A good friend just gave this poster to me and I have to say that just seeing it made my inner child scream for sheer joy! Also fans of Star Blazers should take note: Amy Howard Wilson (the voice of Nova) has announced that at the ICON science fiction convention this year that Eddie Allen (the voice of Leader Desslok), Ken Meseroll (the voice of Derek Wildstar) and Tom Tweedy (the voice of Mark Venture) will be in attendance! The convention takes place March 26-28th in Stoney Brook, New York.

I have to say that I’m slightly disappointed with this trailer. This film was the result of a lawsuit that allowed producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki to make a new Yamato film. And frankly there’s nothing wrong with that, but a key ingredient that’s missing here is Leiji Matsumoto who directed the first film and gave really gave the franchise its soul. When that soul is missing you get the above trailer: A slow moving collection of pretty spaceships sporting a tired CGI look (and frankly that Blue Noah reference at the start is just adding insult to injury):

This shot of the Yamato looks great, but that’s the problem because the ship just sits there on screen. The director forgot the old expression “animation isn’t the movement of art, but the art of movement”:

Again we see the Yamato, but when you’re looking at this what you see is second rate CGI that you might find in a video game:

The uniforms in Star Blazers always looked a bit odd with that arrow pointing down, but this attempt to modernize it just isn’t working for me:

Then we’ve got Susumu Kodai (Wildstar) looking a bit too clean cut. It’s as if by trying to modernize the character design that they drained all of the life out of him:

And of course we’ve got the bad guys who have this massive bad ass, wait a minute! Is this the meanest looking spaceship you could design?

So after you’ve watched the trailer you’ve pretty much seem the entire film. Yes after over 30+ years we get the same exact plot: Earth Defense Force is destroyed, things look bad for Earth and the Yamato saves the day by the end of the film. Instead of calling it a new film you might as well just remake the first one but with CGI. Yes you have to stay true to what the franchise is, but it needs some fresh blood. I wish Nishizaki brought in a new creative team and kept his hands off a bit more. But as a die hard fanboy I’ll keep watching of course, but sadly I don;t think this will introduce a new generation to the show which is badly needed.