Lensman Series - Other Appearances

Other Appearances

In 1984, an anime film titled SF Shinseiki Lensman and an anime TV series titled Galactic Patrol Lensman was released in Japan. 4 episodes of the TV series were dubbed by Harmony Gold USA in 1988 as a compilation film for North America. The movie was later re-dubbed and released by Streamline Pictures in 1990. The movie is not faithful to the series, with nearly the only points of similarity being the names of some of the characters, the "Good versus Evil" struggle, the outer-space setting, and the Lens itself, which possesses characteristics distinctly different from those given for it in the novels. The anime TV series, which ignored the movie's dubious continuity in favor of returning closer to the original story material, as well as a comic book series published by Eternity Comics and another one from Malibu Comics, both of which stuck to the movie's variant continuity. There was also a Lensman manga released in Japan (collected in three tankōbon volumes) which adapted the basics of the story in a hazy mixture of the TV series and the original books; this manga was never translated into English.

In addition, a Lensman appears in Robert A. Heinlein's Number of the Beast and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, both of which refer to "Lensman Ted Smith" who interacts directly with Heinlein characters such as Lazarus Long and Hilda Burroughs.

In 2008, Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment and Universal Pictures began negotiations with the author's estate for rights to film the Lensman series. The negotiations are for an 18-month renewable option. At the WonderCon convention in San Francisco in February 2008, J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5, confirmed that Howard had acquired the rights and also hinted that he was involved in the project as well. On 17 June 2008, Straczynski wrote that he had begun work on the project.