Galaxy Express 999

THE STORY: Oh, how I wish for both more time and more money. more time would allow me to seek out more movies, particularly anime and manga movies such as this one! More money would allow me to buy them....Hey! If I had more money I guess I wouldn't have to work long hours so that would solve everything! Foolish thinking, probably....money isn't everything. (It damn sure is a close second though)

In the far flung future people...rich people...travel to a mysterious planet of mechanization and receive free robot bodies. With their new mechanical bodies they can live forever. One of these people is the vicious Count Mecha. Mecha's favorite pastime is to hunt humans for sport. He cold bloodedly mounts their carcasses on the walls of his time castle, just like a big game hunter cold bloodedly displays animals he's killed. One of the trophies Mecha has is the mother to our protagonist, Tetsuro. While very young, Tetsuro witnessed his mother's death at the hands of Count Mecha and his lackeys. He swore revenge.

Even though he is still a child, Tetsuro wants his payback on Mecha. He attempts to steal a ticket so he can ride the famous Galaxy Express 999. The GE999 is a train...or rather its a sophisticated space vehicle in the form of a train. Its enormously expensive to get a ticket, but one of its stops is the planet of mechanization. There Tetsuro hopes to get a robot body and then kill Count Mecha. His thievery of the ticket however, does not go smoothly. The police chase him through the city and he is almost caught, but a kindly woman, Maetel hides him in her hotel room. Maetel is the spitting image of Tetsuro's mom.

Maetel makes a deal with Tetsuro. She'll buy him a ticket on the GE999 if he'll be her travelling companion. Thus they both leave on the spacefaring train. Along the way Tetsuro meets several other interesting characters. He makes an ally of Boss Antares, a brigand on Titan. Antares wants revenge on Mecha himself for all of the children he's orphaned. Tetsuro also befriends Claire, a waitress on the train, who has a robot body made of glass. He also runs across Emeraldas, the free space trader and dangerous pirate queen. The journey also takes Tetsuro and Maetel to the planet "Heavy Melder" where he meets Tochiro. The same Tochiro that's the best friend of the space pirate Captain Harlock. Tochiro is dying and his final wish is for Tetsuro to activate a machine that somehow melds Tochiro's mind into Harlock's ship, the Arcadia. In return, Tochiro tells Tetsuro where Count Mecha's tardis-like Time Castle will appear next. With this information, Tetsuro is ready to go get Mecha but is attacked by mechanized thugs. No need to worry. When the chips are down for him, Captain Harlock himself appears and saves the boy.

Tetsuro does go to Mecha's Time Castle and finds that Boss Antares has followed him there. With the help of Antares, Tetsuro destroys Count Mecha. But that's not enough. He realizes that when humans trade their real bodies for robot ones, they live forever and thus life has no meaning. That has led to remarkable cruelty, such as that of Count Mecha's. Tetsuro is resolved to go the planet of Mechanization and somehow destroy it. With Maetel, he reboards the GE999 and they travel to its final stop....the planet Maetel! Now, Maetel has been mysterious and foreboding throughout the journey, but even Tetsuro notices how she seems to become more and more depressed on the way to the final stop. The reason is the planet's name. Planet Maetel is Maetel's homeworld...Maetel is the heir to the throne and her reason for bringing Tetsuro was to hand him over to her mother, Queen Promethium! The Queen, as all the people of Maetel are cybernetic beings and Maetel has been on a continuous mission to bring humans to the planet to be transformed into living cybernetic parts in the machines that run the planet! Tetsuro is captured and curses Maetel for her deception. Queen Promethium plans to turn him into a living bolt!

Maetel isn't as evil as this makes her look. Her father, who is deceased had his living essence transformed into pure energy. He exists in a pendant around Maetel's neck. Maetel has been working with him in reality. Yes, she had to bring people back to the planet to be installed in the machines, but they have been placed in strategic parts of the planet. When there are enough of them Maetel can detonate them using the pendant and destroy the planet! Revealing her subterfuge to the queen, Maetel is torn between destroying her world and mother or saving humanity from the evil of of this empire. Tetsuro doesn't think about it as hard. When Queen Promethium tries to take the pendant from Maetel, Tetsuro snatches it and detonates it. The planet begins to erupt. It also helps that Captain Harlock and Emeraldas arrive and are determined to help. With their two space battleships they bombard the planet while Tetsuro and Maetel escape back to the waiting train. The GE999 takes off as the planet explodes. Queen Promethium has somehow snuck on the train and tries to kill Tetsuro, but Claire sacrifices herself to kill her.

