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Looking for a late 1990s or early 2000s CGI sci-fi cartoon/animated series of which I can clearly remember the following:

  • Human protagonists.

  • A sequence in which good guys and bad guys engage in 'dogfighting'/pursuit with high speed crafts along canyons of the planet.

  • A sequence in which at least two good guys have to destroy an antigravity tank from the inside with explosives, but one of the good guys ends up hanging by his/her magnetic belt, until they're able to cut it and roll away from the vehicle before it explodes. From this same sequence I remember the antigravity tank crushing small rocks in its pace, with "heat" visual noise from its hovering propulsion between the vehicle floor and the ground.

  • Alternatively: The pulverization of anything in the vehicles path could be due to a force shield, and so rather than using antigravity propulsion it could be threaded tracks instead. Given that the scene plot was entering the vehicle from its floor, a weakpoint, in order to destroy it.

  • Visually very similar to Max Steel, yet more refined, akin to Fallout Tactics BoS's intro movie, yet worse tan more advanced animations such as Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within.

Seemed like a sci-fi warfare based series. Minor details that are probably be wrong are the good guys' uniforms (dark blue), the tank color (brown) or the planet landscape (Martian red).

I have searched in listings about Fox Kids/Jetix, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network; as well as national public broadcasts (Spain) - no luck so far. I was born '96 and I remember other series I watched at the time such as Godzilla, Totally Spies!, Ghostbusters and Medabots, but this particular cartoon eludes me.

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    Have you ruled out the BattleTech series from the mid 90s? Not fully CGI, but had hand drawings mixed in with CGI and "hard"er war stories than normal kids series would run. I can't find any episode rundowns and it's been too long since I saw the series to know if any of the plots match.
    – Machavity
    Sep 28 at 15:28
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    Sounds like it might be from an episode of Star Wars: Clone Wars . Several episodes have chases like that.
    – Derek
    Sep 28 at 19:56
  • Could it be Oban Star Racers? youtube.com/… It ran in 2006. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cban_Star-Racers
    – jo1storm
    Sep 29 at 11:18

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Could this be "Last Exile"?

It is a 2003 anime series integrating both hand-drawn animation and CG, the latter being used to animate the different kinds of flying ships.

The plot is about the war between the nations of Anatoray and Disith in a strange world (whose real nature is gradually revealed during the series); there is also a third faction, called the Guild, which provides technology to both armies and at the beginning appears like an impartial party.
There are many instances of battles and dogfights featuring large flying warships and small vehicles (called vanships), and the action often takes place in rocky canyons or mountainous regions.
I cannot remember the specific scene you describe, but it feels like something that could happen.

There is also a sequel called "Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing" with a similar theme, setting and animation style, but it originally aired in 2011 so it's outside your time frame.

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    Hello everyone. Thank you for your answers! I have discarded several series by now, including BattleTech, Clone Wars, Wing Commander, Beast Wars, ReBoot, Game Over, Stargate Infinity Gate (even 'darned' Animatrix, just in case my childhood memory is playing tricks on me and I saw a featured or a videogame review instead of a series, but I am quite convinced it was a series); Ifurini: sadly, Last Exile is not what we're looking for. It was mostly CGI, better looking than Max Steel, but worse than Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within.
    – JL-LDR
    Sep 29 at 10:24
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    Furthermore, I am convinced of the time period bracket I provided, just because the animation style is extremly similar in quality to the introduction CGI sequence used in the videogame Fallout Tactics, and that was late 90s and released '01.
    – JL-LDR
    Sep 29 at 10:36

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