Nothing has dated as badly as computer animation. Nothing.
Take Lensman, for example. It opens with what is supposed to be an awe-inspiring display of computer wizardry, with a long section of vector animation, reminiscent of the opening of The Black Hole (1979), followed by some rather crude and shiny spacecraft which not only do not measure up to anything in Tron (1982) or The Last Starfighter (1984), but which would feel ashamed if they were put next to Albert Pyun’s extremely cheapjack and limited creations in Arcade (1991, but not released until 1993), which at least had the excuse they were meant to be computer generated (and of course, that it was made by Full Moon. You can’t get more bottom of the barrel than that).
On the other hand, Lensman had Yoshiaki Kawajiri, the legendary anime director of films like Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D and its sequel Bloodlust, as its co-director (his first directoral credit).
Fortunately, the CGI gets dropped after the admittedly impressive opening title assembles itself, and stays out of the way until it shows up in a somewhat surreal final battle.
Here in the U.S., the film is only known from the badly dubbed and edited Harmony Gold VHS tape. While it still is unavailable on DVD, a group of fans have put together english subtitles and, if you look hard enough, the complete film can be found online
Design-wise, the film – and particularly the characters – feels a little generic (although the hand-drawn spaceships are actually quite impressive – for the 80s). But the action, particularly several dynamic space battles, a long speeder bike chase and the final confrontation with the monstrous leader of the Boskone, is beautifully staged and shot. One can already see the earliest buds of Kawajiri’s distinctive style starting to open.
One of the film’s highlights is “D.J. Bill”, a wild little rebel who loves to start riots, sounds a lot like Wolfman Jack (even in Japanese) and looks suspiciously like a pint sized version of Max Headroom‘s Blank Reg (who wouldn’t appear on the small screen for another year).
The film has little to do with E.E. “Doc” Smith’s books, except in the most general of ways. While it isn’t as much of a Star Wars ripoff as so many have claimed, it does borrow a lot from George Lucas – and from other current SF films. But it moves quickly, has a lot of wild design and bizarre aliens, and never fails to entertain.
And we all know that’s rare enough.
(Film available here).
(For more films by Yoshiaki Kawajiri see here)
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rivets on the poster 
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