Battle of the Planets Vol. #1

Review Date: Monday, October 15, 2001
Release Date: Monday, October 15, 2001



What They Say
Attack of the Space Terrapin
Center Neptune, a world defense base constructed off the West Coast 900 fathoms beneath the surface of the ocean is attacked by a monster radio-controlled by Zoltar, leader of the alien Spectra invaders, seeking to wrest control of the precious Vitaluman mined there. But, standing in his way are the invincible, transmutable G-Force: Keypop, Jason, Princess, Tiny, Mark, and their robotic protector, 7-zark-7!

Rescue of the Astronauts
G-Force must rescue two astronauts, hijacked by Zoltar, who have stumbled upon startling evidence of giant alien bases, underwater, on Mars. Their only hope of survival rests in the Fiery Phoenix! Thus begins the cataclysmic Battle of the Planets, with the entire galaxy hanging in the balance!

The Review!
Overall Rating: 3.8
(on a scale of 1-5)

-Technical Ratings-
Sound: 5
Picture: 5
Menu: 4
Presentation: NA
Goodies: 5
Overall: 4.8

-Intro-

Talk about a big time flash back. Watching this disc took me right back to my extremely youthful youth. I’m talking Saturday morning cartoons at 6am in the morning. All I had to do was listen to that opening credit music as it played during the menu and I was taken back. If you want a big time nostalgia fix, then get ready, this just might be the disc for you.

***Note***
The disc I received was a preview copy. As such it lacked any packaging. I did include a few slides and on one slide is the cover art. It’s got Mark and Jason in various poses of cool. In addition to this, Battle of the Planets has a few unique extras, like two episodes of Gatchaman and an episode of G-force. This just made reviewing this disc difficult from the content point of view. So I’ll tackle the technical aspects first and then do a quick break down of each version of the show with it’s own ratings. Hope that’s not too confusing.
******


-Technical Review-

This disc gets a pretty good grade in the technical department. For sound and picture it gets top marks. This series has probably never looked or sounded this good. I did notice some lines here and there, but I’m guessing it was from the master itself and not the actual DVD. The menu system is a bit different from what we are used to seeing. It reacts quickly and has sound and motion to it. On the main menu you get character bios appearing on the screen and can select from either of the Battle of the Planets episodes or go to the Special Features. If you pick an episode you are then taken to the audio set up for that episode. You can pick 5.1 surround or mono. After selecting your audio you are then taken to the chapter selection for the episode. There is then a "Play Episode" selection at the top or various chapters for the episode (6 in total). If you want to go to the special features you can then select either the Gatchaman episodes or the G-force episode. Then the menus run as before, first you get to select audio or subtitles, and then the chapter select for the episodes. Gatchaman can be watched in Japanese with or without subtitles. G-Force can be watched in English, Spanish or Portuguese. Now about the episodes themselves. The two Battle of the Planets episodes correspond to the two Gatchaman episodes. The G-force episode is the same as the first Gatchaman episode. So you basically get three incarnations of one episode and two incarnations of the next one.


-Content Review-

Here's a brief summery of the stories for the episodes contained in this DVD. G-force is basically your basic five youths trying to save the world wearing bird theme suits and wielding a variety of weapons and driving cool vehicles,story. You've got the heroic leader, the stoic second in command, the fat guy, the little kid and the girl who could be a love interest. It's basically the cast of Voltron without lions. The forces of evil are led by guys in masks and a floating head. Depending on the version the baddies are bent on world domination or galaxy domination. Of course G-force is our only hope. A giant mecha turtle appears out of the ocean and terrorizes earth. G-force to the rescue. But when they actually get inside the giant turtle, who or what will be piloting it. In the second episode G-Force is called to investigate the disappearance of two astronauts. It turns out that the evil forces who constructed the mecha turtle are at it again. This time have an underwater base that needs to be destroyed. Can G-force save the world again?

