The best thing about Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato is its ending. (SPOILERS) It lets nearly the entire cast perish in noble sacrifice, as Battleship Yamato itself is destroyed to save the universe from the powers of evil. It is a serious and powerful conclusion, elevating the sci-fi silliness of the story preceding it. It is also hated by Yamato faithful, so upset were they by this premature end to their favorite series. There was only one thing for producers to do, to sate a Yamato-hungry public…
Retcon!
Ah, retroactive continuity. Such a common practice in serialized media such as comics, and usually done in films only when absolutely necessary. There is respected precedent in subtractive retcons, removing previously-stated deaths, traceable back to at least Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes” stories. At least, this is how Wikipedia sees things. TV Tropes calls it a “Rewrite.” No matter, it is not a reboot; the general tone and universe of the story remains the same. The only change is the removal of that one niggling little detail: Death.
So 1979, one year after we said Farewell, saw the creation of a second Yamato TV series, cleverly titled “Space Battleship Yamato II.” It tells the same basic story as Farewell told – of space opera conflict between Earth’s flagship Yamato and the dread White Comet Empire – using the television format to expand upon ideas from the film. Most notably, though, it alters the ending (in specifics I am not familiar with), granting the Yamato final victory without the need for mass, series-ending death. As such, Yamato was back on track.
The same year took advantage of this sudden rejuvenated series, creating a made-for-TV movie – Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage. Here we see the creation of a new enemy, the Black Nebula Empire. You know, all these warring alien races in Yamato are completely the same, except for their skin color (the true difference, many racists will attest). Guess which color the Black Empire is?
…They’re kinda gray, actually…
And this is the third marauding alien race the Earth has faced (and will genocidally annihilate in self-defense) in as many years. It made sense in the original Space Battleship Yamato, as the Earth was ending a decades-long conflict with one enemy, but now… Aliens are just randomly attacking the Earth on an annual basis, and it’s only in the third act that we learn it’s for their own survival. Seemingly, Earth is the only habitable planet in the universe. (Considering the technology on display in these stories, we’re damned lucky no space aliens attempt yearly conquest in the modern era!)
Had The New Voyage stayed as a TV movie, it would be out of this blog’s scope. But the Yamato series cannot leave things on the tube when the silver screen beckons. Just as Space Battleship Yamato: The Movie was a pared-down reediting of “Space Battleship Yamato,” so was The New Voyage…well, they simply released it into theaters in 1979. There’s Yamatan precedent for this, and the lack of VHS (let alone DVD, Blu-Ray, or the almighty bit torrents) made it a much more sensible move. (I cannot even think of a recent U.S. film to have such non-edited television origins.) So off we go, to consider the third Yamato entry, TV or no, because without it, I highly doubt the following entries would make any sense.
It is now the year 2201 A.D., and the series has conclusively given in to its silliest whims. Produced on a television budget and scale, The New Voyage eliminates damn well all of the serious metaphorical and dramatic notions of its forebears. It’s all just pure space opera sci-fi wackiness. You could just call it Space Battel: The Movie. Yes, I mean “Battel.”
Even with the series miraculously up and running again, it seems director Yoshinobu Nishizaki and his underlings didn’t have a whole hell of a lot of story to tell concerning the great Space Battleship Yamato (of Earth). Rather, The New Voyage takes as its main character the villain from The Movie – Emperor Desler of Gamilus! Oh yeah, despite having died twice already, Big D is back, the “r” having been dropped from his name in the interim. And presumably the televised retconning of Farewell Yamato resolves things a little differently in regards to Desler and Yamato hero Susumu Kodai. Now they’re buddies, that whole dual genocide thing now easily laughed off. And even though Kodai is largely responsible for the near-eradication of Desler’s freaking species, there’s no bad blood between ‘em now. That’s “honor” for ya, baby!
Desler, manning (or “aliening”) a space-convoy of space-spaceships, has one goal now: The discovery of a new planet to call home – presumably, to be accomplished without all that niggling mass murder he once loved so. (Indeed, his persecution of Earth in Part 1 was also done for necessary resettling.) But first, Desler means to visit the ravaged husk of his home planet Gamilus, as you already know from that screen cap up there. It is here at Gamilas that Desler shall encounter the dread ore miners of the Black Empire, ore being forever the sci-fi MacGuffin of choice (eh, that or “spices”).
