Star Blazers - The Quest For Iscandar - Series 1, Part IV (Episodes 14-17)

Star Blazers - The Quest For Iscandar - Series 1, Part IV (Episodes 14-17)
by Leiji Matsumoto

List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $17.26
You Save: $12.69 (42%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.63 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details

DVD details

DVD Reviews of Star Blazers - The Quest For Iscandar - Series 1, Part IV (Episodes 14-17)

DVD Review: Best Compilation Yet. Highly Recommended
Summary: 5 Stars

For the uninitiated, here's a rundown of the plot. In 2199 Earth was under attack by an "evil" alien race called the Gamilons. The Gamilons bombed earth with "planet bombs" which destroyed the planet and emitted high levels of radiation, thus driving mankind into underground cities. In one Earth year the planet would become uninhabitable. Queen Starsha of Iscandar offers mankind hope in the form of the Cosmo DNA which would cure all mankind from the radiation sickness. She sends Earth a message along with powerful technology that will allow mankind to travel to Iscandar to get the Cosmo DNA. Earth's youngest and brightest come together to form Star Force to travel to Iscandar to fetch the Cosmo DNA. Their faithful battleship is the Argo, a renovated WWII era navy battleship remade into a Starship. There is just one minor problem though, Iscandar is 148,000 Light Years away. No one has ever traveled that far before. More importantly, the Star Force only has one year to travel there and back for a total of 296,000 Light Years...

The story picks up steam as the Star Force ventures throughout deep space battling unknown menaces as well as the Gamilons. Perhaps the greatest enemy of all though is the crew's own psychological health. In addition we also see some powerful character development among our heroes.

Here is a summary of the four episodes included on this DVD:

Episode 14: The Star Force plays the waiting game as they wait out a galactic storm at the Octopus Star. Plus, tensions run high among the crew (particularly Wildstar and Venture) as restlessness and homesickness kick in.

Episode 15: The Star Force is caught between a rock and a hard place as they try to prevent against being sucked into a "space whirlpool" and as they try to ward off an attack from General Lysis' space armada.

Episode 16: IQ-9 and Nova land on the planet Beeland looking for supplies and come up against a race of Bee People, who are being manipulated by the Gamilons. Plus, IQ-9 shows his "human" side to Nova.

Episode 17: Wildstar steps up to the plate when Capt. Avatar falls ill. General Volgar summons the power of the Balan Force to combat the Star Force.

Voyager continues to make leaps and bounds with each DVD volume. This volume by far has the best design in terms of navigation and screen design compared to the previous volumes (particularly the pitiful Part I). The audio and video quality is also vastly improved from the previous three editions.

Included in the DVD special features:

1. "An Overview of the Gamilon Empire." Beautifully designed and rendered you can explore and learn more about the Gamilon Empire. The history section provides a great background story including WHY the Gamilons declared war on Earth. You can also browse through profiles of the Gamilon characters, look at drawings/pictures of their space vessels, weapons, mecha, etc. In all, this is, in my opinion, the best DVD special feature yet (except for maybe the Yamato clip from Part II).

2. Yet another shameless plug for part 5.

Here's my rundown:

Great: The Gamilon Empire Overview in the special features section. Star Blazers itself.

Good: Improved navigation.

Sad: The continued shameless plugs. (Of course, you can't blame though...)

Overall, this is the best installment yet in the series. The "Gamilon Empire Overiew" has a particular treat, almost worth the price of admission alone. The collection of episodes in and of themselves is pure gold.

Summed up, if you were ever a Star Blazers fan, give this (and Parts I, II, III & all the future volumes) a watch. It's great for a trip down memory lane. If you've NEVER seen Star Blazers, give it a try. It's a cult classic from the 80's (along with other Americanized anime greats like Robotech, Voltron, Transor Z, etc). The animation may look slightly dated, but the storyline still holds its own very well against anything out there today. Due to limited distribution this show may have slipped by the radar of a lot of people but it caught on like a fire with those who did catch it. Give it a watch and see what all the rage was about.