| As the name of the film would
imply, Super Atragon is a remake of Shunro
Oshikawa’s novel Undersea Battleship,
and the 1963 film Atragon
that it inspired. However, this 1990’s entry
opts for an animated approach to the story, while
placing most of the events in a more modern setting.
The title craft has also undergone a thorough
redesign, as this battleship, dubbed the Ra, features
a much more elaborate concept compared to the
Gotengo. Unfortunately, it would seem that Toho,
and the other companies involved, didn’t
have a great deal of faith in the project. As
opposed to being released theatrically, Super
Atragon was instead sentenced to the direct-to-video
route, something which is termed as OAV (Original
Animated Video) in Japan. To maximize profits,
the story was also broken into two different episodes
that would retail separately, with one being released
in 1995 and the other in 1996. To further confuse
matters, each of the chapters was given to a different
director to produce, with Kazuyoshi Katayama getting
the first episode and Mitsuo Fukui the second.
The ending result is a story that fails to properly
develop in the first half, while the pacing is
marred by the different directional approaches.
Through out it all, the voice acting is merely
acceptable as well, while the characters come
out hollow and unlikable; in fact, the only genuine
praise that the movie earns comes from its wonderful
soundtrack.
For a quick synopsis of the plot,
the events in the movie are set in motion by a
series of meteorites that collide with the Earth
in the 1930's. It’s discovered that these
objects harbor a new form of energy, which the
Japanese use to construct the battleship Ra while
the Americans construct their own ship dubbed
Liberty. Unfortunately, the meteorites were part
of a test being conducted by a civilization living
inside the Earth called the Subterraneans. The
race also sent two of their spies, Annette and
Avatar, to the surface to monitor the energy’s
use. If utilized as weapons, their race’s
objective would then become to destroy humanity.
In the mid-1940's, with World War II in full swing,
their use for war is unavoidable though. Eventually,
Annette defects to side with humanity, and takes
up residence inside the Ra so she can reveal their
race's intention with the meteorites. Avatar then
decides to side with the Americans, although with
the plan of destroying the Ra and Annette so their
mission to crush humanity can begin. However,
the confrontation leaves both Anne and Avatar
in a suspended state, while the Liberty and Ra
destroy one another.
50 years later, Avatar awakens
and utilizes the Subterraneans’ technology
to wage her war against humanity, destroying cities
and decimating all military forces that oppose.
However, a small group has been preparing for
this day, as the Ra, rebuilt over the years, is
placed back into action. During the impending
battle, Go Arisaka is swept up by the crew of
the new battleship, who reunites with his father,
the current commander of the undersea battleship
who was presumed dead. The fight to stop Avatar
eventually leads to the Ogsawara area, where a
final battle with the Liberty, reconstructed and
under complete control of the Subterraneans, goes
underway until the Ra claims victory and kills
Avatar.
All in all, the story is simple
with minimal setup. Despite this, though, the
first part of the movie, under director Katayama’s
helm, wastes away without moving the plot along
in any significant way. It would seem that Katayama
had the distinct notion that he needed to confuse
the audience as much as possible to ensure they
purchase the second volume so they can wrap up
the many plot points that are only brought up
in the first. This gives director Fukui, who handled
the second chapter, an unfair number of responsibilities.
In total, the director had to: clear up the origin
of the Ra; explain the Subterraneans and their
motives; make the audience care about the relationship
between Annette and Go; resolve the father son
conflict between the captain of the Ra and Go;
and give some sort of climax to the movie that
resolves the invasion. Now it might not seem like
a daunting task, until one realizes that Fukui
only gets about 40 minutes, not counting the credits
and main title, in which to make all of this unfold.
This results in sequences like a displaced flashback
before the second chapter begins to explain the
origin of the Ra with the meteorites; furthermore,
the second part also relies on lengthy monologue
sequences to try and resolve the relationship
issues between Go's father, himself, and Annette.
These do manage to remove any plot holes that
might have developed, but fail to give the audience
in sort of enjoyment as they are revealed so quickly
and, for the most part, cumbersomely. Still, Fukui
isn’t innocent here. For the second chapter,
the director opts for a face off with the Ra and
the UN, in a side plot where they attempt to take
control of the battleship, which really wasn’t
necessary.
