If you don’t like the original anime……why would you watch the live action version? Oh wait……to slam it.

I also agree that the SFX needed more budget and longer shots. Oh and more external shots of the ship. Whats there did the trick alright though imo.

As for the rest of your criticisms – well it makes a lot more sense if you are familiar with the source material. This incarnation blends elements of the first two and then streamlines it to fit within a movie length timeframe. As such a lot of the details are cut but remember – the Japanese audience already knows these details. Yamato is a national institution – the story is already known. Heck, when he heard I’d seen the movie (and visited Leiji Matsumoto, but thats another story altogether ;-) my boss pulled off a Yamato Crew salute which he suddenly remembered from having watched the show as a child! Does this excuse poor film making? No. But keep in mind that the film was made with a Japanese audience first and foremost in mind.

Personally I found it to be a fun romp with some great winks to old skool fans (like the original voice actor coming back to do Analyzer). But maybe, much like with the recent movie Macross Frontier: The Wings of Farewell, its the fans who really get the most out of this sort of film.

Actually, come to think of it, you never mentioned how closely it follows the plot of the original TV show. Is it almost identical, but compressed into a typical 2 hour movie?