From: Paulo Jorge Morgado 
Subject: Space1999: FORCE OF LIFE / ENGALE VIDEOS
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 13:49:06 -0000

[EDITOR'S NOTE:  Second part only; the first part was in a different thread.]

Now slightly Off-Topic. Does anyone know whatever happened to "Alpha
Quarterly", a Fanzine published in the early Eighties by the
INTERNATIONAL SPACE 1999 ALLIANCE? While we're at it, does the Alliance
still exist?

Like my fellow countryman José Emanuel, I too would like to know if the
Film versions of Space 1999 sold by Engale are much different from the
separate episodes and which version is better.
I think there are four compilations:
"Alien Attack" (Breakaway and War Games supposedly with new scenes - how
do these fit in the chronology?)
"Journey Through the Black Sun" (Black Sun and Collision Course), 
"Cosmic Princess" (The Metamorph and Space Warp) 
"Destination Moonbase Alpha" (The Bringers of Wonder 1 and 2") - I
remember watching this one on Portuguese television in 1982 and the only
thing noteworthy that I recall was a STAR WARS-like
text-vanishing-into-space intro that seemed to me was plain tacky. 

Paulo Morgado


Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 21:06:12 +0100 Subject: Space1999: Re: ENGALE VIDEOS From: Ekmar Brand (Ekmar.Brand@t-online44.de) Hi Paulo! Actually there are five "movies". The fifth "movie" was only released as a compilation in Italy. It includes the episodes "BREAKAWAY", "RING AROUND THE MOON" and "ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE". Ennio Morricone composed a new soundtrack for the film by Avofilm. This soundtrack (released on the German Ennio Morricone CD "TIME OF ADVENTURES") was used only in this "movie". The other four "movies" ALIEN ATTACK, JOURNEY THROUGH THE BLACK SUN, COSMIC PRINCESS and DESTINATION MOONBASE were realesed in England by Channel 5 Video. It it difficult to say what is better, the "movies" or the episodes? ALIEN ATTACK contains additional "BREAKAWAY" scenes on the Earth. But they cut off the scenes with the date 13th September 1999 and transformed the story into the year 2100 (= SPACE: 2100?). All Channel 5 "movies" are now in the year 2100. Very strange... The sound quality of the "movies" is better than the episodes. Two of the "movies" (JOURNEY THROUGH THE BLACK SUN and COSMIC PRINCESS) were remastered with great stereo sound. It would be better to release in the future a third version: all episodes uncut with stereo sound remastering, especially "BREAKAWAY" as a "director's cut". So write to PolyGram! Ekmar
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 16:01:49 -0500 From: Jeff Hudson (jeff@grcmc44.org) Subject: Re: Space1999: Re: ENGALE VIDEOS I've seen a video here at a Blockbuster Video store in Michigan. Maybe somebody else out there knows what I am talking about. It seems to be another Space:1999 "movie." The artwork is a painted graphic montage of different elements of the episodes... I can't remember what episodes it looked like BUT the most striking element was that this movie appeared to be hosted by Sybil Danning, wearing a really corny sci-fi looking outfit, holding a big ray gun. It was like she was supposed to be the sci-fi equivelant of Elvira or something. Anybody see this? Was I hallucinating?
From: LKJ1999@aol44.com Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 17:09:22 EST Subject: Re: Space1999: Re: ENGALE VIDEOS It must be Journey thru the Black Sun. I found this tape at BlockBuster's back in 1989. It is EP. Speed. That's the bad part. I do like the music. Some of the music is from U.F.O.... They cut a lot of parts out of these episode's. Black Sun & Collision Course By the way I have the Tape. Chas P. LKJ1999
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 16:56:31 -0600 From: James Small (eagle1@mb.sympatico44.ca) Subject: Re: Space1999: Re: ENGALE VIDEOS > this movie appeared to be hosted by Sybil Danning, wearing a really corny sci-fi > looking outfit, holding a big ray gun. It was like she was supposed to be the sci-fi > equivelant of Elvira or something. Anybody see this? Was I hallucinating? Nope. You weren't hallucinating. It was marketed as one of Cybill Danning's "Adventure Videos". She does a little intro and outtro to it on the tape as well. Corny, yes, but who cares! With that outfit she's almost wearing you won't be listening anyway! The tape blends the two episodes Breakaway and War games. There are some extra scenes of an Earth based office of some sort made that were not part of the original episodes, and appear to have been made for this particular release. The episodes themselves appear to be pretty much intact though. Many years ago, when I saw it in the video store I was so excited because I had never seen a Space 1999 video before! The store wouldn't sell it or order another, so I rented and copied it. Relax, all you anti-pirating types... I did TRY to get it legit!
