Earth. It contains the plans for a remarkable "wave motion" engine and weapon... and a series of warp coordinates. Fitting the engine into the rebuilt hull of the World War Two battleship Yamato, the single ship and it's small fighter squad fly off to same humanity.

I will let that last sentence sink in. Yes. A WWII battleship is flying in space. If you can't just go with that, this movie will never please you. It is a "Star Wars" fantasy, before that existed. Ships "fall" when hit, there's fire and smoke in space. This version does, though, avoid having anyone stand on deck with their hair blowing in the wind.

The new movie, the first live action attempt at the story, focuses on Susumu Kodai, a former ace fighter pilot and current metal scrap collector. When his older brother dies at the Mars battle, he confronts Captain Okita, of the surviving ship, as to why his brother was used as a shield. "Sometimes," Okita tells him, "someone has to make it back." When the Yamato mission is announced, Kodai joins the crew.

There are so many ways to approach this film. I will start with the basics that many here will appreciate: this 131 minute film had a budget of US $24 million. With that in mind, it is incredible. It tells an epic tale that holds together, focusing on a few core characters. However... that budget also brings up one of the movie's biggest flaws. It feels small. The original, theatrical and TV versions, were sprawling epics. Space dogfights with dozens of fighters: the movie Yamato has six. Ground combat with a hundred marines: the movie Yamato has six on board. Japan has turned to animation for most of its SF for the simple reason their market can't support the large productions the US can, and that rears its ugly head here. We never get the sense that there is anyone on the damned ship. Oh, they try and trick us. Sets are small, so three background characters give the mess hall a sense of being full. But the real Yamato had a crew of 2,500. The movie seems to have a crew of 60. Showing a thousand charging aliens doesn't make up for this, and in fact only makes the combat less satisfying.

Adaptation wise, they do a good job bringing the story to a new century. Certain characters are turned female, although keeping the same personality (a drunk doc is a drunk doc). Yuki, the only female on the original show, is now a fighter pilot instead of a nurse, but her relationship with Kodai works well. I wish they had done something else with the aliens, as they are a bit too much Starship Troopery (one scene shows the influence of Trey's work in that film), but blue skinned humans were probably never something modern viewers were going to accept. The plot starts out as the original did, but by the third act we have naturally (and I stress that it does feel like a natural progression) moved into the territory of the second film. Re-watching that last night, I was shocked at how many scenes in the new one directly mirrored it, dialog and all. Characters get their moments... although, again, a few hundred more "red shirts" would have helped greatly. (I did get a good laugh when a newcomer said they were assigned to the "third bridge". That thing blew up once an episode, so you knew his fate!)

No spoilers, but it ends the way a Yamato movie should end. To not go there would be too... Hollywood.

"Space Battleship Yamato" has, as of yet, not been released in the US. I recommend searching it out.