[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sbyamato.jpg]]
A 2010 LiveActionAdaptation of the 70s [[Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato anime of the same name]].

In the year 2199, Earth is on the losing side of a five year war with an alien race they only know as the Gamilas. The humans do not know what the enemy wants, in fact, they don't even know what they look like, or why they first started bombarding Earth with radiation bombs. The movie opens with a fleet of Earth Defense Force starships commanded by Captain Jyuzo Okita formed up to launch a major attack on a Gamilas fleet off Mars. Their massive opening salvo does [[NoSell negligible damage]], and the responding salvo from the Gamilas fleet leaves the Earther fleet [[CurbStompBattle in tattered ruins.]] A younger Captain, Mamoru Kodai, insists that Captain Okita save himself and his ship, and uses his own crippled destroyer [[TakingTheBullet to shield Okita]] from the next salvo, [[HonorBeforeReason despite Okita's pleas for the younger officer to save himself.]]

Okita returns to [[GaiasLament the red, irradiated, barren world]] of Earth, where the surviving population lives in cramped shelters deep underground, and some brave the surface to scavenge for useful materials. One such person is Susumu Kodai, who has a brother in the EDF that sends him luxury supplies in trade for the materials he finds. While out on Earth's surface scavenging and [[DeadpanSnarker snarking at his]] [[RobotBuddy Analyser]], he is nearly [[DeathFromAbove flattened]] by an object that comes streaking out of the sky to land at his feet. Stunned to see that he is still intact, he picks up the strange object just as an EDF ship appears overhead, tracking the object's descent.

After studying the device, the EDF finds schematics for a [[WaveMotionGun powerful engine and weapon]], and proceed to build a ship around it, which Okita requests to take on a mission to find Iscandar, in order to retrieve an anti-radiation device to save the Earth. His request is approved, and a call for volunteers goes out, taking on surviving EDF officers, retired veterans, and civilians with spacer experience, including one Susumu Kodai, who has it in for Captain Okita after learning how his brother Mamoru died. The question becomes whether this new ship, built from the remains of a UsefulNotes/WorldWarII battleship, will succeed in finding Iskandar and returning to Earth with the anti-radiation device in time to save her.

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!!''Space Battleship Yamato'' contains examples of the following tropes:

* ActionGirl: Yuki. One of her male squadmates lunges at her after she talks trash about Susumu, and she reacts by quickly punching him in the nose and dropping him. The consensus among the rest of the squadron is that he was an idiot to even try.
* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Inverted. In the original anime, Garmilans are basically [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation blue-skinned]] HumanAliens. In the film they are much more alien-looking, with glowing blue torsos.
* AdaptationalBadass: [[spoiler:Analyzer was a helpful assistant robot in the original TV series. In the film, he gains a bulky machine gun-toting body during the landing on [=Iskandar/Garmilas=].]]
* AdaptiveAbility: The Gamilons in this universe use adaptive DeflectorShields that quickly rendered human weapons and armor ineffective after encountering them. The anime-verse Gamilon ships simply had better armor than their Earth counterparts.
* AffectionateGestureToTheHead: Shirō gives Susumu one before [[spoiler:charging the Gamilas main structure.]]
* AirstrikeImpossible: During the attack on [[spoiler:Iscandar]], ''Yamato'' dives into the atmosphere while launching fighters in a very ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003''-like fashion, complete with jumping out before she hits the ground. The fighters proceed to fly through a cave system.
* AttackItsWeakPoint: ''Yamato'' targets a Gamilas ship's warp drive with her main guns (with Yuki getting close enough with her fighter to paint the target). It turns out, blowing up a ship's charged warp drive [[UnrealisticBlackHole causes it to implode]]. And then explode. [[SplashDamage Very violently.]]
* BlindJump: [[spoiler:When the ''Yamato'' is attacked shortly after arriving at Iscandar and can't hold out, Susumu orders one of these. Shima is initially reluctant but relents. After they make it, Shirō calls Susumu out on the wisdom of having done so.]]
* BloodKnight: The Space Commandos. When Susumu asks if they know they're likely going on a OneWayTrip, Hajime Saitō replies with an enthusiastic ''"That's what makes the job so damn fun!"'' His men agree.
* CallingTheOldManOut: Upon learning how his brother died, Susumu wastes no time storming the bridge and [[WhatTheHellHero calling Okita out for saving himself and leaving Mamoru to die.]]
-->'''Susumu''': How do you sleep at night?!
-->'''Okita''': [[ShutUpKirk Like a baby.]] Is there any other way?
