Search DVJ:

Fan Fact:

The late, great, Jerry Orbach, the voice of Zach Fox, is better known as Det. Lenny Briscoe in the long running "Law & Order" tv series!

DVJ Photography:

Affiliates:

The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers

Phoenix

Review by Matthew Anderson

65 Episode TV Series

Company: Koch Vision

Running Time: 88 minutes (4 episodes)

Region: 1

Rated: PG (Violence, subject matter))

EXTERNAL EXAM

In the latter part of the 21st century, alien ambassadors Waldo and Zozo journey to Earth, seeking aid. They tell the Board of World Leaders about the Queen of the Crown, leader of a vast military empire that has subjugated a large portion of the galaxy. In return for Earth's assistance, they give the human race hyper drive technology, enabling them to expand across the universe. In addition to providing military support, the Bureau of Extra Terrestrial Affairs (BETA) creates the Galaxy Rangers to patrol the lawless space lanes.

It isn't long until The Queen of the Crown begins to capture as many humans as she can find. Her goal is to use their life force to power her Slaver Lord elite, psycho-plasmic creatures that control her android soldiers.

At the same time, Galaxy Ranger Zachary Fox and his family, along with ambassadors Waldo and Zozo, are drawn off course by notorious space pirate Captain Kidd. He plans to sell the humans to the Queen, and take their ship for his own. While Fox, his two children and the ambassadors manage to escape, his wife Eliza is taken and sold to the Queen by Captain Kidd.

Because of this incident, the Board of World Leaders allows Fox to create a special branch of the Galaxy Rangers, knows as Series 5. Consisting of the psychic Niko, computer specialist Doc. Hartford, and former Super trooper Shane Gooseman, these men and women are ready to protect the alliance and defeat the Queen of the Crown.

DVD VISION TEST

VIDEO: This is one good looking transfer, the best Galaxy Rangers has ever looked. There are no pixels, but there are some wrinkles and digital rainbows during the action segments. It doesn't look like much clean up has been done, but I don't see any of the typical splices or garbage that normally clutter up a release this old. It's certainly better than my VHS copies!

AUDIO: The English 2.0 and 5.1 are pretty evenly matched. Both have decent directionality, but nothing spectacular. The 5.1 is louder than the 2.0, but not by much.

EDITS: The eye catches from the broadcast versions have been removed, but other than that, no edits have been made.

EXTRAS: Just some text information about the characters, and a preview of other Galaxy Ranger releases.

WIDESCREEN REVIEW

STORY: The stories in Galaxy Rangers cover the gambit from action/adventure, to family drama, to comedy, and back again. While some of the plots are a little silly, and the dialogue is, horribly dated, it still is one of the best fusions of Japanese and American animation ever to grace our TV screens.

ACTING: The acting is pretty good, although in the earlier episodes, the cast was a little stiff. The booming voice of the late Jerry Orbach was perfect for stoic hero Zachary Fox. Doug Pries does a pretty good Clint Eastwood impression for Shane Gooseman, yet he managed to give the character a youthful edge. Laura Dean is cute as space babe Niko, and veteran voice actress Corinne Orr does a great "queen bitch of the universe" voice for the Queen of the Crown.

FAN SERVICE: Hey, this was 80's television, so none of that stuff here. There are plenty of references to classic science fiction, as well as 1960's westerns.

FINAL EXAM

At last, "The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers" is out on DVD. The heavens have opened, there is a spring in my step, and I can start looking at retiring my precious VHS copies. Okay, it may not be a big deal in the annals of animation, but for me, this was and is, one of my personal favorites.

While visiting my local comic book store back in the 1980's, the owner was watching this animated show about space cops investigating a giant abandoned space station. As they checked things out, the computer attacks them one by one. During one such attack, a blond guy yells at the computer to "give him a little charge". He transformed into a silver being, and absorbed the energy bolts. Curious, I asked the owner what the name of the show was. "It's the Galaxy Rangers!"

From that point on, my fate was sealed. I quickly found the local UHF station that carried it, and I recorded every single episode.

