Gatchamania.net (http://www.gatchamania.net/index.php)
- [Gatchaman Library] (http://www.gatchamania.net/board.php?boardid=300)
-- Gatchaman II (http://www.gatchamania.net/board.php?boardid=712)
--- Eagle Riders (http://www.gatchamania.net/threadid.php?threadid=1677)
Posted by meg on 04-03-2008 at 08:04:
Eagle Riders
I've been watching Eagle Riders for some time now. I must admit I'm a bit disappointed.
Never mind the ugly machines they're using, and that robot onboard the Phoenix. I wish they kept the old designs. It was cool, that theis mechas could transmute.
Some of the plot seems to be missing in it. It seems so shallow compare to Gatchaman I. I can't express it.
How much was it changed/edited from the original Gatch II? 
Posted by meridianday on 04-03-2008 at 09:18:
Well, they edited most of the violence out. But watching Eagle Riders didn't make me want to go out and track down Gatchaman 2 to watch because I think most of the problems with the series are directly from Gatchaman 2.
I think at the time that the toy companies had got their hands into the series funding, hence the lack of transmuting vehicles. It had to be designs where it could be sold in toy shops as well - although there were Gatch 1 toys of course.
__________________
Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny." Posted by Ebonyswanne on 04-03-2008 at 09:37:
You know Merin I agree with you on that, although TJ knows heaps about Gatch 2. She's done a few ficcies as well from it.
The first series did have a charm to it that from what I have watched they didn't capture very well when they did Gatch 2 and Fighter.
You know those Toy companies just didn't think hard enough about the designs for the vehicles...all they had to do was sell extra parts that attached for the vehicle to transmute!
For me that was one of the attractions to Gatch/BOTP. The birdstyles and the vehicles that changed when they were called for a mission!
__________________
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up- Pablo Picasso.
Posted by Transmute Jun on 04-03-2008 at 14:32:
I haven't actually seen Gatch II (although someone is supposed to be sending me some subbed eps... you know who you are.... 
) but i have the entire Eagle Riders series. As I watched it I compared the eps to Rebeokah's screenshot site and Veronika's Gatch II episode summaries. From what I can gather, 90% of the plotlines were left intact. Occasionally they would change something or cut something out, but the vast majority of stories are the same: from individual plotline episodes to overall stories like Joe being a cyborg and hating it, Mallanox's rivalry with Marstora (I forget his ER name at the moment) Mallanox being Aikins' daughter, the Solar Shift Plan, etc.
So if you have complaints about the vehicles, the Phoenix flying robot, or the overall storylines, that goes back to Gatch II. If you have complaints about some of the lame dialogue (the president lambasting Dr. Keane for not using valet parking comes to mind) then ER is to blame.
I'm not that familiar with Fighter, mostly because I haven't seen any really good episode summaries for it, but my understanding is that they chopped that up much more, partly because they didn't use more than half of the Fighter episodes.
FWIW, I think ER does have some charm all its own. They seemed to go to some effort to establish the potential for a Condor/Swan (uh, Falcon/Dove) relationship behind the scenes, and the conversations between Cybercon and Mallanox always crack me up. JMHO!
__________________
Posted by tatsunokofan on 04-03-2008 at 20:35:
Hi all!
Most of the editing for the Gatchaman II portion of Eagle Riders was fairly minimal. Some of it was violence (Though not all that much, since there wasn't all that much physical violence in Gatchaman II), some of it was small scenes or parts of scenes, and pretty much all of it can be blamed on cutting the show down to fit the time requirements for a syndicated show.
As Transmute Jun has said, most of the basic plotlines of the series were left fairly intact. There were instances where parts of individual episodes were altered to make them acceptable to U.S. broadcast standards, such as rearranging the events of Gatchaman II #21 so that in Eagle Riders #6 ("Old Friends, New Enemies") the girl lives instead of being gunned down (They use that footage as a nightmare instead). There are a few other examples like this, but they're relatively uncommon.