From: David Acheson (dkach@hotmail44.com) Subject: Space1999: The 1999 Movies Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 19:58:36 PST Well, it appears the verdict on the movies edited from episodes of SPACE: 1999 is split. I for one am not a big fan of them. In fact I believe them to be (with the possible exception of DESTINATION: MOONBASE ALPHA) rather bad. The original style of the series is destroyed in most cases and, in my opinion, appears to be cheapened. While I can watch episodes of the series over and over again (both season) I find it hard not to laugh at these compilation movies. The extra scenes added to ALIEN ATTACK were supposed to bring two unrelated stories together but the acting was bad and the material was not all that important to the overall story. And dig that horrible disco end title music! The overwhelming question would be who composed that? The main title was also a rock-based theme but I think it fared better. The change to the year 2100 made sense to viewers of the 1980's as we were getting too close to the real 1999 for the average viewer to believe that this could really happen then. JOURNEY THROUGH THE BLACK SUN was the worst of the lot. While BLACK SUN was one of the best year one episodes it did not play well chopped up with COLLISION COURSE. In fact the redubbing of the background score was overdone. It was pure Barry Gray music from beginning to end with no music break. Drove me nuts. Those cheap title sequences at the beginning and end did not come across as one of the big budget TV series of all times. THE COSMIC PRINCESS was another massacre. I liked the idea of Maya's illness following the destruction of her world. Her mental collapse and the want to return to her father can be explained by her distress of losing everything she knew. Then came the alien message in the SPACE WARP craft. The whispering voice in that episode was replaced by an even sillier bug-like voice. I laughed my head off. There were some parts in the movie where no music played which I was grateful for. Interesting to note this time they combined both Barry Gray's and Derek Wadsworth's soundtrack. DESTINATION: MOONBASE ALPHA remained the most faithful to the series. This was easy as all they had to do is stick the two parts of the original story together. Little chance of heavy re-editing to change the storyline. The intro started nicely with the BREAKAWAY sequence and the STAR WARS-like scrolling. Unfortunately, it cut into a cheesy rock sequence introducing the characters very fast and then BANG - right into the beginning of the episode. The song at the end titles is bad. What did that have to do with the movie? This is the only one of the 4 movies that I bothered to record off TV - one night at 2:00 am. Nothing was cut out. Overall though one longs for the classic series. I am just glad no further films were made. David Looking forward to next week's discussion - ALPHA CHILD.
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 12:44:03 +0100 Subject: Space1999: ALIEN ATTACK! From: Ekmar Brand (Ekmar.Brand@t-online44.de) Does anybody have more informations about the making of the scenes on the Earth in the "movie" ALIEN ATTACK? Are the scences restored "off cut" material from BREAKAWAY? Or were the scenes filmed later, only for the "movie" ALIEN ATTACK?
