Captain Planet: The Complete Franchise [DVD]

Cast: David Coburn, Joey Dedio, Kath Soucie (VOICES)

Release Date: October 15, 2024

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 6/10

Synopsis:

The Planeteers, five teenagers from different parts of the earth, each receive a ring of elemental power–earth, wind, water, fire or heart–to combat eco-villains everywhere in the world. And when they combine the powers of their rings, a new superhero, Captain Planet, is created, with powers far greater than the sum of the five.

Gather up the whole family and get ready for some planet-saving excitement and adventure with The Planeteers; five teenagers from different parts of the globe that are enlisted to help protect the struggling world. Each is given a special ring that grants them the power to control an element; fire, water, wind, earth and heart. With their special rings and talents, these five eco-conscious teens join forces and spend their days trying to help where needed, while also taking on various villains who would like nothing better than to see the world polluted and destroyed. Most extraordinary of all is that when all five rings are activated simultaneously they have the power to bring forth the world’s greatest champion, the powerful Captain Planet.

If you grew up in the 1980’s or ‘90s then there’s a pretty good chance that you’re quite familiar with the adventures of Captain Planet and the Planeteers, the beloved animated series that served up fun adventures and action with five teens that various children could relate to, not to mention the real star of the show, the powerful Captain Planet. Not only did the series offer something unique and different, albeit cheesy and notably over the top at times, but it did something even more unique and memorable, it actually bothered to give kids the rewarding combination of an enjoyable series that actually has some important messages and information to offer; and not only in the storylines themselves but in the various public service announcements at the end of each episode with a worthwhile lesson to offer. The series also featured a star-studded collection of voice appearances by numerous noteworthy stars including everyone from Martin Sheen and Meg Ryan to Whoopi Goldberg and LeVar Burton.

There’s a lot to love about the series even today, with the solid animation style, the amusingly ridiculous villains and some lines and moments that are as silly as they are humorous and somehow the show might only be even more fun today thanks to its over the top and consistently silly approach is guaranteed to deliver some laughs from those like me who watched it as children and will surely see at least some of it in a different light today. ‘Captain Planet’ was definitely a product of its time and it’s uncertain whether young audiences today would actually appreciate or even really enjoy the animated series, but for those of us who grew up with it, get ready to have a lot of fun (and quite a few unintended laughs) with these zany adventures, and now with both shows in the franchise collected in one DVD set for the first time ever. Go Planet!

Both animated series in the ‘Captain Planet’ franchise arrive home in the 15-disc ‘Captain Planet: The Complete Franchise’ DVD set courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment. The new box set features all 113 episodes from ‘Captain Planet and the Planeteers’ and ‘The New Adventures of Captain Planet’ in one great collection for the first time. The release offers quite nice standard definition presentations of every entertaining episode that look pretty solid, especially within the confines of the DVD format itself. The capable video presentations are paired with more than adequate Dolby Digital soundtracks that together look and sound about as good as you might expect for a cartoon of this age on DVD and while it won’t have fans in awe like some Blu-ray editions of older toons might, it’s safe to say that it will do the trick and diehard fans of the beloved animated series who don’t mind the DVD format in general should be largely satisfied with what the set has to offer. For anyone that’s already considering a purchase and would like to physically own both shows in their entirety then the release is recommended, especially if you can find it at the right price.

VIDEO:

The DVD release of ‘Captain Planet: The Complete Franchise’ features a 4×3 presentation utilizing the show’s original 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio on every episode of both series. The video presentations look quite nice as a whole (although some later episodes from the New Adventures look slightly less impressive than the earlier seasons and episodes), especially for a series that’s a few decades old and constrained to the limitations of the DVD format itself which has aged significantly in its own right by now. They deliver generally clean, sharp and nicely detailed presentations that are rich with color and show capable detail on characters, landscapes and nearly everything else appearing onscreen at one point or another. Overall, these are pretty solid standard definition video presentations that should satisfy fans who don’t mind the DVD format in general.

AUDIO:

The DVD release includes a 192 kbps 2.0 channel Dolby Digital soundtrack on every episode of each series. These soundtracks offer clean, crisp and altogether quite decent audio presentations on all 113 combined episodes of both shows. They do a suitable job of balancing the various audio elements within, allowing the music, dialogue and action effects along with everything else to share the channels without any issues and never allowing any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously to contradict or negatively affect one another. Overall, these are nice 2.0 Dolby Digital soundtracks that may not blow away viewers, but shouldn’t elicit many complaints either.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The DVD release of ‘Captain Planet: The Complete Franchise’ does not include any bonus content.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the DVDs and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this release are the property of their respective owners.

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Disc Rating: 6/10

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 ‘Captain Planet: The Complete Franchise’ is Now Available to Own in a 15-disc DVD set from Warner Bros Discovery Home Entertainment.

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You can purchase ‘Captain Planet: The Complete Franchise’ on DVD at Amazon HERE!

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