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

Starring:Alan Young, Keye Luke, Ronnie Schell, Janet Waldo, Casey Kasem, Alan Dinehart (III), William Woodson, David Jolliffe, Alan Oppenheimer, Alan Dinehart Jr.
Director: David E. Hanson
Studio: Rhino / Wea
Product Type: DVD

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The early anime series that began in Japan as Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (1972-74) aired in the U.S. in two very different versions. For Battle of the Planets (syndication, 1978), much of the violence was excised and the R2-D2-esque robot 7-Zark-7 was added; G-Force (Turner Broadcasting, 1986) was darker in tone and closer to the original Gatchaman. All three series focus on the adventures of five teenagers in bird suits. In Battle they tackle the evil Spectra in "outer space," although the backgrounds are clearly Earth, where G-Force and Gatchaman are set. Episode 3 illustrates the difference between the series: In Battle, when a whiny little boy gets in the way of a giant mummy attacking an airport, the evil Zoltar warns him away; in Gatchaman, villainous Berg Katse tells the mummy to step on the child. Unrated; suitable for ages 10 up. --Charles Solomon

Customer Reviews:

Slight technical difficulty.......2004-06-08

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.

what can I say.......2003-08-31

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.

What can I say.......2003-08-31

So will the annoying kid get squashed? Tune in to find out!.......2002-03-05

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!

So will the annoying kid get squashed? Tune in to find out!.......2002-03-05

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".

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!

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