ANI-MOVIES, *Harlock: Space Pirate

Remaking the saga of Leiji Matsumoto's Captain Harlock, Appleseed's Shinji Aramaki pulled all his talent to do this fully-CGI movie. Toei Animation pulled together this which mostly rewrites the ongoing space pirate saga.

Way off in the future, mankind has set up colonies on other worlds, but has left the Earth behind mostly because of it being ravaged by centuries of abuse. But now, overpopulation throughout the galaxy has lead humans to want to return to their planet of origin. This lead to a new government called the Gaia Sanction being formed allowing only the elite to be allowed access to Earth. Harlock, a former space fleet captain broke away from the government and has spent the last century leading a crew of rebels on raids against the Gaia Sanction. Harlock himself has become seemingly immortal due to being exposed by the dark matter that powers his ship, the Arcadia, that and alliance he's formed with Miime, the last of a race of space elves who wish to see peace return to the galaxy. A government spy named Yama joins the Aracdia and plans to sabotage Harlock's efforts to use a special weapon to set back the clock. Whether this means to go back in time or to completely rewrite the timeline completely(like in Star Trek 11), is unknown, as its revealed that the Earth itself has been a wasteland for centuries, but Yama has proof that life is returning to it. So the Arcadia's crew plans to fight the Gaia Sanction to preserve the Earth and expose their conspiracy to the rest of the galaxy.

Shinji Aramaki's work on other popular titles like Starship Troopers and Halo shows in this for adapting an existing canon, although they rewrite it enough to make this film its own story, so its not necessary to have seen any of the previous Matsumoto anime like Harlock Saga or Arcada Of My Youth. Harlock: Space Pirates stands good enough on its own as an epic space opera, and worthy of the brand of "space opera", more so than most sci-fi anime production from the last decade outside of Gundam. Its slightly disappointing that their isn't an English version of this currently available on Blu Ray, only on DVD at this time. Certainly worth a viewing if the last few Star Wars incarnations have left you unfulfilled.