Moviestardom: The Final Frontier
by Ender’s Girl
The Cast:
Kimura Takuya, Kuroki Meisa, Yanagiba Toshiro, Ogata Naoto, Yamazaki Tsutomu
Directed by Yamazaki Takashi / Toho; TBS Films, 2010
In a Nutshell:
A single battleship and its doughty crew are mankind’s last hope against an invading alien race!!!
The Real Nutshell:
Kimura Takuya makes a bid for international moviestardom!!!
(SpoilLert: Well it’s that kind of film, so can there really be anything to spoil?)
It’s 2199 and there’s something straaange in the solar system: Earth is this close to getting nuked out of existence by an invading alien race – SO WHO YA GONNA CALL?????????????
KIMUTAKUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Did the Ghostbusters theme song start playing in your head just now??? It did, dinnit??? Hahahaha)
The last time a cocky, nonconformist hero saved the world from imminent destruction while a Steven Tyler power ballad blared in the background, the year was 1998 and the movie was Armageddon. It’s 2011 and (a newly relevant) Steven Tyler is still caterwauling the same tune (well, almost), although the crew nationalities have changed from Eeemrrican to Japanese, the Earth faces a different kind of threat (enemy extraterrestrials! instead of giant asteroids!), and the hero (Kimura Takuya in full-on Moviestar Mode) has way more hair than Bruce Willis did in Armageddon (or anything he starred in since 1987, for that matter).
I don’t know if the producers of the 2010 Space Battleship Yamato remake intentionally hired Steven Tyler as a nod to Armageddon – and, by association, that other celestial-body-on-a-collision-course-with-Earth-OHNOES!!! flick from 1998, Deep Impact (whose plotline the Bay/Bruckheimer/Willis mega-production reportedly cribbed off, tsk tsk). Strictly speaking, Yamato isn’t a disaster sci-fi flick like Armageddon or Deep Impact, but it runs on the same basic premise: A motley crew of spacemen sets out on a hail-Mary mission to [insert planetary body], which they must [destroy/steal an alien device from] in order to save the earth. Chances of success or survival seem dire, but the intrepid officers and crewmen are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of our planet!!! *cue [insert Steven Tyler song]*
Beam me up, E.G.! MOAR!!! after the jump. (Because… you don’t wanna miss a thing.)
Buzz Box