Star Fleet - The Complete Series [DVD]

a message saying that childhood memories sometimes can be as good as you recall. Star fleet is a science fiction serial made in japan using puppets. It achieved huge popularity in britain when it was broadcast on ITV on saturday mornings early in the 1980's, where it captured the imagination of a generation. some of whom waited a great many years to see it again.

actually although the show was originally produced in japan the english version had pretty much a whole new script and was redubbed into english and given an all new score. the story of x bomber, a spaceship crewed by three brave pilots and led by wise scientist dr benn robinson. when the earth is attacked by the evil imperial alliance who are on the trail of orphan girl lamia because she has a hidden destiny, x bomber leads the fight back and then heads off into space to unravel the mystery of why lamia is so important. lots of action ensues.

the series succeeds because it has a sense of wonder, a decent storyline, and it really captures the imagination. and there are also some pretty exciting battle sequences. all of this should be enough to reawaken the inner teenager in you who first saw the show in the 1980's. and even if you've never seen it before anyone who likes an entertaining bit of good science fiction should be swiftly capativated by this.

there are twenty four epsiodes which run for twenty three minutes each. episodes nine and thirteen are clip shows, that just fill up the time by using clips from earlier parts. you could probably skip over thirteen without missing anything but nine does contain one important plot development near the end. but these two are the only episodes that aren't excellent.

the show is spread over four discs, six epiaodes to each. they don't have direct scene access, but allow you to start the episode at either the beginning, right after the opening credits, or right at the start of the closing credits. and each episode has a synposis also available on the episode selection menu.

there's an awful lot of extras, spread over the four discs. a lot of them are text features.

some that aren't:

a 34 minute long documentary about the making of the show, featuring both it's original japanese creator, and the dubbing director and one of the british voice actors. don't watch this till you've seen the show, because you'll see a few spoilers. it's a very good documentary and it does contain interesting mentions of the proposed second season that alas never came to pass.

there's also brian may's music video. when the theme tune was released as a single he sung the words, and this is the video that goes with it.

there's a gallery of stills from the series.

and from the making of it.

and one of all the merchandise that was produced.

the ones that are text features:

a long essay about the creation of the show.

character biographies.

series synposis.

text features about the machinery and spaceships in the show.

and even the box comes with extra features:

a collectors booklet [containing text that duplicates the character and episode synopsis on the discs]

a flyer advertising the impending release of the superb score from the show

six postcards each with a different still from the show

a small double sided poster, one side showing the main characters and the other one of the machines they use

and a fifty two page booklet reprinting two all new comic stories based on the show that were originally published in the 1980's.

the only language these discs are in is english.

and I'm afraid there are no subtitles.

that's an unfortunate admission from an otherwise fantastic package that really does justice to a great show. and will make you think it's saturday morning in the 1980's all over again

Today I finally received my copy of the DVD box and I can say that it has been worth both the money and the wait big time. Star Fleet is a sci-fi puppet series which plays in the year 2999. During the dawn of a new millennium something big unknown to mankind is about to happen. A group of alien invaders, known as the Imperial Alliance however know all too well that the events to take place could very well mean the end of their dominance in the universe. And so they set out for earth to seek out the F01 which is where the story begins.

What makes this DVD collection excel when compared to other releases of older series is that the editors haven't tried to "enhance" or "improve" the experience in any way. Instead they totally focussed on restoring all the material they had so that its quality would be good enough for a DVD release. A quick example; during the first series the Imperial Alliance drone crafts attack x-bomber directly, crippling it on moonbase. During these scenes you will notice that some laser blasts have suddenly turned white, only to become yellow again at a later time. Such "glitches" have all been left in, as they should in my opinion!

So judging from what I've seen so far they truly succeeded with the goal. The DVD set contains all full 24 episodes, so also including the opening, ending and preview of the next episode. And because it hasn't been remastered in any way its in its original 4:3 aspect ratio format, without subtitles and 1 language track. As said before: this is the original material, nothing more and nothing less. So don't expect too much fancy stuff, just an enormous blast from the past.

The menu system on the DVDs is very smooth and navigates easily while featuring music and sound samples from the series. The box also comes with a few extras but in my opinion the "making of" is probably the most interesting here.

And finally the box is packed with goodies! More than I expected, thats for sure. Besides a small booklet with information on the DVDs and a quick description of the several episodes you also get a 36 page comic book, a 2 sided A4 sized poster and finally 2 packs of picture cards containing 6 cards each. The packs are doubles so you could use the first while storing the second.

And there you have it. I got lucky enough to have recorded many of the episodes on VHS during the time when Super Channel was airing Star Fleet and I can say that the DVD is truly a work of art. I've said it before; restoration as it should.

Great box set just buy it.

As always there are a few quirks, but trivial:

a) Two episodes are clip shows (repeats). Watch them whilst sticking fingers into your eye sockets.
b) They originally combined two episodes into one for the UK version.
c) Brian May's video size has been drastically reduced for some reason (even after maintaining the aspect ratio). This is the only real issue with the DVD distribution (Fabulous why didn't you do a better job of this?).
d) The "Making Of" documentary contains a BIG spoiler. Would have been better on disc 4. Regardless DO NOT WATCH until you've seen all the episodes.

In regards to (b) I think it would have been great if they had included the two original FULL Japanese episodes that were edited together later for UK release, and even better if they had subtitles.

You can't have it all.... but you can almost have it all....