Wow. I'm surprised that 99% percent of this video match my own thoughts on the movie, right up to the idea of Yama "becoming" the Harlock we know and love. I was introduced to the 1978 Harlock thanks to crunchyroll and I loved every minute of it. This movie, only the first ten minutes, and that's just for the battle at the beginning. So yeah, it sucked.
as someone who knows nothing about this series, and didn't even know there was one, I watched the 2013 movie and thought "that was AWESOME but ....did they win? this was a movie that seemed to tell an interesting story but then at the end you feel like they said "well I'm bored.... ROLL CREDITS"
Im just glad to see this iconic character get a modern update as one who bought a vhs of My youth in Arcadia 😊 I really like the original Harlock 😎 the visuals were awesome 👏
To be fair I never watch the original show so I really do enjoy this 2013 show. Sure Harlock' s plan is questionable but it's fine for me. That ending is... debatable, but Yama is a rather interesting character for me. I just wish the plot is a bit better
Making Harlock wanting to end the universe is such an insult to his character and to Leiji's stories. I started watching original anime when I was 4 or 5 and this movie came out when I was 9. It felt weird but I still enjoyed it a lot cuz I was young but years passed and I cant watch it again now, it could have been so good if it followed the original one, it's so frustrating..... We'll probably never get a Harlock movie ever again....
I'd love to do it myself, but for a million reasons that'll never happen. I don't feel at all qualified for such a thing, but at the same time, I don't trust anyone else to do it, either. Things like this film are a good part of the reason.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks harlock uses the last of his antimatter, the elf engineer dies, the ship crash lands. The he gives an eye patch to New kid, the elf is alive again, the ship can fly again. There's hundreds of ships waiting to bombard them (the solar group now?) And they just fly out of earths atmosphere and the movie ends. Beyond confusing for me.
Aight so, this is from the perspective of someone who hasnt watched the original series (I was born in 2000) Personally i really really like this movie, its definitely up there with one of the coolest space themed movies ive watched. While the story is very farfetched and it honestly also got confusing a few times, i still quite enjoyed it and found it pretty interesting. However, just like you said, this is not really reflecting the original series and the original characters so i cant really give my opinion on that part, what i can say tho is that i fully agree with you in the regard of milking something out till the last drop instead of just putting it to rest. Just like you said, this 2013 version is the one i became familar with so from that perspective i quite like it, i like pretty much all the characters and the designes of pretty much everything is really interesting to me. Funnily especially the Arcadia design, its one of my favorite space ships now even, is one of the things i enjoyed the most. Id like to see it the way you said in the end, that this is more or less a prologue and that Yama ends up as the Harlock from the Series, at least then it would make some more sense for this to even be the way it is, even tho its so unlikely. Perhaps one could also say that this is more or less a parallel universe where things ended up very different from the main universe the original Series played in. Eitherway this was a cool review and definitely gave me some insight in not only the original series but also what others think of this movie ^^
Check out the 1978 series if you get the chance. It's one of the best series I've ever watched. While it's older and the animation isn't as smooth as modern series, it has this fantastic directorial style that's like Hitchcock crossed with Leone and dipped in LSD. The soundtrack is incredible, the characters are great, and the story is epic. For someone who loves the original, watching this is like a huge fan of Luke Skywalker watching The Last Jedi, only worse.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks Personally I feel Endless Odyssey isn't that bad then the 2013 film (which is FAR worse & more damaging to Harlock) And does have some redeeming qualities. As far as the English dub for Endless Odyssey goes I think they chose the wrong VA voice Harlock because it definitely feels like the VA wasn't even trying.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks Strangely enough Steve Blum would have been a better choice to voice Harlock in Endless Odyssey (considering he would voice him in 2002's Gun Frontier) The VA that they chose just seemed very disinterested in the script and gave the most stoic and disinterested performance.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks In hindsight Endless Odyssey isn't really that bad then the Space Pirate Harlock 2013 movie imao. While it did darken Harlock's character somewhat it didn't go as far as the 2013 movie did.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks Surprisingly Endless Odyssey did a better job (Imao) at modernizing Harlock than the 2013 movie. At least Endless Odyssey stays true to Harlock's original story/origin and has a Cosmic Alien threat (straight out a Lovecraftian story) as the main villain.
Viewing this film as a non-canonical alternate universe timeline greatly increased my enjoyment. But yeah, could have been so much better. Strangely enough, Leiji Matsumoto seemed to be okay with the film. At least, that's what I remember from the interviews he did.
