Land Of The Giants: Complete Series One [DVD]

Here it comes. The centrepiece of this year's sixties televison rerun, after waiting around patiently for the past year. Following the slight disappointment of "The Time Tunnel" dvd re-issue and its butchered endings, i was wondering if this next Irwin Allen series would have some kind of similar problem. No such worries. It is hard to see how this could be any better, apart from including a miniature model of the Spindrift! The picture quality is magnificent and there are some decent bonuses. I was about ten years old when this first screened on UK television, rushing home from primary school for the latest episode. It is truly fascinating to revisit "LOTG" over forty years later. Some of its aspects are still marvellous. Others are, inevitably, very dated. Overall, it remains very solid entertainment. Even for grown-up children. I can now appreciate Deanna Lund for the right little hotty she was. One rather sexy, foxy woman, beside Heather Young's more chaste and peripheral character. Kurt Kasznar starts off as a treacherous, slimy presence, before gravitating into a more nuanced type of subversiveness. Stefan Arngrim does well as the child in the equation, but his pesky dog causes everybody a ridiculous amount of trouble. Kevin Hagen is a good villain, as Inspector Kobick of the SID, when he starts to appear. Each forty-nine minute episode features an amazing volume of action. The visuals are still really impressive, although they do sometimes show their age. The cast come up against all kinds of "giant wildlife" and have to work with some wonderful props. There's also the celebrated safety-pin grappling hook, which is unbelievably effective, and an odd home-made hatchet. Many episodes have some genuinely inventive music scores, to add to the interest, whilst others are let down by much schmaltzier work. The giants' planet is a very bizarre version of sixties America, with a rather McCarthyish, totalitarian air to it, whose inhabitants' names are of an odd nature. This adds to the overall strangeness. The general quality is very high, with some memorable episodes. Personal favourites were "The Crash", "Framed", "On A Clear Night...", "Ghost Town", "Brainwash", "Terror-Go-Round", "Genius At Work" and "The Chase". However, be prepared for some relative duds. "The Shell Game" with its schmaltzy music. The fantastical "Return Of Inidu" and "Night Of Thrombeldinar" are both a little silly. "Manhunt", in which the giant speaks only in the last very few minutes of the episode, in spite of all which has befallen him. "The Glass Cage" is also rather cheesy, but Celeste Yarnall is a pleasant distraction. I would suggest that purchasers do the episodes in production order, as there is no particular story arc at all. They somehow seem to flow better. ("The Weird World" was supposed to be the original second episode, for example, and it rather feels that way.) There's also a costume change, for the two actresses, from "Brainwash" onwards. In the bonus features, it is well worth comparing the unaired pilot episode with "The Crash, which has far superior music and several subtle differences. There are numerous sixties tv stars on view, to add to the fun. One or two faces who would subsequently make it big. The downsides would be the occasional bit of cheesiness, but that's typical of the era. The scale of the props is also somewhat out of kilter, on many occasions. Forget, similarly, how the castaways managed to stay so well-groomed from one week to the next. However, those aspects should not detract from the hours of enjoyment this series will provide.

For the very first time this fantastic science fiction series comes to DVD in the UK. There were actually two seasons and this is just season one which contains 26 episodes. It comes in an excellent package. There are seven discs in a slim plastic tray container. Each Disc has the same "Land of the Giants" logo on it and there is a lovely booklet with 10 pages of interesting facts about the development of the series with some good pictures and artwork presentation. The Back of the booklet has a chart of the episode listing and original episode title, filming order, broadcast order and airdate. All of this comes in an attractive card sleeve container. There are some brief but welcome special features. The unaired version of the pilot episode doesn't differ much from the aired version but it's interesting to look at. The interviews with stars Gary Conway and Don Marshall are worth seeing and the presentation reel, special effects shots and broadcast information are also good additions. On 12th June 1983 a sub orbital commercial flight from America to London hits a mysterious cloud storm and crash lands on a planet just like earth. The only thing is that the people on this earth are 12 times bigger in height. The series follows the space travellers attempts to repair their space craft the "spindrift" and return home while tackling giant insects and animals or fleeing from the giants who having discovered the existence of the little people want to catch them usually to experiment on them. The crew are Captain Steve Burton, his co pilot Dan Erickson, and stewardess Betty Hamilton. The passengers are engineering executive Mark Wilson, wealthy heiress Valerie Scott, 12 year old Barry Lockbridge and his dog chipper. Finally there is the intriguing, unscrupulous Commander Fitzhugh who is wanted by the police and carries a briefcase with a lot of money in it. This character is similar to Dr Zackary Smith in "Lost in space" in so much that it is often his greed and stupidity that gets the rest of the crew into sticky situations with the giants. Also in this series is the Giants bad guy Inspector Kobrick who works for the SIB security service. He becomes set on hunting down the "little people". The series was noted for its elaborate special effects with giant sized props. The series was created by producer Irwin Allen who also created The Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the sea and lost in space. It is pure escapist fun in these shows and is still entertaining over 40 years after its creation.