From: Mark Meskin (plastic.gravity@newrock44.com) Subject: Re: Space1999: ALIEN ATTACK! Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 13:32:11 -0600 I think they were filmed specifically for Alien Attack. The Eagle Model is a pretty good indicator that these scenes were filmed after the show ended its run. The Eagle is an unpainted Fundimensions Eagle kit! (which obviously wasn't available in 1974) -Mark
From: Simon Morris (simes01@globalnet44.co.uk) Subject: Space1999: Re:The Space 1999 Movies Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 15:54:14 -0000 I think David Acheson was pretty much on the money with his capsule assessments of the so-called Space 1999 movies. These were never shown on TV in the UK(Thank God)but were released on rental video and then eventually on sell-thru video. In fact,they are still available in some stores. I bought the compliations some years ago...at the time I was pleased to be able to watch ANY Space 1999,as the series had not been re-screened here for some years(and this was some years before ITC set up theor own video label in England). Looking back on them now,and with the original episodes all out on video now to compare them to,I think its easy to see them for what they were......cheap cash-in attempts by ITC New York to take advantage of the video and cable tv markets developing around the world at the time. Mind you,it was the London arm of ITC that started it all as they had the initial idea to cut BREAKAWAY/WAR GAMES and THE BRINGERS OF WONDER into separate feature length films.I believe I am right in saying that the idea was first mooted after the smash release of STAR WARS. Had ITC not messed about with the show and had the foresight to commission a third year,they may well have been riding the crest of the wave with the sci-fi revival that resulted,but unfortunately they went down in history as something else entirely...! Long-time Anderson fan David Hirsch of STARLOG had been appointed by Robert Mandell of ITC New York as a sort of consultant to the compilation project(because of his obvious familiarity with the material)and he spent hours with Mandell reviewing episodes(not just SPACE 1999 but also other Anderson shows like UFO and Thunderbirds)so seeing where they could join episodes up,make edits so that they would fit on TV schedules without them having to undergo further cuts that would make them unintelligible etc. I suppose all this was to ITC's credit,as was the decision to approach Barry Gray for his original music tracks so that new scores could be created. But all THAT led to was music from one series appearing on another series compilation(bits of the UFO score appearing in SPACE 1999 features for example). Looking back though,I don't think that its a project that either ITC or Dave Hirsch should really be proud of. As Dave Acheson says,the wall to wall music was merely distracting(given that it came from varying sources),and in the case of COSMIC PRINCESS the not-very-subtle blending of Barry Gray and Derek Wadsworth scores meant of total mish-mash of styles.DESTINATION MOONBASE ALPHA was a big improvement when it came to music(in fact in everything) in that only Derek's original score featured.This is what should have been done for Cosmic Princess since the Year 2 episodes had a pace and rhythm that Wadsworths music eminently matched....mixing it with Barry's symphonic music did not work in the same way that a Year 1 episode might not have worked so well with the inclusion of Dereks score! One point I'd disagree on with Dave....I quite liked Mike Vickers music which they used for the opening of DESTINATION. I think the style went quite well with the Year 2 "feel" and with the score that Wadsworth composed,though there are some incidental pieces that Wadsworth had composed for the series that would have been suitable and long enough to have been used as a main title(and for that matter for closing titles-the end "song" that was used being complete and utter crap). There is in fact a *tenuous* connection between Mike Vickers and Derek Wadsworth in any case which perhaps makes Vickers library piece(anyone know what it was called?)fairly appropriate. Namely,that before he left to go solo as a film/tv composer,Vickers had been part of the classic jazz-rock/R+B band MANFRED MANN. This band went through many different incarnations and changes of personnel after he had departed. Just one of them was MANFRED MANN CHAPTER THREE,who often used guest jazz-rock session musicians in its performances.One of those who put in appearances as guest sessionist was Derek Wadsworth on trombone! Funny world eh...particularly since Derek Wadsworth has stated that MANFRED MANN and Jack Bruce(one of its original line-up)was one of his musical influences... Lastly,UFO suffered in the ITC compilation "Invasion UFO". A terrible synthesised piece of library music was used for the main theme and this has been widely heard on news programmes,Australian police series and God knows what else. It was fairly unceremoniously cut together from I forget how many episodes of UFO(meaning that some,like "The Man Who Came Back" have never been released in their proper form on UK video)with poor continuity and a story that only barely made sense! Ahhh....thanks for prompting me to relive these video compilations Dave and seeing in the cold light of day how generally crap they were. Nice one ITC!