(I’m jumping around just a tad in the chronology, to give Desler his due.) Anyway, our blonde-haired, green-skinned ubermensch wages vengeful battle against the Black miners. Desler is victorious, because he’s now something of a good guy, and still has his ridiculous, ego-stroking Desler Cannon. Oh, but Gamilus is destroyed. Just like that. Gee, by this franchise, exploding a planet is the easiest thing on Earth to do…Maybe not “on Earth,” exactly, but you know… And Gamilus’ sister planet, Iscandar, is thus launched wildly into the cosmos. Quick, follow that Eden!
It helps, throughout The New Voyage, to maintain a nearly encyclopedic – or wikipedic – knowledge of former entries, the sort of knowledge which only comes from writing about them in depth. It is assumed we just know all about Iscandar – good luck with that one – and with its inhabitants – Mamoru Kodai (Susumu Kodai’s long-lost brother) and his wife Stasha. (The names do change a bit from translation to translation – “Stasha” is the same nymph-like waif (or waif-like nymph) from The Movie. And they’re still stuck on Iscandar as it hurtles, left alone to act out a remarkably “high school” romance together – it’s all sorrowful hugging and mock profundities and ever so much bad poetry.
(With this demand for familiarity comes an almost criminal reuse of footage from former entries. Meant to patch plot explanations, it simply points out the enormous art evolution this series enjoys – Was the animation I watched two days ago really that crappy?! And for a very short – for Yamato – 90 minute movie, nearly 10 minutes of reused footage isn’t terribly welcome.)
Meanwhile, maybe Yamato will show up someplace in this Yamato. Indeed, I’ve skipped over a huge section back on Earth, where Yamato returns triumphant from its latest intergalactic apocalypse. The crew (Kodai and his love Yuki Mori, Dr. Sado, Sanada and Shima, even more guys whose names start with “S”) go about a bland bit of character nonsense, which plays like deleted scenes from Farewell Yamato. That is, we get the same comedy stuff, the same worship at the feet of the Okita memorial, etc.
But…let’s think to the "Star Trek" still to come: “The Next Generation.” Doesn’t The New Voyage sound sorta like that? Oh sure. That’s why Yamato is now beset by a largely new crew (replacing whomever the retcon couldn’t successfully resurrect), a bunch of green cadets to rampage all over the ship, engage in hijinks, and generally kill running time when we’re not with our good pal Desler. There’s really no dramatically compelling tale for Yamato this time, so this is what we’re left with.
Part way through an entirely conflict-free journey, Yamato receives a space-message from Desler. He asks for help in defending Iscandar from the incoming Blackies, who are now intent upon its ore. (The Black Empire is the most generic scad of Yamato villains yet – they’re not even fighting for survival or anything! They’re just assholes.) Kodai opts to aid Desler, not so much out of Desler love, but because his brother’s on Iscandar. (Here’s where it helps to remember Mamoru is Kodai’s bro, since it ain’t ever spelled out.)
My biggest macro-complaint about the Space Battleship Yamato series is that it overindulges in space battles for the sake of space battles. Well, there’s only really one major space battle in The New Voyage – sadly, it takes up the entire second half of the film! Desler starts laying defenses around Iscandar, with his patented “Desler mines.” (It occurs to me he’d be much more efficient if he avoided naming every standard weapon in his disposal after himself.) This holds the Blackies back for some time, allowing Desler to fortify the lower Iscandanavian atmosphere.
Of course, Desler has motives for defending this random planet, beyond mere nationalistic pride: Stasha is upon it. See, Desler too loves Stasha – it seems everyone is in love with some pale, androgynous chickadee, and there aren’t that many to go around…the Kodai family has ‘em all (Stasha and Yuki, that is). So cue fourteen hundred Desler utterances of “Stasha,” always said with a detestable, “high school” longing I don’t think I’m vocally capable of – I speak in a noble monotone. Ugh, this is the “drama” of this entry.
