SCIENCE FICTION MOVIE REVIEWS:“Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage” (1979)

“Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage” is essentially a “Reunion Movie” that was made after the “Space Battleship Yamato” series had ended. In the US, “Space Battleship Yamato” was (badly) dubbed in to English, and was known as “Star Blazers.” In this bowdlerized form, the show was a huge hit with kids of my generation, who tended to get beat up a lot and were too old for “Battle of the Planets,” and too young for girls. The series ran for two seasons in Japan in the ‘70s.

In the first season, Earth is being xenoformed by the evil alien Gamilons, who simply could not be more Teutonic. Queen Starsha of the planet Iscandar sends a message to earth saying she has the technology to save the planet, but no way to get it to us, so we need to send a ship to her in the lesser magelanic cloud, 186,000 light years away. Since Humans haven’t left our own solar system by the time the show takes place (2199 AD), that’s no mean feat, however she gives info on how to build an interstellar engine.

For no reason that’s ever explained, the Imperial Navy Battleship Yamato (Called “Argo” in the American version), is turned in to a starship, which then has to make it all the way to Iscandar and back (372,000 light years) in just one year, or else Earth can’t be saved. The series is essentially their journey, fighting the evil Gamilons all the way there and back.

The second season, set in 2201, involves a new foe, “The Comet Empire,” which attacks earth for reasons that are never fully made clear. The Yamato (Or Argo if you prefer) heads out to investigate the possibility of a new threat out in space, which no one wants to admit to. Once again they dash to a new world – Telezart, this time out – to get information about the threat. Meanwhile, Leader Deslok of Gamilon has miraculously survived his defeat from the previous season, and is working with the Comet Empire in order to get revenge. Lots of people die, lots of stuff blows up, and unexpectedly, at the last moment Deslok changes sides, giving the Yamato’s crew information they need to destroy the Comet Empire and then heading off in to space saying, “We’ll meet again.” In the next episode, the Comet Empire is defeated in a massive deus ex machine ending, and then, annoyingly, the whole series starts over again in 2199, again and again and again, for about five years in my childhood.

“Space Battleship Yamato: The New Voyage” picks up about a month after the defeat of the Comet Empire. We’re introduced to a few new characters, one of whom is the son of the Chief Engineer who died in the second season, and we’re on hand when several critically injured bridge crew are released from the hospital.

Meanwhile, out in Space, Leader Deslok has re-assembled the surviving Gamilonian forces, with the intent of finding a new homeworld and founding a new empire, “But first we must say a final goodbye to our motherworld.” The fleet heads to their now-uninhabitable world one last time. Meanwhile, the Yamato is on training exercises in the asteroid belt.

At Gamilon, Deslok spies aliens mining something from the surface of the abandoned planet.