Gall Force: Eternal Story

Original Title: ガルフォース
Romanized: Gall Force
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

Two advanced civilizations, the Paranoids (a race of bug-like humanoids) and the Solenoids (who are all women) are waging a war that has gone on for centuries. When the Solenoid fleet leaves a battle to defend an experimentally terraformed world from the Paranoids, one damaged Solenoid ship, the Star Leaf, is separated from the fleet. Only seven women remain alive on the ship: Eluza, the captain, Rabby, the competent soldier, Lufy, the brash pilot, Catty, the mysterious science officer, Pony, the pink-haired ditzy tech, Patty, a loyal crew member, and Remy, the cute one. But they are not alone... their ship is the subject of a Paranoid experiment, and it is up to the remaining crew of the Star Leaf to defend the artificial paradise of Chaos from both the Paranoid fleet and the plans of their own Solenoid leaders.

Quick Review

Rating: 2.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-08-10

Gall Force is either an epic space opera gone horribly wrong, or a babes in space flick gone horribly right. Either way it's painfully derivative and spread thick with classic anime cheese, but there's something memorable about the package, and when you add in the half-dozen sequels, it becomes the first installment in a sort of low-rent space opera epic. Its strength comes partly from that it rips off so many Hollywood and anime sci-fi standbys that it's almost original; it opens with a sort of Star Wars, the middle section is ripped straight from Alien, and the end is a desperate planetside battle. A couple of the characters are also memorable, particularly Lufy--memorably voiced by Hiromi Tsuru, her jaded devotion to the cause ends up giving her the most poignant scene in the film. The look is dated, but holds up reasonably well given its age.

In all, Gall Force isn't high art, and is rather dated in a lot of ways, but it does have enough action and variety to keep it interesting. It's a little heavy for a simple babes in space flick, but if you're a fan of classic sci-fi adventure and are willing to overlook a lot of cheese to get caught up in it, you may well love it.

US DVD Review

The DVD, one of USM's earliest, has since been re-released with a spiffed-up video transfer, which is also available as part of a box set with some of the sequels.

As for the original, old-school disc, the unimpressive-looking video is letterboxed with English and Japanese stereo soundtracks and English subtitles. The simple (if a bit sluggish) menus provide access to language selections, a chapter index, a video introduction to the characters, an ad for the American comic books, and short preview clips of all of U.S. Manga Corps' upcoming DVD releases at the time. The cover design is kinda ugly (very...yellow) and this is one of USM's first releases to print liner notes on the back side of the cover art insert... except unlike with later releases, the case isn't transparent, so you wouldn't think to look there if you didn't read the back of the package (and you have to pull the paper out to read the back). Funny way to save whatever fraction of a cent it would have cost to put that stuff on an insert. Ah, it's probably better to hide it--the notes make Gall Force sound like the greatest sci-fi epic since Star Trek. Yeah, right. On the unfortunate side, in a portent of the early USM DVD era, there's no Japanese cast or untranslated credits at all.

Content Guide

Appropriately rated 13-up by USM on account of violence and some nudity.

Violence: 3 - Nothing really graphic, but plenty of death.

Nudity: 3 - One shower scene and a dream sequence.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - A kiss with the one man in the movie (actually, the only man in the galaxy).

Language: 2 - Some profanity.

Notes and Trivia

On the very old subtitled VHS version US Manga Corps had some fun with the credits: The end credits are written first in the same language that they use in the film (really just English with funny looking letters), and then translated into something more readable.

There is a Gall Force comic series, an all-color 4-issue 1995 mini-series created specifically for the American market. It was written and illustrated by Bruce Lewis, and published by CPM Comics in standard US comic format; the issues are out of print but relatively easy to find.

There aren't really any Japanese comic versions of Gall Force, though there was a "film comic" produced at one point, as well as a single book called "Privates Live" drawn by Kenichi Sonoda. There were, however, a series of novelizations written by Sukehiro Tomita throughout the late '80s.

There are a number of sequels and spin offs, but only Gall Force 2 and 3 are closely connected to the plot of this one; the others take place far in the future and are mainly tied together by the concept.

Availability

Available in the US from US Manga Corps on remastered hybrid DVD, either alone or as part of a set with several of the sequel films. Was previously available on one of their earliest hybrid DVDs, and on subtitled and dubbed VHS before that.

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