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Looks cool to me and I've never seen the Anime.

Interesting, and I had a new series "Battlestar Galactica" feel from some of the battle scenes.  I do hope that they preserve the flavor of the original anime; at least the trailer appears that they are keeping the characters the same.

I was a huge fan of the Anime, which aired in the U.S. under the title "Starblazers."  I can't WAIT to see this!  This . . . is . . . so . . .  COOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The world needs more Sci Fi U-boats.  I'm glad this movie is taking up the cause.

I wouldn't get your hopes up.  At least, not too high.  My previous experience tells me Japanese directors have mostly forgotten how to make entertaining and fast-paced genre films like this.  Some of you may have seen the director of this one's earlier effort, the decidedly mediocre Returner.  Trailer looks OK though, and I actually think is one of the more interesting anime-to-live action projects I've seen. 

You know I actually didn't mind the Returner, but that's just me I suppose.  The Japanese seem to have a knack for making movies like this that seem A-grade, but are structured very B-grade, which I appreciate, I suppose a B+ grade.  Effects of an A-grade, but with this odd visual style that makes it seem cheaper than it is.

Anyways, it looks like fun!

I'll see the live action version, if only because I have such fond memories of the anime series, which I saw on TV. But, I must admit, the trailer leaves me cold. No it leaves me frozen. I just hope the villains in the live action are as memorable, in a good way, that they were in the anime series. Some great villains. (IMHO) Some of the best I've ever seen on TV.

Looks like crazy fun to me - though I'm pretty good at setting myself up for disappointment  :bouncegiggle:  I'll have to check it out when it's available.

Desslok!  He was charismatic, evil, but had a strange sense of honor that came into play at times.  It was also fun seeing his inner circle of officers slowly whittled by the failures to stop the Argo. 

The main bad guy from the Comet Empire (Prince Zordar) on the other hand, the hair on his forehead has always freaked me out.  Not only does he have a unibrow, but there is also a vertical line of hair from his hairline to the unibrow.   And the unibrow again connects to his head hair at each temple!

So, will this ever be legally available to us poor gaijin in america?

Finally saw this, and it was pretty cool. Much of the style, story, score, etc. stayed surprisingly true to the anime. Gamilas and Iskandar were changed the most, becoming more alien, while the viewpoint stayed entirely on the Yamato and its crew. Events were condensed and rearranged to fit the whole story into a movie, but that worked well. There were some changes to the story that I think were made for dramatic reasons, adding some extra emotional baggage for Kodai (Wildstar), and making the Yamato's mission seem like more of a gamble or possibly a fraud intended to give people hope. We aren't shown what exactly is in the message from Iskandar, aside from engine schematics.

[SPOILER]
The ending is also somewhat reminiscent of Arrivederci Yamato, and probably rules out the possibility of a sequel. Unless they do the Godzilla thing and pretend certain events didn't happen. It is a Toho film, after all.
[/SPOILER]

Overall, a fast-paced, fun movie that I think fans of the anime will really enjoy. I couldn't take my eyes off it. As I understand it, they used some of the original voice talent from the anime for Desla, Stasha and Analyzer (IQ9), but that probably won't mean anything to fans of the English dub. Analyzer is probably the coolest surprise. Throughout most of the movie, he appears to be just a talking PDA that Kodai carries on his belt, but during the climactic shootout, we see that he has a robotic body resembling his anime appearance with a difference. Imagine IQ9 crossed with ED 209.

Visually stunning. All CGI, but it looks good, and it's well integrated. Since the Japanese aren't afraid to give a live-action film a bit of a cartoony feel, it works. I thought stylistically it felt similar to later Godzilla movies, such as Final Wars.

And they managed to condense events in a way that stacked coolness upon coolness - such as combining the emergency launch of the Yamato, the Ultra Menace Missile and the first test of the Wave Motion Gun into one kick-ass scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rp8DMmWUY8

I KNEW this was going to happen!  I used to watch this under its STAR BLAZERS moniker.  I found it interesting how skinny everyone was (except the doctor, and Capt. Avatar).  No doubt Robotech will someday be turned into a live-action film someday.

The more I see of this as it develops, the more I want to see the movie!!!

Like most of you who lived thru the 70's and the first Star Blazers' American TV run, I found myself captivated by it too. It was so different than the usual morning stuff, in that it had continuity and an ongoing story to boot. That alone made most of us sit up and take notice.

Among my fave episodes, is the one where the Gamalons had a huge "wave reflex" gun that shot a laser beam that bounced off ofseveral aligned mirrors to hit the Yamato.
If I remember right, the Yamato shot the Wave Motion Gun at the mirrors in a reverse calculation and it hit the base and destroyed the Reflex gun.

I like that the Japanese film industry doesn't seem to do as much second-guessing and messing around when they adapt something like this. They set out to make a live-action Space Battleship Yamato, and that's what it is. A few changes, but nothing too drastic or unjustifiable, a few bits and pieces borrowed from later Yamato stories, but they worked. Overall, the audience was promised live-action Yamato, and that's what they got.

An American company doing the same thing would decide that in spite of it being good enough to cash in on the name, the original wouldn't fly with today's audiences, then they'd redo the whole thing to conform to whatever they consider hot at the moment.

Oh my god!  That scene of firing the Wave Motion Gun and the Yamato launching was incredible!  My eyes actually teared up when I watched this.  The original music, the look of the characters and the ship itself, it is fantastic.  I sooooo have to see this.

I grew up when Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets were the big cartoons on TV.  The phrase, 'hurry Star Blazers, you have only xxx days to save the Earth!' is burned into my brain.  To have a live action film like this, which appears true to the anime, is going to give me conniptions.