** Since Susumu was (briefly) her commanding officer before his retirement, Yuki gets to do this when she punches him in the same scene and [[WhatTheHellHero scolds him for not being at the battle in the first place]].
* CanonImmigrant: The reason for Mamoru Kodai's sacrifice is taken from a {{Woolseyism}} in the Star Blazers dub of the original series.
* TheChainsOfCommanding: Okita carries a heavy burden, one which Susumu is hesitant to carry himself; one which includes ordering men and women to their deaths because of one's own mistakes. Okita directly says in a conversation with Susumu [[spoiler:after the latter had Yuki destroy the connector to the third bridge before a latched-on Gamilas weapon can blow up the ''Yamato'', but throwing away the lives of those on the third bridge in the process,]] that there's no way those who have not commanded can understand the pressures the two of them are under.
* CommandRoster:
** TheCaptain: Juzo Okita
** TheLancer: Susumu Kodai
** ActionGirl and AcePilot: Yuki Mori
** TheEngineer: Hikozaemon Tokugawa
** TheBigGuy: Hajime Saitō
** TheSmartGuy: Shirō Sanada
** TheMedic: Dr. Sado
* CompositeCharacter:
** As a sort of MythologyGag, Yuki takes on Starsha's role when [[spoiler: Iskandar possesses her to communicate with Susumu and his men.]]
** Aihara in the film is a gender-flipped combination of Aihara and Ota from the anime. She even wears Ota's white-and-green uniform and sits at his position on the bridge.
** In the original series, Dessler was the leader of Gamilons while in the film, Desla and Gamila are both names of the same alien HiveMind. [[spoiler: Plus, the Iscandarians were a separate race in the original series while in the film, the Iskandar are the good part of the HiveMind.]]
** In a weird meta sense, the ending turns out to be ''very'' similar to the ending of ''[[spoiler: [[BittersweetEnding Farewell to]] [[TheHeroDies Space Battleship Yamato]] ]]''. [[TearJerker Prepare the tissues]].
* DefrostingIceQueen: Yuki. She feels that Susumu has skipped out on the worst of the fighting the EDF has faced after he left the service, and reacts angrily when the rest of the squadron welcomes him warmly. [[spoiler:She begins warming to Susumu as she realizes how many of her burdens and responsibilities that he's started to bear alongside her since joining the crew -- and how many he'd always been carrying.]]
* DiedHappilyEverAfter: [[spoiler:As Susumu makes his suicide run on the final Gamilas spaceship, he sees his dead comrades as smiling spectres, serving as a MythologyGag to]] ''[[spoiler: Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato]]''.
* DiedStandingUp: [[spoiler: Saitō]] dies pulling YouShallNotPass while DualWielding machine guns to buy time for [[spoiler: Sanada to set up a bomb to destroy the power source of the Gamilas.]]
* DiesWideOpen: The fate of [[spoiler:Saitō]], with tears falling from his open eyes to boot.
* DwindlingParty: The crew as a whole, taking casualties as the ship gets damaged over the course of the film, but especially during the [[spoiler: expedition to Gamilas.]] By the end of the film, there are only [[spoiler: 12 survivors out of the entire crew, which is less than]] '' [[spoiler: [[DownerEnding Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato]]]]''!
* DyingSmirk: Fatally wounded by [[MultipleGunshotDeath multiple Gamilas blasts]], [[spoiler:Shirō]] puts on a smile as he presses down on a detonator.
* EldritchStarship: Befitting for a HiveMind, the Gamilas ships have a "fleshy" look [[LivingShip with various parts wiggling and flapping]] as they travel, resembles various arthropod and/or deep-sea lifeforms, and lacks any visible propulsion systems. [[spoiler: The bomb attached to the Third Bridge, for example, grabbed - and crushed the Bridge with what seems to be ''claws''.]]
* EnsignNewbie: Ando, in command of Bridge Three.
* {{Expy}}: The version of Yuki that appears in this film borrows quite heavily from [[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 Kara "Starbuck" Thrace]].
* FiveSecondForeshadowing: At the end, faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, [[spoiler:Susumu declares his intention to seek Okita's advice... and then sees Dr. Sado at the entrance to the bridge, shaking her head sadly.]]
* ForcedToWatch: [[spoiler:Dessla has all of ''Yamato'''s weapons destroyed so that her crew can do nothing but watch helplessly as Earth gets destroyed.]]
* GenderedOutfit: Male pilots have blue jackets with a yellow design, female pilots have yellow jackets with a blue design.