Things get messy around the end of Gatchaman II and the beginning of Gatchaman Fighter. When episodes did have sequences that needed to be edited out, the normal practice used in Eagle Riders to fill this time was to take scenes from episodes that were otherwise being skipped in the run and add them in (Such as in Eagle Riders #41 ("Identities"), where a scene from the unused Gatchaman II #36 was included). During the transitional period between series, the storylines were too tighly woven to allow for this. As a result, they began shifting scenes from the beginning of the next episode to the end of the each episode. The amount of this shifting grew longer and longer with each episode, so that by the time they reached the end of Gatchaman Fighter #2, they still had about half an episode to fill. They made up for this by adding in space scenes from Gatchaman Fighter #47 (As a "training sequence") and the battle with the Iron Beast from #27 (As a "surprise attack by the Vorak"). And the less said about the entire thing where they have Cybercon change Mallanox into Happy Boy the better.
After that, they went back to their usual practices, keeping the events of the stories fairly intact for the Gatchaman Fighter stories. Unfortunately, with only 18 Gatchaman Fighter episodes in the Eagle Riders run, the continuing story elements in the series suffered greatly. To give the series some of the drama building toward the end, they kept in a few of the episodes dealing with Ken's health problems, but they wrapped it up with the episode where they had thought they had found a cure (It was only a stopgap measure, as they discovered a few episodes later in Gatchaman Fighter. This discovery was not included in the Eagle Riders run).
Since they didn't use the final episodes of the series (Episode #40 is as high as the Eagle Riders episodes went in the run, avoiding the death of Nambu, the destruction of Gallatown and the I.S.O. Headquarters, the anti-matter asteroid, and the series finale), the last episode of Eagle Riders is actually made from Gatchaman Fighter #15, where our heroes have destroyed Satanforhen and all but defeated Gallactor, only to have Governor Z help the villains escape to the newly built Gallatown via newly built underground trains. This story was meant to act as a resolution to the WWII-inspired war that opens Gatchaman Fighter, and to help set things up for the episodes that would follow. As such, it lacks any real resolution to the overall conflict. Simply put, it really is a rotten way to end the series.
By the way, in case anyone wonders, none of the audio used in Eagle Riders stems from either Gatchaman II or Gatchaman Fighter. Saban used the visuals only, and added completely new (And vastly inferior, if you ask me) music and sound effects.
Getting back to the original post in this thread, for the most part, the weaknesses in the story stem from the original source material, not due to editing on Saban's part. While the latter two series benefitted from tighter continuity than the original series, they lacked the creative spark that made the original so innovative and captivating (Which can be blamed on many factors, including but not limited to the lack of participation by so many of the key staff members who had worked on the first series, inexperience on the part of the staff that was working on it, and the greater influence wielded by sponsors). This doesn't mean that they're bad series. Heck, I find them more enjoyable than most of the anime programs on the air today. They just suffer in comparison to their predecessor. At least that's my opinion, for what that's worth.
Oh, yes, and Marstora's name in Eagle Riders was Krall.
James
Posted by Hinotori on 05-03-2008 at 00:38:
James, I 
to you. You are always a wealth of information. Thank you for giving us such informative and wonderful insights on the world of Gatch. 
__________________
Hinotori
Eagle in Charge
Posted by clouddancer on 05-03-2008 at 01:34:
ITA Hino.
this is alot more information than I ever expected to see.
Thank you James.
__________________
Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.
Posted by Firebird on 05-03-2008 at 06:44:
We can always rely on James to give us great insights
__________________
Like the Phoenix I rise from the fire. Beware all who try to tame me, you may get burned 
Posted by gatchgirl on 05-03-2008 at 13:07:
James most certainly has loads of interesting information. Thanks for sharing it with us.
__________________
" No gratitude needs to be voiced, your mind speaks to us!"
Racer by day, Feather Thrower all the time!
Posted by meg on 08-03-2008 at 16:09:
Thank you guys for all the information. I don't mean to nock EG down. It is much different from Gatchaman I, and that gave me a bit of shock. I expected the series to be made the same way as the 1st one.
Because BOTP was so much edited, I thought this one was too, that's why I asked about it. Anyway, I think I'm getting used to these new things on it now.
James, I'm curious about the music. Do you know if the original is anything like on Gatch I?
__________________
Posted by tatsunokofan on 08-03-2008 at 16:39:
| quote: | |
|
Sadly, no, the music in Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter is not similar to the music from the first series (Which, in my opinion at least, had the best music of the Gatchaman TV series).
