Galaxy Express 999

From Animepedia

Plot

The movie opens with Tetsuro wandering around the slums below Megalopolis. He looks up a wanted poster for Captain Harlock and is 40 man crew and smiles. With a whistle he gathers his friends and they run off to the train station. A very dapper looking couple with machine bodies pulls up to the station. They get out and comment that if the people sitting around cannot afford a ticket then they should just move on, and they enter into the station. The woman books a ticket and the price comes up 245,255,000. The woman gives her money, the ticket pops out, just as the woman reaches for it Testuro runs up and grabs it pushing her over. Tetsuro and his friends lead the guards all around the station tossing the tickets between them. Tetsuro is captured by the guards and his pendent breaks off, Maetel picks it up and he believes her to be his mother. When he stops day dreaming he knocks the guards off balance and runs out of the station. His friends toss him the stolen ticket and he escapes on a hoverboard, cops in tow.

Tetsuro misses a jump in the road and falls back down to the slums, cops still on his tail. He hits a dead end and several cops come after him, looking up on some stairs he sees Maetel standing there. Tetsuro jumps over the wall and begins to run up the fire escape of a building towards Maetel. He grows increasingly tired, when he gets to Maetel he passes out and the ticket for the Galaxy Express falls out of his pocket. She drags him into a door that turns out to be an elevator and they escape the machine police.

At her apartment Maetel watches Tetsuro’s dreams as he sleeps. She sees what motivates him, and how he came to want a machine body. When he was a young boy his mother and him were walking in the snow. They talk about what it would be like if they had machine bodies. As they walk Tetsuro runs ahead and his mother sees red lights around them. She yells for Tetsuro to run, they have accidently entered Count Mecha’s hunting range, where he hunts humans for sport. Suddenly she is shot, she falls forward knocking Tetsuro over. With her last breaths she gives him a pendent and tells him to run. As Count Mecha rides up and Tetsuro hides in the snow. They pull the cover off his mothers body exposing her naked form and comment of how it will look well in his trophy room. After they go Tetsuro runs up and swears to get revenge on Count Mecha, picking up the snow stained with his mothers blood. He screams out in frustration which wakes him from his dream to find himself in an apartment in Megalopolis. He hears voices talking, and wonders if they are talking about him. He opens a door to find Maetel in the shower wearing only a pendent, nervously closes it and walks back out. (The pendent is the one that Queen La Andromeda Promethium gave her in the suitcase that contains the mind of her father) She offers him a ticket on the Galaxy Express in exchange that she must accompany him. He accepts happily, wondering if she is good or evil, but if he can get his machine body, he can do anything.

Suddenly there is a knock at the door, the police have come and they know that Maetel has Tetsuro. Maetel tells Tetsuro that if he boards the Galaxy Express that he can never return to earth, Tetsuro doesn’t care, he only wants to board the Galaxy Express. Maetel throws her earing and they escape to the station and board the Galaxy Express, which looks like an old nostalgic train. The conductor comes into the car and announces that the next stop is Titan, one of Saturn’s Moons. They will stay in station for 16 days Earth Days. The Galaxy Express stays in each station for one of the local days, and because each planet rotates at different speeds it may be shorter or longer than earth days.

As they step out into Titan a man next to Tetsuro is shot, just then Maetel is shot as well and carried off by two men. Tetsuro runs after him and is knocked unconscious. He wakes up in an old womans house, who feeds him and tells him that the Bandits have taken Maetel. The woman tells Tetsuro that the planets law is “Paradise Law” a man can do whatever he wants. The woman gives Tetsuro a hat, wraps him in a blanket and gives him a gun (This gun is one of the 5 most powerful in the Leijiverse created by Tochiro). Be boards a boat at the end of the dock and rows down the river. He sees a girl being kidnapped by a machine, he uses the gun and shoots the machine destroying it and the girl falls, just then a man runs out and catches the girl. Tetsuro is thrown into the river from the guns kick. He climbs on shore and shoots again. The man jumps out of the way and the beam goes through a tree, a machine man stumbles out and falls dead. The man asks him where he got a “warriors weapon” the only weapon able to kill machine men. Tetsuro is defiant, and demands Maetel returned to him. His men introduce the man as Boss Antares. Tetsuro tells them that in exchange for a ticket on the Galaxy Express he agreed to protect her. Boss Antares is disgusted that he is after a machine body, and Tetsuro shouts “how else can I kill Count Mecha, I will avenge my mother!”. Boss Antares grabs Tetsuro and drags him away. At their hideout they see if Tetsuro and Maetel are human with an X-Ray machine. After they determine that they are, they take them to where the children live, every one of the orphaned by Count Mecha. Boss Antares tells them that no one knows where Count Mecha’s Time Castle is except Space Pirate Emeraldas, and she isn’t telling anyone.

