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37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another Filmation series brought to DVD, August 26, 2006
Space Sentinels was created by Filmation and appeared on network television as a Saturday morning cartoon in the late 1970's, comprised of 13 episodes. Three main characters, Hercules, Astrea and Mercury go on various adventures on Earth and sometimes in space. On the spaceship resides a sentient computer acting as an advisor known as Sentinel One and a little robot that borders on a traditional Filmation mascot, Maintenance Operator or simply MO. The original title was called Young Sentinels and the characters sometimes introduce themselves as Young Sentinels in the dialogue. The voice acting is slightly more diverse-there are three main actors doing most of the voices, but in this particular series, Filmation added others without crediting them specifically, such as the standard Lou and Erika Scheimer and then some other actors who were used irregularly such as Linda Gary, Diane Pershing and even Ted Cassidy ("The Time Traveler"). Other items that made this show unique for its time (1977) was the multi-ethnic cast (Mercury was of Asian ethnicity), and having a African/American woman as the leader. This is a very brief run down of each Space Sentinels episode.
MORPHEUS: THE SINISTER SENTINEL
Another sentinel with an evil alignment and who has the power of Astrea, Hercules and Mercury combined, comes to Earth for revenge.
SPACE GIANTS
The sentinels have to deal with giant tough-to-beat robots who are initially after some gold as fuel.
THE TIME TRAVELER
A human from an advanced time period has returned to stop the construction of a moon base by destroying the supply rockets (unmanned) shortly after launch.
THE SORCERESS
A large section of the north pole has vanished, and the sentinels are dispatched to investigate.
THE RETURN OF ANUBIS
Anubis (for some reason they don't correctly refer to him as the god of death) is revived and wants to exact revenge on human beings-the sentinels go to stop this from occuring.
THE WIZARD OF OD
The sentinels travel to an alternate universe to investigate and defeat a device that alters reality.
THE PRIME SENTINEL
Another Sentinel One-like computer, known as the Prime Sentinel, has been compromised by an evil unknown force, and the Young Sentinels journey into space to fix the problem.
COMMANDER NEMO
An eco-terrorist threatens civilization and sentinels travel into the ocean to find and stop him.
VOYAGE TO THE INNER WORLD
Astrea is kidnapped with the intent to use her to power an underground civilization against her will. Hercules, Mercury, Sentinel One and MO use their spaceshipt to burrow their way to the city to rescue her.
LOKI
A powerful human from another dimension is freed and sends Hercules and Mercury into his dimension which allows him to steal their spaceship and use it in an attempt to conquer his original dimension that he came from.
FAUNA
A young girl who has telepathy and can control wild animals, is attacking a laboratory in a forest. The sentinels are dispatched to investigate.
THE JUPITER SPORE
A semi-intelligent plant is growing so fast it will cover the entire earth in a very short period of time. The sentinels need to destroy the plant.
THE WORLD SHIP
A large planetoid is on a direct collision course with earth. The sentinels come to the conclusion that the planetoid must be destroyed to save the earth, so using their spaceship, they intercept the planetoid and find out that further investigation is needed.
The Freedom Force is the other series which is five, 11 minute episodes with Hercules, Isis, Sinbad, Merlin and Super Samurai. The Freedom Force had it's own mini-ethnic flavor with a otokonoko (Japanese boy) who turned into the giant Super Samurai warrior. Here is a summary of each episode.
THE DRAGON RIDERS
The Freedom Force investigates a quarrel between the leader of a race called the Valderons, and a high level scientist.
THE SCARLET SAMURAI
The Freedom Force has to deal with an evil wizard who granted another young boy the ability to become a large Samurai warrior similar to Super Samurai.
THE PLANT SOLDIERS
The Freedom Force has to recover a powerful necklace that was stolen from their power pyramid headquarters.
MORGANA'S REVENGE
The Freedom Force has to rescue one of their own members, Hercules, due to a misunderstanding between himself and his horse Pegasus.
THE ROBOT
A robot shows up to save a tribe from an exploding volcano. The Freedom Force soon discovers there is a lot more to this robot than meets the eye.
The writing is about the same quality on both Space Sentinels and The Freedom Force, but I found Space Sentinels generally more interesting.
The quality of the sound and images are very high, although this boxed set isn't overloaded with extras, if you were to compare this release to the He-Man series. This boxed set includes four individual interviews of the staff that are just over 5 minutes each, a live action sequence, the original "Young Sentinels" introduction, and the same "The Magic Of Filmation" that appears in other DVD boxed sets such as He-Man and Flash Gordon.
Other than that, everything else is vintage Filmation. Usage of silhouttes, recycled footage, and a very 70's "wah-wah" guitar in a lot of the background music. Comparing the plot lines of Space Sentinels to other current modern shows like it, there isn't anything that special, but it's a good effort nonetheless.
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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Two Complete Classic '70s Filmation Animated Series In One Package!, August 24, 2006
Originally titled "The Young Sentinels" [changing its name to "Space Sentinels" midseason to emphasize their space background], the 1977-78 NBC Saturday morning series "Space Sentinels" featured the culturally diverse immortal heroes Hercules, Nordic strongman (George DiCenzo, "Blackstar"); Astraea, beautiful African-American shapeshifter; and Mercury, swift Asian-American speedster; The trio, who had been taken from Earth centuries ago then endowed and trained in their special powers by sentient supercomputer Sentinel One, protected the Earth and the galaxy from an assortment of aliens and time-travelers.
The following season in the fall of 1978, Hercules returned to the superhero business on a different network and with a different team. "The Freedom Force," one of seven segments from CBS's ninety-minute "Tarzan and the Super 7" show featured The Valley of Time, home of the Freedom Force: Isis, goddess of the elements (Diane Pershing, "Flash Gordon"); Hercules, the world's mightiest man (now voiced by Bob Denison); Merlin, master of magic; Sinbad, hero of the seven seas; and Super Samurai, giant of justice; all champions of freedom who battled fantasy-driven mythological foes.
Join them now on adventures through time and fantasy with "Space Sentinels & The Freedom Force - The Complete Series!" This 2-disc collection features all 13 episodes of "Space Sentinels," and all 5 episodes of "The Freedom Force," plus the following Special Features:
* Interview with creators Lou Scheimer, Buzz Dixon, Darrel McNeil, Michael Reaves, Robert Kline and David Wise.
* "The Magic of Filmation" documentary tracing the history of Filmation, and its quarter century legacy of popular animated and live-action series
* "Young Sentinels" audition tapes
* Model Sheet Gallery - featuring original images from Space Sentinels and Freedom Force
* Young Sentinels gallery - early presentation images for the cartoon that would become Space Sentinels
* Spanish language tracks for all 13 Space Sentinels episodes
* DVD-ROM features - scripts for all 13 episodes of Space Sentinels and 3 episodes for The Freedom Force
* Trivia for both series
* Digital remastering of sound and video
Space Sentinels:
1. Morpheus: The Sinister Sentinel
2. The Time Traveler
3. Space Giants
4. The Return of Anubis
5. The Prime Sentinel
6. Loki
7. The Sorceress
8. The Wizard of Od
9. Fauna
10. The Jupiter Spore
11. Voyage to the Inner World
12. The Test
13. The Worldship
The Freedom Force:
1. The Dragon Riders
2. The Scarlet Samurai
3. The Plant Soldiers
4. Morgana's Revenge
5. The Robot
Two fun classic '70s Filmation animated series for the price of one!
Recommended!
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
All I need is a bowl of Frankenberry..., December 5, 2006
Ahh...the seventies. I remember really liking this one as a kid. If you've never seen it: Think "Superfriends" in space. The animation is classic 70's Filmmation. In other words, not really very good. But the stories are reasonably well-done, although this is strictly kids' stuff (the robot Moe is particularly grating to my adult mentality).
The bottom line is, Space Sentinels is a nice nostalgic trip if you were between the ages of 5 and 12 in 1977. For most everyone else, it's probably not worth owning.
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