Stax here with my reaction to the screenplay for Star Blazers. Longtime readers will recall that I previously reviewed this script at my now defunct site, Flixburg. Ever since my old site went kaput, I've received lots of e-mail from readers who'd like to find these older reviews for such unproduced projects as Star Blazers. I've now gotten the okay to republish some of these prior reviews here.
For those who don't know, Star Blazers was an animated TV series in Japan during the 1970s before an Americanized version garnered the cult classic new fans. A live-action feature film version was in development at Disney during the late 1990s. Oscar-nominated screenwriter Tab Murphy (Disney's Tarzan and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Last of the Dogmen) penned the September 10, 1997 draft that I reviewed.
Just to be clear, this project is dead as far as I know. Tab Murphy seemed to have gotten word of my old script review and spoke about it in an interview, which I can no longer find online. (My Web search revealed, however, that Murphy's Star Blazers script has been posted here and here.) Here's my old review, which contains SPOILERS:
Mr. Murphy's script for Star Blazers does not try to improve upon or differentiate itself from the Star Wars films or from their many imitators. Murphy's Star Blazers simply loots from these films both in concept and execution. In the end, there is hardly an original idea, scenario or characterization to be found in the entire story. If you're just interested in what is "cool" rather than a story that's original then you might enjoy Murphy's version more than I did.
Needless to say, this version of Star Blazers owes more to Star Wars, Aliens, ID4, Stargate, and Starship Troopers than to the original cartoon although the basic concept of the series remains. It is 2098 A.D. Decimated by the invasion of Desslock's Gamelon Empire, humanity's last hope is to accept the offer of a peaceful alien who crash lands on Earth. The Star Force undertakes a perilous journey to the alien's home world of Iskandar, where the Cosmo DNA/Wave Motion technology necessary for defeating Gamelon can be attained. In order to do this, the Star Force resurrects a sunken World War II battleship and refits it for space travel. That's all that really remains from the cartoon.
Derek Wildstar is now Captain Derrick Wilder from Chicago. He is basically Luke Skywalker, Tom Cruise's Maverick, and Will Smith's ID4 character all rolled into one. He still has a brother Alex who is the most renowned pilot in Star Force. He also has a kid sister named Erika. I don't remember Wildstar having a kid sister in the series but I do vaguely recall Marc Venture having a younger sibling. By the way, there is no Marc Venture in this story! That's right, fans, the rivalry-turned-friendship between Wildstar and Venture is not to be found here. Also, Marc's ill-fated romance with Queen Starsha becomes Derrick's relationship with a mysterious female alien who crash lands on earth and later leads Wilder's team to Iskandar. (Since Wilder is our main protagonist, this change makes sense. It makes Star Blazers Derrick's story rather than someone else's.)
This mysterious, otherworldly woman is called (after 90 pages of being called "Female Alien"!) ... Nova. Yes, Nova is no longer part of the crew. The closest thing we have to the original Nova is a female fighter pilot named Jo Ashton. She is supposed to be a foil for Derrick but she ends up with not too much to do until the story's climax. She spends most of Act Two babysitting Derrick's kid sister! She's also the butt of a lot of male chauvinistic one-liners.
Captain Avatar is not in the script. Instead we have Admiral Kogen who is essentially Tom Skerritt's character from Top Gun crossed with Robert Loggia's hard-ass military man from ID4. There is a scene right out of Top Gun where Kogen tells Wilder about flying with his father back in the old days. Kogen is the Eisenhower of the Star Force command. Star Force, mind you, is pretty much an Anglo-American outfit. There are really no people of color save one and no other ethnicity outside of Anglo stock. The script doesn't even mention whether Orion is Irish; he is merely described as a "St. Nick-type."
Joining Avatar and Venture in the realm of non-existence are: Sandor, Conroy, the Black Tigers, Homer, Dr. Sane and his cat (I'm not too sorry to see them go, though), and Queen Starsha. There are no Space Marines, however, Knox is here in all his gung-ho glory. (He is Han Solo to Derrick's Luke.) Orion and Dash make the cut and there's a new character named Kato, a black man with Maori facial tattoos. This time the crew is composed of imprisoned mutineers who are given a shot at freedom by Wilder if they'll join his suicidal mission. It is The Dirty Dozen in space. Ironically, a year after this script was written Armageddon employed the same idea of having the earth saved by a ragtag band of underdogs.