All seems lost for Desler, which is exactly the tonal moment Yamato was waiting for to make its grand entrance – cue the “Yamato March,” a heroic theme I’ve grown very fond of. And good ol’ Yamato makes quick work of the Black bastards, so – Space battle over! Yay! Or…not “over” so much as “ramping up for the 2nd (of 5) stages.” Oy!
Consider, the image below is from the same space battle as the preceding image, and they’re separated by a healthy 20 minutes! Monotony, thy name is this sequence.
The Black Empire mothership now harries Yamato, which is unable to fire off its big, mother-rapingly ginormous blasteroony of an Undulation Cannon. See, miss the mothership and they’ll hit Iscandar. Hit Iscandar, and there’s an outside chance Stasha might be scratched…slightly. Kodai won’t have that (what’s Yuki make of all this?) – Good God, what’s so phenomenal about this one girl that has three separate war machines duking it out over her?! I mean, who ever heard of a wasteful, death-happy war being fought over a single, beautiful wo- Wait, “The Iliad.” Yeah, the Trojan War. Fair enough, the first war in human history (as far as I care) – I guess it’s not all that silly.
To briefly consider the next stages of this space battle – the Blackies soon field their ultimate weapon: the Mechanical Planet Gorga. Yeah.
Throughout this unending battle, messages are relayed back to Mamoru and Stasha. If they’ll simply abandon Iscandar, both Desler and Kodai will cease risking their men’s lives immediately. But stubborn Stasha won’t budge, thank you, ‘cause Iscandar is her home, damn it. Be reasonable, woman, people are dying! (It’s like when you won’t leave your house when the tsunami is coming, out of pure obstinancy.)
But finally, after enough of the SFX budget has been employed, Stasha does agree to evacuate. A truce is even made between our heroes and the Black Empire commander – cease fire. Well, it’s all resolved now, I guess, unless Stasha does something else stupid…
Like pull an Armageddon, like Bruce Willis stupidly dying so that Ben Affleck can live. She sends Mamoru on his lonesome way up to Yamato, as she remains on her planet. But there’s a point to this latest decision. Like any good Japanese, Stasha prefers nonsensical suicide over expedient retreat. As Goddamn Gorga closes in, Stasha primes Iscandar’s self-destruct mechanism (that planet had a self-destruct?!) – this blows her, Gorga, and all of Iscandar all the way to high hell. So…way to defend your planet there, I guess? And couldn’t such a device be triggered remotely? You know, avoiding that whole tricky “I just killed myself” thing?
No matter, the Yamato universe cannot let the death of a wispy blonde dreamgirl be passed over in silence. In her doom, Stasha is promoted to a standard celestial vision, guide to mystics and drug fiends the world over. As a “Star Child” now, Stasha is allowed to impart a final message to her widower lover Mamoru – eh, that, and a whole lot of other, less pertinent gobbledygook.
Mamoru is instructed to open up the Superman-esque capsule he was evacuated with. Inside is a baby! Holy schnikeys, Stasha, way to effectively hide your husband’s own child from him! Mamoru didn’t even know about this! WHOOOOO! The baby girl, Stasha explains, is Sasha – because all Iscandanavian women’s names can only vary from “Starsha” by dropping at most up to two letters. Well then. This is the fullest dramatic expression in The New Voyage, and I must admit it sorely lacks the meaning and importance previous Yamatos have imparted. But it’s a chance for weeping, and sullen looks, and more “high school” emotions – damn, I think this weird, pre-sentient baby thing is where those Twilight movies are headed!
Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage closes out with narration over space, the series’ standard closing. Here we are informed the Black Empire still persists, a huger threat than before. The real purpose of The New Voyage becomes evident: It was a time holder, a full-length trailer for the upcoming, fourth Yamato! All this nuttiness was just setup (which…sort of justifies its relative lameness). With this effort out of the way, perhaps Be Forever Yamato (a 100% theatrical movie) can return Yamato to its loftier perches.
Or just be silly.
Related posts:
• No. 1 Space Battleship Yamato: The Movie (1977)
• No. 2 Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato (1978)
• No. 4 Be Forever Yamato (1980)
• No. 5 Final Yamato (1983)
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