Star Blazers

Three years ago, when we first decided to look into remasteringSTAR BLAZERS™, we apprised the folks at Voyager of our efforts.That was the FIRST time we remastered the Comet Empire story arc,and our current efforts are based off of that original project.Back then our resources weren't as snazzy as they are now, andwe had to yank all of our video with one of those good ol' "highend" ATI video capture cards. We knew the prints weren't up tocommercial grade but sent copies of then to Voyager anyway,hoping they'd take the hint. They apparently decided to stickwith those old, grainy, 16mm film prints for their DVDs forobvious reasons -- hence our current effort.At the same time we were redoing the Comet Empire, though, ourminds kept going back to the lone dubbed Yamato movie. You know,the Streamline dub of FAREWELL TO SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO. Don'tknock it too badly, because it's actually a pretty good dub givenStreamline was the top anime dubbing outfit at the time. It'sjust that it suffers from the same problem as does the Bolar Warsstory arc. It has the WRONG VOICES, if you know what we mean.Why couldn't it be remixed with the Claster cast audio from theseries ... or better yet, a movie-length compilation from theseries itself? Sort of a "warp speed version" like those memorialvideos they used to release in Japan, back when releasing anentire anime TV series on videotape or laserdisc was quite a priceyprospect. Our pitch to Voyager was that they could release it asa bargain alternative to buying the entire series, and so we madewarp speed versions of all three seasons of STAR BLAZERS™. Theysaid nary a word, but as you can guess our suggestion was neverofficially taken. Oh, well. We can make a guess at why theydecided not to go with the idea and we understand. Even so, wedon't want our work to go missing on a dusty storage shelfsomewhere before it gets lost to disc rot.Included in this archive is a slightly retooled version of our 2005Comet Empire "warp speed version" movie. This was pulled directlyfrom our archive master print. We ask that you please forgive thequality of the video and the frequent screen artifacts from timeto time. These resulted from the video capture card we were usingto generate our work prints back then. We also note that thisprint was cropped in letterbox format to simulate a theatricalrelease and with viewing on widescreen TVs and monitors in mind.In retrospect this may not have been such a good idea, what withthe stink that the DRAGON BALL Z™ fans have raised over their ownshow getting similar treatment. Perhaps we might redo it in thefuture if enough fans show interest.A word at this point about the way this is edited. The ideabehind the "warp speed version" was to edit each season down intoa three-hour movie. Our prints were keyed off of the originalJapanese movie edits for the first two seasons, and off of theBolar Wars TV movie compilation for the third season. Thisrequired the reshuffling of certain scenes, as well as thealteration of others, in order to provided a reasonable flow ofevents. We couldn't include everything, but we tried as hard aswe could to include as many of the fans' favorite moments aspossible -- given the limitations of Claster's dub, that is.It actually turned out a lot better than we expected, althoughthe lack of consistent quality audio sources was (and still is)irritating. Oh, how we wish Voyager had remastered the CometEmpire audio like they did for the Iscandar episodes!Our only change was to redo all of title and credits cards. Thiswas for the sake of those whose names were listed and for obviousreasons. This included both people on our team and at Voyagerback then -- including one fellow at Voyager in particular whowas a big help in our original effort. The key part he played,although much appreciated at the time, must forever remainanonymous per his wishes. This also goes for...