80% of this review could also be said for the live action movie of Space Battleship Yamato... I don't know why, but those movie directors really need to stop changing Matsumoto's plot of the original series
Actually, I don't agree there. I personally enjoyed the live-action Yamato quite a lot. My main issue with this film was making Harlock into a self-righteous asshole instead of a hero. Yamato didn't do anything like that...in fact, I thought it did a better job with the characters than the animated remake 2199 did, where Kodai's hero arc was basically gone, his father/son relationship with the captain was eliminated, and there was a lot of cringey cheesecake shit added in. At any rate, Matsumoto's story was already heavily modified for the original animated series, which did not feature Harlock showing up and turning out to be Kodai's brother.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks Interesting, though I'd certainly wish the live-action movie had kept the "human" personalities of the Gamilians, which they are forced to conquer Earth to save their people. The movie portrayed them as an alien collective (alongside Iscandarians), and humans must wipe them out; whereas in 2199 there are more depictions of Gamilians' family members, and the Yamato crew liberates them from Dessler to form an alliance. I think the main selling point of SB Yamato is the fact that both sides are not villains, and that war only makes matter worse, which 2199 excelled at.
I think having fully fleshed-out Gamilon characters was something that was just sacrificed for time. The Gamilons never really came across as especially sympathetic in the original show until the second season, anyway. The Comet Empire pretty much were straight-up villains, however. I have no idea what the new series did with that story, but nobody I know particularly liked it, and thus I've had no real desire to seek it out.
It's kind of funny... before seeing the movie, I'd never even heard of Harlock. I fell in love with the movie, and thereby discovered the anime (and I've always disliked anime, previously). So, however bad you may think it comparatively, it introduced me to the saga, gained one more fan.
Life's funny sometimes. I personally got introduced to Harlock via a real hack-and-slash job that was shown on American TV back in the '80s. As mismanaged as it was, it still outshone the domestic cartoons airing at the time.
I'd love to see a Robotech CGI movie done right. I'm currently rewatching all the cartoons on Filmrise and while it starts off cheesy, it really does get better. I think it's definitely an IP that could show promise.
You know... They actually offer this movie for purchase on this very site. But I would much rather rent the Macross sequels (II: Lovers Again and Plus), the film cuts of which are also available here. Shinji Aramaki and his band of cronies seem to have a thing for killing franchises, be it the asinine fifth Starship Troopers movie Traitor of Mars, or the emo girl wankfest of the TV show Blade Runner Black Lotus, and this pattern definitely began here. They somehow managed to take a man as free and noble as Harlock and turned him into a designated hero of nth degree, and the universe he inhabits is just depressing in comparison to the wondrous world of Leiji Matsumono he once lived in. I'll rather watch the original show and the Harlock Saga and Endless Odyssey OVAs instead. P.S. Your defence of Snyder Superman killing Zodd is noble, but as much as people love to bring it up, _Donner Superman didn't kill Zodd in Superman 2!_ Watch the Richard Donner cut, you'll see. Zodd survived, and even without the scene, the ground below the crystals was snow, remember? I mean, it's okay. Snyder Superman killing Zodd was handled reasonably well in hindsight considering the character assassination of BVS (Bearded Idiot vs SuperPsycho)...
The entire review summed up in a single sentence: It is worse than everything before it because Harlock goes from self loathing immortal jerk to what he was in the old shows rather than starting there.
Corn Pone Flicks I personally kind of wish you reviewed the actual Movie rather than rift on it for being closer the the “newer” shows with the added effect of everything Harlock lived and fought for in the show’s being destroyed by his own hands.
I did review the movie. I made plenty of observations about the story itself. That said, I did want to address the general character assassination that went on because the bulk of the US audience for this would have no knowledge of the character and what he really was. Also, not sure why you put quotes around "newer." Newer and older are objective categorizations, not opinions.
Corn Pone Flicks I put newer in quotation marks because over two decades isn’t exactly new. You touched on the actual story of the movie. However, most of the review was more about the old shows rather than the movie in of itself. There are plenty of frankly poor story decisions in the Movie such as its abrupt end, 500 billion people draining the galaxy, and the blandness of the characters to name a few, but your review focused on what you did like that they changed rather then what was wrong with the movie.
I think the changes were, in fact, a great deal of what was wrong with the movie. Newer is a comparative. Cretaceous is newer than Jurassic. It doesn't mean something is new in the positive sense.
Used to love the movie from the 80s as a kid, but never managed to watch the 78 series. Didn't mind this movie...not my fav but I don't feel it was terrible my only real issue that if say I hate is Harlock plan makes no sense and is like it was an after thought
While I did enjoy the CG and some of the new character designs, I disliked how they made Harlock the complete opposite of his original portrayal from his '78 series. On top of that, the plot is such an unnecessary, convoluted mess. Such a shame that the good visuals went to waste. We can only hope in the future that Harlock will get a better adaptation. If not, it should just rest.