Battle of the Planets
-Content Ratings-
Animation: 3
Sound: 3
Plot: 2
Acting: 3
Music: 4
Entertainment: 4
Overall: 3.2

Battle of the Planets was one of the shows that I was never sure I really saw. I remembered a series where these people flew around in bird-like outfits. They fought an evil guy with a weird looking mask. And I remembered this floating head in swirling colors. I had a friend who triggered memories of this series when he mentioned G-force. He even remembered the theme song to Battle of the Planets and he hummed it. My jaw dropped. I wasn’t the only one who saw the series! And then as the menu’s started up Ladycat and I said, at the same time, "Oh my god, I remember this." It was cool in a weird creepy way. But can the show compare to the memories (no matter how dim they were) of a really neat show?

The animation and sound are actually quite impressive for the time. There is a certain coolness factor to it. The devices and vehicles used by G-force also possess a goofy stylishness to them. For the most part the bad guys have some neat looking mecha and tools as well. Most of the sound design fits the animation as well. This definitely has an old school look to it. In fact it looks quite a bit like Speed Racer in some of the character design department, but there is a bit more detail in this series. The only thing that really stands out are the scenes that occur with the robot 7-Zark-7. All those scenes were added into the original animation and don’t seem to match very well, and even seem to be a bit different in style to the rest of the show.

The plot is where Battle of the Planets just doesn't add up. For reasons understood by some, things were greatly changed from the original Japanese story. Mostly it was due to the time when this was released. You couldn't show death and destruction, or people with guns or anything remotely violent. So this is a sanitized version. So much was cut out that the goofy robot 7-Zark-7 was put in to explain the story and offer wacky monologues. The result is a really random feeling story. Most of it makes little sense, especially if you think about it too much. Some of it is just painful. The late 70's and early 80's were not good to cartoons in the censorship area.

But the music, especially the opening theme brought back a ton of memories. It was great. The acting is pretty standard for your American cartoon. You got some very recognizable talent involved here and it added to the Saturday morning feel of the whole series. The rest of the score was pretty much from Gatchaman and remained unchanged for the most part.

It was a trip down memory lane with the Battle of the Planet episodes and I had a blast. But I was looking forward to seeing just what other takes had been done on this same series. So it was time to take a look at late 80's version of the show, with it's new name G-force!

G-Force
-Content Ratings-
Animation: 3
Sound: 3
Plot: 3
Acting: 3
Music: 3
Entertainment: 4
Overall: 3.2

"G-force" is the better of the two English speaking shows on the disc. It follows the Japanese version much closer and while it does change some elements of the story overall it's pretty close. No footage had been cut (at least as far as I could tell). However they did change the names of our G-force pals. Now they are stuck with goofy names like Ace Goodheart, and Dirk Derring. It sounds like they either stepped out of a romance novel or tried out for bit parts in Boogie Nights. The big problem for me was that the music was replaced and it was replaced with bad stuff. It has that mid 80's cartoon style music to it The score overpowers lots of the dialogue and is very repetitive. The voice acting wasn't great but it fit the rest of the show and worked well enough. This was more entertaining than Battle of the Planets but it still felt a bit wrong in places.

Gatchaman
-Content Ratings-
Animation: 3
Sound: 3
Plot: 4
Acting: 4
Music: 4
Entertainment: 5
Overall: 3.8

Gatchaman definitely is the best of the incarnations. First of all the story makes sense and can be followed. On top of that it's just a touch darker than the other two versions. The basic plot remains the same, but our heroes come across more like and elite team of secret agents, and not really super heroes. It's kinda strange, but it seems to influenced a bit by the Bond series. Of course this is still a pretty cliched story, but it seems to work better in Japanese. The actors seem to know just how to play the parts with the appropriate amount of over the top acting. So it adds to the entire plot and makes the series that much more entertaining. The Gatchaman episodes flew by.

That said I had lots of fun watching this disc. The flashback to my cereal eating days at 6am was fun, and seeing just what happened to the series over time was also fun. In addition it made parts of Martian Successor Nadesico much funnier (Yes Nadesico was making fun of this series as well). I think anyone who remembers Battle of the Planets with fondness will have a blast with this disc. Fans of old school animation will also enjoy it. Now I better go and try to get that catchy Battle of the Planets theme song out of my head.

Roman J. Martel
Tell me what you think! E-mail me at...
roman@animeondvd.com

Features
English Language

Review Equipment
Phillips Flatscreen (27 Inch), Sony Playstation 2