* GrandTheftMe: One Gamilas being, calling himself Dessla, briefly takes possession of Saito to communicate with (and threaten) the crew, giving Saito CreepyBlueEyes in the process. [[spoiler: Iskandar does this too.]]
* GuyInBack: When flying the Cosmos Zero, Analyser is this to Susumu, complete with a [[Franchise/StarWars R2D2-esque]] rotating dome head.
* HardTruthAesop: NoOneGetsLeftBehind might be a noble sentiment, but in reality there will be times when you have to sacrifice or abandon people to save others.
* TheHeroDies
* HeroicSacrifice: All over the place. Mamoru Kodai sacrifices himself and his ship to save Captain Okita and his, the pilots of Tiger Squad, the Space Commandos and [[spoiler:Analyser]] die holding the line [[spoiler: on Gamilas]], and finally [[spoiler: Susumu Kodai stays aboard to stop Dessla's suicide attack on Earth by ramming him and setting off the WaveMotionGun.]]
* HistoryRepeats: Just like back in 1945, ''Yamato'' sets out on a seeming SuicideMission to act as the HopeBringer to her people. Only this time, she succeeds.
* HiveMind: The Gamilas exist as a sort of networked crystaline energy conciousness, and can possess constructs of their own making or [[GrandTheftMe human hosts]].
* HopeBringer: During the RousingSpeech Susumu makes while the ''Yamato'' crew are preparing to [[spoiler:make landfall on Iscandar]], he likens themselves to this.
* HostileTerraforming: As per usual, the Gamilas attacks are to transform Earth into an environment where the Gamilas lifeform could thrive in.
* IfICantHaveYou: [[spoiler:Dessla intends on destroying Earth, declaring that if the Gamilas can't have it, then neither shall Mankind.]]
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Gamilas have stretchable arms with a sharp end, which they use to stab through humans.
* LadyDrunk: Dr. Sado spends the first portion of the mission wandering around the ship carrying a large bottle of Sake and a cat.
* MacGuffin: An unusual example, in that the MacGuffin they set out to retrieve [[spoiler: doesn't exist.]]
* MoreHeroThanThou: [[spoiler:Shirō and Saitō charge the main Gamilas structure to destroy it, telling Susumu and Yuki to go back to ''Yamato''.]]
* MyGreatestFailure: The reason Susumu got out of the military: During a mission to deflect a Gamilas bomb away from Earth, he [[NiceJobBreakingItHero accidentally sent the bomb flying into]] [[spoiler: a space station that both his family and Shima's pregnant wife lived on.]]
* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: A DeconstructedTrope. Susumu invokes this to Captain Okita when he endangers the ''Yamato'' to rescue Yuki. While Okita does plan a daring HyperspeedEscape to save Susumu and Yuki instead of abandoning both of them, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Susumu still gets thrown into the brig for endangering the ship with his heroics]]. Finally, [[spoiler:despite promising to save Ando when he's stranded on the third bridge, Susumu is forced to order Yuki to destroy it along with a suicide-bomb Gamilas fighter about to destroy the ship]].
* NotHisSled: [[spoiler: Iskandar and Garmillas aren't twin planets,]] ''[[spoiler: they're the same planet]].''
* OhCrap: Susumu panics when he wakes up after being sent flying by the impact of the falling object and realises that his gas mask has been knocked off. He has another one on learning that [[spoiler:an enemy object has obstructed the Wave Motion Gun muzzle.]]
* OneWayTrip: The mission to [[spoiler: the Gamilas homeworld]].
* OutrunTheFireball: Twice. Yuki gets caught in the blast wave when a Gamilas ship's warp drive goes off (but is rescued), and later she and Susumu have to escape the destruction of [[spoiler: the Gamilas homeworld.]]
* PercussivePrevention: [[spoiler:Susumu uses his stun gun on Yuki to prevent her from staying with him on his suicide run.]]
* PragmaticAdaptation: This film rewrote much of Susumu Kodai's character arc to reflect him being played by a 37-year-old Kimura Takuya. Instead of being a HotBlooded young SpaceCadet growing to manhood, he's a RetiredBadass turned ShellShockedVeteran by tragedy, who accepts the CallToAdventure [[OneLastJob once more time]], [[spoiler:and is forced to learn to bear the burden of TheChainsOfCommanding to become the leader he was meant to be]].
* PostApocalypticGasmask: The Gamila's OrbitalBombardment has made the surface of Earth so deadly that Susumu has to wear thick clothing and a gasmask to scavenge for useful materials.