I was hyped for this film. Then I saw the Arcadia redesign and got concerned. The Arcadia was part of the deathshadow FLEET? WTF. Then we have just a space version of the climax of the Speed Racer movie (hero vs uncountable amount of badguys because bigger is more epicer!) The movie feels like it was written by 3 different people who had no communication between each other. Opening was nice although characterizations were scrapped for one dimensional traits Then we have the backstory section that filled in less holes than it dug. The tone of this middle third is so different from the first that it had to come from some other story/fan fic and copy/paste was used to make it "fit". The climax was just a massive cluster of wtf, how do we get them out of this to the ending? I was surprised we didn't see some sort of take on the death blossom from Last Starfighter considering how huge the gaia fleet was. Also never forget that if you aren't getting enough thrust, grimmace and push the throttle harder! Need even more power? Have someone else help you push the throttle! Because that's how throttles work. Honest. Just ask NASA... Besides a foul taste in my mouth after watching this movie, all it did was add yet another handful of spaghetti to the plate of the character inter-relationship tree. Each "retelling" just muddies the waters even more until we end up with on twitter using #notmyharlock
im gonna be honest, the fact that i never watched the old captain harlock is actually a blessing for me since i was able to fully appreciate what they were going for with the 2013 movie, i was told many times before i watched the 2013 movie that the captain harlock franchise was legendary by many old anime fans, but that said when i did eventually watch them many years later i found the story exceedingly cringe, cheesy, and irritating. hes supposed to be this great elusive space pirate that can never be defeated let alone conquered, and yet his old character basically bespeaks that of a massive hypocrite, and treats his entire personality as anything but a space pirate. its like hes a rogue cop in a bad cop movie that lost his badge because he defied orders, only to continue pretending to be a cop while doing illegal vigilantism. his insultingly self righteous personality is a contradiction to his legend. i preferred the 2013 version more because while it completely throws the old story out the window, it paints him in a way that embodies what it truly means to be the most feared space pirate in science fiction history. (that said the execution of the 2013 story was admittedly poor, especially the latter half with what seemed like a deliberate cliffhanger and confusing end. overall the storytelling was good, but the execution was bad) additionally as an artist and animator myself, i would consider the 2013 Arcadia to be vastly superior in design than anything previously imagined, i hope one day that i'll be able to sculpt such a magnificent model in an image befitting a new space pirate, one that shows what it means to be truly free.
I can't speak to what anyone else finds irritating, but regardless of my personal feelings about Harlock, if you're going to change a character this much, the only real reason to even bother keeping the name is to cash in on its existing popularity. Taking a rugged individualist and turning him into a broken psychopath isn't my idea of an improvement...it's like The Last Jedi's version of Luke Skywalker, but much worse.
I strongly suggest anyone looking for a modern take on the Harlock mythos to read the ongoing Dimension Voyage manga, it's been doing everything right so far, respecting the characters, telling a fresh take on the same story while making sense of the whole Leijiverse in ways that don't feel forced nor incoherent, all the while modernizing the visuals without altering them so much that they become unrecognizable, this includes the ships as well.
I recently bought the digital release and I have found it refreshing. Only issue I have with it is that all of the Leijiverse connections really can get convoluted but nonetheless tries to make coherency in a hectic universe.
I watched this on Netflix and stopped when they revealed that (SPOILERS)... ... ... ...EVERYTHING WAS A HOLOGRAM! Earth was a hologram! The one girl was a hologram! Harlock was kind of a hologram sort of! I just burst out laughing and stopped. NOPE! We're good. This is too silly now.
GELTONZ the Earth was a hologram. I kind of guessed that seeing as on how no one was allowed on the planet, but the lady was was needless and honestly didn’t even need to be a character.
I kove the movie and harlock in it But I guess I have the opertunety here to just enjoi it because I havent seen the anemie jet and Im not even sure I want to see it now because I fear to dislike the movie after 😟
I didn't really know anything about Harlock before watching the movie, and yet i agree with everything you say. I know Harlock's a great character and i didn't get that impression from the movie, so i was suspicious. I got more emotions listening to the original opening of the anime (that i have never seen) than during the entire movie... So I am glad i came here to confirm that it's a bad adaptation because i did not enjoy it.
i gotta say this was the first Harlock property i watched after seeing him pop up on the internet a few times and got interested. i liked the film but yeah, it was kinda weird to watch, like i was missing context for a few things, or stuff wasn't explained that well. or i wasn't paying enough attention i don't know. it was pretty to look at tho XD. but yeah good visuals does not a good movie make. can't say this is a good entry point for this old franchise that's for sure.
I'd personally recommend the 1978 Space Pirate series as a good place to begin. The animation may seem primitive by today's standards, but the direction and story are incomparable. The characters are also much, MUCH better.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks i see. i might start that next when i have the time for it. and if i can find it online somewhere. and no worries, i like watching older stuff at times, so it's old style is not really a problem. sometimes it's even charming. Thank you for the recommendation :)
Good review, can't really disagree with any of it. It certainly was far removed from its original source material. But as someone whose first exposure to Harlock was this adaption I thought it was an enjoyable if dumb "space pirate" movie.
If they had simply called it something else and not tried to make it a Harlock property, I might have been more amenable to it. It has the same damn problem as Disney's Star Wars efforts: the mentors are all old and broken in spirit, and have to be set right by the younger characters, which is precisely backwards for a heroic epic. You should check out the original 1978 series; that's Harlock at its finest.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks The CGI animation looks nice though. Also I hear Looper and Knives Out are good Rian Johnson films. And there are parts of The Last Jedi that I like.
