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Posted by green on 23-02-2010 at 05:39:
No excuse for SOME of the Zarking???
No excuse for THE Zark in my opinion!
#*%$ tin can...
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Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Posted by tatsunokofan on 23-02-2010 at 21:20:
Hi all!
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While I certainly understand why people find Zark annoying and don't care for the other changes done to BotP, I think that it is often overlooked or forgotten that, without most of those changes, the series would never have made it on the air.
The television climate was far different in 1978 than it is today. The child advocacy groups like ACT were at their height and were doing their best to make sure that all children's programming were the most inoffensive pablum possible. When producing BotP, Jameson Brewer and Co. had to get everything cleared by their Standards and Practices supervisor and by their Program Consultants before they could proceed with anything.
On top of walking that tightrope, they also had to alter the series into an outer space adventure, because that was what Sandy Frank had sold the series as (And thanks to the popularity of Star Wars, that's what stations wanted).
It that weren't enough, they had to do this with almost no prep time and as cost effectively as possible.
Were the changes they made all for the best? Probably not. Did they go too far to with some of them? Probably. But when you consider all of the pressures they were under to satisfy the demands being placed on them, it's a miracle the show was as good as it is.
So, dislike Zark and the other modifications BotP did to Gatchaman all you want, but be open minded enough to realize that there is indeed a reason that they are there.
James
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 24-02-2010 at 01:50:
It explains a lot. I would like to think that they would have done a better job if they'd had more time to prepare.
As an idea, Zark isn't bad, but the execution left much to be desired. The various UHF stations at the time would also have run 'Lost in Space' about a million times by then, along with 'Creature Feature' movies (including the MST3K-worthy). Children would be used to a robot helper through those. The producers could have done without the dirty monitors scaring Zark, and some of his sillier attributes (the hypochondria and fussiness). In the 'Decoys of Doom' episode, Zark could have simply introduced the robot doubles. If they weren't allowed to upset children, that would have been better than Zark yelping about G-Force being under attack and so forth.
If they'd had time, they could have done a proper job reinterpreting Red Impulse, and we wouldn't be trying to figure out if Cronus was from Earth or from Riga, or both.
But don't expect me to be nicer to the scriptwriters in my reviews. Even with the time crunch, they could have done better on the individual scripts. (Especially since the moral guardians did want educational content in children's shows. Easy enough to keep straight such basics as solar system and galaxy.)
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Posted by green on 24-02-2010 at 08:02:
I was aware of the reasons for the changes made for BotP. I consider it a shame that the censors of the 70's had such a heavy hand and certain interest groups had so much influence!
Speaking from years of experience working with young children from many different cultures, the censorship and the additions were completely unnecessary.
I also speak as one born in 1972 - I remember what I was like at the age of 7 (when it was first aired here), and I also remember my dislike of Zark and the feeling that I was missing something in the adaptation. Because of those feelings I didn't get into the show the first time around.
Had BotP not replaced Star Blazers on TV in the eighties I would not have ever bothered to give it another go.
So, no, there is no excuse for the Zarking in my opinion.
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Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 24-02-2010 at 11:14:
Moral Guardians have a distressing view of the world. It can be summed up as Viewers Are Morons (to borrow from the TV Tropes site). Easily led, easily influenced. A million people can watch a TV show, but let one silly twit try to imitate something from that show, and the MGs think the remaining 99,999 just weren't caught doing the same thing.
I sometimes think that the people who yelp about 'protecting' children from distress are actually trying to protect THEMSELVES from having to explain uncomfortable topics. If Junior isn't prompted to ask a question, then Mom and Dad don't have to deal with their own feelings.
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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features
Posted by Transmute Jun on 24-02-2010 at 14:49:
I completely understand why scenes were cut and dialogue changed. I understand why they felt the need for adding in other footage. I even understand why they felt the need to throw in a robot, as opposed to using more of the characters they had already been given. But I do think Zark's personality could have been less annoying. They purposely developed him that way, and he could have been quite different.
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Posted by clouddancer on 24-02-2010 at 16:19:
That I agree with TJ.
I think James hit it with the Space theme that was (becoming) prevalent at the time and the need for a robot to make it feel more spacey/future based. But the Zark characteristics could have been a lot more insightful and less .... do I mean narcissistic? .... focusing on Zark being able to (or thinking he can) do it ALL.
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Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 24-02-2010 at 23:21:
I agree. The target audience would have been familiar with robots from reruns of Lost in Space and from their appearance in other films besides Star Wars. They would not have been put off if Zark were less of a fusspot and worrywart.
I doubt the scriptwriters even remember why they gave Zark the characteristics they did. Still, there was no need to make Zark the inventor of everything, or to make him such a self-centered hypochondriac in those early episodes. Or to keep the narcissism. The only possible excuse for such heavy-handedness is because they thought the children watching would not understand anything less obvious. And I doubt that they would have missed much. Make a character interesting, and you don't have to lay anything on with a trowel.
(I now have the Hofius book. We can thank Mr. Frank's secretary for Susan. She apparently made an impression on the scriptwriters. There's also a very silly French conception of Susan's appearance.)
That they could do better is shown at various points in the series. In Mad New Ruler of Spectra, Zoltar makes some wonderfully veiled threats to Doriarity, and Space Rock Concert has some excellent understated villainy. And let's not forget Tiny's reminiscing about the gal who did the hula just for him....
They could easily have developed Zark's function as a coordinator of galactic defenses, and even had him show concern and affection for the team without the features that we find objectionable.
When they wrote the scripts, they could have paid attention to the very real distinction between solar system and galaxy, and recognized that the Milky Way is quite large enough to contain all the action. Instead, they borrowed the 'Bad SF Writer's Handbook' and used it diligently.
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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features
Posted by Swan Song on 01-03-2010 at 02:30:
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Turns out you've hit upon something here. This is an interview with Casey Kasem about the timing challenges the actors faced when recording for BoTP. He mentions that the actors never really knew what the plots were. He also expresses regret that there was never more than a "hint" of romance between Mark and Princess (sigh!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7IWkCHjEmg
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Swan Song
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