Be Forever Yamato

Be Forever Yamato (ヤマトよ永遠に) is the third theatrical film based on the classic anime series Space Battleship Yamato (known as Star Blazers in the United States). The film is unique for switching from monaural VistaVision （1:1.85） to Quadraphonic CinemaScope （1:2.35） when the Yamato enters the Double Galaxy.

Synopsis
The Black Nebula Empire, last seen in Yamato: The New Voyage launches a huge fortress into Earth's solar system. It plunges through Earth's defensive systems and lands on Earth, sending out invasion forces. A Black Nebulan fleet wipes out Earth's space fleets. The invasion fortress contained a bomb capable of destroying half the planet. The Nebulans will use it if attacked by Earth.

The Star Force is launched from a secret base in the asteroid belt with the mission of finding the Black Nebulan mother planet. It is from this planet that the bomb is controlled. Nova gets left behind on Earth and is captured by a kind Black Nebulan officer, Lt. Arufon. Wildstar's brother, Alex, dies (technically for the second time, because he was thought to have died in the quest for Iscandar) while escaping capture. The Earth government collapses.

The Black Nebula is a double, spiral galaxy very near the Milky Way. The disc that faces Earth is made of black, inert matter which obscures all light from the other disc. For this reason, it had never been seen before. The Star Force's encounter with the Black Nebulans in Yamato: New Journey is the only reason the Earthers now know of it.

The Star Force gets three new crew members. First is Cory Conroy, the original Conroy's younger brother. The original Conroy had died in the battle with the Comet Empire (as had Sgt. Knox, Hardy, O'Ryan, and possibly Trelaina. The second member is Sasha, daughter of Starsha and Alex. Sasha has grown from infancy to a teen in about 1 Earth-year. This is the Iscandarian aging process. Amazingly, her education has kept pace. The third new member is a new captain, Captain Yamanami.

The Star Force reaches the other side of the Black Nebula, through a vortex at its center, revealing a grand, white galaxy, similar to the Milky Way. They follow a beacon signal to a planet that looks just like Earth. They land, and are greeted by an apparently-human woman, Sada, and two officers from the Black Nebulan Empire. They meet the Emperor, Scaldart, who also appears to be a human. He tells them that they are actually back in the Milky Way, in the year 2402. The vortex was a hole in time. The Earth has been under Black Nebulan rule for 200 years, and he is the (puppet) governor. Scaldart shows Derek and the landing party all sorts of collections of Earth's famous artwork, and, up on the Argo, the video screen scans the surface of the planet to find all of Earth's famous landmarks.

Scaldart shows them a time viewing machine which tells the history of the Star Force from 2199 up until the present. Then he shows them the future. The Argo, in orbit above Earth, is destroyed by the enemy's fleet and its flagship, the Grodaze, in 2402.

The landing crew returns, demoralised, to the Argo... except for Sasha who seems to have foreknowledge of her true destiny. She abandons the party and remains on conquered Earth. Alone on Earth's surface, her mother Starsha appears in a vision. She tells Sasha that she was born between Iscandar and Earth, and that her destiny is to die far from both, in service of both.

In orbit, the Argo is attacked by the Grodaze and its fleet. Beta particle guns rain fire onto the ship. But the Star Force's fateful instant of death does not come. Sandor figures out that the woman on the planet was not really human, and that the artworks were all frauds. Might the Earth below them not be Earth?

The Star Force turns around and fires the Wave Motion Gun at the Grodaze and its fleet, destroying them. But, the tachyon- based energy of the Wave Gun has an unexpected reaction with the beta particle energy systems of the exploding enemy ships. A huge cascade explosion forms over Earth, burning up much of its surface. The Earth, where Sasha remained, dissolves away in fire.

Within the fire is revealed the black skeleton of a planet, its twisting ribs formed into a sphere. It is not Earth, but the Black Nebulan mother planet, Dezarium. It was all an elaborate hoax designed to demoralize and defeat the Star Force. Scaldart pulls off the mask he wore to reveal his true Black Nebulan face.

Back on Earth, Lt. Arufon frees Nova, who then leads an assault on the fortress. She has a showdown with Arufon, who is then shot by another Earth trooper. Nova runs to catch Arufon's fall. Arufon tells her that his people are a race of cyborgs, who gave up most of their flesh for longer life through Mechanisms. But they almost lost the ability to love in the process. Arufon gives Nova the plans to the fortress, including instructions on how to disarm its hyperon bomb, and dies in her arms.

Sasha managed to survive the incineration of the surface by running into lower levels of the planet. She reaches a sub-control center and sends a communication to the Star Force, telling them that to destroy Dezarium, they must reach its core through a huge conduit she is about to open. Scaldart interrupts her message to warn the Star Force that if it proceeds any further, he will detonate the hyperon bomb on Earth.

From more than 200,000 light years away, Nova's radio message interrupts Scaldart telling the Star Force that she is alive, that the Earth forces have immobilised the fortress, and that the double-nucleus hyperon bomb has been disarmed.

The Argo speeds though the conduit, dodging all sorts of enemy fire. It reaches the center of the planet where it finds a huge crystal city all bound up in a spherical arragement... (looks something like a glass sea urchin). Buildings fly off and burst into missiles. The Argo is hit and Captain Yamanami is killed. Wilstar prepares the Wave Gun, but stops when he realises this will kill Sasha. But Sasha again radios the Star Force, insisting that they fire. This is her destiny. Scaldart finds and shoots Sasha. An enraged Wildstar pulls the Wave Gun trigger.

The blast sets off another explosive chain reaction. The Argo does a 180-degree turn and rushes out of the internal chamber entering into an emergency warp as it reaches the conduit exit. Dezarium explodes behind them, destroying the delicate gravitational balance between the two sides of the Double Galaxy. They crash into each other, becoming the birth of a new galaxy.

The Star Force warps home while Nova looks towards the glowing horizon for their return.

Cast

 * Kei Tomiyama as Susumu Kodai
 * Shuusei Nakamura as Daisuke Shima
 * Youko Asagami as Yuki Mori
 * Akira Kamiya as Shiro Kato
 * Banjou Ginga as Grotas/Takashi Tanaka
 * Ichirô Nagai as Dr. Sakezo Sado
 * Kazuo Hayashi as Yasuo Nanbu
 * Keiko Han as Sasha/Mio Sanada
 * Kenichi Ogata as Analyzer
 * Masatô Ibu as Heikuro Todo
 * Michio Hazama as Narrarator
 * Mikio Terashima as Sho Yamazaki
 * Miyuki Ueda as Starsha
 * Mugihito as Kazan
 * Nachi Nozawa as Alphon
 * Osamu Kobayashi as Keisuke Yamanami
 * Shinji Nomura as Yoshikazu Aihara
 * Taichirou Hirokawa as Mamoru Kodai
 * Takeshi Aono as Shiro Sanada
 * Tohru Furuya as Tasuke Tokugawa
 * Tōru Ōhira as Skulldart
 * Yoshito Yasuhara as Kenjiro Ota
 * Yumi Nakatani as Sada