* TheReveal: Two of them. First: [[spoiler: [[MotivationalLie There is no proof that an anti-radiation device exists on Iskandar.]]]] Second: [[spoiler: Iskandar is the Gamilas homeworld.]]
* RobotBuddy: Analyser. He is actually more of a Smartphone Buddy, but Susumu is able to plug him into his SpaceFighter [[spoiler: and into a GiantRobot body.]]
* RousingSpeech: Susumu gives one during the LockAndLoadMontage as the ''Yamato'' prepares to [[spoiler:make landfall on Iscandar.]]
* SayMyName: [[spoiler:Yuki's name is the last thing on Susumu's lips as he fires the Wave Motion Gun for the very last time at the final Gamilas spaceship.]]
* ShellShockedVeteran: Susumu. Not knowing his BackStory, Yuki is slow to realize this, and just thinks he's a coward and jerk -- and treats him accordingly.
* ShutUpKiss: [[spoiler:Susumu gives Yuki one after she starts to lament destroying the connector to the third bridge.]]
* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: [[spoiler:In the credits scenes, we see a boy call Yuki "mama", who is implied to be Susumu's.]]
* SpaceFighter: Multiple types, such as Susumu's Cosmos Zero and Yuki's Cosmos Tiger.
* SpaceIsAnOcean: At least the humans seem to think so. All of their starships carry their weapons on the top half, with the bottom half painted in anti-corrosion red paint.
* SpaceMarine: Hajime Saitō and his Space Commandos.
* SubspaceAnsible: The ''Yamato'' has one, but its range is limited to within the Milky Way, so Okita gives everyone one minute each to say goodbye to their relatives on Earth before they continue on.
* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: During the attack on [[spoiler:Iscandar]] Susumu is talking to another pilot when they get ambushed by Gamilas fighters.
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Susumu defies Captain Okita when he goes and tries to rescue Yuki, endangering the ''Yamato''. After successfully returning to the ship with Yuki, instead of being applauded for his actions, Susumu is promptly thrown into the brig. While his heroics were noble, he still disobeyed orders and endangered the ship unnecessarily.
* SurvivorGuilt: Yuki which influences her interactions with Susumu (for instance, [[spoiler:when she tries comforting him after he orders her to destroy the third bridge]]). Susumu and Okita have their own cases that they struggle with.
* TakeAMomentToCatchYourDeath: [[spoiler: Most of ''Yamato's'' crew]] is killed when the ship is attacked while Kodai announces their return to Earth.
* TakingTheBullet: One of ''Yamato'''s pilots intercepts a missile headed for the {{Space Marine}}s' DropShip with his own fighter.
* TalkingIsAFreeAction: [[spoiler:At the end, the Gamilas spacecraft apparently takes so long to ready its weapons that Susumu can say farewell to and evacuate all of ''Yamato'''s remaining crew before beginning his suicide run.]]
* TargetSpotter: A general role of space fighters in this film is providing targeting data for the big guns on the Earth's capital ships like the ''Yamato''.
* ThatsAnOrder:
** After Susumu refuses Okita's offer [[spoiler: to take his place as Captain due to Okita's failing health]], Okita decides to just announce it anyways.
-->'''Okita''': [[Funny/SpaceBattleshipYamato I will relieve you of the burden of choice]].
** Susumu himself ends up using it when [[spoiler:Yuki is reluctant to evacuate and leave him behind.]]
* ThatsNoMoon: [[spoiler:At the end, a Gamilas spacecraft so large that it dwarfs ''Yamato'' attacks them.]]
* YouAreInCommandNow: Susumu ends up as this after [[spoiler:Okita is bedridden by his failing health.]]
* WarIsHell: For everyone, from the top down, both for those who bleed and die in the fighting and for those [[TheChainsOfCommanding who must make the decisions leading to those deaths.]]
* WaveMotionGun: [[Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato Yes.]] This is based on the TropeNamer, after all. The crew recognizes that after the first shot, the Gamilas will learn to expect it and try to counter it.
* WhamShot: [[spoiler: [[NotHisSled Iskandar and Garmillas are both the same planet.]] ]]
* YouKilledMyFather: Susumu Kodai holds Captain Okita personally responsible for his brother's death. Doctor Sado and Chief Tokugawa ask him rhetorically if he realizes he wasn't the only one to lose family that day before explaining that Okita's son also died that day. Sado's [[INeedAFreakingDrink reaction]] makes it clear that he feels like an asshole.
* ZergRush: Gamilas infantry tactics more or less boils down to burying human forces in numbers.