It is, annoyingly enough, very much like an idea I had myself a ways back. Frankly, all of Rian's films apart from The Last Jedi are good. Knives out is fucking great. It's so weird to me that he could normally make such good work and then really screw the pooch on Star Wars.
While I still take issue with Superman killing Zod in 'Man Of Steel', (Even though Supes kinda killed him in 'Superman 2') you make a good point about how his reaction shows that he's still the Superman who has a moral compass. The problem is that Snyder should've saved that moment for a much later film, and try to establish who the Superman is first. 'Man Of Steel' doesn't do a good job establishing Kal-El's moral upbringing in Smallville very well. What with Keven Costner's 'Jonathan Kent' being a conflicting hypocrite through the movie.
I wasn't arguing the merits of Man of Steel as a film, merely comparing two updates, one of which kept the character intact and one of which didn't. I KNEW that bit was going to provoke comments, though. Incidentally, Snyder had nothing to do with writing the movie. The inclusion of that scene wasn't anything to do with him.
I don't entirely agree that there was a problem, per se, though I don't have any personal investment in Superman. The things that bugged me were the silly religious pandering, and the fact that Superman did a rather poor job of saving very many innocent bystanders during the final battle. But that's a topic for another time.
Doug Walker made the exact same observation about the film's religious symbolism. (I AM JESUS) It also bothered me that Superman didn't save many people in the film, nor acted like a kind hearted person.
I have actually got a script ready for that; I just haven't recorded it yet. (My primary stumbling block is that, for obvious reasons, I don't have a copy of the film.)
Really? I wasn't too impressed with that series. You should really check out the 1978 series; that was the character's high point. My Youth in Arcadia and the Galaxy Express 999 movies are also recommended.
Let's just put it like this: I like "Cosmowarrior Zero " a lot , because it feels like an anime version of star trek. Meanwhile Harlock(the 1978 version(i've seen 4 episodes so far)) feels more like a cooler anime version of star wars. I intend on watching the whole Harlock series once i find the time to do it.
he maybe change to much in story but one thing is done right I think this one of the best CGI in movie not only in Japan but even in US that look simply great so I recommend push mute play original OST and as silent movie he is pretty good movie ;-P
The Arcadia in this movie is an ugly ship. The first two versions of the ship had a nice graceful design with that great ship cabin on the stern and skull and crossbones on the bow. And yeah Tochiro was horribly underplayed in this.
See I still enjoyed the movie lol It's a different TAKE on Harlock, it's not meant to mirror the originals, None of the stories were they were all New stories with the same character. The English version though...my god how do you say that's alright? It's so out of sync and the voices don't match whatsoever to the characters I couldn't stand it. It skips major points with the Dubbed that the subbed of it covered in full. But I have to give the CGI movie credit for leading me to the series because God Damn is Harlock awesome, I just recently finished reading Dimensional voyage so maybe that will get its own variant adaptation reboot? Who knows but it was dope!
This video is the fourth in a series that was primarily about earlier English dubs. Watch those, and then you'll see why I couldn't really complain much about the dubbing in this one.
Wow. I'm surprised that 99% percent of this video match my own thoughts on the movie, right up to the idea of Yama "becoming" the Harlock we know and love. I was introduced to the 1978 Harlock thanks to crunchyroll and I loved every minute of it. This movie, only the first ten minutes, and that's just for the battle at the beginning. So yeah, it sucked.
as someone who hadn't seen the og stuff, i really enjoyed the visuals of the movie, and some cinematography, but yea the plot needs some cpr
Arcadia of my youth was better
@@richardgreeter4918 arcadia of your youth was trash. i could model that ancient ship in my sleep but it would be an insult to my skill.
@@chloekaftanyou didnt get it....
as someone who knows nothing about this series, and didn't even know there was one, I watched the 2013 movie and thought "that was AWESOME but
....did they win?
this was a movie that seemed to tell an interesting story but then at the end you feel like they said "well I'm bored.... ROLL CREDITS"
I liked Arcadia of my youth really liked that movie but this didn't do it for me
Im just glad to see this iconic character get a modern update as one who bought a vhs of My youth in Arcadia 😊 I really like the original Harlock 😎 the visuals were awesome 👏
To be fair I never watch the original show so I really do enjoy this 2013 show. Sure Harlock' s plan is questionable but it's fine for me. That ending is... debatable, but Yama is a rather interesting character for me. I just wish the plot is a bit better
Making Harlock wanting to end the universe is such an insult to his character and to Leiji's stories.
I started watching original anime when I was 4 or 5 and this movie came out when I was 9. It felt weird but I still enjoyed it a lot cuz I was young but years passed and I cant watch it again now, it could have been so good if it followed the original one, it's so frustrating..... We'll probably never get a Harlock movie ever again....
I'd love to do it myself, but for a million reasons that'll never happen. I don't feel at all qualified for such a thing, but at the same time, I don't trust anyone else to do it, either. Things like this film are a good part of the reason.