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 18:03:07 +0100 Subject: Space1999: Re:The Space 1999 Movies From: Ekmar Brand (Ekmar.Brand@t-online44.de) Three of the SPACE: 1999 "movies" (ALIEN ATTACK, JOURNEY THROUGH THE BLACK SUN and DESTINATION MOONBASE ALPHA) were shown on German TV. The actors have other German voices than in the episodes and the movies were longer (uncut). In Germany only 30 episodes were shown and cut to 40 minutes! I also know three UFO "movies": 1. INVASION: UFO (not realeased in Germany) = episode 1 "IDENTIFIED" and episode 22 "REFLECTIONS IN THE WATER" Video England: PolyGram Video # 084 898 3 2. SPACE COMMAND S.H.A.D.O. ("Weltraumkommando S.H.A.D.O.") = episode 11 "THE SQUARE TRIANGLE" and episode 16 "KILL STRAKER" Video Germany: International Home Video # 2009 3. S.H.A.D.O. ("80.000 Meilen durch den Weltraum") = episode 19 "THE CAT WITH TEN LIVES", episode 25 "THE PSYCHOBOMBS" and episode 24 "TIMELASH" Video Germany: UFA Video # 3006 I have 11 UFO video cassettes from England. But some episodes are missing. What happened with the following UFO episodes?: 7. THE COMPUTER AFFAIR ("Computer lügen nicht") 14. CONFETTI CHECK A - O.K. (not aired in Germany) 21. THE MAN WHO CAME BACK ("Der Mann, der zurückkam") Were they released in the U.K. as a "movie"? Instead off cheap cutting of episodes the video companies should produce new movies of SPACE: 1999 or UFO! Ekmar
From: David Acheson (dkach@hotmail44.com) Subject: Space1999: Compilation UFO on TV Date: Sun, 01 Feb 1998 03:56:33 PST Alphans: After all this talk about the old compilation movies of SPACE: 1999 and UFO, I had to laugh when I recently visited the web site of Space:The Imagination Station (the Canadian sci-fi channel). On February 15 this network will be airing INVASION: UFO in prime time (8:00 pm EST). Lovers of cheesy compilations (Canadian fans anyway) set your VCR. I've seen INVASION: UFO once about a decade ago and its much a victim of the same bad editing by ITC as I recently described in regards to the 1999 movies. However, its the first time I have ever known UFO to be aired prime time nationally here in Canada. Just for that sake alone I will probably end up glued to the set. And unlike what I hear about the American Sci-Fi channel I have never known the Canadian station to cut up their programs. Everything I've seen so far has ran unedited. After my previous email (about a week ago) about Anderson productions currently airing here I am glad to see Gerry Anderson undergoing a revival. Will this lead to UFO and SPACE: 1999 to be re-aired in their original series form? Space: The Imagination Station is at http://www.spacecast.com David
From: StarParty@aol44.com Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 12:31:55 EST Subject: Space1999: Re: The Space 1999 "Movies" In regard to the complilation "movies" (and that term should be used loosely!), there were some legal complications that arose back in the 80s. Martin Landau and Barbara Bain both own a portion of 1999, an additional perk which was negotiated when they were contracted to star in the series. This means, that unlike the other actors on the show, they continue - even today - to receive residuals and to participate in profit-sharing from the airing of the show around the world, the sale of merchandise bearing their likenesses, and 1999 videos. I believe it was at the 1984 Landau-Bain Fan Association Day in L.A. that both Martin and Barbara saw one or more of the compilation videos for the first time, or perhaps the later 1986 L.A. Convention. It doesn't really matter which event it was, the end result was an immediate legal injunction through their representatives to end the sale of the videos. To my knowledge, both actors were shocked at the crassness of the product, the addition of newly shot and poorly acted scenes - and, of course, this had all been done without their approval or knowledge. According to my information, these compilation "movies" should not be on sale anywhere in the world at the present time, nor at anytime in the future. Of course, that makes them "more valuable" (in a certain sense) to those that do own the video copies. One of the movies was auctioned off at SpaceCon XII in Portland last September. Barry Morse acted as an auctioneer and he saw a portion of Sybil Danning's opener that was screened to the audience. I think he was in shock, as all he could do was refer to her as "That poor dear." He had not known, either, until then that those compilations were in existence. Tony Wynn
