作者 Zac
出处 animenewsnetwork.com
It's no big secret that when it comes to live-action adaptations of anime, the results are at best of dubious quality – regardless of where the film was produced. While people bag ad nauseam on Hollywood's various ill-fated stabs at turning anime into big-screen magic, the truth is the Japanese themselves aren't much better at it. So it's kind of a small miracle that Space Battleship Yamato – the long-awaited, highly ambitious live-action adaptation of the beloved classic TV series – wound up as a quite solid and entertaining (if flawed) sci-fi action movie, rather than the large-scale disaster it could've easily become.
我们都清楚，当日式动漫被改编成影视剧时，结果往往是不能令人满意-无论是哪个国家出资制作。当人们被好莱坞制片商将日式动漫糟蹋的体无完肤的行径雷到呕吐的时候，其实日本电影业做得也不比美国更好。所以宇宙战舰大和号的真人版就成了一个小小的奇迹。这部广大粉丝翘首期待、雄心勃勃的经典动画真人改编电影结果成了一部精彩而有娱乐性的科幻动作片，而没有沦为它本来很容易变成的“大规模电影灾难”。
From the outset, the film has a daunting task – figure out a way to cram the epic story of the Yamato, now practically a cultural institution in Japan (and for a legion of American fans nourished in youth by its English-language version, Star Blazers) – into an accessible, palatable 2+ hour movie version. This is no simple task - in the series, the story is told through a number of serial story arcs, with climaxes punctuating each major stretch of the Yamato's desperate journey through space to find Iscandar and save humanity. The film version condenses all of this into just over 2.5 hours and manages to retain most of the vital plot beats from the series, although after a while it feels like the film hits a speed bump every 25 minutes or so as it comes to the end of what was obviously a major story arc on the show, and everything stops so someone (usually Susumu) can deliver yet another “Alright everyone, this is humanity's last chance – if this doesn't work, we're all doomed!” speech to the crew. The audience, of course, knows full well whatever it is they're going to do will work because otherwise the movie would end. It's an interesting way to try and force the Yamato narrative into movie form, and while it's a little clunky, it works.
从一开始，这部电影就面临着一个难度很高的任务：尽量平易近人地将1974-1983年100多集《宇宙战舰大和号》TV版和多部剧场版的故事精华浓缩进一部两个多小时的电影中。原作的故事在日本已经脍炙人口了，（在美国，《宇宙战舰大和号》因为英语配音版STAR BLAZERS的播出而享有一大批怀揣童年回忆的粉丝）。做到这一点并不简单，在动画版中，整个故事包括许多小故事，在大和号前往伊斯坎达尔的漫漫旅程中也是高潮迭起。电影版在近两个半小时内浓缩了全部主线并保留了多数重要情节。虽然电影在每过25分钟就要“减速”而且一看开头就知道结尾，并且总是有每个人停下来等某人（往往是古代进）讲话“大家听着，这是人类最后的机会，如果不能成功，全人类都将毁灭！”的煽情场面。但是情节上至少做到了通俗易懂，虽然编的有点笨拙，但还是有作用的。
The pacing is key here. While the inherent problem with the whole "let's make a movie with 4 climaxes"; thing rears its ugly head every time we stop for one of these speeches, they've crammed so much story and so much action into the film's runtime that you hardly notice. One of the best things about this version of Yamato is that it isn't boring – almost by definition, cramming that much story and drama into one film requires that the narrative is never allowed to slow down, and the script is competent enough to massage all these moving parts into a streamlined version of the Yamato tale that would likely keep a modern American audience entertained for at least 80 percent of the film's runtime without insulting the memories of diehard franchise fans.
节奏是关键。当一部有四个高潮点的电影要面临的固有问题就是每时每刻我们都可能被迫听其中一个角色慷慨陈词以煽情。 由于许多经典情节被浓缩到电影当中，所以这一点并不那么明显。影片最好的地方是它并不枯燥，剧本完成度足以将各经典段落整合进一部真人电影。本片至少能在80%的观影时间内娱乐到一位现代美国观众并且无须侮辱死忠们的早年回忆。
Right off the bat, it's clear the filmmakers wanted this version of Space Battleship Yamato to be writ large and told with the familiar visual language of American sci-fi blockbusters; we open right in the middle of a massive-scale space battle, with dogfighting spaceships zooming around the flaming carcasses of huge interstellar warships, lens flares and fancy explosions aplenty. Many visual elements appear to have been lifted from a number of modern American sci-fi actioners, but the most obvious “inspiration” for the film's look – in a strange mobius strip of sci-fi franchises ripping eachother off throughout history – is the 2005 Battlestar Galactica, which this version of Yamato has lifted aesthetic concepts from wholesale. The dogfights in space are shot in the exact same “shaky-handheld-camera-in-space” fashion, with the cockpit and pilot flightsuit designs being remarkably similar. Even the ship interiors are reminiscent of Galactica, which could be seen as poetic given all the various plot points the original Battlestar Galactica TV show lifted from the 70's Yamato series. In fact, the similarities are so strong – both visually and in the film's basic story – between this live-action Yamato and the recent Galactica reboot that sci-fi fans unfamiliar with the Yamato franchise might just think they stole the entire concept from BSG.