The movie's ending was confusing at the end, and really didn't do enough to make anyone wonder what the hell happened
It almost felt like a setup for a second movie, though I'm unaware of one being worked on.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks harlock uses the last of his antimatter, the elf engineer dies, the ship crash lands.
The he gives an eye patch to New kid, the elf is alive again, the ship can fly again.
There's hundreds of ships waiting to bombard them (the solar group now?)
And they just fly out of earths atmosphere and the movie ends.
Beyond confusing for me.
Well said!
honestly haven't watch the series but the character design fit so perfectly with the emotion of harlock
Aight so, this is from the perspective of someone who hasnt watched the original series (I was born in 2000)
Personally i really really like this movie, its definitely up there with one of the coolest space themed movies ive watched. While the story is very farfetched and it honestly also got confusing a few times, i still quite enjoyed it and found it pretty interesting. However, just like you said, this is not really reflecting the original series and the original characters so i cant really give my opinion on that part, what i can say tho is that i fully agree with you in the regard of milking something out till the last drop instead of just putting it to rest. Just like you said, this 2013 version is the one i became familar with so from that perspective i quite like it, i like pretty much all the characters and the designes of pretty much everything is really interesting to me. Funnily especially the Arcadia design, its one of my favorite space ships now even, is one of the things i enjoyed the most.
Id like to see it the way you said in the end, that this is more or less a prologue and that Yama ends up as the Harlock from the Series, at least then it would make some more sense for this to even be the way it is, even tho its so unlikely.
Perhaps one could also say that this is more or less a parallel universe where things ended up very different from the main universe the original Series played in.
Eitherway this was a cool review and definitely gave me some insight in not only the original series but also what others think of this movie ^^
Check out the 1978 series if you get the chance. It's one of the best series I've ever watched. While it's older and the animation isn't as smooth as modern series, it has this fantastic directorial style that's like Hitchcock crossed with Leone and dipped in LSD. The soundtrack is incredible, the characters are great, and the story is epic. For someone who loves the original, watching this is like a huge fan of Luke Skywalker watching The Last Jedi, only worse.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks
Personally I feel Endless Odyssey isn't that bad then the 2013 film (which is FAR worse & more damaging to Harlock)
And does have some redeeming qualities. As far as the English dub for Endless Odyssey goes I think they chose the wrong VA voice Harlock because it definitely feels like the VA wasn't even trying.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks
Strangely enough Steve Blum would have been a better choice to voice Harlock in Endless Odyssey (considering he would voice him in 2002's Gun Frontier)
The VA that they chose just seemed very disinterested in the script and gave the most stoic and disinterested performance.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks
In hindsight Endless Odyssey isn't really that bad then the Space Pirate Harlock 2013 movie imao.
While it did darken Harlock's character somewhat it didn't go as far as the 2013 movie did.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks
Surprisingly Endless Odyssey did a better job (Imao) at modernizing Harlock than the 2013 movie. At least Endless Odyssey stays true to Harlock's original story/origin and has a Cosmic Alien threat (straight out a Lovecraftian story) as the main villain.
so that's what made harlock so OOC compared to the other series! orz i thought endless odyssey was emo enough :o
"OOC?"
Mimidan Sun OOC?
Viewing this film as a non-canonical alternate universe timeline greatly increased my enjoyment.
But yeah, could have been so much better.
Strangely enough, Leiji Matsumoto seemed to be okay with the film.
At least, that's what I remember from the interviews he did.
Thank you Matt!
80% of this review could also be said for the live action movie of Space Battleship Yamato... I don't know why, but those movie directors really need to stop changing Matsumoto's plot of the original series
Actually, I don't agree there. I personally enjoyed the live-action Yamato quite a lot. My main issue with this film was making Harlock into a self-righteous asshole instead of a hero. Yamato didn't do anything like that...in fact, I thought it did a better job with the characters than the animated remake 2199 did, where Kodai's hero arc was basically gone, his father/son relationship with the captain was eliminated, and there was a lot of cringey cheesecake shit added in. At any rate, Matsumoto's story was already heavily modified for the original animated series, which did not feature Harlock showing up and turning out to be Kodai's brother.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks Interesting, though I'd certainly wish the live-action movie had kept the "human" personalities of the Gamilians, which they are forced to conquer Earth to save their people. The movie portrayed them as an alien collective (alongside Iscandarians), and humans must wipe them out; whereas in 2199 there are more depictions of Gamilians' family members, and the Yamato crew liberates them from Dessler to form an alliance. I think the main selling point of SB Yamato is the fact that both sides are not villains, and that war only makes matter worse, which 2199 excelled at.