At the time the second and third series were being produced, Bob Sakuma, who had composed the music for the first series, was living in America, making him unavailable to compose the music for the sequels. Instead, the music for those two series was composed by Hiroshi Tsutsui, who had scored numerous anime and tokusatsu series in the 1960s and 1970s (Such as Combattler V, Obake no Q-Taro, Voltes V, and Lion Maru). He's a good composer, and I do like his music, but stylistically he's different than Bob Sakuma, and I prefer Sakuma's work.
James
Posted by meg on 08-03-2008 at 17:11:
I would prefer it too. Thanks James.
Posted by Askura on 26-12-2008 at 10:38:
I haz Eagle riders!
Know what amuses me most about the episodes? There's a little 30-odd seconds setup before the episode begins, giving a brief background - consisting entirely of scenes from Gatchaman Fighter...
__________________
Oh, that box. You'll dream about that box: it'll never leave you. Big and little at the same time; brand-new and ancient - and the bluest blue, ever.
Posted by lborgia88 on 26-12-2008 at 16:11:
Maintaining chronological order was clearly not a priority!
Posted by Transmute Jun on 26-12-2008 at 18:14:
Don't forget the splash page that comes from Gatch F as well!
Hey Ste, as you watch, if you think of anything to add to my ep summaries, LMK!
__________________
Posted by tatsunokofan on 26-12-2008 at 20:48:
Hi all!
| quote: | |
|
Actually, I think she's referring to the prologue that Saban added to the series that explain the basics of the series for any viewers that might never have watched it before. It doesn't have anything to do with the body of the show itself.
As far as chronological order goes, Saban actually did a fairly good job. With the exception of moving Gatchaman II episode #21 up to take the place of Gatchaman II #6 and moving Gatchaman Fighter #15 to be the last episode of the series, the run of Eagle Riders is in the same order as the episodes appeared in Gatchaman II and Gatchaman Fighter.
If you want to see things jumbled around, take a look at Sandy Frank's suggested order for BotP and compare it to its Gatchaman counterpart. The reasons for that are fairly simple, though. The Sandy Frank order is essentially the order in which the BotP episodes were produced.
James
Posted by veritas on 09-01-2009 at 09:19:
*puts on newbie hat*
So, Just to clarify . If , as a non-japanese speaking person, I want to see GatchII, then I have to look for an Eagle Riders dvd?
Posted by Transmute Jun on 09-01-2009 at 15:12:
| quote: | |
|
Yes and no.
ER is to Gatch II and F what BOTP is to Gatch I. So yes, you can see Gatch II and F footage (and roughly, the general storylines) in ER.
However, there are some fansubs out there for Gatch II (the first half of the series) so it is possible to see Gatch Ii as an English-speaking person with those.
__________________
Posted by Przemko5 on 28-03-2010 at 22:33:
I am newcomer, not only here, but to whole Gatcha series, but I know enough to ask you - can you explain what is bad (ok, ok... "not good") in ER? I've met opinions that BotP was also bad, although it was popular due to 7-Zark-7 , and it was time of Star Wars boom...
Posted by Madilayn on 28-03-2010 at 22:51:
A lot of BotP was edited due to the restrictions of the day in the US regarding violence and children's shows.
Zark was added to try to make it more appealing to audiences - though I feel that it would have happened without him.
The worst thing about BotP was the extremely bad animation that was added to try to fill things in. Considering that (according to Jason Hofius' book) this was supposedly done by some of the best animators in Hollywood at the time then they shoudl be ashamed of themselves.
I think that a lot of people will agree that there are BotP episodes that are actually superior to the original Gatch ones.
Sandy Frank gave the characters completely new names and the voice cast (still, IMHO, the best of any of the English versions - including dubs) did an absolutely astounding job at their characterisations and getting nuances across - especially considering that they were not working with visuals.
The other thing that Sandy Frank added was a more obvious Swan/Eagle "relationship".
I enjoy Gatchaman - but am a BotP gal through and through. I've not seen any Eagle Riders - oh hang on! I seem to remember seeing a couple of epsiodes many years ago! I remember wondering at the time why on earth you would think it's a senisbble idea to have somebody stand at thepointy end of your ship and hold a sword out. And think that this was an improvement on the Firebird!
__________________
"When I'm old, I don't want them to say of me, "She's so charming." I want them to say, "Be careful, I think she's armed." -G. Stoddart
Powered by: Burning Board Lite 1.1.2c © 2001-2004 WoltLab GmbH
English translation by Satelk
Site Coded by Cep