And the biggest (and most ethnocentric) change of all? The Argo is no longer the sunken Japanese vessel Yamato. It is now the USS Arizona, which was sunk by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. I wonder what the series' creators think about that. After all, studio executives must have reasoned, an American summer movie audience surely can't root for those industry-stealing Japanese, right? (This is not P.C. paranoia on my part, mind you: I once had a production company executive tell me that my script with an Irish main character wouldn't sell because American audiences can't connect with foreign leads unless it's James Bond.) By the way, the Arizona is never renamed the Argo so there goes that mythical reference as well.
The Gamelons are close to defeating the Star Force and laying waste to what is left of the scorched Earth. A pod belonging to another alien civilization crash lands in what is left of Chicago. Derrick and Jo investigate and discover a mysterious, unconscious female alien within the wreckage. After a brief firefight with the Gamelons, they return with the alien to the Star Force headquarters (located inside Mount Rushmore). Desslock himself is strangely reluctant to destroy Earth while that pod's inhabitant is there ...
As in Independence Day, the captured alien is examined in a lab before the astonished eyes of all assembled. She comes to and announces (I swear!), "I come in peace." She explains that she is from Iskandar and that she belongs to a technologically superior but pacifistic species. She offers humanity the chance to obtain the Iskandar technology (the Cosmo DNA) necessary for thwarting the Gamelons. Star Force initially refuses her help; they're unsure whether or not to trust her. After Alex and his squad are wiped out in a Gamelon ambush (prompting talk of a Judas within the Star Force), Admiral Kogen allows Wilder to raise a crew of volunteers to travel to Iskandar. The only ones crazy enough to go with Derrick and Jo are the crew of the Defiant, who are imprisoned for a mutiny that killed their commander. The executive officer of this group is the robust Knox.
Kogen provides Wilder and his crew with the USS Arizona, a refurbished World War II battleship which was meant to serve as a "Noah's Ark" when Gamelon finally conquered Earth. A single crystal of Cosmo DNA magically transforms the Arizona's systems into the Wave Motion Engine, allowing the vessel to travel at warp speed. Escaping through an asteroid belt with Gamelon fighters in hot pursuit (shades of Empire Strikes Back), the Arizona warps off to Iskandar. Derrick soon discovers that his sister Erika has stowed away on the Arizona. After all, what is left for her back home? Derrick and Erika later forge a bond with the Female Alien.
Before reaching Gamelon, however, the Arizona makes a brief stop at a planet inhabited by a giant insect species called the Thrid, who are allied with Iskandar. The Thrid are an easily riled species who mine Selenite crystals, which the Arizona needs in order to repair itself for the remainder of the journey. A jittery crew member causes the bugs to attack Wilder's landing party. After a very Starship Troopers-like firefight with the Thrid, the landing party returns to the Arizona with the vital crystals.
Wilder then finds out that he has more unwanted company besides just his kid sister. In a feat worthy of Boba Fett's Slave One, a Gamelon fighter latched onto the side of the Arizona before it warped away from Earth. The Gamelon crew's takeover of the Arizona fails and they end up in the brig. This is where the real surprise happens: that female alien transforms into a beautiful humanoid woman named Nova who reveals that she is actually part-Gamelon! Her mother's people were raped and conquered by Desslock and his armies years before. She now wishes to avenge the genocide of her mother's peaceful race by aiding the Star Force in the retrieval of the Cosmo DNA. Plus, Nova is not taking the Star Blazers to Iskandar after all but to Gamelon where Desslock has the Cosmo DNA materials stored in a vault!
The Cosmo DNA is basically used here a la "Project Genesis" from Star Trek; it allows for the complete regeneration of Earth. Derrick spares Nova from the wrath of his crew who are angry that she betrayed their trust. (It has also become obvious that Derek is torn between Jo and Nova.) Using the uniforms and ship of the captured Gamelon crew, Nova leads Wilder, Knox, and their party to Gamelon.
She explains to her doting dad that she was only trying to make it to earth to see him and, gosh, she crashed his car trying to get there ... Nova somehow hoodwinks Desslock into believing that Wilder just gave her a ride back to her house. Desslock then invites Derrick to join their final assault on Earth and he politely accepts. Desslock is suspicious, however, and has an aide investigate this Captain Wilder. Nova, meanwhile, confides to the Arizona crew that she'll return to Earth with them once the betrayal of her father is complete.
Invited to a meeting with the top Gamelon brass, Derrick loses his cool when Desslock announces that they have a mole within the Star Force that will aid in their final attack on Earth. He levels a "Smite pistol" at Desslock and the imperial leader does ... nothing! Apparently, Derrick's cover has not been blown by this treacherous act. The very next scene has a messenger arrive with a paper note for Desslock (there are telegrams in Gamelon c. 2098 AD?) informing him that there is an impostor in his midst and that the Cosmo DNA vault has been broken into. HELLO?! The gun to Desslock's head didn't raise any red flags?! Of course, now Derrick opens fire and escapes.
