Customer Reviews

Be Forever Yamato [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I fell in love with this movie the first time I saw it-it's incredible! It takes place in 2202 AD when Earth is invaded by the Dark Star Cluster Empire and plunged into a seemingly hopeless situation. Part of the Yamato crew manages to escape to the Yamato's hiding place in the Asteroid Belt where they join the rest of the crew and the new captain, Admiral Yamanami. The Yamato fights heavily with the evil Emperor Scaldart's fleet on its way to the main planet of the Dark Star Cluster Empire. After a long ordeal the Yamato crew manages to defeat the enemy fleets and destroy the gigantic metal planet that was the base of the enemy, saving Earth again. The battle scenes in this movie are brilliant, I would have to say the best in the series. "Be Forever Yamato" is also has many very emotional scenes interspersed through it, and they add a great deal to the film's powerful effect. "Be Forever Yamato" also contains three "music videos," all of which are beautifully done. The last music video, "Sono Hi Madé," played while the Yamato is heading back to Earth at the end, ranks as my favorite song of all time. Top-notch filmmaking throughout!

This movie picks up where Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage left off. The nemesis in this film is the Black Nebula Empire, and they try to take over the Earth. They have a powerful weapon that can annihilate humanity if they resist a full-scale invasion. They also want to know where the Yamato is. Kodai and the crew of the Yamato learn the ship is at Space Station Icarus, and they commandeer the ship of a high-ranking official in an attempt to reach the station. The Black Nebula Empire catch on to them and attack the group as they attempt to flee. During the attempt, Yuki is shot, and Kodai and the others are forced to leave her behind. The film continues with a number of surprises that are revealed, and these surprises lead up to the climax.

The DVD contains several special features. These include: the original theatrical trailer for Be Forever Yamato, Original Art Galleries (a gallery of line art), scans of the booklet handed out at theaters showing Be Forever Yamato, and the text-only features "The Yamato Story: The Making of Be Forever" and "1980: The Summer of Yamato."

Be Forever Yamato is an interesting film, and doesn't seem to come out of nowhere after Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage. Anyone who considers themselves a fan of Space Battleship Yamato should have this DVD in their collection.

This movie was aired in Japan and proved to be so popular that lines for the theater went around blocks. It was later decided to redo the movie as the Comet Empire saga. Which proved to be a great idea since most of the Star Force cast was killed in this movie including the Yamato getting destroyed. The Comet Empire Saga features footage from this movie and was edited for American viewers to imply certain characters had lived instead of being killed as stated in the movie. So you can buy this movie and The Comet Empire Saga and compare the two.

I wish that they (Voyager entertainment) had done new digitally cleaned up and restored masters in 5.1 sound. The japan release have at least the option of stereo, or dolby 3 channel surround.
Most of the japanese release though also have deleted scenes restored, and new ones added in the t.v. shows. But they are not in english and are region 2. Some of the japan ones of the yamato films are "letterboxed" but not all of them. I have the first one Space Battleship Yamato and it is a cross between Matted widescreen which is really fullscreen stretched to fit the theater screen and Real 35mm widescreen. Matsumoto and crew took animated material from the show and shot it with a widescreen camera, mostly the special effects and things. Final Yamato also was presented in a 75mm widescreen format when shown in theaters and voyager does not own it. They told me they needed the original soundtrack (the japanese dialogue and sound effects) to do a remaster and they don't own them. Too bad Nishizaki could'nt have used his influence to have a remaster done for todays standards of audio and video quality, It could have been just the shot in the arm the fans needed to interest them in his newly proposed t.v. show. But many fans are outraged that Matsumoto and Nishizaki did not reteam, and matsumoto bowed out. And he promised to do his own version of the new yamato "changed to great galaxy" to avoid copyright infringement.