From: judas@netmatters44.co.uk (B J Dowling) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 18:10:48 +0000 Subject: Space1999: Re: Alien Attack & other comps Hi folks, Been away again, checking out Watford for the convention in April. Mark wrote > I think they were filmed specifically for Alien Attack. The Eagle Model > is a pretty good indicator that these scenes were filmed after the show > ended its run. The Eagle is an unpainted Fundimensions Eagle kit! (which > obviously wasn't available in 1974) Yes, they were. "Mr Chairman" is Patrick Allen, British character actor who's best known to those of us aged 30 or less as the Barratt homes man who pulls stunts with a helicopter over a nice new housing estate built by Barratt. I did expect to see a model of a housing estate somewhere in his office! I replied individually to the chaps who asked about the compilations ("Don't do it!"), and I am in broad agreement with the sentiments expressed about them. I'd always rather have the individual episodes over any kind of compilation. Something the BBC took a few years to figure out with Blake's 7 and Doctor Who. Here's a thing... Volumes 1 to 20 are no longer current in PolyGram's catalogue, as I've mentioned before. Volumes 21 to 24 I have only ever seen in HMV stores, but are in the current catalogue. These compilations, despite their awful editing and opening titles (in some cases), are still current! They were originally released on Channel 5 video, before the Channel 5 tv station license had been granted, and from what I recall the covers were a damn sight better than the ones they have now. In 1992 they were repackaged and rereleased under the PolyGram Video banner. The contents didn't change and so included a trailer in which Parker from Thunderbirds plugs that series on Channel 5 video. I'll take a peek at "Alien Attack" tonight and see how the picture and sound compare with the original episode tapes. I'm now dedicating most of my social life to a serious work effort on the UKVL. This will most likley include its relocation to another ISP as well as a rejig of the current contents, and the addition of the bits I currently don't have the space for. If my research and requests for info go well, there will also be a section on Doomwatch, the eco-scifi-thriller series from 1970. I've written enough here. Hope you're all having a good weekend,
From: judas@netmatters44.co.uk (B J Dowling) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 18:10:48 +0000 Subject: Space1999: Episodes vs compilations Hi folks, I wrote: >I'd always rather have the individual episodes over any kind of >compilation. But you'll always find me sat in front of the tv on Sunday mornings watching the UK Gold Doctor Who omnibus stories!
From: judas@netmatters44.co.uk (B J Dowling) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 20:12:15 +0000 Subject: Space1999: Re: Space 1999 "Movies" > One of the movies was auctioned off at SpaceCon XII in Portland last > September. Barry Morse acted as an auctioneer and he saw a portion of Sybil > Danning's opener that was screened to the audience. I think he was in shock, > as all he could do was refer to her as "That poor dear." He had not known, > either, until then that those compilations were in existence. That's _very_ interesting. The compilations as they appear over here do not have Sybil Danning in them, though I doubt whether that makes any difference to the crassness of the product (not to me, anyway). I was aware that PolyGram owned the rights to the 8 episodes in question, so that meant that when ITC (pre PolyGram buy-out) started releasing the episodes, those 8 couldn't be released until the rights expired or if PolyGram or ITC bought the other out. The repackaging I mentioned in an earlier posting did coincide with the release of vols 5, 6 and 7 if I recall correctly. It never occured to me to try and find out why PolyGram bought those 8 episodes in particular... If the action Martin & Barbara took was supposed to prevent any further releases of these compilation efforts, and it was taken around 1984 to 86, the copy of Alien Attack I have in my hand is proof that unless there has been some sort of agreement between the parties concerned, the order has been well and truly breached. Virgin Megastore in Birmingham certainly has them for sale as of Friday lunchtime, and I think I saw them in Virgin in Watford as well. As Ian Gillan would say, here's a thing... Readers of the UK mag Cult TV may have seen the ad entitled Videodome or something like that. It's an ad for a company called Video Direct, who said to me recently that they could get any video commercially available - ie on current catalogue. " Right," I said," get me Space:1999 vol 24 to complete my collection", and I will be picking it up from the Post Office tomorrow. I asked them if they could let me have a list of tapes they have at the moment. If those compilations are still current as I suspect they might be, I wonder what the implications of that could be, assuming the order taken out by Martin and Barbara is still in force...
