The fourth of the six original individual volumes of Battle Of The Planets on DVD offers some more interesting studies in contrast. As with previous volumes in the series, the DVD contains two episodes of Battle Of The Planets, along with the two corresponding episodes of the Japanese animè series Gatchaman, from which Battle Of The Planets was created. The long-standing common knowledge that Battle's cutesy 7-Zark-7 robot sequences were necessitated by the surgical removal of violent Gatchaman scenes, to the tune of several minutes per episode, gets quite a boost here - in both episodes of the original Japanese show, the bad guys get to wreak a lot more carnage before our heroes arrive on the scene.

Also included, as usual, is a corresponding episode of the unfortunate G-Force: Guardians Of Space, another edited/dubbed version of Gatchaman, though this time hailing from Turner Broadcasting in the late 1980s. As easy as it is to dismiss Battle Of The Planets as cheesy, the Turner-spawned G-Force is even harder to take.

There are really no other extras to speak of, not even trading cards this time, but I still give this one three stars just for the inclusion of Gatchaman. Don't ever stop, guys.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster