Remembering Star Blazers!

I just finished watching the movie "Speed Racer" on DVD.

Boy I wish I had a Blu-Ray player and humongous High-Def flat panel TV.

Or, better yet, I should have spent the $12 to see the IMAX version at Pointe Orlando.

It was everything I'd hoped it would be. A day-glo rush of blazing CGI graphics, excellent live action and traditional animation tossed together but presented in an understandable and thoroughly exciting way. I loved it!

I hesitated seeing it at the movies when it came out this past spring mainly because I feared throngs of noisy and insolent unsupervised teenagers would be filling the theater with their giddy laughter, noxious smells of popcorn and candy and feet kicking the back of my seat. No thanks.

Also, the reviews were, shall we say, less than enthusiastic.

Well they didn't "get it" obviously...I thought it was exactly what it advertised itself to be.

It was a perfect update of the original classic cartoons of the '60s. I remember watching the cartoons during their mid-'70s syndicated reruns, and I loved it then, but it was the precursor to my true love of the art which would eventually be called "anime", the late '70s Japanese-imported series dubbed in English and renamed for US audiences as "Star Blazers".

This played on one of our local TV stations in RI around 3:30 in the afternoon on weekdays, so I remember that after I became addicted to the show, I just rushed to get home from school to catch each episode. I remember they had an ongoing story arc for each episode unifying the whole season into one grand animated space-themed soap opera. I was sooo sucked in from the first episode.

...They had me at "konichiwa".

I loved this dramatic and rousing theme song so much, I made the melody the national anthem of Nastralia.

If you too remember this cartoon and loved it like me, here's a present...

Enjoy the ride!