2013 Snowstorm Sci-Fi – Space Battleship Yamato (the live movie, with English closed captions)

Some more entertainment for you in case you’re trapped at home during the big snowstorm of 2013.

Here in North America in the early 1980s, we knew it as Star Blazers. However, in its native Japan, the anime series was known as Space Battleship Yamato. It’s one of those stories that was just waiting to be told in the form of a live action film, and in 2010 it finally happened. Here’s the trailer for the movie:

Being a fan of the old anime series, I got really interested in the film and waited patiently for a subtitled version to hit the streets. Now there’s one on the ‘net, and now you can watch the crew of the Yamato (or the Argo, as it was known in Star Blazers) make their last-ditch effort to get to the planet Iskandar, humanity’s last hope if they plan to survive an attack from the Gamilas (or the Gamilons, as they were known in Star Blazers). If you watched the anime, you’ll love how well they translated its look to film, from the costumes right down to my favourite thingy, the Wave Motion Gun.

(And yes, that’s a Steven Tyler song in the movie. Like many things, the Japanese like their rock on the cheesy side.)

Be sure to turn on closed-captioning (hit the CC button on the bottom of the YouTube window and under Translate Captions, select English).