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Space Battleship Yamato (1977 film)

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Space Battleship Yamato
Japanese theatrical release poster
Directed by
Screenplay by
Story byYoshinobu Nishizaki
StarringKei Tomiyama
Yoko Asagami
Shusei Nakamura
Music byHiroshi Miyagawa
Production
company
Academy Productions[b]
Distributed byToei Company
Release date
  • August 6, 1977 (1977-08-06)
Running time
135 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese
Budget¥200 million ($745,000)
Box office¥2.1 billion ($23 million)

Space Battleship Yamato: The Movie (宇宙戦艦ヤマト 劇場版, Uchū Senkan Yamato: Gekijōban) is a 1977 Japanese anime film directed by Toshio Masuda and Noboru Ishiguro. The film consists of various television episodes edited from the "Iscandar" arc of the 1974 Space Battleship Yamato television series. It originally had a new ending created for the theatrical release. In English-speaking countries, it was known by the title Space Cruiser.[3]

Plot

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In the distant future, the war between the human race and the aliens known as the Gamilons has destroyed the Earth. Radioactive asteroids have devastated the planet making its atmosphere uninhabitable. In an effort to assist the Earth, Queen Starsha of the planet Iscandar offers the Earth Forces a device that can completely neutralize the radiation.

In order to get this device, the space battleship Yamato is launched from the remains of its World War II ancestor on a 148,000 light-year journey. The crew of the Space Battleship Yamato has only one Earth year to travel to Iscandar and back, or the human race will become extinct.

It originally had a new ending created for the theatrical release in which Starsha had died before the Yamato reaching Iscandar.[3]

Cast

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Character Original English
Jūzō Okita Gorō Naya Marvin Miller
Aruga Kōsaku Unknown
Susumu Kodai Kei Tomiyama Rex Knowles
Shima Daisuke Shūsei Nakamura Paul Shively
Mori Yuki Yōko Asagami Marcy Goldman
Dr. Sado Sakezō Ichirō Nagai Unknown
Tokugawa Hikozaemon
Mamoru Kodai Taichirō Hirokawa
Sanada Shirō Takeshi Aono Jerry Harland
Desler Masatō Ibu Unknown
Tōdō Heikurō
Domel Osamu Kobayashi Dudley Coleman
Starsha Michiko Hirai Marcy Goldman
Katō Saburō Akira Kamiya Unknown
Analyzer Kenichi Ogata
Yabu Sukeharu
Hiss Keisuke Yamashita Jerry Harland
Sugiyama Kazuhiko Unknown
Jirō Nōmura
Schultz Takeshi Ōbayashi
Narration Akira Kimura Marvin Miller

Production

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The film had a production budget of ¥200 million or $745,000 (equivalent to $6,500,000 in 2023), surpassing Isao Takahata's The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun (1968) to become the most expensive anime film up until then. In turn, its production budget record was broken two years later by Hayao Miyazaki's Lupin III film Castle of Cagliostro (1979).[4]

Box office

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The film was a commercial success in Japan, drawing an audience of 2.3 million viewers at the box office,[5] and grossing ¥2.1 billion or $23,000,000 (equivalent to $116,000,000 in 2023).[6]

Reception

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In contemporary reviews, Variety declared the film as "with a few exceptions, strictly Saturday morning tv fare" that "should bore adults silly and, owing to jargon saturated dialog, confuse the six-to-12-year-old audience that might have appreciated it."[7] The review commented on the animation, describing it as "flat, static, often poorly- synched and divided into segments for easy commercial insertion."[7]

The Monthly Film Bulletin stated that despite being "executed with considerable flair for piling disaster on ever more improbable disaster [the film] is mainly of interest as a cartoon that succeeds in capitalising on both Jaws and Star Wars, as well as conjuring memories of both Japanese glory and defeat in the Second War."[8] The review concluded that the film "is so perfunctorily cobbled together and, on the whole, so indifferently animated [...] that expectations are almost immediately dashed."[8]

Notes

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  1. ^ Credited as Animation Director (アニメーションディレクター).
  2. ^ The studio went through numerous name changes, which are listed as follows for the sake of consistency with other articles listing the studio: Academy Productions (April 1973–July 1980); Tokyo Animation (July–August 1980); Office Academy (August–October 1980); Nishizaki Music & Video Corporation (October 1980–April 1983); West Cape Corporation (April 1983–August 1997).

References

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  1. ^ 宇宙戦艦ヤマト 劇場版 [Space Battleship Yamato: The Movie] (motion picture) (in Japanese). Event occurs at 1:53. 監督 - 舛田利雄 [Director - Toshio Masuda]
  2. ^ 宇宙戦艦ヤマト 劇場版 [Space Battleship Yamato: The Movie] (motion picture) (in Japanese). Event occurs at 2:14:44. アニメーションディレクター - 石黒昇 [Animation director - Noboru Ishiguro]
  3. ^ a b "Flying off to Iscandare for the Cosmo DNX! Can we defeat the Gorgons?". StarBlazers.com. Archived from the original on March 19, 2012. Retrieved 2008-09-10.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  4. ^ Isao Taniguchi; Hajime Asō (June 2017). 図解入門業界研究最新ｱﾆﾒ業界の動向とｶﾗｸﾘがよ〜くわかる本 [Introductory Illustrated Industry Research A book that gives a good understanding of the latest trends and karakuri in the animation industry] (in Japanese) (2nd ed.). Japan: 秀和システム (Shuwa System). p. 75. ISBN 978-4-7980-5038-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  5. ^ Clements, Jonathan (2017). Anime: A History. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 167. ISBN 978-1-84457-884-9.
  6. ^ "Live-Action Space Battleship Yamato Film's Cast Listed (Update 3)". Anime News Network. October 22, 2009.
  7. ^ a b Willis 1985, p. 327: "Review is of a 107 minute version viewed in London on December 13, 1977"
  8. ^ a b Pym, John (1978). "Space Cruiser "(Uchusenkan Yamato)"". Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 45, no. 528. London: British Film Institute. pp. 31–32.

Bibliography

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  • Willis, Donald, ed. (1985). Variety's Complete Science Fiction Reviews. Garland Publishing Inc. ISBN 978-0-8240-6263-7.
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