From: Ekmar Brand (Ekmar.Brand@t-online44.de) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 22:26:46 +0100 Subject: Space1999: Re: Compilation UFO on TV I few weeks ago SF (the German science fiction channel) aired the UFO "movie" SPACE COMMAND S.H.A.D.O. ("Weltraumkommando S.H.A.D.O.") = episode 11 "THE SQUARE TRIANGLE" and episode 16 "KILL STRAKER" Although the "movie" was translated into German language, the credits were in Italian language and soundtrack music was by Barry Gray, but they also used music from some James Bond movies (soundtrack by John Barry). Hey, who knows why the UFO episodes "THE COMPUTER AFFAIR", "CONFETTI CHECK A - O.K." and "THE MAN WHO CAME BACK" were not released in England on video? On sunday, the 8th february 1998, 8.15 p.m. (time in Germany) SF reruns the SPACE: 1999 "movie" JOURNEY THROUGH THE BLACK SUN ("Black Sun - Der Todesplanet greift ein"). Although the English version has stereo sound, the German version has only mono sound. SPACE: 1999: 30 episodes and 3 "movies" aired on TV in Germany 6 episodes and 3 "movies" released on video in Germany UFO: 17 episodes and 2 "movies" aired in Germany 2 "movies" released on video in Germany Ekmar
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 1998 17:26:36 -0500 From: Patricia Embury (Patriemb@sprintmail44.com) Subject: Space1999: Compilations I have seen and survived watching a few of the compilations: Alien Attack (not too horrible) Journey to the Black Sun (I think they tried to make Arra sound like Obi-wan Kenobi. Does anyone know if this came out after Star Wars?) It was perfectly horrible in how they chopped up two wonderful episodes. Destination MBA was probably the best. I have seen all of the compilations for sale at the Supercollector Web Site. The last time I checked, they were sold out of Destionation MBA.
From: StarParty@aol44.com Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 21:42:59 EST Subject: Space1999: Re: "Movies" I think Terry Bowers (Pres. of the the Landau and Bain clubs) and Rosie Badgett (Con Chair for Breakaway: The Convention) may have more info or remember this better than I -- perhaps it was an injunction against sale of the videos only in North America. I will try to get clarification on what happened. Tony
From: judas@netmatters44.co.uk (B J Dowling) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 19:19:07 +0000 Subject: Space1999: After the UK videos? Hi folks, I'm off work with lurgi at the moment and am taking the time to relax and get some extra work and research done. I mentioned yesterday that I expected to get vol 24 this morning, and I did. Also was included the full catalogue from these people, and it makes quite decent reading if you like that sort of thing. The tape arrived within the 14 days they promised, was well packaged and I saw it all this morning and was well satisfied. My episode collection is now complete. So, the details for those who are interested... Videoplus Direct say that they can supply any video currently on general release in the UK. They can be reached on 01733 232800, based somewhere around Portsmouth, methinks. The Space:1999 volumes featured in the catalogue I have in my hand are vols 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. And 3 of the compilations are also on their list, Cosmic Princess being the missing one. If you do want to get any of them, please phone to check availability. I imagine that stocks are limited.
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 01:28:56 +0100 Subject: Space1999: Re: ALIEN ATTACK! From: Ekmar Brand (Ekmar.Brand@t-online44.de) Now I watched ALIEN ATTACK again. In the scenes on Earth I discovered four models: one Eagle, two different Space Shuttles, one Saturn V rocket. These model kits come out in Germany in 1978. The first Space Shuttle kits (all named ENTERPRISE) were released when the NASA started test flights with the Space Shuttle ENTERPRISE. I think all spaceship kits in the scenes on Earth are models by Airfix and Revell. All kits in the scenes were not painted, because the filmmakers had not enough time to do this or the scences were so cheap produced that they had not enough money to pay the colours for the models. I think that the briefing room of the International Lunar Commission (ILC) was the meeting room of the film production company. And I also think that the photos of Commander Koenig and Commissioner Simmonds are press photos of ITC... Perhaps the actors in the ILC room are no actors, because the film production company didn't have money to pay real actors...? Are the actors the "producers" of the "movie" ALIEN ATTACK? That all doesn't look to me like the year 2100, that looks like 1978! Whose idea was it to film the scenes "in the briefing room of the International Lunar Commission" (ILC = ITC?)? Was it Gerry Anderson or the film company? All SPACE: 1999 "movies" were produced to make easy money in the success wave of the STAR WARS movies. The only positive fact of the "movies" is that two of these (JOURNEY THROUGH THE BLACK SUN and COSMIC PRINCESS) have stereo sound. Ekmar