Dr. Sane sent in the following report that unveils more on the live action STAR BLAZERS film over there at DISNEY. Take a gander, they are changing things, but who knows... it could still work real well. Not convinced? Well read on, there are some spoilers, but no more so than if you followed the series like the kid that you are!!!
"I had an interesting lunch yesterday with MR. BIGSHOT of Disney's upcoming STAR BLAZERS live-action motion picture. Over salads at SCHMOOZO CAFE in Studio City we discussed how the project is coming along, and he shared some interesting tidbits about what you'll see on screen...sometime between Star Wars Prequels I and II (read: summer, 1999).
First: the movie is still definitely ON at the Mouse and has the enthusiastic support of the Big Phones involved. Disney hopes to build the property into a "franchise", a la ALIENS or STAR TREK--an SF property that will hopefully spawn many (revenue-producing) sequels. As such, the film is being geared to ADULT audiences--in other words, a PG-13/Soft R crowd, NOT the "Beauty and the Beast" demo. Second, there is NO truth to the rumors that Mr. Nishizaki (owner/co-creator of SPACE BATTELSHIP YAMATO) is at odds with Diz over the adaptation of the series. Despite what you may have heard, Mr. N has been involved in the creative end of things, and has so far expressed no dissatisfaction with the American production. (He was recently involved in a lawsuit, yes, but it concerned his other business interests, not STAR BLAZERS).
Finally, the first draft script has been accepted-(HARRY NOTE: I WANT TO READ THIS SCRIPT BAD!!!!)-and I've seen it! It's written by Tab Murphy, an Oscar (R) nominee and writer of GORILLAS IN THE MIST and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (Disney animated version), among others. He's also written scripts for Disney's upcoming ATLANTIS 2K and TARZAN features, and is currently in production on Roland Emmerlich/Dean Devlin's coming-soon SUPERTANKER (ID4 Prez Bill Pullman shares producing credit with his alien-fightin' comrades in the last mentioned, by the way).
I spent a few minutes skimming the script, and, for a first draft, it's not bad--but it's not the STAR BLAZERS you remember from TV. However, that doesn't mean it's going to suck. In fact, I quite liked it--but one thing you gotta know right now is that _THIS_ version of STAR BLAZERS is going to be a no-excuses AMERICAN version.
Yes, that means _ no_ battleship YAMATO.
Now, I know what you're thinking--"No YAMATO, no STAR BLAZERS", right? Well, don't be so quick to judge. A lot of people said "No power armor, no STARSHIP TROOPERS," yet from the looks of the trailer and the clips I saw at San Diego this year, it's gonna be a really cool movie. My point? Simple: just because a story is adapted from another story doesn't mean they have to be to be identical.
(HARRY NOTE: All true, but If the new ship don't LOOK a little like that classic design, then my heart will be broken. Doesn't mean I'll hate the project, just that I want a cool Yamato-looking ship. Top steel blue, bottom scratchy reddish. It's gotta have that cool hole up front to shoot cool blast. This is just the way it has to be...well not has to be, but at least it's how it ought to be.)
Besides, just because they're not going "off to outer space" in a sunken JAPANESE battleship doesn't mean they're not going into space in SOMEBODY's sunken battleship. There were a lot of battleships sunk in World War II...including ONE very special battleship...
...a battleship that ALSO symbolized the spirit and determination and heroism of the nation that built it...
...a battleship that was sunk not at the END of the war--but the beginning...the VERY beginning...
...I mean like on the VERY FIRST DAY...
(If you haven't figured out which battleship is going to be reborn as the home of the STAR BLAZERS by now, you really need to sit down with a history book! Or, if you're lazy, you might just link to http://www.nps.gov/usar/ )...
Anyway, like I was saying, don't give up on the film just because the YAMATO isn't in it. According to Mr. Kline, "This film will bear the same relationship to the animated STAR BLAZERS as the STARSHIP TROOPERS film does to the original Heinlein novel". In other words, it's an ADAPTATION...a new creative work BASED ON but NOT IDENTICAL TO its source. And, having read the relevant parts of the script, I can assure you that the NEW space battleship will carry the same emotional "oomph" that the animated one did, will have the same _meaning_ to American audiences that YAMATO had to those from Japan. It's the same ideas and spirit we all loved from the Japanese show, but mapped onto an American sensibility. Okay?
