Three years ago, when we first decided to look into remastering
STAR 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, and
we had to yank all of our video with one of those good ol' "high
end" ATI video capture cards. We knew the prints weren't up to
commercial grade but sent copies of then to Voyager anyway,
hoping they'd take the hint. They apparently decided to stick
with those old, grainy, 16mm film prints for their DVDs for
obvious reasons -- hence our current effort.
At the same time we were redoing the Comet Empire, though, our
minds kept going back to the lone dubbed Yamato movie. You know,
the Streamline dub of FAREWELL TO SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO. Don't
knock it too badly, because it's actually a pretty good dub given
Streamline was the top anime dubbing outfit at the time. It's
just that it suffers from the same problem as does the Bolar Wars
story arc. It has the WRONG VOICES, if you know what we mean.
Why couldn't it be remixed with the Claster cast audio from the
series ... or better yet, a movie-length compilation from the
series itself? Sort of a "warp speed version" like those memorial
videos they used to release in Japan, back when releasing an
entire anime TV series on videotape or laserdisc was quite a pricey
prospect. Our pitch to Voyager was that they could release it as
a bargain alternative to buying the entire series, and so we made
warp speed versions of all three seasons of STAR BLAZERS™. They
said nary a word, but as you can guess our suggestion was never
officially taken. Oh, well. We can make a guess at why they
decided not to go with the idea and we understand. Even so, we
don't want our work to go missing on a dusty storage shelf
somewhere before it gets lost to disc rot.
Included in this archive is a slightly retooled version of our 2005
Comet Empire "warp speed version" movie. This was pulled directly
from our archive master print. We ask that you please forgive the
quality of the video and the frequent screen artifacts from time
to time. These resulted from the video capture card we were using
to generate our work prints back then. We also note that this
print was cropped in letterbox format to simulate a theatrical
release and with viewing on widescreen TVs and monitors in mind.
In retrospect this may not have been such a good idea, what with
the stink that the DRAGON BALL Z™ fans have raised over their own
show getting similar treatment. Perhaps we might redo it in the
future if enough fans show interest.
A word at this point about the way this is edited. The idea
behind the "warp speed version" was to edit each season down into
a three-hour movie. Our prints were keyed off of the original
Japanese movie edits for the first two seasons, and off of the
Bolar Wars TV movie compilation for the third season. This
required the reshuffling of certain scenes, as well as the
alteration of others, in order to provided a reasonable flow of
events. We couldn't include everything, but we tried as hard as
we could to include as many of the fans' favorite moments as
possible -- given the limitations of Claster's dub, that is.
It actually turned out a lot better than we expected, although
the lack of consistent quality audio sources was (and still is)
irritating. Oh, how we wish Voyager had remastered the Comet
Empire audio like they did for the Iscandar episodes!
Our only change was to redo all of title and credits cards. This
was for the sake of those whose names were listed and for obvious
reasons. This included both people on our team and at Voyager
back then -- including one fellow at Voyager in particular who
was a big help in our original effort. The key part he played,
although much appreciated at the time, must forever remain
anonymous per his wishes. This also goes for the others involved
on both sides of the edit.
We note in passing that while our Bolar Wars movie print no longer
exists (disc rot), we have manged to recover our Iscandar dubbed
movie archive print. Perhaps that too will be redone provided
there is enough fan interest.
We hope that this will tide you over until we get the rest of the
Comet Empire series digitally remastered. We also hope you enjoy
this little peek at our original STAR BLAZERS™ remastering effort.
click here to see where to watch or .
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