I think having fully fleshed-out Gamilon characters was something that was just sacrificed for time. The Gamilons never really came across as especially sympathetic in the original show until the second season, anyway. The Comet Empire pretty much were straight-up villains, however. I have no idea what the new series did with that story, but nobody I know particularly liked it, and thus I've had no real desire to seek it out.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks Agree, don't watch the season 2 remake, it's just as bad as Yamato Resurrection XD
It's kind of funny...
before seeing the movie, I'd never even heard of Harlock. I fell in love with the movie, and thereby discovered the anime (and I've always disliked anime, previously). So, however bad you may think it comparatively, it introduced me to the saga, gained one more fan.
Life's funny sometimes. I personally got introduced to Harlock via a real hack-and-slash job that was shown on American TV back in the '80s. As mismanaged as it was, it still outshone the domestic cartoons airing at the time.
I'd love to see a Robotech CGI movie done right. I'm currently rewatching all the cartoons on Filmrise and while it starts off cheesy, it really does get better. I think it's definitely an IP that could show promise.
I've worked as middle of each other randomly found it I would say not enough screen time for everyone
You know... They actually offer this movie for purchase on this very site. But I would much rather rent the Macross sequels (II: Lovers Again and Plus), the film cuts of which are also available here. Shinji Aramaki and his band of cronies seem to have a thing for killing franchises, be it the asinine fifth Starship Troopers movie Traitor of Mars, or the emo girl wankfest of the TV show Blade Runner Black Lotus, and this pattern definitely began here.
They somehow managed to take a man as free and noble as Harlock and turned him into a designated hero of nth degree, and the universe he inhabits is just depressing in comparison to the wondrous world of Leiji Matsumono he once lived in. I'll rather watch the original show and the Harlock Saga and Endless Odyssey OVAs instead.
P.S. Your defence of Snyder Superman killing Zodd is noble, but as much as people love to bring it up, _Donner Superman didn't kill Zodd in Superman 2!_ Watch the Richard Donner cut, you'll see. Zodd survived, and even without the scene, the ground below the crystals was snow, remember? I mean, it's okay. Snyder Superman killing Zodd was handled reasonably well in hindsight considering the character assassination of BVS (Bearded Idiot vs SuperPsycho)...
The CGI style WOULD be awesome in a Warhammer 40k Rouge Trader animation.
Daniel DiCenso
I stand by the idea that 40k would be best represented by more traditional animation.
The entire review summed up in a single sentence: It is worse than everything before it because Harlock goes from self loathing immortal jerk to what he was in the old shows rather than starting there.
In a nutshell, yes, though a review that short would be pretty dull to make.
Corn Pone Flicks I personally kind of wish you reviewed the actual Movie rather than rift on it for being closer the the “newer” shows with the added effect of everything Harlock lived and fought for in the show’s being destroyed by his own hands.
I did review the movie. I made plenty of observations about the story itself. That said, I did want to address the general character assassination that went on because the bulk of the US audience for this would have no knowledge of the character and what he really was.
Also, not sure why you put quotes around "newer." Newer and older are objective categorizations, not opinions.
Corn Pone Flicks I put newer in quotation marks because over two decades isn’t exactly new. You touched on the actual story of the movie. However, most of the review was more about the old shows rather than the movie in of itself. There are plenty of frankly poor story decisions in the Movie such as its abrupt end, 500 billion people draining the galaxy, and the blandness of the characters to name a few, but your review focused on what you did like that they changed rather then what was wrong with the movie.
I think the changes were, in fact, a great deal of what was wrong with the movie.
Newer is a comparative. Cretaceous is newer than Jurassic. It doesn't mean something is new in the positive sense.
Used to love the movie from the 80s as a kid, but never managed to watch the 78 series. Didn't mind this movie...not my fav but I don't feel it was terrible my only real issue that if say I hate is Harlock plan makes no sense and is like it was an after thought
While I did enjoy the CG and some of the new character designs, I disliked how they made Harlock the complete opposite of his original portrayal from his '78 series. On top of that, the plot is such an unnecessary, convoluted mess.
Such a shame that the good visuals went to waste. We can only hope in the future that Harlock will get a better adaptation. If not, it should just rest.
Make more videos like this
thanks in advance
Well, don't thank me too quickly; I'm not making any promises. At most, I can see one more video in this series.
I was hyped for this film. Then I saw the Arcadia redesign and got concerned. The Arcadia was part of the deathshadow FLEET? WTF. Then we have just a space version of the climax of the Speed Racer movie (hero vs uncountable amount of badguys because bigger is more epicer!)
The movie feels like it was written by 3 different people who had no communication between each other.
Opening was nice although characterizations were scrapped for one dimensional traits
Then we have the backstory section that filled in less holes than it dug. The tone of this middle third is so different from the first that it had to come from some other story/fan fic and copy/paste was used to make it "fit".
The climax was just a massive cluster of wtf, how do we get them out of this to the ending? I was surprised we didn't see some sort of take on the death blossom from Last Starfighter considering how huge the gaia fleet was.
Also never forget that if you aren't getting enough thrust, grimmace and push the throttle harder! Need even more power? Have someone else help you push the throttle! Because that's how throttles work. Honest. Just ask NASA...
