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- [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 Transmute Jun on 28-03-2010 at 22:56:
I think the main thing is the way they dumbed down Hunter's character. He seems weak and wimpy in comparison to Joe, while in Gatchaman Ken and Joe were clearly equals (although they both tended to fly off the handle at times). There are also some cheesy lines of dialogue, and it's a little annoying the way they insist that the Vorak are androids, and insist that some people who are clearly dead (Dr. Aikens, Dr. Andro) are still alive. Some of the names are silly too (Happyboy being the worst example) but probably aren't so bad when you look at the names from G-Force!
OTOH, there are good things as well. They were quite faithful to the Gatchaman II storylines (if not Gatchaman Fighter) and they only used Tatsunoko footage. No annoying robots! Well, unless you count Otto... or the Vorak. 
All of the characters had last names, which is a nice supporting detail. I like the theme song too, although it's not the best of all Gatchaman-based series.
Like all of these series, there are things to love and things not to love. But IMHO, it's the changes they made to the G1 character/Hunter that bother people the most.
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Posted by tatsunokofan on 28-03-2010 at 23:17:
Hi all!
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And, importantly, to fill in the time left by the editing.
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I'd say that description is more hyperbole than fact. Gallerie International was chosen to do the animation because David Hanson was a friend of Jameson Brewer and his studio needed the work. They were chosen as a favor, not because they were the best.
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I agree with that opinion. BotP had people who genuinely know how to act, which is more than I can say for the other versions.
One aspect of Eagle Riders that bugs me more than I suspect it bothers other people are the music and sound effects. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the music and sound effects were changed from the originals. To me, the new music sounds like something somebody whipped up on their old Casio keyboard and the new sound effects sound like someone banging two tin cans together. There's no dramatic power to either of them. For me at least, it hurts the series.
James
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 29-03-2010 at 06:16:
Given the time crunch for BotP, I think even the best animators in Hollywood would not have done very well. Of the added footage, IMO, the space travel is the best -- until the chocolate-turtle planet shows up.
Eagle Riders and G-Force should be examples of what not to do when adapting for syndication. Same with the BotP ready room and Zark scenes.
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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features
Posted by tatsunokofan on 29-03-2010 at 20:35:
Hi all!
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Would you mind giving reasons why you feel that way? I'm not saying that you're right or wrong, only that such a declarative statement really needs to include examples for support.
And which shows would you cite as examples of doing it right? For the sake of fairness, please limit these examples to anime series that were adapted for syndicated broadcast television, not those that were adapted for the home video market or cable TV.
James
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 29-03-2010 at 23:47:
If you're going to bring a property over and change it, the least you can do is have respect for the audience and the source material. And do the best job you can do.
I'm basing my opinion of ER on what TJ has written. Editing the crap out of a show until any given single episode is made up out of two episodes, and the continuity is shot to hell is hardly a good idea, IMO. If the music and sound must change, get good people to do it.
As for G-Force: they had one piece of additional music which they used to death, and not always in the best locations. (The beat is more appropriate for a road chase scene.) The dubbing of the voice actors sounded like the dubbed vocals of those 'chop sockey' films that introduced us to Bruce Lee. None of the characters sounded right. 'Galactor' had laryngitis from hell, Dr. Brighthead sounded rather harsh, and there wasn't much to tell Ace and Dirk apart. Right now, I'm listening to voices, and there's no real characterization of Ace, Dirk, and Hooty in the way their lines are delivered. We can tell Pee-Wee and Agatha June apart because the former is a child and the latter is a woman. All the new names would embarrass a writer of pulp fiction (at least they would have had Ace and Dirk as heroes of separate series). And the original Gatch music sort of fades into the background. The narration was lackluster, without the cheesy zing of dubbed Gatch. Making the various characters into narrators didn't always work (how did Brighthead know that the woman Dirk met at the track was the one he killed later in 'The Sinister STAR ONE'?)
Unfortunately, I only have memories of the shows brought over shortly after BotP, and the only title I remember is 'Starblazers'. Except for the goofy 'Derek Wildstar' (and two haracters saddled with 'Nova' and 'Orion'), I remember that others had fairly decent names (at least on 'Starblazers'). And those shows had their share of 'robots' that looked remarkably like people (because of American animation rules about killing), and 'injured' characters who are never seen again. So I'm not certain how well they followed the original plots, or what else was done to them. (I do remember thinking one character's prosthetic leg was a dodge, until another episode revealed he really did have them.)
