Patterico's Pontifications

12/3/2010

Space Battleship Yamato

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 5:48 am



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Okay, this will really earn me my nerd card, but do you any of you remember an animated show around the late 70’s called Star Blazers? The plot was that Earth was under constant attack by aliens, but the humans take a Battleship, called the Yamato, and turn it into a space ship, and fly to a planet that promises to hold the hope for Earth’s salvation.  It was different and kind of mature for a kid’s cartoon, with an Ender’s Game vibe to parts of it, and a dab of Japanese nationalism on top given that the ship was asserted to be a Japanese battleship sunk during World War II.  In Japan it was called Space Battleship Yamato, but when they brought it to America they presumably wanted to play down the nationalism and perhaps make it less obvious that this was a Japanese cartoon, hence the name Star Blazers.

Well, in Japan, they have turned it into a live action movie that looks like it has some real potential.  For people of a certain age, there is a cool nostalgia factor there, similar to when the Transformers movie came out. You can read some about it and watch a few minutes of footage, here.  Or watch an English subtitled (with a Steve Tyler song!) trailer, here.  IGN sees a strong influence from the most recent Star Trek.  I see an awful lot of the recent BattleStar Galactica, especially in the fighter sequences.  Which is encouraging because BSG provides a good template for how to update this film: take the original and make it grow up.  If only they did that with the Transformers.

And here is a pretty cool looking poster, featuring the ship before they fixed it and turned it into a space ship.  Yes, I know that would almost certainly be impossible, but it is still kind of cool.

No word on when it is coming to the U.S. although the fact it has an English website suggests that they recognize that some Americans still fondly remember the series and it will get here sooner or later if only to cash in.

Update: For the commenters with fond memories of the show, I will point out that the original movie is in Netflix, and last I checked you could stream it into your computer, or into your TV using a Wii, Xbox 360 of Playstation 3.  I think it was under Star Blazers.

Update (II): I have been informed that I was mispelling “Yamato.”  Which means I have been officially out-nerded (which is hard to do).

Update (III): In the comments Captain Ned informs us that there really was a Yamato, and, um, it doesn’t look very spaceworthy.  Thanks alot for ruining my suspension of disbelief!

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

41 Responses to “Space Battleship Yamato”

  1. Are you kidding?!?! I ran home as fast as I could when I was in elementary school (when they allowed kids to walk home by themselves…ahhh the good ol’ days!) to watch every episode. You betcha!

    I can’t remember, but I don’t think the Yamoto was a WWII ship, but a ship they built with a superweapon to fight the Comet Empire : the Wave Motion Gun. You remember that? I cheered everytime they fired it!

    EC (ac8463)

  2. Sorry. Doesn’t like a Team America moment. They might have made it work if they really played up the kitschiness. But drama? I don’t think so.

    I think Star Wars only really made it because it was a “western” melodrama with lasers.

    Gesundheit (cfa313)

  3. Star Blazers web site a bit thin on news.

    Gerald A (aca5e4)

  4. that looks very cool I thought the live action Blood: The Last Vampire was really disappointing

    happyfeet (42fd61)

  5. Yea! The science was horrid, even by Hollywood physics standards, but it was a great tale.

    htom (412a17)

  6. Too old for Transformers, but couldn’t even get through the first 30 minutes of the initial movie – Michael Bay’s pretty awful when it comes to any coherent narrative (but it blew up real good!). But then again, grew up with Speed Racer, and that movie was even worse – turned that atrocity off after the first 20 minutes. I think when the Warchowski brother transgendered himself/itself they lost the remaining talent they possessed.

    Dmac (498ece)

  7. Much more likely is turning a submarine into a spaceship. Travis Taylor did that in his SF book “Vorpal Blade.”

    Mark L (4ddf0a)

  8. Remember it? Hell, yeah. Like EC, I ran off of the bus every day to turn it on. Inevitably, I missed the first ten minutes, which was my daily torture all throughout my childhood. Explains alot, really.

    The trailer actually gave me goosebumps. Pretty good, considering I didn’t understand a word of it.