With the planet gone, Maetel and Tetsuro part ways. Don't worry...they do meet again and more of Maetel's secrets are revealed. However that's a different movie that I have not seen! I wish I had also seen more Captain Harlock stories so I could try to piece together what part of his timeline this story takes place in. Hopefully I'll be able to find the relevant anime. Because Galaxy Express 999 is pretty good. Its a story that is about the meaning of life, going from childhood into adulthood and loss. Its over twenty years old it ain't stale.

Best Lines: "If that ever happens I figger I'll be too busy bleedin' to worry!"-Boss Antares answer when Tetsuro asks if he's afraid that the unexploded bullets lodged in his body will go off one day.

"Being born means you also have to die...whether you've done what you wanted to do or not!"-Tetsuro after he buries Tochiro's body. Truer words have never been spoken.

"YOU BITCH!"-Tetsuro finds out that Maetel is the ruler of the planet of mechanization. That line shows up in many movies, but it caught me by suprise in this one.

1.) So what the hell did Boss Antares and his bandits capture Maetel for? Once Tetsuro finds their hideout Antares lets them both go and apologizes! It turns out that Boss Antares and his group are good guys....they care for children orphaned by Count Mecha and his trophy hunters...but that still doesn't explain why they kidnapped Maetel or why they gave her up so easily.

2.) Is Earth and every other planet with humans on it utterly defenseless? Count Mecha and his huntsmen roam at will and kill humans for sport! There doesn't seem to be any organized resistance. Every human lives in fear of them! What makes it a little more boggling is Emeraldas and Tochiro knew vital information that they gave to Tetsuro so he could destroy Mecha. Well, if they knew this stuff why didn't they go after him themselves? Or at least give the information to someone else who would. Tetsuro had to seek them out to get it! He wasn't the only one that wanted to end Mecha's rampage! Boss Antares did too...there must have been others!

3.) If planet Maetel is so dangerous why does the Galaxy Express even stop there? Do they even warn the passengers? A final stop where humans are turned into robots or worse, living parts in the machines that run the planet! I'd sure as hell want a warning! That's like taking a train that went to various dangerous but wonderful places but the final stop is the Gates of Hell! That could really [unwrite] up a vacation!

NUDITY AND SEX: No real nudity. Claire is always nude, but she looks more like a glass statue, and others are robots....I don't know if that really counts.

HUH?: In order to get Emereldas attention as her ship passes by the Galaxy Express, Tetsuro fires on it...through a window! For some reason that only bothered me a little bit...in any other flick I'd have to ask about decompression! The GE999 is in space! Without suspension of disbelief I'd have expected everyone on the train to sucked out into the vacuum of space!

When Tetsuro said he didn't care how he did it or what he had to do to get to the planet of "free robot bodies" he really meant it. He's willing to travel with Maetel, a woman he really doesn't know. Maetel pays his way on the Galaxy Express and he doesn't worry about any ulterior motives she may have. Maetel also knows Shadow, the mysterious faceless guardian of the frozen graves of Pluto and Emeraldas, the pirate queen! Yet when he finds this stuff out he doesn't even begin to wonder how Maetel knows these strange characters. I'd be going through her stuff the instant she fell asleep.

Just before Captain Harlock attacks planet Maetel he gives a speech saying basically that there's a time when a man must fight even though he may lose. I thought that's what Harlock did all of the time. As I said before I don't understand why Harlock or someone else never tried to stop the mechanized invaders before. Captain Harlock is supposed to be a hero...one of those guys that fights no matter the odds. This made him look a little chicken. I got the feeling Harlock only acted because Tetsuro....a boy...was willing to fight and Harlock didn't want to be outdone by a kid.

THE TALLY: Fans of anime and manga have most likely seen this...if you haven't fire up your imagination and rent it. Its also not too scary for children so the kids might like it too. (Kids today have seen far worse on video I'd imagine) What are you waiting for? Go buy a ticket and ride the Galaxy Express!