They return to the old womans home and Tetsuro tries to return the things she gave him. She tells him that he can keep it and that they belong to her only son, that she wants Tetsuro to have them. He left them behind with her when he went off to where ever, he will be wearing the hat she made for him, and if Testuro should see him, Tetsuro promises to tell him that his mother is waiting for him. Then you see a picture of Tochiro sitting on the mantle in the home.

The next stop is Pluto and the layover will be 6.39 days. Maetel tells him that it is called the “Faltering planet” because it is small, desolate and frozen to the core. But the cold is attributed to the travelers soles that are imprisoned there. She wraps her coat around a very cold Tetsuro who remembers how his mother used to do the same on the cold Earth nights. Maetel goes off to do an errand but tells Tetsuro to stay within city limits. He walks to a building in the middle of a Frozen lake, and sees Maetel kneeling over the ice. He looks down to see many people frozen in the ice, a woman walks up. She says her name is Shadow and she tends the grave of ice. Of people who died from illness or who abandoned their bodies for machine ones. She takes Tetsuro to see her old body, he squirms against her cold touch. She said that no face could be as beautiful as her human one so she decided to have no face at all. Shadow says she wants Tetsuro to stay with her forever, and he begins to freeze. Maetel comes in and commands for Shadow to let him go, because she is too cowardice to choose between a machine life and a human life does not let her take an innocent child for herself. Shadow becomes distraught and runs to her human body, crying. Her and Tetsuro leave. She explains that human bodies are kept here so that ones who have decided to have machine bodies may return to them, that whether or not this is kindness or cruelty is not yet decided. They head to the restaurant on the train, and Tetsuro is mesmerized by the waitress who is made of glass crystal. Tetsuro is nervous and wonders why she was warm and Shadow is cold. Maetel tells Claire that Tetsuro is curious about her glass body. She answers that her vain mother picked out glass, but she is working on the Galaxy Express to buy her body back. It is being stored on Pluto and sometimes she goes to visit it on her days off. The body she has is very pretty, but light and shadow go right through it and that makes her sad. She touches Tetsuro’s hand and he blushes. They enter a tunnel and it becomes pitch black, suddenly Claire lights up. She illuminates their path and walks Tetsuro back to his cabin. The lights turn back on and the train is jarred. Emeraldas is flying parallel to the Galaxy Express and demands right of way.

Tetsuro tries to get her attention, so he fired Tochiro’s gun at the ship. Emeraldas fires back and docks with the Galaxy Express. She boards and everyone looks at her terrified, her footsteps echo through out the cabin. She demands to see who fired upon her ship. Testsuro draws his gun on her and she shoots it out of her hand. She looks down and recognizes the gun, and demands to know where he got it. Tetsuro tells her that an old woman on Titan gave it to her along with a hat. Maetel pulls the hat down from her face and Emeraldas immediately recognizes her, Emeraldas asks where the original owner is. They don’t know. Emeraldas grows very sad. Tetsuro asks where the Time Castle is, and Emeraldas asks if he means to kill Count Mecha. Maetel pleads with Emeraldas to tell him where it is. Emeraldas explains that it will appear at Traders Fork, their next stop. Maetel tells Tetsuro that Emeraldas is looking for the owner of his things because he is her one and only beloved. They get off at the next stop Planet Heavy Melder Traders Fork.

Traders Fork is very old western. Tetsuro wanders off to find out about Count Mecha and the Time Castle. Tetsuro wanders into a western saloon. He asks the barkeep about when the Time Castle will appear. The entire bar stops, and the barkeep drags him to the back and tells him that Mount Gun Frontier will hold the information he needs. Two guards burst in and Tetsuro speeds away. He crashes the bike and finds a ship embedded in the sand (Leiji fans will recognize the ship’s Skull and Crossbones). Tochiro walks out and Tetsuro recognizes him immediately. Tochiro asks him where he got his things, and Tetsuro tells him from his mother. He tells Tochiro that his mother misses him and wants to see him. Tochiro invites him inside, and Tetsuro wants to know where the time castle will appear. As Tochiro coughs he tells Tetsuro he’s dying. He crawls to a bed and Tetsuro tells him that Emeraldas is looking for him as well. Tochiro seems sad, and asks Tetsuro to pull a lever, to make sure to shoot Count Mecha in the head, and that his castle will appear at midnight. Once Tetsuro pulls the lever Tochrio becomes apart of his best friends ship, Harlock’s Arcadia. As he walks away from the ship, Tetsuro is attacked by Count Mecha’s goons, they beat him up and take his gun.

Back at Tochiro’s grave a man appears and Tochrio’s bird runs to him crying. Tetsuro returns to the bar to reclaim his gun. A man walks in and breaks the goons hand off, Tetsuro recognizes him as Captain Harlock. Harlock forces milk into the mechanical goons mouth. Tetsuro and Harlock return to the Hotel to find Emeraldas with Matel. Tetsuro begins to tell Emeraldas about Tochrio, and she becomes over eager, Harlock tells Emeraldas that Tochrio is dead. Emeraldas turns on her heel and walks away into the night.