    JohnW (9c3152)

  9. I can’t remember, but I don’t think the Yamoto was a WWII ship, but a ship they built with a superweapon to fight the Comet Empire : the Wave Motion Gun. You remember that? I cheered everytime they fired it!

    Actually, it was the WWII ship that was refurbished and launched as a spaceship to fight the Gamilons and get to the planet Iskandar to retrieve the “Cosmo DNA” radiation-removing device. This was the original series.

    The Comet Empire fight was the second series, taking place after Earth was made habitable once again, and a sizable defense fleet (using Iskandaran wave motion technology) was established.

    Hube (ab9845)

  10. Aw

    Nothing could be cooler than a live action Johny Quest….

    EricPWJohnson (719277)

  11. Yamato is the usual English spelling.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  12. Off topic, but Team Barcky’s mad economic skills just pushed unemployment to 9.8%. They suck. And in response, theDems are holding meaningless votes for political posturing to raise taxes on everyone earning more than 250,000 bucks a year. Kicking the successful, and the job creatively the teeth is a sure way to fix the economy.

    JD (295544)

  13. If the tax rates are not extended quickly, we’ll see a huge dive in the stock market as traders take profits off stocks before the capital gains rate rises.

    Probably starting next week.

    The Democrats are really the stupid bunch of clowns this country has seen in power since the time the Democrats started a Civil War.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  14. SPQR

    thanks. fixed. Although that means officially you are a bigger nerd than i am.

    Heh.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  15. We have a Yamato in South Florida but it’s not naval-related:

    The original building, named the Yamato-kan, is modeled to suggest a Japanese villa. It features a ring of exhibition rooms embracing an open-air courtyard with a dry garden of gravel, pebbles and small boulders. The Yamato-kan offers a permanent exhibit chronicling the history of the Yamato Colony, a Japanese farming community in South Florida 100 years ago.

    If you’re ever in the area (specifically southern Palm Beach County), it’s one of the nicer places to visit–not touristy, and magnificent Japanese gardens. There’s also a Yamato Road in the immediate vicinity.

    kishnevi (07cf78)

  16. I watched Star Blazers from my dorm room bed on saturday mornings, nursing a hangover. Great memories!

    I’ll watch this when it comes over.

    Virtual Insanity (d93c26)

  17. virtual

    will you be hung over when you watch the new version? 🙂

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  18. Aaron, its probably a tie.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  19. Refurbishing the IJN Yamato would be a bit difficult given its current condition.

    Link

    Captain Ned (20199e)

  20. Ah, a little welding will touch ‘er right up.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  21. Why not turn the largest battleship into a space ship. Surely, those 18″ guns could fire some really cool high tech something or other.

    Mark L is right. John Ringo and Doc Taylor turned the SSN Nebraska (i think) into the ASS Vorpal Blade. John Ringo did it as well in the book “Eye of the Storm” to the USS Salem and Daisy.

    Bill Cook (782c04)

  22. Remember it? I’ve got the DVD set. The Series 1 set at least.

    Miguelito (f443a7)

  23. I used to have a giant crush on Princess Trelaina.

    Did I just say that out loud?

    Blue Ox (ff919a)

  24. I know the scene you refer to, Aaron, but that Trek revamp is dead to me, now as a long time sci fi buff, I’m definitely there if they release it down
    here, it was run early in the morning, in my neck of
    the words in Jersey

    narciso (9d0688)

  25. Kishnevi: Yamato was an ancient province of Japan for which the battleship (and probably the Florida colony) was named. The French Navy had ships such as Provence and Bretagne that were named for pre-Revolution provinces.

    I definitely remember the show. At the time I was active in a group that did WW II naval wargames, and Yamato was a famous WW II ship, of course. The idea of the wreck being salvaged and refitted as a spaceship was so silly that we all heard about it – though I don’t think any of us actually watched it.

