Customer Reviews

Battle of the Planets, Vol. 2 - The Space Mummy / The Space Serpent

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This DVD contains two original broadcasted episodes of Battle of the Planets, the original Japanese version of two episodes as Science Ninja Team Gatchaman and one episode of G-Force in three languages. My review will go threw each feature.

Battle of the Planets: Episode 3
Content: B+
Animation: B
Music: B
English Script: B
Action Scenes: B+

When 7-Zark-7 discovers a new planet, he discovers a numerous amount of plane crashes on his new planet, Zarcadia. He sends out G-Force to find out the problem. After Mark meets up with Dr. Sweet and his nephew Buddy, Mark discovers a giant mummy is causing all the plane crashes. Later, Dr. Sweet's brother returns disguised as Zoltar, head of Spectra. Zoltar wants Dr. Sweets anti-pluton, but Mark wont let him have it. And the mummy attacking the plane station is a perfect chance to try out the anti-pluton.
Edits: Sweet's brother's plane crash scene, gun pointed at Buddy's head, scenes of mummy crushes planes edited down.

Battle of the Planets: Episode 4
Content: A-
Animation: B+
Music: B
English Script: C+
Action Sequences: B+

When Dr. Harlem is killed by a giant centipede made by Zoltar, his daughter, Debbie, wants to seek revenge. So Mark brings Debbie along on the mission to destroy the centipede.
Edits: Debbie put in bed scene edited out, Debbie does NOT press the button in the end.

Gatchaman: Episode 3
Content: A-
Music: B
Japanese Script: B+
Action Sequences: B+

Same plot as episode three with a few name changes. The Japanese version has more zing to it and the screaming from all the people at the airport when the mummy attacks is almost dead on.

Gatchaman: Episode 4
Content: A-
Music: B
Japanese Script: A-
Action Sequences: B+

The voices really sound great in this episode. And give a few hints that Ken might have a girlfriend.

G-Force: Episode 102
Content: A-
Animation: A-
Music: B+
English Script: B+
Spanish Script: B
Portugese Script: B+
Action Sequences: A-

After the G-Force gets out of another daring escape, they come head to head with one of Galactor's henchmen. And uncover a secret at the bottom of the ocean.

Overall, a good disc that is just as great as the last. Highly recommended.

It has been about 20 years since I ran around with a Yo-Yo, pretending I was Princess. And I have seen many different Anime since then, and I'd say my tastes have matured. Expecting the worst, I watched this DVD, and I tell you, it is amazing what I had forgotten. 7-Zark-7 was from a different anime, Casey Kasem was the voice of Mark, the hero. Some of the characters were annoying, but it was great!! Death, smoking, violence, all that are missing from today's children's entertainment, since were worried about scarring them. I loved every minute of it, and felt some of the old thrill I had when I was a child. And to top it off, the DVD had the original Ninja Science Team, Gatchaman episodes. And another Gatchaman Series, I hadn't known about.
The only thing I didn't like, was these episodes focused too much on Mark, and that Volume 2 was released before volume 1. But, other than that, it is a great buy.

OK, I'll admit it -- when I picked up volume 2 of Battle of the Planets, I was hoping that the annoying brat in "The Space Mummy" suffered a less kind fate in "The Giant Mummy That Calls Storms".

Seriously though, it wasn't an old-fashioned Godzilla-style stomping that I was looking for; I was looking forward to watching the sanitized U.S. versions of the show and then comparing those episodes to their corresponding stories in the original Japanese. (For the uninitiated, Battle of the Planets was a very loosely translated version of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. The latter was an edgy, groundbreaking anime that didn't feature any cutesy robots.)

Now that Rhinomation has gotten me watching Gatchaman again, I can't stop. I hope they won't confine themselves to releasing the 85-episode run of Battle of the Planets episodes; after all, they don't cover the entire run of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, which ran 105 episodes.

Can you imagine if a publisher decided to print only 85 pages of a 105-page book? And in the missing 20 pages were some of the best parts of the story as well as the ending? I'm very much hoping that Rhinomation doesn't force us to ask those questions.

Come on fans, don't settle for anything less than the whole series! There are 105 episodes to be seen so tell Rhino (or its parent company, Time Life Warner) that you want to see them all!

OK, I'll admit it -- when I picked up volume 2 of Battle of the Planets, I was hoping that the annoying brat in "The Space Mummy" suffered a less kind fate in "The Giant Mummy That Calls Storms".

Seriously though, it wasn't an old-fashioned Godzilla-style stomping that I was looking for; I was looking forward to watching the sanitized U.S. versions of the show and then comparing those episodes to their corresponding stories in the original Japanese. (For the uninitiated, Battle of the Planets was a very loosely translated version of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. The latter was an edgy, groundbreaking anime that didn't feature any cutesy robots.)

Now that Rhinomation has gotten me watching Gatchaman again, I can't stop. I hope they won't confine themselves to releasing the 85-episode run of Battle of the Planets episodes; after all, they don't cover the entire run of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, which ran 105 episodes.

Can you imagine if a publisher decided to print only 85 pages of a 105-page book? And in the missing 20 pages were some of the best parts of the story as well as the ending? I'm very much hoping that Rhinomation doesn't force us to ask those questions.

Come on fans, don't settle for anything less than the whole series! There are 105 episodes to be seen so tell Rhino (or its parent company, Time Life Warner) that you want to see them all!

Lots of 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.

the edition of this dvd is really disappointing, beside the content of the dvd's is very poor and non-attractive.... a pitty that they didn't make a better edition for such a good tv animation serie. Let's hope they make it better next time.

This is one of my favorite tv series from the 70's and 80's. I was so happy to hear this was finally coming out. The only thing i was disappointed with was there's only six of these and there's not my on the way of dvd features. But the eposodes themselves make up for the lack of extras. give it a look.

Great! Awsome! The picture is a little grainy (ok, a lot grainy), but wow, its Battle Of The Planets, and its on DVD! Cool menus too! Bring on the rest of the series Rhino!

Maybe I got way too excited when I heard the BOTP videos were being released. But sad to say, I felt that Vol 1 & 2 were not as good as I remembered them to be (when I was a kid). Actually, I was bored.

I think the artwork is awesome and the music still rocks. But the storytelling needed work. Maybe the DVD works better than the video.

Warning: The video only has the American versions.

This is one of my favorite tv series from the 70's and 80's. I was so happy to hear this was finally coming out. The only thing i was disappointed with was there's only six of these and there's not my on the way of dvd features. But the eposodes themselves make up for the lack of extras. give it a look.