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News about Star Blazers / Yamato |
Plans to produce the feature film, Great Yamato, are under way for a release in 2002. The details of this film are still murky. Some sources say that the storyline for this film takes place in the year 3199 (not 2199) and is to be a re-telling of the orignial journey to Iscandar. Others speak of the characters as being descendents of those in the original TV series. How this fits together is a bit unclear.
Matsumoto apparently plans to bring Captain Harlock back into the story (as in the original comic strip). The Yamato itself has already been seen in cameo appearances in the Queen Emaraldas video series as well as the recent Galaxy Express film.
More details on this film can be seen by clicking here.
Plans to produce the feature film, Yamato Rebirth, have apparently been shelved to make way for the upcoming release of Great Yamato in 2002.
The rough storyline for Yamato: Rebirth was as follows (or so rumour has it):
Several years after the events in Final Yamato, a moving black hole approaches the Earth. The Earth Defense Force decides to recover the Yamato from the iceberg in space left by Aquarius.
They prepare a fleet to migrate from Earth to another planet. But, a new enemy is discovered, and Earth must call once again on the Yamato for its defense.
Susumu Kodai (Derek Wildstar) will be the captain of the new Yamato. Kodai, Sanada (Sandor), and Dr. Sado (Sane) are expected to be in this new movie, but I've heard nothing about anyone else, except that Kodai and Yuki's (Nova's) daughter (Miyuki Mori) will appear, and might take the place of her mother (assuming Yuki isn't also in the movie).
Word has it that Disney has purchased enough rights from Voyager to produce a live-action Star Blazers movie in America. However, there are rumours that the project is on indefinite hold.
In any event, I am told that the Disney project will/was-to do the following:
If I am wrong on any of these counts, please let me know.
I've heard nothing more about this. Fans of Star Blazers are both enthusiastic and concerned. Any publicity that Star Blazers gets is good, but they want to see an accurate character portrayal and a lack of commercialization. Star Blazers itself had its own style and character, and it was hoped that Disney would not replace this and borrow too many themes from other American sci-fi productions.
Nishizaki's video tape series, Yamato 2520, ran out of steam after a few releases in the late 1990s and is now cancelled. There were supposed to be 9 volumes, and they got to about the third one before cancellation. Now that the rights to Yamato have been transferred to Reiji Matsumoto, there are no plans to resurrect the Yamato 2520 project. 2520 was not well received by fans, and most are happy to see it go.
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