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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features
Posted by Transmute Jun on 30-03-2010 at 00:53:
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I'm not sure where you're getting that, UW. Certainly there are some Gatchaman Fighter episodes toward the end of the series where they brought in a little footage from other episodes, and one or two Gatchaman II episodes where they put in some beginning footage from another unused episode, to replace footage that was cut. But the vast majority of episodes (most importantly, the Gatchaman II episodes, which *were* consistent with the original scripts for that series) were only from one Gatchaman II episode.
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Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 30-03-2010 at 01:41:
Okay, I must have misunderstood something in a previous post about ER.
I should not gripe about shows I didn't see. I usually don't. 
I do have that 'Best of G-Force' DVD, so I could say something about that. (I loaded it for the previous post.)
Agh, I just put my foot in it, is all. I tried to comment, and instead of a foot in the water, I'm up to my hip in mud.
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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features
Posted by tatsunokofan on 30-03-2010 at 02:22:
Hi all!
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I'd say that you really need to see more than a handful of G-Force episodes to really be able to judge the series. I rewatched the entire run last summer, and while the show does have some problems, it's hardly as bad as people tend to make it out to be. The series is minimally edited, and the stories mostly remain faithful to the source material (There are a few instances where things are changed in a manner that mucks up the intent of the original storylines, but these are few and far between).
I also did not have a problem with the acting. Yes, the acting in earliest episodes is rather stiff, but as the series progressed and the actors became more comfortable in their roles, they improved a great deal (The same can be said for the cast in Eagle Riders and the ADV dubs. Only in BotP did the actors seem to hit the ground running, but they were better actors than the other series had).
Yes, names like Ace Goodheart, Dirk Daring, and Dr. Brighthead are annoying. Sadly, this goes back to Fred Ladd's penchant for "descriptive names." But are they really any worse than Wildstar, Nova, and Orion? Not to mention Star Blazers villains with names like General Krypt, Major Bane, General Dire, and Col. Vulgar? It also helps that they're referred to only as Ace and Dirk 90% of the time, instead of by their full names.
I do agree with you on the music they added to the series. That is, by far, the biggest weak point in the series. They would have done better had they taken all of the music composed for the pilots and made use of those selectively throughout the series instead of relying on a single piece all the time. Fortunately, in my experience, after you watch enough episodes of G-Force, you do start to mentally tune out the backbeat until it becomes little more than white noise. The trick for most people is to watch enough episodes so this begins to happen for them.
G-Force certainly isn't flawless, but I hardly think it deserves to be declared an example of "what not to do when adapting for syndication." I can't help but think that your view might change somewhat if you watched the entire series instead of a random sampling. Of course, this is all based on personal opinion, so no one's view is more right than that of someone else.
James
Posted by Transmute Jun on 30-03-2010 at 02:25:
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That's okay. i just wanted to make sure that I hadn't misrepresented something on my site, during my episode reviews.
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Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 30-03-2010 at 02:32:
Yeah. I bought it, had an 'ARGH!' reaction, and that was it.
I didn't remember some of the other odd names from 'Starblazers,' but then, it was 30 years ago. Compared to some, 'Nova' and 'Orion' are pretty tame (and probable - if Mom and Dad are Classically minded).
I should keep an eye on Hulu.com (they have Speed Racer and other anime shows). Might be able to walk down memory lane one fine day.
Now to extract myself from the mud....
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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 30-03-2010 at 02:34:
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Actually, I was reading the threads here and misunderstood something.
(You know, someone - not me, maybe not you - could do an Eagle Riders AU to even out some of those things that are wrong with it. Brass up Hunter's balls, and give it a proper conclusion.)
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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features
Posted by Transmute Jun on 30-03-2010 at 02:57:
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Perhaps... I was never enchanted enough with the series to write much in it. i did try once, for a Gatchamania challenge, but yeah, Hunter was wussy there too. Needless to say, it was a Joe/Kelly fic.
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Posted by Barrdwing on 30-03-2010 at 05:08:
Well, for what it's worth, I saw ER only after watching all of Gatch II . . . in Japanese. So I had absolutely-freaking-no idea what was being said in Gatch II, and you would love some of the amazing logic-flubs I made trying to figure out some of the storylines. (When your knowledge of a foreign language is limited to about two dozen words and no sentence structure, the results can be quite interesting.) When ER came out, I thought, hey great, now I can learn what the plot lines really were!
Ump. Nope. Not all of them, anyway. 
It was a pity that Saban had some difficulties adapting Gatch II and F, especially since (I thought) they did a rather decent job on Tekkaman Blade ("Teknoman"). I really liked Teknoman.
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