从一开始，我们就很清楚制片方希望这个真人版的故事被通过一种宏大的、接近美式主流科幻的方式讲出来。故事一开场我们就置身宏大的战斗之中，宇宙战机空战格斗、星际战舰起火爆炸。许多元素看来被模仿自诸多现代美国科幻动作片。但是最突出的影响莫过于2005年的新版卡拉狄加。影片模仿了卡拉狄加的审美概念。宇宙战机之间的交战画面都是用同一种人称“宇宙手摇摄影”的手法制作的。星舰的内饰有卡拉狄加风情。这可以被理解为对当年1978年版卡拉狄加狠狠抄袭了几乎整套70年代大和号动画剧情的报复。事实上，两者如此相近，从视觉到情节，以至不熟悉大和号原版动画的科幻粉肯定以为剧组在完全抄袭BSG。
While doubtlessly big-budget (especially for a Japanese film, when compared to what would've been spent on a project like this in America), Yamato's visual effects eventually do fall short, particularly in a third-act encounter on Iscandar with a horde of Gamilas shock troopers that looks like it could've come from any given cheapo straight-to-video Starship Troopers sequel (and was clearly inspired by the massive ground battles in those films). In addition, although the film is largely well-shot, there are a number of problematic choices made by the director, who – especially during any scene on the Yamato's bridge – doesn't seem to have basic camera placement or blocking worked out, so we wind up with the camera sitting dead center and slowly panning between actors reciting their lines, while supporting cast members awkwardly shuffle in from the wings, try to find their marks and then scramble around behind the foreground action, almost like a poorly-directed stage play. It's not clear if the director simply didn't have room to move the camera properly (or, for heaven's sake, get a second camera in for more coverage), but these amateurish choices are remarkably distracting; It's as if moments from a set dress rehearsal were dropped into an otherwise polished movie with no regard to how the shot composition in these awkward scenes would look in the context of the finished film.
虽然是一部大制作影片，但大和号的视觉特效仍有不足。加米拉斯的地面战拍的像是星河战队后来直接发行录像带的某个C级水平的续集。尽管影片整体拍得不错，但不知怎的，剧组没有在舰桥等布景上留出安放摄影机的位置（估计指滑轨），以至镜头显得死板。许多时候镜头固定在所谓的“死点”然后慢慢扫过讲台词的主要演员，而背景的配角们在两侧或后方进进出出，活像一出不太好的舞台剧。我们不清楚导演是否没有地方在布景内安装摄影机，但这种稍显不够专业的处理方法令人分神。看上去好像片方把带妆彩排的内容混入了一部精心制作的电影而没有考虑到这样做对一部精品影片意味着什么。
The film's cast manages to pour a thick layer of cheese over the proceedings as well – in typical Japanese soap opera style, they lay the emotion on as thick as can be and are borderline hilarious in some moments clearly meant to be dead serious. There is no subtle emotion – there's a lot of chest-rending, arm-grabbing, impassioned pleas, mugging for the camera and wild takes. For the most part, the over-the-topness of it all it feels totally appropriate for the material – this is, after all, a big epic space adventure where humanity itself is desperate for survival!, a story that is no stranger to BURNING PASSION – and thankfully it stops just short of being so goofy and overdone that it becomes impossible to find yourself emotionally invested in the story. By the end of the film the lead (Takuya Kimura, noted SMAP member) seems to be running out of steam; he seems almost exhausted by the sheer amount of teary-eyed strength he has to dump into the overwrought final scenes, but both he and his co-star Meisa Kuroki (as Yuki, his Starbuck-esque tough-girl love interest) generally do a pretty decent job with their roles. If you can forgive how cartoonish the emotional tone of the film is, the only person who turns in a legitimately cringeworthy performance is Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, who delivers his lines as the leader of the Yamato's space commandos with all the conviction and skill of an overacting 5th grader.
演员们给整部片子抹上了厚厚一层奶酪。传统的日剧套路，尽可能多煽情，有时在分秒必争的关头也去煽以至于有点尴尬。有很多煽情的场面，多数还是合适的。故事整体上很燃。木村拓哉对付最后的那个做作过头的结尾时有点力不从心了。不过他和黒木演的整体上还是不错的。忘记整部影片的卡通调性的话，演的最好的莫过于池内博之，寥寥几场戏将角色刻划得很突出。
In fact, if you consider that the movie's closing theme is sung by Aerosmith's Steven Tyler – just as he did for the end of 1998's sci-fi action cheese-a-thon Armageddon (much to the dismay of karaoke-goers the world over), you can draw a few solid parallels between that movie's flag-waving, teeth-clenching, oh-so-painfully-sincere emotional beats and what Space Battleship Yamato is trying to do here. That they manage to pull that off – and managed to get the pacing just right - without turning the film into a nigh-unwatchable piece of strained, patriotic claptrap (you know, like Armageddon) is kind of shocking.
如果你注意到片尾曲主唱与买拷贝的世界末日片尾曲是同一人，你就会明白他们为什么要在影片中安排那么多煽情的段落。他们的努力起了作用。影片并没有沦为枯燥的爱国主义喊叫和口若悬河的话剧。
In the end, this version of Space Battleship Yamato is, simply put, massively entertaining and just plain fun to watch. The story skips along so efficiently and the action is handled well enough to put it up there with any sci-fi matinee joyride. It's long, it's overwrought, it's bursting at the seams with explosions both physical and emotional, but as an ambitious popcorn action movie, it absolutely does its job. Fans who may be put off by the potential for a languid, stretched-out space opera with 3-minute long beauty shots of carefully rendered model spacecraft need not worry; this is a thoroughly modernized adaptation, one that hits the gas pedal right out of the gate and doesn't stop for a moment, unashamed to just try and entertain the hell out of you. Thankfully, it does exactly that.
真人版大和号有娱乐性，也拍得算有趣。故事尚算抓人，武戏拍得不错。它不完美，过于冗长、有些做作，有一定量缺点。整体上来讲，大和号算是一部不错的爆米花电影。是一部比较现代的改编。