This tug and pull between the different
directional visions doesn’t just hurt the
overall story, though, as the pacing of the movie
is also marred. At times, Super Atragon
is frustrating to watch, but more frequently it’s
just dull. The first chapter of the movie is expectedly
slow in its pacing. As previously mentioned, this
time should have been utilized to better develop
the story and characters, but instead it focuses
solely on the might of the Indra, a weapon of
the Subterraneans. The pace of the story picks
up tremendously once a UN party, investigating
the cylinder shaped Indra, is destroyed. What
follows, though, is an orgy of UN vs. Subterraneans
sequences that feel disjointed as they quickly
progress from one to the next without any sense
of how much time is passing between each attack.
This pads out the first chapter until the Ra appears
and does battle with a Bell-Fortress. Given the
two chapter format, this should have been exciting
sequence to act as a mid-point climax, yet the
Ra spends most of the time inside the enemy craft
while everyone is acting calm and doing calculations.
Now I realize this battle was merely intended
to show off the power of the Ra, but would it
have been taboo to speed this battle up and at
least make it interesting to watch?
Thankfully, Fukui is much better
and handling action sequences, and proves this
right out of the gate as the second chapter starts
with a nice battle, over a decimated city, between
the Ra and a group of Bell-Fortresses. This sense
of excitement doesn’t last, though, as the
fight is short and the movie now has to tie in
and resolves all the plot lines. Really, I would
like to blame Katayama for leaving this burden
on the second episode, but the entire movie was
handled by the same writer, despite the fact that
it feels like the two directors where going though
a tug of war match to see what direction they
would take the film. Regardless of where fault
should be placed, the middle portion of the second
episode drags on in a rush job to tie everything
up. Once these aspects are out of the way, with
things like the Subterraneans being explained
incredibly poorly, Fukui starts up another action
sequence. Unfortunately, the UN skirmish with
the Ra is uninteresting, but does lead into the
climax: Ra vs. Liberty. For what’s its worth,
the climax is a nice and enjoyable scene as it
should be, with riveting moments like seeing the
Ra’s drill finally pierce through the American
warship. It is a little on the short side, and
is hardly enough to salvage the general flow of
the movie, but it doesn’t overstay its welcome
either.
To change gears and look at the
voice acting in Super Atragon, it’s
really a mixed bag. Most of the performances here
are merely decent. There is nothing praise worthy,
but it’s serviceable none the some. The
large exception in the film would have to Junko
Iwae, who portrays Annette, one of the lead characters.
Specifically, she has a tendency of screaming
out things in a shrill and annoying manner. Unfortunately,
the writing also calls for her to scream the same
thing several times in a row on more than one
occasion in the film. The biggest offender in
this regard is easily her “Avatar! Avatar,
Stop! Please stop, Avatar! Avatar! Stooop!!!”
speech that she does near the start of the movie.
How someone could write that out in a screenplay
and not see a problem with it is beyond me, but
after hearing Iwae scream that line out I can’t
even begin to fathom why no one asked for a rewrite.
I feel a great shame just being in the same room
when that line is given. I do feel bad, though,
for dogging on Iwae so much here, but she really
was the only performance that stood out in the
film, and in this case that wasn’t a good
thing.
As for the characters that the
voice acting inhabits, they are severally underdeveloped
to the point of being unlikable. The movie has
a tendency of trying to introduce as many characters
as possible, such as Storner the captain’s
aid, Bogart the admiral, and the modern day Tachibana
who is the… well I have no idea what he
does. He’s the first to find Go when he
awakes near the Ra, and the movie sets it up like
he might be important to Go and his relationship
with his father, but he vanishes after the first
chapter. He does show up in Anne’s mind
when Avatar is looking through all of her memories,
but this only prompts the audience to go “who?”
at this point in the film. What’s really
sad, though, is when the movie banks on some audience
reaction in relation to the supporting characters,
such as when Mitsugu Kageyama, the only survivor
of the original Ra, confronts the captain of the
modern day incarnation. The soundtrack swells
at this point while the movie does a slow reveal
by traveling up the character’s feet to
his head, as if it’s supposed to be a monumental
moment. In actuality, we know nothing about Kageyama
or any hint at what type of character he has become
in his old age, and it’s very hard to get
chocked up about seeing him being reunited with
the Ra considering the audience only saw him on
the vessel during the first five minutes of the
film.
