| 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. 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.
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 any 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
at 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.
The large exception in the film would have
to be 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 (CSA-001).
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)