"TO" seems to be two short movies on one disc. I see what they did there. The two individual movies are "Elliptical Orbit" and "Symbiotic Planet", both of which run for roughly forty minutes. I've never heard of either of these movies before. The DVD is literally one my brother bought on impulse 'cause it has space ships and a solder on the front cover. I guess with a PG rating, you can't expect much more than "mild violence, nudity, sexual references and course language". Then again, The Fifth Element had that same caption next to a PG rating (back in the day, I'm sure it's since been re-rated), so how bad could they be?

Elliptical Orbit was the first of the two movies I watched. This was incredibly fortunate. It tells the story of the Flying Dutchman. You know, ship that sails the souls and can only return to land every ten to fifteen years? Well, at least they have a slightly more plausible reason. Using cryogenic technology to freeze the people making the voyage to a distant mining colony. Returning fifteen years later with the spoils capable of sustaining an ever growing population on Earth. The people on the ship only age two years while the people back home age the full fifteen. It makes for an interesting story.

If you want to actually tell that story instead of seemingly spending the majority of your scenes saying "look how well I'm animated". To be honest, Elliptical Orbit spent more time trying to show off how good it looks than actually engaging in the story. Personally, I've never been a fan of that kind of animation. Especially when you cut corners on said animation. There was one scene which looked like it could have been pretty cool and attention seeking, but it wasn't. The lasers they were shooting were just fast-paced light beams that you pretty much just waved your weapon around murdering everything that the barrel faced even for a slight second. Doesn't make for spectacular combat.

It wasn't all bad I suppose. The ending had a nice little spin on it. The dub was pretty poor unfortunately, but I don't think Funimation can be blamed for that. The animation style used for the TO movies would be pretty hard to sync to. Honestly, I barely noticed their mouths moving at all in some scenes.


Symbiotic Planet was number two in this adventure, and thankfully, it was better. Unlike the above which I can't say I enjoyed very much, this one was much more entertaining. Alien planets, forbidden romance, contaminating spores, rival colonies and threats of war. Everything you want in a story, that actually delivered. I wont lie however, this one had it's far share of the "look how well I'm animated" gene. But at least it had a story line that was fun to follow. Possible alien contamination does make for interesting science fiction.

The dubbing was again pretty poor. And I maintain that the animation style would be difficult for anyone to work with. One good thing about this one over the last, was the lack of incredibly dodgy and cheap lasers, not to mention the detail on the bombers and missiles was pretty cool. For this movie, they decided not to take a cheap rout and actually make those small and few combat scenes entertaining. For this I am most pleased with them.

As for the Two movie collection set, if I was the one who had paid for it, I probably wouldn't have found it to be worth $31.99. At most, I'd have paid about $15.00 for both of them ($10.00 of which I'd attribute to Symbiotic Planet). They weren't awful titles, but they were slow moving at the start, and seemingly rushed at the end. That was the biggest problem in both I reckon.

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