There are many factors that contribute to my love of this series. For starters, Robotech had planted in my head the idea that animation could be more than just commercials for toys. Don't get me wrong, I love G.I. Joe, Transformers, and MASK, but they are still half hour long toy commercials. Galaxy Rangers was one of a hand full of shows that placed the characters in true to life situations. The loss of a parent or loved one, racial prejudice, fear of the unknown, and the danger of addiction were covered in many of its best episodes. It also had some excellent animation by TMS, the makers of "Golgo 13" and "Fist of the North Star". The acting was pretty good, a little hokey at times, but still better than "Saber Riders and the Star Sheriffs". Last, it was the only series to successfully marry the wild west and science fiction. "Bravestar" so did not do it. Neither did the hatchet job "Saber Riders and the Star Sheriffs". All of these elements together is what made "Galaxy Rangers" an important step in my love of anime. It kept me going until the real thing was finally made available in the US.

Now that you have had to endure four paragraphs about how much I love this series, let's take a look at what's on the DVD.

The first episode "Phoenix", sets the stage for "Galaxy Rangers". We see that while the Queen is powerful, her empire is starting to wane. She is in dire need of new Slaver Lords, and the humans have the life energy she needs to create them. Thanks to a raid on Kirwin, and the kidnapping of Eliza Fox by space pirate Captain Kidd, she begins to experiment. Ironically, it's because of Captain Kidd's actions that the Series 5 Galaxy Rangers were formed.

Next up is "New Frontier", and we get to follow the Galaxy Rangers go on their first mission, rescue the humans and Eliza Fox from the Queen. Their only lead is Captain Kidd, who is hiding out on the outlaw planet of Tortuna. While the Rangers are able to rescue the humans kidnapped from Kirwin, Eliza has already been turned into a Slaver Lord. Until the Queen is defeated, they won't be able to restore Eliza's life-force to her body. To prevent the Queen from using her, BETA places Eliza in stasis, effectively robbing Zachary of a wife, and his kids of their mother.

Skipping ahead 10 episodes, we have "Psychocrypt", the continuation of the on going "Eliza" subplot. Plagued by horrific dreams of his wife and the Queen, Zachary attempts to release her from her stasis pod at Longshot research labs. Commander Walsh won't allow Zachary to recover Eliza's psychocrystal, so Zachary Fox resigns from the Galaxy Rangers and heads to the Queen's psychocrypt anyways. Sent after him, the rest of Fox's team must rescue him before he suffers the same fate as his wife.

"Psychocrypt" one of the better episodes of the series, as Zachary must deal with the grief of not being able to help his wife. We see the pain he feels, and experience his helplessness as he nearly looses everything in order to save her. While the second half of the episode becomes a typical "escape from" scenario, the scenes with just Zachary trying to deal leave quite an impression.

Jumping to episode 52, the last episode on this volume is "Rainmaker", one of the weaker stories of the series. Crime lord Jackie Subtract is on the run from the Galaxy Rangers, so he goes to find his twin brother Aiden on the frontier planet of Nebraska. Aiden is attempting to sell his Rainmaker machine to the drought stricken farmers, but it doesn't quite work right. When his brother arrives, looking for money, things get a lot worse.

It's a cute episode, and focuses in mostly on Aiden and his relationship with Amy Ladd, the daughter of the local sheriff. The two of them forge a strong bond, and naturally, when twin Jackie shows up, he puts the little one in danger. While it certainly isn't as stupid or comical as some of the other episodes, I just can't seem to get into it. Perhaps it's too "Little House on the Prairie" for me.

This is a good time to point out my dissatisfaction of the presentation of "Galaxy Rangers". Granted, this isn't one of the most popular programs from the 1980's, but there are enough fans out there who are going to be annoyed with how Koch Vision set things up. On the technical side, the video quality is decent, but it could have been better. Same with the audio. The menus are slow, and annoying, and the pitiful extras are just down right insulting.

My biggest gripe is them not showing the episodes in broadcast order. While the series was episodic in nature, many of the later episodes build on the ones that came before it. For example, in "Psychocrypt", Zachary and the Rangers pay a visit to Geezi the Pedulont, a character introduced in episode 3. While I knew of their past relationship, new viewers will be left scratching their heads at Doc. Hartford's cryptic comment "Hello Geezi, remember us?" and may find themselves a little perplexed when Geezi talks about the Queen running out of the Gherkin people (a major plot point in episode 3). While this may seem minor, one of the other four volumes starts off with the missing episode 3! Would it have killed them to go in order? Personally, I just don't think they really cared. They knew that suckers like me were going to pay for it, and low and behold, I did. If we are lucky, they will release it in a boxset, in episode order.

While I'm disappointed at the lack of care Koch Vision gave to "Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers", I am very happy that they brought this great series to DVD. I can now return to the animation of my youth, and introduce my kids to one of the seeds of their anime loving heritage.

Return to Top

Back to the Anime Review Page