    Rich Rostrom (f7aeae)

  26. Aaron, if you’re REALLY into this, check out http://www.hlj.com/product/LBT014 . It’s a model kit of the Space Battleship Yamato that’s only ¥133,200 (that’s $1594) but hey, it’s a full meter long. (Disclaimer: I have no relationship with Hobbylink Japan, but they do have good service.) And no, I don’t have one of these kits. cheers

    dhmosquito (534096)

  27. And you’re right that BSG seems to an influence, also it looks a little like “Space above and Beyond”
    another series that Fox’s scheduling execs put the
    ‘death panels’ too

    narciso (9d0688)

  28. The French Navy had ships such as Provence and Bretagne that were named for pre-Revolution provinces.

    Whereas in the 20th century they gave those names to passenger ships–most famously, of course, being Normandie. Progress or decadence?

    And of course the tradition is not unknown here in the USA–witness the Missouri and other battleships.

    Meanwhile, if Aaron or anyone else wants to get their nerd on….

    kishnevi (abdc6c)

  29. The last battleship, obsolete when built. Ineffective and unsurprisingly sunk by carrier aircraft.

    And terrible SF.

    Kevin M (298030)

  30. totally watched that during gradeschool afternoon TV zoning in the halycon days of the late 70’s. Derek wildstar, Captain Avatar. the Gamilon empire, right? The ship was called the Argo?

    star Blazers
    Speed Racer
    Underdog
    ultra-Man
    shazam
    hr pufnstuf
    danger island
    banana splits

    I still made time to be outside doing juvenile delinquent stuff too tho: bmx riding, dirtclod fights, lighting army men and GI Joes on fire, building skateboard ramps, blowing up crawdads with firecrackers.

    Pretty basic stuff for kids in my neighborhood before trial lawyers and political correctness ruined childhood for everybody.

    Ah, yoot.

    mike d (83078c)

  31. @30:

    Actually, the last BB to slide down the ways was HMS Vanguard, launched in November 1944 and commissioned in August 1946. She paid off in 1955 and was scrapped in 1960.

    Link

    Captain Ned (20199e)

  32. Your ASS Vorpal Blade is very late to the submarine into space ship game. See “In Our Hands, the Stars” by Harry Harrison in the Dec 1969 issue of Analog magazine.

    Sigh, youngsters are always reinventing the wheel.

    Machinist (74634b)

  33. Captain Ned at #32,
    It is ironic that both the last British and the last American Battleships recycled old leftover WW1 era guns. Turrets and all in the British case, Guns in the case of the American Iowa class 16″ 50 caliber.

    Machinist (74634b)

  34. It is ironic that both the last Jedi and Cylon cafeterias recycled old leftover Spicey Battlesip Clamato cans.

    BTW, if you GIS “ASS Vorpal Blade” you’ll find the first word seems to skew the results.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  35. I had to do just that to see when it was but I knew to focus only on the full name. Also, Safe Search is your friend. I am too out of touch with pop culture and have been caught off guard a time or two. You people are sick puppies!

    Machinist (74634b)

  36. I did not do an image search. THAT would have been spitting into the wind for sure.

    Machinist (74634b)

  37. @35

    Yes, the Iowas were designed to use the 16″/50 of the never-built BB49 South Dakotas / CC1 Lexingtons. However, the designs drawn up by the Bureau of Ordnance (responsible for the guns) used a larger barbette size than that used by the Bureau of Construction and Repair (responsible for the overall design).

    It wasn’t until November 1938 that the Navy found out that the two bureaux were working at cross-purposes. By that time, the smaller barbette was so cooked into the overall design that the only way out was to design a new 16″/50 and in a hurry. This was done, and the 16″/50 Mark 7 fitted to the Iowas was a far superior naval rifle than the 16″/50 Marks 2&3 that were planned for the BB49 / CC1 classes. Neither of those marks were designed for the “super-heavy” 2700 lb AP shell, while the Mark 7 was.

    Link

    Captain Ned (20199e)

  38. Excellent. Thank you.

    Machinist (74634b)

  39. It was the biggest battleship ever constructed and it was ww2. Whole movies and animais have been devoted to it or include it. If you saw star blazers they actually tell you a bit about the actual history of it even though they call it the argo. Can’t wait for video with English subs to be released? any idea when?

    robert winninger (f25776)


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