A Brief Deatil of The Film's Production History
Development of this movie actually began in 1994, the same year when Yoshinobu Nishizaki and Westcape Corpaoration (origianlly called "Office Academy") launched the direct-to-video miniseries "Yamato 2520", which re-opened the "Space Battleship Yamato" franchise after the release of 1983's "Final Yamato". During that time, the movie was under the working title "Yamato Rebirth". Now regarding why it took Nishizaki so long to complete work on this movie, several problems occured:
1) In 1997, production cost problems that led to "Yamato 2520" getting cancelled after 3 episodes (although the intial plan called for 7) also resulted in the demise of Westcape Corporation.
2) Around the time of Westcape's demise, Leiji Matsumoto started legal disputes against the producer himself, accusing him of trying to take all credit of creating the original "Space Battleship Yamato", although the "Captain Harlock" creator himself sent to Nishizaki, rejected sketches he did of "SBY" characters Susumu Kodai, Shiro Sanda, and Sakezo Sado for the movie project. After the demise of Westcape, Nishizaki not only aborted the "Yamato Rebirth" project, but also transfered ownership of "Space Battleship Yamato" to Matsumoto.
3) After Matsumoto took over control of the franchise, Nishizaki ended up facing jail time twice. The first time was between 1999 and 2001 for narcotics, and the 2nd time was between 2003 and 2007 for violation of weapons laws.
In 2002, Yoshinobu Nishizaki would regain ownership of the "Space Battleship Yamato" franchise when the Tokyo District Court ruled that he legally owns all story and character rights to the 1970s and 1980s "SBY" Anime with Leiji Matsumoto only having rights to the character and mechanical designs of those Anime. However, neither Nishizaki nor Matsumoto were able to copyright or trademark the "Yamato" name as it's an historical and commonly-used name. Later, Nishizaki made an attempt to resume work on the film project, but faced temporary interruption by the Tohokushinsha Film Corporation, who tried to stop him and Matsumoto from fullfilling their independent "Space Battleship Yamato" projects (Matsumoto's own was "Great Yamato No. 0") on false claim that its copyright to the original SBY series (which still exists today) included rights to make new SBY series and films, a claim later dismissed by the Tokyo District Court. Following the completion of his 2nd jail sentence, Nishizaki would finally start production of "Space Battleship Yamato: Resurrection" with studios Yamato Studio and Enagio.
The Visual Look
"Space Battleship Yamato: Resurrection" is the first "SBY" movie to combine 2D animation with 3D Animation, a trend sometimes used in modern day Sci-Fi Anime like "Xenosaga: The Animation". While the characters and planetary surfaces appear in 2D, the exterior shots of the ships and fighters are done in 3D, with the exception of the flashback scene where the Yamato was facing Aquarius in 2203 A.D. (which used footage from 1983's "Final Yamato"). While it's a fact that Nishizaki rejected Leiji Matsumoto's character sketches for this film, the Yamato's look remains the same as it was in the "Space Battleship Yamato" Anime from the 1970s and 1980s, but this movie mostly uses character designs that lack the visual and facial likenesses of Leiji Matsumoto-created Manga and Anime, which may seem controversial amoung long-time fans of the franchise. However, Analyzer, Sakezo Sado, and Mi-Kun are the only characters in this movie to bear designs closely following the way Leiji Matusmoto drew them. The character designs used this movie were done by Tomonori Kogawa of "Super Diemnsion Calvary Southern Cross" fame while Makoto Kobayashi of "Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam" fame handled the mechanical design work. This is also the first time a "Space Battleship Yamato" Anime ever featured operating computer panels (including the floating holographic type) whose effects ressemble anything seen in "Star Trek" films from the 1990s and 2000s.
To see the pre-production artwork for this movie, visit StarBlazers.com.