Besides a foul taste in my mouth after watching this movie, all it did was add yet another handful of spaghetti to the plate of the character inter-relationship tree. Each "retelling" just muddies the waters even more until we end up with on twitter using #notmyharlock
im gonna be honest, the fact that i never watched the old captain harlock is actually a blessing for me since i was able to fully appreciate what they were going for with the 2013 movie, i was told many times before i watched the 2013 movie that the captain harlock franchise was legendary by many old anime fans, but that said when i did eventually watch them many years later i found the story exceedingly cringe, cheesy, and irritating. hes supposed to be this great elusive space pirate that can never be defeated let alone conquered, and yet his old character basically bespeaks that of a massive hypocrite, and treats his entire personality as anything but a space pirate.
its like hes a rogue cop in a bad cop movie that lost his badge because he defied orders, only to continue pretending to be a cop while doing illegal vigilantism. his insultingly self righteous personality is a contradiction to his legend. i preferred the 2013 version more because while it completely throws the old story out the window, it paints him in a way that embodies what it truly means to be the most feared space pirate in science fiction history. (that said the execution of the 2013 story was admittedly poor, especially the latter half with what seemed like a deliberate cliffhanger and confusing end. overall the storytelling was good, but the execution was bad)
additionally as an artist and animator myself, i would consider the 2013 Arcadia to be vastly superior in design than anything previously imagined, i hope one day that i'll be able to sculpt such a magnificent model in an image befitting a new space pirate, one that shows what it means to be truly free.
I can't speak to what anyone else finds irritating, but regardless of my personal feelings about Harlock, if you're going to change a character this much, the only real reason to even bother keeping the name is to cash in on its existing popularity. Taking a rugged individualist and turning him into a broken psychopath isn't my idea of an improvement...it's like The Last Jedi's version of Luke Skywalker, but much worse.
By the way the name changes are onky in the englisch dub I just watched the german dub and they all had the japanese names
I hated what they did to harlock in this movie.
I like what they're doing to Harlock with the current DImension Voyage manga, this was just an embarrassment.
I strongly suggest anyone looking for a modern take on the Harlock mythos to read the ongoing Dimension Voyage manga, it's been doing everything right so far, respecting the characters, telling a fresh take on the same story while making sense of the whole Leijiverse in ways that don't feel forced nor incoherent, all the while modernizing the visuals without altering them so much that they become unrecognizable, this includes the ships as well.
I recently bought the digital release and I have found it refreshing. Only issue I have with it is that all of the Leijiverse connections really can get convoluted but nonetheless tries to make coherency in a hectic universe.
I watched this on Netflix and stopped when they revealed that (SPOILERS)...
...
...
...EVERYTHING WAS A HOLOGRAM! Earth was a hologram! The one girl was a hologram! Harlock was kind of a hologram sort of! I just burst out laughing and stopped. NOPE! We're good. This is too silly now.
GELTONZ the Earth was a hologram. I kind of guessed that seeing as on how no one was allowed on the planet, but the lady was was needless and honestly didn’t even need to be a character.
I kove the movie and harlock in it
But I guess I have the opertunety here to just enjoi it because I havent seen the anemie jet and Im not even sure I want to see it now because I fear to dislike the movie after 😟
On the flip side, enjoying the show and disliking the movie gives you way, way more good stuff out of the bargain, so I'd say it's worth the effort.
Corn Pone Flicks yeah youre propably right
I didn't really know anything about Harlock before watching the movie, and yet i agree with everything you say. I know Harlock's a great character and i didn't get that impression from the movie, so i was suspicious. I got more emotions listening to the original opening of the anime (that i have never seen) than during the entire movie... So I am glad i came here to confirm that it's a bad adaptation because i did not enjoy it.
To me, it was sort of what The Last Jedi did to Luke, only much, much worse. Luke at least didn't become the villain of the piece.
i gotta say this was the first Harlock property i watched after seeing him pop up on the internet a few times and got interested.
i liked the film but yeah, it was kinda weird to watch, like i was missing context for a few things, or stuff wasn't explained that well. or i wasn't paying enough attention i don't know.
it was pretty to look at tho XD. but yeah good visuals does not a good movie make.
can't say this is a good entry point for this old franchise that's for sure.
I'd personally recommend the 1978 Space Pirate series as a good place to begin. The animation may seem primitive by today's standards, but the direction and story are incomparable. The characters are also much, MUCH better.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks i see. i might start that next when i have the time for it. and if i can find it online somewhere.
and no worries, i like watching older stuff at times, so it's old style is not really a problem. sometimes it's even charming.
Thank you for the recommendation :)
I liked Arcadia of my youth but this didn't do it for me
Good review, can't really disagree with any of it. It certainly was far removed from its original source material. But as someone whose first exposure to Harlock was this adaption I thought it was an enjoyable if dumb "space pirate" movie.
If they had simply called it something else and not tried to make it a Harlock property, I might have been more amenable to it. It has the same damn problem as Disney's Star Wars efforts: the mentors are all old and broken in spirit, and have to be set right by the younger characters, which is precisely backwards for a heroic epic. You should check out the original 1978 series; that's Harlock at its finest.