It was 1970- I was 8 and I saw this new series listed in the Radio Times starting on BBC1 on Sunday afternoon (I think)-couldn't wait to see it & when it was on it was everything I hoped it would be- a sci-fi classic- a space craft is travelling from the US to London when it passes thru an electrical storm & enters a world identical to the world it left but populated by giants. The crew & passengers spend the next 50 episodes being terrorized by giant cats , insects & nasty human giants. At $250,000 per episode it was the most expensive TV show in the world at the time and the huge cost was the reason it only lasted 2 seasons.Young kids will love it-45+ year olds will reminisce-the effects still hold up-classic colour show from another age.

The last of the Irwin Allen gems of the 60s, Land of the Giants ran for 2 seasons, and tells the story of the marooned crew and passengers of the first suborbital craft Spindrift.Noteable for the special effects (I. e. The giants) this series was well received but faded out as the decade closed. Now I should tell you that these discs are region 2 PAL. You will need a region free player, or a multi-region player. (they are not that expensive any more) and you can find them on Amazon.com. Any of these will allow you to enjoy this last gem of a series.

画質は懐かしTVレベル、イギリス販売バージョンなので、日本語は非対応ですがリージョン２だが専用の最盛期か、パソコンなら再生可能なので問題は少ない。

Contient tous les 26 épisodes de la saison 1 plus une version alternative de l'épisode pilote jamais diffusée. Comme bonus, Interview des acteurs principaux (d'autres interviews sont fournis avec la saison 2 Land of the Giants [Import anglais ] ). On est ravi de revoir ces 7 humains perdus dans un parc après un atterrissage forcé, passant leur temps à fuir des géants 12 fois plus grands qu'eux, et cupides comme pas deux, pour toucher la récompense offerte pour la capture d'un 'little people'. On s'amuse à voir les objets du décor revenir d'épisode en épisode, de voir leur technique incroyable du lancer de l'épingle à nourrice, car il ne ratent jamais leur coup, et elle s'enfonce du premier coup dans n'importe quel meuble, et que toutes les maisons possèdent des bouches d'aérations tellement propres qu'on mangerait par terre...

A story about seven travellers on the Intra-space sub-orbital passenger Flight 703,a 45 minute flight from Los Angeles to London.After a space storm the ship crash lands on Earth again, gone are the natives,and the planet is now a giant world.The giants are invaders who landed some 20 years before and colonised regions of the planet. Introducing Captain Tim Burton, his co-pilot Dan Erickson and the stewardess Betty Ann Hamilton.Passengers on the flight are Mark Wilson, a self-made millionaire, geneticist Joan Tempelton,Barry Lockridge an orphan on his way to live with his English cousins and Peter Linglehopper, a con-man and embezzler posing as a Navy Commander. The show premiered on the CBS network at 7pm on Sunday the 22nd of September 1968 with a 38% audience share.The success of the first episode lead to the series being picked up for the full season,and filming resumed on the futher 9 episodes in November 1968. The Crash cost over $250,000 to produce, a record for its time.Episode costs routinely exceeded $200,000 and principal filming for each episode took between 6 to 9 days with the exception of The Crash which took around 20 days. Laufzeit- ca. 22 Hrs. 26 Episodes Sprache- English Untertitel- English Color / Region 2

Doesn’t play in American players.i would of given it 0 stars