With so many names being tossed
around and characters that never amount to any
importance, or simply vanish altogether, it’s
very easy to get bogged down in simply discussing
the supporting cast. However, the movie does have
three main characters that most of the action
revolves around. They are Go, Annette, and Magane
Hyuga, captain of the Ra. A case could probably
be argued for Avatar, the film’s antagonist,
but she is given so little screen time and no
motivation beyond the fact that she, for some
unexplained reason, hates “surface dwellers”
and wants to eliminate them. However, because
Avatar is so vague and underdeveloped in design,
this really hurts Ann’s character as well
due to the fact that the two are supposed to be
childhood friends that are now turned against
each other. Furthermore, the two are the only
inhabitants of the Subterraneans seen on screen,
despite the fact that there is supposed to be
an entire subspecies living in the Earth’s
core. This gives the movie a restrictive budget
type feel, even though it’s animated and
there is no good reason for not showing some more
of their race. Annette’s history with Avatar
isn’t the only thing poorly explored in
this regard, though, as Anne’s relationship
with Go feels like it was tacked on as well. In
fact, most of the development of their feelings
toward each other is shown in a single sequence
where the two interact back and forth on a beach
just before the UN’s fight with the Ra.
The result of this relationship is supposed to
signify that Anne has discovered that love, an
emotion that the Subterraneans no longer deem
necessary, has merits of its own. However, it’s
never given enough time to develop or feel genuine,
and this whole idea falls flat. Still, it’s
not handled as poorly as the resolve of the father
and son issue between Hyuga and Go. The film,
specifically the first half, places a lot of emphasis
on this as it brings up that Go’s mother
died waiting for her husband to return, causing
Go to hold a grudge that his father, who he assumed
dead, had been alive all this time and working
on the Ra. Director Fukui, on the other hand,
seems to have deemed this side plot unimportant
in the grand scheme of things, as Go quickly shifts
to respecting his father without any signifying
event or strong justification.
Thankfully, there is one sole light
at the end of the tunnel for the movie, which
is Masamichi Amano’s incredible soundtrack.
To be completely honest, I have always enjoyed
Amano’s work, and find his Super Atragon
score to be one of my all time favorite soundtracks.
For his work here, Amano teamed up with the Poland
National Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, allowing
for his themes to come to life with a far more
powerful composition not normally heard in the
limited orchestras most Japanese composers utilize.
The result is something extraordinary, not unlike
the success composer Michiru
Oshima created when she conducted her Godzilla
Against Mechagodzilla (2002) score utilizing
the massive Moscow International Symphonic Orchestra.
What’s even more surprising, though, is
that outsourcing to these larger, out of country,
orchestras is far cheaper than scoring the soundtrack
inside Japan. This, coupled with the better results
composers have been able to generate, makes it
surprising that this isn’t outsourced more
often. To backtrack to Amano’s themes, though,
the composer manages to create numerous memorable
cues for the movie, while the score as a whole
is solid without any lackluster themes. Overall,
his best work in Super Atragon would
have to be the main title and his “Ra vs.
Liberty” theme. It's a shame, though, that
such a wonderful soundtrack found itself in this
entirely unmemorable film. The music here is so
good, in fact, that I would highly suggest one
opt to buy the soundtrack, which has been released
in the US by ADV films.
Soundtrack aside, Super Atragon
is a very sloppily realized film. One would have
hoped that revising Ishiro
Honda's 1963 classic, and the novel that was
its inspiration, would have afforded this movie
a more illustrious production, as opposed to the
OAV route that it was subjected to. I can only
imagine that this film would have been a far greater
product had it not been made so haphazardly with
the two chapter format in mind.
|
(1.5/5)