UK's Complete "Battle of the Planets" DVD Boxed Set

I got mine in yesterday! I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the quality of the picture. I guess you can't expect much when the films were thrown into the vault in 1985, never expecting to see the light of day again. But now I wonder if they are spending more time to clean them up for the multi-release American DVDs.

The menus are really cool. Well, I only saw one, but it was in the form of a comic book. Very clever.

The animation for the mini fetaure is crystal clear. They must have pulled that from the original "Gatchaman"...absolutely fantastic.

One thing I can't stand, however, is Zark's new voice in the movie. He sounds like Selaris in the 1994 Englished-dubbed "Gatchaman" OAVs. He sounds like a woman to me. They should have brought Alan Young in for this project, or at least someone who sounds like him.

One more thing. William Woodson's opening dialouge for the movie sounds freshly recorded. I know they got him to do some voice-overs for the "Superfriends" marathon on Boomerang in August. I'm guessing they called him into "Battle of the Planets" action as well. I bet he never though he'd be saying "7-Zark-7" ever again.

Overall, I am pleased. I have all 85 episodes on DVD, and there are some I know I have actually never seen. I'm going to stock up on popcorn and soda, tell my wife I'm going on a mental vacation, and having my very own "Battle of the Planets" marathon in my rec room this weekend.

 

How dare you denigrate the new, improved 7Zark7!! It was one of the high points of the movie (Which I liked but IMHO is still not as good as the Gatch Movie) to see an `actually bearable` Zark!!

His voice sounded like Susan to me. But not that feminine.

What did you think of the inclusion of the Cuban Brothers???

 

Do you have a Region 2 or Region free DVD player, John? Make sure you do...these are Region 2 PAL DVDs. I got my region free player on eBay for $30 and I love it.

Also, they use the same voice acting from the shows (except for Zark) and just splice them up to make the movie...just like the 1978 Gatchaman movie. But they use the same music, unlike the Gatchaman movie.

I've heard the Cuban Boys rendition before and liked it a lot. I like how they end with the original music.

I've also seen that new animated commercial before. I think it was for a new Gatchaman series in 2000 that never came to be. What I like about it, though, is the faces look like the faces from the original animation, and not the modernized stuff we see in the 1994 OAVs. But, they are using it here for "Battle of the Planets'" return in late 2004, and I have no idea what that's about.

 

The new animated commercial is actually the NTT (phone/internet company) ads from Japan, not a preview of a new series at all. Very flash though... they did live action ones too with a boy band as the team but I can't remember if those are on the DVDs as well.

I liked the BOTP movie a lot (I'd been expecting a subtitled or newly dubbed version of the gatch movie so it was a surprise). I was also entertained by the way that when they put the gatch bits back in that had been cut from BOTP, they left bits of gatch voice in. So you have Jason occasionally getting Joe's deep voice - not saying any words as such but just the occasional grunt. An interesting exercise, it's not seamless but I thought they did a good job of it.

 

I was expecting the Gatch movie too.

But it is seamless...unless you know what to look for.

and the live action ads are in there -What a swizz!

(Does this mean Sandy Frank has finally managed to outsource G Force??)