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Battle Of The Planets
Volume 1
If I wax a little too enthusiastic in the course of this review, you'll have to
forgive me. I've just spent the past few hours being eight years old again.
It was around that age that I first stumbled upon the Sandy Frank Productions
animated series Battle Of The
Planets, a vastly re-edited, re-written and re-dubbed series based upon
the classic 1974 Japanese animè series Kagakuninjatai Gatchaman. BOTP was a rather
hasty rehash, somewhat obviously imported by Sandy Frank just in time to cash in
on the Star Wars
phenomenon, but somehow, with me and a lot of other kids, it clicked - and then,
a couple of years later when we had seen every episode in reruns at least three
times over, we all latched onto Star Blazers
and forgot about BOTP.
At least, until now.
Rhino Home Video, a subsidiary of the AOL Time Warner giant which also owns
the former Turner networks - the last American outlet to air anything related to
BOTP, in the form of the hideously redubbed-yet-again late 80s revival titled
"G-Force: Guardians Of Space," - has obviously done their homework
(or, at the very least, has peeked over the shoulders to copy down the answers
from the homework of some of BOTP's biggest semi-pro fans; fan club president
Jason Hofius is name-checked on the back of every volume in an atypical
"special thanks" credit). While it may seem like two half-hour
animated shows per DVD is a ripoff, the bonuses on the Battle Of The Planets
DVDs truly bear out the price tag. For not only does each disc have two
episodes of BOTP, but each disc also contains the corresponding episode of
Gatchaman, in the original Japanese with English subtitles - and Gatchaman is
the true gold of these discs. BOTP may reel 'em in with its high nostalgia
value, but Gatchaman is a revelation - overall, it makes a lot more sense, and
it's not a kids' show. Gatchaman is packed with swearing, violence, and
at least in the first episode, a high body count for the bad guys. But it
stands the test of time much better than its drastically-edited American
counterpart. It's also worth noting that the Gatchaman episodes have a much
higher video quality than the BOTP episodes, since they were restored for
laserdisc release in Japan a few years ago. Despite early pre-release claims
that the Battle Of The Planets prints would be digitally remastered, Rhino seems
to have given up that fight, including a disclaimer on each disc that the
programs contain "technical anomalies inherent in historic
footage."
Historic? I don't know about that, but I like it - but it's too bad the
restored Gatchaman footage couldn't have been insert-edited into the right
places in the BOTP episodes prior to mastering the discs.
Also included on each disc, presumably as a warning to the next ten
generations about how some shows can only be messed with and re-edited so many
times before they melt down into a soft, squishy brown substance to which we
scientists refer as "crap," is one epiosde - again corresponding to
the others on the disc - of Turner Broadcasting's horrid "G-Force"
series. The video quality on these is truly horrible, but that's okay - my
money says that, given that version of the show's richly-earned bad reputation,
it'll easily be the least-accessed feature on any given volume.
I have only one reservation about the Battle Of The Planets DVD series.
Having watched the first two volumes, I can honestly say that I will be happy
to purchase every disc in this series - if Rhino sticks to their guns
with the bonus features. I point this out because of Rhino's abandonment of
the original intention with their line of Mystery
Science Theater 3000 DVDs. With that series, Rhino took the unusual, much
appreciated and beloved-by-the-fans step of including the original unedited
movies along with the MST-ified versions, much like they're including Gatchaman
episodes with Battle Of The Planets. But with the lastest MST3K DVD titles,
Rhino abandoned that practice, presenting the show in a bare-bones format and
offering only a previously-released blooper tape (which many fans had already
purchased) as a bonus feature. I can safely predict that my enthusiasm for the
BOTP DVDs, and that of many other fans', will dwindle to nearly nothing if Rhino
follows suit and drops the Gatchaman episodes from future releases. But the MST
titles are a uniquely difficult case, with each movie needing to be licensed
from a different party; hopefully Rhino has inked a deal with Tatsunoko Productions to secure the rights for all
of the Gatchaman episodes that were used to create BOTP.
Now, the several seasons of Gatchaman that American audiences have
never seen? That would be truly extraordinary. But if Rhino stays their
course with the current shape of the Battle Of The Planets DVDs, they will have
my business for a long time to come - and that's a commitment I wasn't even
willing to make with the Star Trek
Classic DVDs.
Reviewed by Earl
Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster
Just a word of warning - we don't know if the U.K. DVD releases will
feature the same bonus features as their U.S. counterparts.
 
 
There's not a lot of menu
action to show you on this disc, so I've chosen some of my favorite moments from
the subtitled Gatchaman episodes. Go, Gatchaman!
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