From here on out it is basically Luke, Han, and Leia running around the Death Star. Until this point most of the bad action movie one-liners and sexual innuendoes were made by Knox or Dash. Now Nova gets in on the act, which is as disconcerting as when a certain princess from Alderaan switched from speaking with a clipped British accent to yelling, "Into the garbage chute, flyboy!" There are a few mentions of Santa Claus and Commander Cody that brought me right out of the story. (How many people today know of Commander Cody let alone in 2098?) The most incongruous one-liner, though, is when Nova rebukes Knox for commenting on the small size of the Cosmo DNA crystal: "Size isn't everything. Even on Gamelon." Wow, phallic jokes are apparently universal. Plus, the Gamelons not only speak the King's English but they're also hip to 20th century American slang.
Nova realizes she cannot return with the Star Blazers and instead turns herself in to her father, who is just now realizing that his daughter has betrayed him. She stays behind so that Derrick and the Arizona can escape. Gamelon fighters pursue the Star Blazers' captured vessel. Dash yells an eerily familiar "We've got company!" and a dogfight ensues. The crew makes it back to the Arizona and they warp to Earth with the Cosmo DNA. Desslock now confronts his daughter Nova in a scene which recalls the Tarkin-Leia "I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board" scene. Desslock refuses to kill his own child; instead he has something more cruel in mind.
The Arizona's return is an unexpected pleasure for Star Force Command, as they were believed to have perished in the asteroid belt attack. Kogen sends his second-in-command, Colonel Stone, out to greet the crew and retrieve the Cosmo DNA. Wilder, however, correctly suspects Stone of being the turncoat. After a few obvious denials, Stone proudly confesses to his treachery. After all, the humans are going to lose and he doesn't want to die. A genuinely amusing moment happens when Knox evaporates Stone just as he launches into his Scooby Doo-like exposition about why he went bad. No sooner have the Star Blazers returned with the Cosmo DNA than the Gamelon armada arrives.
Nova refuses, prompting Desslock to snarl: "When are you going to stop denying your birthright and realize that it is your destiny to rule the galaxies at my side? Nothing you can do will change that. ... Join me, my daughter." At least he didn't sever her hand, too.
The Star Force engages the armada in a tremendous finale a la Return of the Jedi, saving Nova from having to commit the terrible deed. The Wave Motion Gun eviscerates most of the Gamelon armada. A horrified Desslock joins the battle in his own fighter. Desslock bids his daughter farewell with a line swiped right from Michael Corleone: "You broke my heart." Nova then shares a Luke-Leia psychic bond with Derrick where she tells him to do what he must in order to defeat the armada. With that, the Arizona fires one more Wave Motion blast that destroys the flagship and Nova along with it.
Jo pulls a Han Solo and swoops down out of nowhere to attack Desslock and the two fighters flanking him. She even causes Desslock's fighter to "cartwheel off into space"! Surprise, the Star Force wins. Jo launches the Cosmo DNA missile at Earth, transforming it from a barren wasteland back into its beautiful former self (without wiping out anything already existing there, mind you). Derrick and Jo succumb to their romantic feelings and observe Erika playing nearby, a child once again.
Meanwhile, Desslock stares out into space from the bridge of his crippled starship, plotting his comeback. He wants to avenge Nova's death. The description reads "and suddenly, it's become personal ..." Fade out. The End. The tag line at the end? "Coming Soon – Star Blazers II: Desslock's Revenge!"
I really wanted to enjoy Star Blazers. I actually kind of liked it until the midway point. Sure, I could see the obvious parallels to Star Wars, Starship Troopers and ID4 but it had the makings of being a guilty pleasure. Sadly, this script not only crossed the fine line between homage and rip-off it proudly pole-vaulted over it. It became a tired, derivative rehash of every other sci-fi blockbuster. Imagine ripping off a rip-off like ID4. How many generations of loss is that?
The fact that there were major alterations in the Star Blazers mythos isn't what bothered me. It was that Murphy's script failed to capture any of the pathos of the Star Force's plight, which the cartoon so eloquently explored. Instead the script degenerated into a one-liner-ridden, pedestrian sci-fi film. Unless the painfully obvious influences of other movies are removed, there's no reason to make this Star Blazers script into a film as we've seen it all before. – STAX
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