Still going strong at 79!　The Movie "G's Reconguista III" "Legacy from Outer Space" Saves Yoshiyuki Tomino, and then Hell ......? [Anime Industry Watching No. 80

G Reconguista III" "Legacy from Outer Space," the third part of a five-part film series based on the 26 episodes of the animated television series, is now in theaters. G Reconguista III" ("G-RECO III") is a unique work in that the enormous amount of information in the film creates a musical, polyphonic drive.
Yoshiyuki Tomino, the general director of the "G-reco" series, will turn 80 this year, but he remains tall, sharp-tongued, and full of curiosity. In this interview, we asked him about his editing skills, musicality, and the age range of his audience.

In an age when anything can be filmed digitally "as it should be," we must search for the right approach!

─ ─ When I saw the theater version of "G no Reconguista III" "Legacy from Outer Space," I was reminded of the redundant editing of "2001: A Space Odyssey. And Akira Kurosawa's "Moron," in which the synopsis was explained with subtitles. Compared to those messy films, there seems to be a special secret in the editing of "G-RECO"?

Tomino: I may have mentioned Kurosawa's name with the intention of "saying something smart," but if so, I'm in trouble. Because the TV animation version of "G-reco" flopped, and I was just trying to organize that part of the story. If there had been another scriptwriter, there would have been a big fight, but since I also wrote the script for "G-reco" myself, I was able to put in the parts that were missing from the TV anime version on my own. Thanks to the fact that I was able to put it together in a straightforward manner, I was able to get the spine to support the bottom of the five movies. Also, I was able to balance the total volume, which made it look better. In my case, thankfully, I have a lot of my own work in the past that I can reflect on. When I watch "Char (Mobile Suit Gundam) Counterattack" 10 years later, I feel that the battle scenes are twice as long. After 10 years, you develop a sensitivity like that. The reason why balance is so important is that the audience has to sit through the movie until it is over without any choice, so you have to adjust the length of the movie to suit their physiology - that's all.
To give you a more obvious example, popular songs these days are three or five times longer than they used to be, right?　I realized when I was in junior high school that one minute was a very long time, and I wondered if it was possible to sing so much emotion into a song. If I liked a song, I could listen to it for about three minutes, but if I disliked it, I couldn't stand even one minute. That realization has become my defining criterion for the balance of a film.
In the first "Godzilla," I was very annoyed when they showed cuts of special effects and cuts of only people for the same length of time. Moreover, the special effects were out of focus, but the people were sharply lit and in focus. I was in the sixth grade, but I couldn't see it as a single movie. When it came to "Mothra," it was in color and cinescope, but still, the composite cut was out of focus. I didn't really like The Peanuts, but I really can't forgive them for making even them out of focus (laughs). I really believe that an hour and a half is the physiological limit for showing a film, because it fixes the audience in place. So I am acutely aware of my incompetence in not being able to put together the first "Gundam" film in 90 minutes, and that sense of defeat continues to this day. ......That's all my feeling about the film.


─ ─ Recently, entertainment movies are usually two and a half hours long, and some are over three hours long.

Tomino: In the past 10 years or so, thanks to digitalization, it has become easier to make movies, and I feel that the sense of the filmmakers has become more loose. So, you could say to today's customers who have become accustomed to digital technology, "Let's go back to the basics," but I am certain that there is a correct way to make films.
About a month ago, I bought a DVD set of 10 films from the "Music Film Collection" and watched them all. The oldest film is "Beethoven, the Sage of Music," which was made in 1937. The actor who played Beethoven was over 60 years old. To the actor, a young actress says something like, "I love your noble musicality. When I looked into it later, I found out that a famous French actor was forced to play Beethoven in his 20s or 30s, and the young actress was afraid to say "I love you" to such an old actor, so she said, "I love your 'musicality'. I understand that he was trying to escape from the situation. However, the script is not wrongly structured, and you can easily get into the story right from the introduction. It's not an atavistic film by any means. What I thought was a special weapon more than anything else was the fact that it was silent the whole time, but only Beethoven's music becomes a talkie. A brilliant combination of silent and talkie. It's crisp, even while piling on circumstances that can't be helped, like the actors' ages. Seeing the vividness of this film, I cannot help but think that we are not doing a good job of "constructing a story" when we are able to shoot everything "as it should be" and even shoot images of people flying in the sky without any problem.... I can't help but think that we are not doing a good job of "constructing a story"....