Battle of the Planets, Vol. 1

Battle of the Planets, Vol. 1
by David E. Hanson

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DVD Reviews of Battle of the Planets, Vol. 1

DVD Review: Zark! (The Herald Angels Sing!)
Summary: 4 Stars

As you surely know, "Battle of the Planets" was the title given to Sandy Frank's re-working of the Japanese "Gatchaman" series. The violence of the original series was toned (way) down and new animation was made to compensate for the edits. In order to capitalize on the then-current Star Wars boom, "7-Zark-7 (an R2-D2 clone) was created and appears in most of the new footage. "Zark" served as the team's coordinator, the show's narrator, and he would explain away plot holes that occurred due to the large amount of film that was trimmed away by the producers.

The picture quality of the Battle of the Planets episodes is very good! For a show that must have been mastered from 16mm prints, the images are fairly sharp and the colors are good. (In the 70's, syndicated TV shows were all 16mm - only networks used 35mm). Episodes that originally had teasers before the opening credits are complete with the teasers!

The production values of BOTP are quite high. Obviously, the producers spent a lot of money getting this show made.

The voice actors used in the making of BOTP were the best in their field at the time. Casey Kasem, Janet Waldo, Keye Luke, and Alan Young are all professionals and must not have come cheap. They handle the (sometimes silly) scripts very well and really enhance the series. Compare the voice work on this series to other shows of the same era (like Force Five) to see how good it is!

Another thing BOTP has going for it is the music. In addition to the original music composed for Gatchaman (by Bob Sakuma), Sandy Frank employed the services of Hoyt Curtin. Mr. Curtin, mostly known for his classic Hanna Barbera scores (like Jonny Quest & The Flintstones), composed BOTP's theme music and other incidental music cues used throughout the series. The fully-orchestrated scores are stirring and memorable.

Overall, this DVD set is a great value! In addition to two classic Battle of the Planets episodes, you get the original Gatchaman episodes the BOTP episodes were based on. You also get one episode of the mid-80's "G-Force" series. You can now see Gatchaman in all of its various forms!

The Gatchaman episodes are a nice addition to the set and really enhance the collection. As you obviously know, Zark is nowhere to be seen, and the stories tend to be more intense than the cleaned-up BOTP episodes. For someone who doesn't have warm and fuzzy memories of Battle of the Planets, you'll probably prefer Gatchaman.

Generally, the Gatchaman episodes look great, but there are a couple of problems with the presentation of them...

First of all, the mastering is a bit suspect in places. Some scenes appear dark and murky. While I expect less than 100% print quality for the 16mm BOTP episodes, Gatchaman was originally mastered in 35mm for Japanese network television, so the picture quality should be better. When Gatchaman was released in Japan on LD and DVD the transfers were excellent. I only wish Rhino employed the same quality control here.

The other weak aspect of the Gatchaman episodes is the English translation. While it does allow the viewer to follow the action fairly well, it seems more like a fan-produced work than that of a professional. The person who prepared the translation obviously had a good Japanese-to-English dictionary, but not a very good understanding of the Japanese language itself. As a result, the translation is stiff and unnatural. It lacks nuance and style. (There are also a few places throughout the episodes that weren't translated at all...)

The second "bonus" on each disk is one episode of the mid-80's version of Gatchaman, "G-Force". Unless this is the version you grew up with, I doubt you will watch it much. While the episodes themselves are less edited than BOTP, the production values are extremely poor. The voice "actors" used here are laughably bad and they seem genetically incapable of showing any kind of emotion at all. The "music" employed in this series sounds like it was composed by someone on a cheap Casio keyboard. And if you can't get enough of the show's monotonous electronic theme, you're really in for a treat - the same theme music is used throughout each episode...! Watching an episode of "G-Force" is like a stamina contest. Congratulations if you succeed!

... decry the Sandy Frank version of Gatchaman. This is unfair as Battle of the Planets and Gatchaman should be treated as different series. You will not enjoy BOTP if you keep comparing it to Gatchaman. Sure, lots of it was edited out. The new animation is crummy compared to the animation used in the original. The stories seem sometimes childish. But that's not the point. Battle of the Planets is a nostalgia treat for most of us who grew up during the 70's. Watching these DVDs is a real blast from the past and if you liked the show then, you will still like it now!