Sounds like they Rian Johnson-ed Harlock.
Much, much worse than what happened to Luke. I personally like all of Rian's other films, just not that one.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks The CGI animation looks nice though. Also I hear Looper and Knives Out are good Rian Johnson films. And there are parts of The Last Jedi that I like.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks Is Looper good? I own it but ironically I haven't watched it yet.
It is, annoyingly enough, very much like an idea I had myself a ways back. Frankly, all of Rian's films apart from The Last Jedi are good. Knives out is fucking great. It's so weird to me that he could normally make such good work and then really screw the pooch on Star Wars.
WHAT THE HELL!? I never knew Tochiro was even in this movie!
Well, if you had a particularly long sneeze, you could easily miss him.
Corn Pone Flicks That’s what I mean. I watched the entire movie board out of my mind and not once did I recognize him at all.
While I still take issue with Superman killing Zod in 'Man Of Steel', (Even though Supes kinda killed him in 'Superman 2') you make a good point about how his reaction shows that he's still the Superman who has a moral compass. The problem is that Snyder should've saved that moment for a much later film, and try to establish who the Superman is first. 'Man Of Steel' doesn't do a good job establishing Kal-El's moral upbringing in Smallville very well. What with Keven Costner's 'Jonathan Kent' being a conflicting hypocrite through the movie.
I wasn't arguing the merits of Man of Steel as a film, merely comparing two updates, one of which kept the character intact and one of which didn't. I KNEW that bit was going to provoke comments, though.
Incidentally, Snyder had nothing to do with writing the movie. The inclusion of that scene wasn't anything to do with him.
xerxestireirondada True, Syder isn't entirely to blame here. David Goyer's writing is also the problem, and why it turned out the way it did.
I don't entirely agree that there was a problem, per se, though I don't have any personal investment in Superman. The things that bugged me were the silly religious pandering, and the fact that Superman did a rather poor job of saving very many innocent bystanders during the final battle. But that's a topic for another time.
Doug Walker made the exact same observation about the film's religious symbolism. (I AM JESUS) It also bothered me that Superman didn't save many people in the film, nor acted like a kind hearted person.
Well, it wasn't exactly subtle (though there's a strain of it in the 1978 film, too). You'd be hard-pressed NOT to notice it.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on Force Awakens, I found it as insulting as this Harlock garbage, being probably my two favorite franchises.
I have actually got a script ready for that; I just haven't recorded it yet. (My primary stumbling block is that, for obvious reasons, I don't have a copy of the film.)
FYI, I just uploaded my Force Awakens video, right here:
th-cam.com/video/uWckcNEiDS0/w-d-xo.html
You just made my day! thanks! i'll make sure to turn the notifications on for your channel!
Arcadia of my youth was better
Glad I watched this before I rented it.
Sooo, you save me of watching this, thanks
Phew , that makes me glad that i was introduced to Harlock in "Cosmowarrior Zero" .
Really? I wasn't too impressed with that series. You should really check out the 1978 series; that was the character's high point. My Youth in Arcadia and the Galaxy Express 999 movies are also recommended.
Let's just put it like this: I like "Cosmowarrior Zero " a lot , because it feels like an anime version of star trek. Meanwhile Harlock(the 1978 version(i've seen 4 episodes so far)) feels more like a cooler anime version of star wars. I intend on watching the whole Harlock series once i find the time to do it.
I would recommend those as well.
some people compare Harlock Saga to one of the Star Trek movies were they found God.
That ain't how you pronounce "titular"
Clearly, it is how I pronounce it.
A very confusing movie
he maybe change to much in story but one thing is done right I think this one of the best CGI in movie not only in Japan but even in US that look simply great so I recommend push mute play original OST and as silent movie he is pretty good movie ;-P
There's plenty of films that look great AND have a decent story. That's the filmmaker's job to provide that; I'm not doing the work for them.
The Arcadia in this movie is an ugly ship. The first two versions of the ship had a nice graceful design with that great ship cabin on the stern and skull and crossbones on the bow. And yeah Tochiro was horribly underplayed in this.
I feel like it’s more realistic tho for a super old not to mention cursed ship but I guess I can see why you’d say that
See I still enjoyed the movie lol It's a different TAKE on Harlock, it's not meant to mirror the originals, None of the stories were they were all New stories with the same character.
The English version though...my god how do you say that's alright? It's so out of sync and the voices don't match whatsoever to the characters I couldn't stand it. It skips major points with the Dubbed that the subbed of it covered in full.
But I have to give the CGI movie credit for leading me to the series because God Damn is Harlock awesome, I just recently finished reading Dimensional voyage so maybe that will get its own variant adaptation reboot? Who knows but it was dope!
This video is the fourth in a series that was primarily about earlier English dubs. Watch those, and then you'll see why I couldn't really complain much about the dubbing in this one.
Dub? Ewwee