Now on to the juicy details. In the character department, something new, something old. Captain Avatar is still gone; he is an ex-Avatar. In his place is Captain Rafe Kogen, a crusty old-timer and do-or-die fighter who wants to stay on Earth and fight the Gamelons (yes, GamELons) to the bitter end. Derek Wildstar becomes Derek Wilder, a 25-30 year old TOP-GUN-style space fighter jock and hothead who likes nothing better than killing the enemy, which we'll get to see him do in what look to be some very cool SFX sequences. (He also has a kid sister now--Erika). Rounding out the heroic trio is Nova Somethingorother (I didn't read the scene where they say her last name!), a brilliant scientist with a mysterious past who is in many ways the ke character of the saga.
Other characters are to be carried over from the animated show, too--and here's some really good news: the main supporting character in the movie is going to be a certain wisecracking Space Marine with an eye for the ladies and a taste for battle! That's right, kids--SERGEANT KNOX! I guess he really DID get out right behind Wildstar!
The plot? Well, let's see: In the year 2199, Earth is turned into a radioactive hell by the murderous attacks of Leader Desslok (yes!) and the Gamelon Empire of the Magellanic Clouds. A desparate humanity constructs underground cities to escape the fallout that has destroyed the Earth's environment, including a huge base inside Mount Rushmore that serves as the home of the Earth space military. As the clock ticks down towards the extinction of humanity, Kogen, Nova, and Derek Wilder fight on as best they can, but all seems lost. Then, a mysterious spaceship from an unknown planet called Iskandar crashes on Earth (!) bearing a message of hope from Queen Starsha. She is giving Earth the means to fight off the Gamelons and restore Earth's ecosystem , but we have to come and get it! To that end, Nova and Kogen reveal their secret project--a spaceship constructed from the wreck of a World War II battleship. Intended as a space ark (wow--just like in the Argo Press STAR BLAZERS comics!), this ship is revived and fitted by Nova (!) with Starsha's wave-motion technology into a space battleship capable of fighting its way through Gamelon space to Iscandar and back in JUST ONE YEAR! A crew of misfits--sort of a Dirty Dozen of space, led by Knox--is recruited to man the vessel, which takes off in a spectacular sequence and begins the perlious voyage. But Desslok and his top general Lysis (yes!) aren't about to let them just walk through the ftont door and back out again without a fight...
And the crew has problems of its own--conflicts, romances, and a TERRIBLE SECRET , too! As a hopeful world watches, the space battleship and its STAR FORCE crew are forced to confront their own demons and the might of an evil empire in a battle to determine the fate of humanity...
Hijinks ensue.
Sound familiar so far? Well, it should. Mr. Bigshot is from a Lone Star City, where the silver and grey reign semi-supreme, the home of STAR BLAZERS fandom, and grew up running home from his future Mr Bigshot-in-training-elementary school every afternoon just like the rest of did tocatch STAR BLAZERS at 4:30 on Channel 11 -- he loves the show just as much as we all do. Tab Murphy is a seasoned screenwriter and Academy Award nominee who has written a solid but very different first draft script; and Disney is going to put some major bucks into sets and CGI (sorry, no dollar figure yet). This film is going to be a STAR BLAZERS movie--of that I have no doubt. No, not the same STAR BLAZERS we knew as kids--frankly, what would be the point of that?--but a story with the same mythic FEEL as the old show.
At least, I hope it will.
DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN
Ya know what folks. Don't ya just hate it, when one of them super cool projects you would kill your mother to see, begins the process of coming to the screen. Your mouth begins salivating, etc. I rushed home everyday to see STARBLAZERS, BATTLE FOR THE PLANETS (aka G-FORCE) and the Marvel Super Heroes cartoons in syndication from yesteryear. You know (Spiderman spiderman, does whatever a spider can.... When Captain America throws his mighty sheild, all those that oppose his... Tony Stark Makes you feel, out of sight, so unreal... Across the rainbow bridge of Asgard... you get the drift) Well now this is added to my current dream wagon in my mind. SIGH!!! Hurry up Disney, put it on the express wagon!!! Attach great people!!!
