Cheap Battle of the Planets (Vol. 3) (DVD) (David E. Hanson) Price

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Customer Reviews of Battle of the Planets (Vol. 3)

Slight technical difficulty
Other reviews here do an excellent job covering the content of this DVD. I just wanted to mention that there is a slight technical problem with this DVD (and the rest of vols. 1-4). The English language track on the G-Force episode is virtually inaudible, which is a real disappointment and knocked the DVD down a star. I tried on two different players (Pioneer DV-626D and Playstation 2), and they both have the same trouble. I even wrote in to Rhino's technical support and they kindly exchanged the discs for me, but sadly, the replacement discs are the same way. I just wanted to put out the warning here. The rest of the disc is fine and has great content - it's just that one problematic audio track.

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Good Show, Bad Layout
"Kaguta Ninja Tai Gatchaman" ("Science Ninja Team Gatchaman") is an anime series that debuted in Japan in 1972. It was about a team of 5 kids (4 teenagers and a preteen) that fought the evil Galactor organization, which was bent on world conquest. Sandy Frank brought the series over to the U.S. in 1978. Due to Standards and Practices restrictions at the time, a lot of violence had to be cut before the series could be dubbed into English. To fill in the time and gaps left in the story, new footage was animated of an American-made character, 7-Zark-7, a robot (which looked a lot like R2D2 to capitalize on the "Star Wars" craze at the time) that watched over the team from Center Neptune (an underwater base; don't ask), and his robotic canine companion, 1-Rover-1. Zark's job was, through voice-overs, to assure the audience that nobody died, or, if a plane got blown up, a robot was at the controls. Oddly, for a character that was created to censor things, Zark had a lot of sezual conversations with Susan, his robotic love interest on Pluto, over space radio. The fact that Susan sounds like a phone sex operator, and that Zark's antennae spring to full erection when she talks to him, makes this even more hilarious. Whereas Gatchaman was entirely Earth-based, BotP often had the kids going to another planet that looked exactly like Earth. I think you can see where this is going. In addition, the kids got name changes - even those that already had English names! Ken, Joe, Jun, Jimpei, and Ryu became Mark (as in Hammill), Jason, Princess (as in Leia), Keyop (WTF?), and Tiny Harper. The voice casting wasn't that great. Casey Kasem (Mark) sounded nothing like a teenager. In total, 85 of the 105 episodes got "the BotP treatment" (though not exactly the first 85 episodes). Personally, I think that this dub is so bad, it's unintentionally funny. Later, Turner did their own dub of Gatchaman, called "G-Force". The voices were better, more violence was retained, and there was no Zark. However, the characters were renamed again. This time, the names were extremely stupid: Ace Goodheart, Dirk Daring, Agatha Jun (Aggie to her friends; the only sensible name), PeeWee, and Hoot Owl (Hootie). Again, 85 of the 105 episodes were dubbed, but they weren't exactly the same 85 episodes that made it into BotP. One annoying (or hilarious, depending on the person) thing about "G-Force" is that they often added a repetitive, pulsing techno beat in the background. I crack up whenever it comes on, and it comes on multiple times per episode. It's so totally out of place, yet I enjoy it. Anyway, this DVD contains 2 episodes of "Battle of the Planets" as the main feature and the 2 corresponding episodes of "Kaguta Ninja Tai Gatchaman" and 1 episode of "G-Force" as special features. The BotP episodes have the original 2.0 mono track and a 5.1 remixed track. The Gatchaman episodes have the 2.0 mono track only and the option of English subtitles. The "G-Force" episode has the original English track as well as Spanish and Brazilian dialect Portuguese tracks. I think that Rhino was trying to offer a way for us to view all 3 versions of the show, but, by including only 1 episode of "G-Force", they totally messed it up. The format is 2, 2, and 1. So, Volume 1 contains Gatchaman and BotP episodes 1 & 2 and "G-Force" episode 1, Volume 2 contains Gatchaman and BotP episodes 3 & 4 and "G-Force" episode 2, etc. It makes no sense. We didn't need the Spanish and Portuguese tracks. This is America! They should have put those tracks on the foreign DVD releases. Without those extra tracks, there would be enough room for a second "G-Force" episode, and that would keep the right episodes paired together. Overall, I recommend this disc and the others in the series. For those of you that have never seen "Battle of the Planets", this will give you an idea of the censorship on American television in the late 1970s. For those of you that are buying this to relive your childhood, be warned: your love of "Battle of the Planets" is probably based on nostalgia only; you might find the series to be completely retarded now.

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BOTP a good effort ... GATCHAMAN a modern-day classic!
I grew up with Sandy Franks' BATTLE OF THE PLANETS in the late '70s and have not missed a chance to catch the show whenever a station aired it. Thanks to Rhino, I've not only had the chance to see my fave flying defenders of earth again, but I get to see the original GATCHAMAN episodes in all their glory.

When I watched "Ghost Ship of Planet Mir" recently, I was reminded of the question that I had when I first saw the episode many years ago: why do those "Mir fighters" look like the ships that Colonel Cronus and his buddies fly? Well, the original Japanese episode, "The Ghost Fleet From Hell", answered that question. (Buy the DVD to find out ... you won't regret it!)

"Big Robot Gold Grab" doesn't differ as much from its Japanese counterpart, "The Grand Mini Robot", but the climax is more intense and the mood is much darker in the original.

Rhino's decision to include both BOTP and GATCHAMAN on a single disc was nothing short of brilliant -- both the sub and dub crowds can spend their money on the same product! At the same time, fans who only know BOTP will have a chance to see what they were missing from the original series (i.e., slightly darker stories, strong character development) while hardcore followers of GATCHAMAN get to see the lighter touches Sandy Frank Productions introduced (namely, 7-Zark-7).

My sincere hope is that Rhino will not just put out the 85 BOTP episodes but all 105 GATCHAMAN episodes. Amongst the ones left untranslated were crucial stories in the overreaching arc of the series (e.g., the reason for Joe/Jason's dizzy spells, the revelation of Berg Kastse/Zoltar's origin, the epic showdown with Sosai X/the Luminous One). These "lost" episodes proved that animated stories didn't have to be dumbed down to be entertaining. The final story arc features some of the best animation and most intelligent writing to appear on TV. And since people love a good story, there's no reason they wouldn't want these missing episodes in their collection.

So Rhino Video, don't tease your customers -- give them all 105 episodes. They'll love you for it! (Read: more DVD sales.) :)