Tetsuro climbs a mountain and finds the Time Castle. He sneaks in and stumbles into a parlor to find his mother mounted over the fireplace like a deer. The girl from the saloon is there and he turns around to find Count Mecha. He has his gun shot out of his hand and one of the guards grabs it and points it at him. It turns out to be Boss Antaraes and they hold off the guards as Tetsuro goes after Count Mecha. As Count Mecha turns to fire, Tetsuro blows his arm off. Mecha begs for his life, then turns to fire on Tetsuro. Boss Antares takes the shot. They enclose themselves in a glass case and Mecha commands Ryuzu to move time forward. She does not do so. Antares moves towards the glass, to destroy it with the unexploded bullets in his body. Mecha continues to shoot at him and Antares presses his body against the glass, and with his last breaths tells Tetsuro not to trust Maetel. With the glass broken Tetsuro runs up to Count Mecha and shoots him in the head destroying him. Ryuzu tells Tetsuro to run and get out the castle will soon crumble to dust. She too also begins to crumble to dust with the castle.

Harlock and Maetel meet Tetsuro at the Time Castle’s remains and ask if his vengeance is over. Tetsuro explains that eternal life isn’t happiness, that being human is. He must remove all mechanization from the universe, living forever is not a reason to get a mechanical body. Tetsuro will travel to the Mechanization homeworld and destroy it, to stop people from getting machine bodies. Maetel and Tetsuro quickly run and board the Galaxy Express as the last call is sounded. In the distance the Arcadia takes off as well. Emeraldas visits Tochiro’s grave.

On the Galaxy Express Maetel and Tetsuro toast to having avenged his mother. Tetsuro notices that as they get closer to La Metalle Maetel becomes more and more depressed. The conductor comes through the car to announce the final station The planet Maetel, the mechanization homeworld, but Tetsuro is sleeping. As he steps off the train he hears that the planet has the same name as Maetel. He is shocked and demands to know why from Maetel. They are greeted by guards, and they address Maetel by your highness. The guards explain that the planet is run by human mechanized parts. That as penance for his sin of killing Count Mecha he will become one. He asks Maetel if it’s a trick and she says no, Tetsuro jumps and smacks her. The guards knock him unconscious. Claire and the conductor watch as they drag Tetsuro away. The guards take Tetsuro to Queen Promethium. They say that his strong spirit and soul will be perfect for a block bolt that will not fail from use or shock. Maetel runs to Tochrio and he insults her, the Queen threatens to kill him if he addresses her daughter in that way again. A voice comes and says that Maetel also loves Tetsuro, the Queen recognizes the voice as Doctor Ban, and Maetel pulls out the pendent affirming that it is her father. The voice talks to the Queen that they have been planting people in strategic places to destroy the planet and her. Maetel brought each person here to be made in to parts willingly, to betray her mother. Parts begin to attack and Tetsuro protects Maetel. Maetel has an internal battle that both the planet and her human self are both her. If she destroys the planet she destroys her other self. Meanwhile outside Harlock is attacking the planet Maetel. Her father reminds her of the horrible things the machines have done, the queen demands that Maetel gives her the pendent. The queen lunges at Maetel knocking the pendent out of her hand, but Tetsuro grabs it first.

As a machine takes aim on Harlock, it is suddenly destroyed and the Queen Emeraldas comes up from behind. Doctor Ban tells Tetsuro he knows he can do it, throw the pendent and destroy the machines, Tetsuro runs and throws the pendent into the core. Tetsuro grabs Maetel and they run to escape the destructing planet. Maetel falls as the ground gives way, but Tetsuro grabs her and saves her pulling her onto the ledge. He wonders how she can be so warm and still be a machine. She tells him that the body is a copy of his mothers, when a body grows old she gets a new copy, she is a shadow in a human body. She can survive the ages by jumping from one body to another as it wears out. Tetsuro and Maetel are able to make it aboard the Galaxy Express just as it is leaving the station. Aboard the train, Queen Promethium grabs Testuro and tells Maetel that in punishment for her betrayal she will kill Testuro. Claire runs up behind Queen Promethium and grabs her, forcing her to let go of Tetsuro. Claire says goodbye to Testuro, her one and only true friend, and self destructs destroying Queen Promethium. The conductor releases Claires glass shards into space. Tetsuro picks up a perfectly shaped glass tear and Maetel tells him that it just might be Claires heart. Emeraldas and Harlock fly off into space, as Maetel and Tetsuro continue on the Galaxy Express. Maetel tells Tetsuro that she is to conintue to Pluto to get her original body back. He tells her that he will wait for her, and she says he won’t recognize her. She kisses him, and gets on the train saying that she will only live on in his memories. Tetsuro runs along side the train crying out Maetels name for as long s he can and watches as the Galaxy Express flies off into the stars.