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Posted by The Other Jason on 10-04-2011 at 14:48:
Hi all,
Wonderful! I'm happy to hear all of your kind words and thrilled the site has brought back some good memories.
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That was one of the major things that surprised me. I wish those origins had been referenced somewhere else within the series, or even within production materials in order to confirm that the idea carried through. But if so, I haven't found another example. Much of what made it to the screen in the pilot episode can be dismissed, but this was an important point that I think could be taken as relevant to the rest of the series. It at least gives some kind of reason for Keyop's many differences from others. As it is, it's just one more unanswered question. But as you say, the ambiguity provides for a rich field for story writers! (I love your "fist-fighting" G-2 by the way!
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I'm pretty sure they're referring to two separate people. We know Mark and Cronus helped rescue Cronus' son Timmy and his wife at the end of "Peaks of Planet Odin." What I'd like to know is their relation to Mark. Are they his brother and mother? His brother/half brother/stepbrother and stepmother? I tend to think they are his stepmother (otherwise, other characters referring to her would have said she was Mark's mother) and probably half brother, since Timmy is an infant. I also find it interesting that after all the agony Mark went through about his father, he never mentioned his mother. Why not?
As for the other person, we don't even know if the grave site Mark visited is that of an actual brother or a brother in the sense of a close comrade. It has been a while since I've looked at the script for the episode, but I'll try to do that and let you know if there are any additional clues. I don't think so or I would likely have made note of it, but I'll check again to be sure.
Also, if anyone has suggestions for additional sections to add to the site or topics to cover, just let me know. One thing I'll add soon are Sandy Frank's official episode synopses. While they won't really provide any crucial information, I think they'll be fun to at least have available. I just have to finish typing them all in.
Thanks again!
Posted by lborgia88 on 10-04-2011 at 17:35:
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I agree, it does at least show what they had had in mind for Keyop when his character was first being designed, and though it was never directly stated in any episode, it was never contradicted either. If there's a "significant but not exactly canon" category, I guess this would go there.
Though, some "canon," I suppose, is never stated in an episode. The ages of the Science Ninjas are never mentioned in any Gatch episode. We only know, say, that Jun is 16 at the series' beginning, because Tatsunoko provided the info elsewhere.
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"Step-mother" does seem to fit best with Mark's lack of interest in her compared to his "agony" with Cronus, especially if he's never even met her. If Timmy weren't an infant, I'd be inclined to think him a step-brother that Mark has also never met... Though it's never stated in "Peaks of Planet Odin" how long Cronus has been married to this woman -maybe it's only been a month and Timmy is, in fact, Cronus' step-son?
It strikes me as a bit odd that Cronus, as related in "The Sky is Falling Part II" had to leave Mark (and presumably Mark's mother) when he took on his undercover mission on Riga because he "worried that his family might be harmed." But then, later, he has a new family anyway -the wife and Timmy mentioned in "Peaks of Planet Odin"!
Granted, the fact that his wife and Timmy get kidnapped indicates that his earlier worries were not unfounded, but if he's willing to put family members -a (presumed) civilian wife and a helpless infant- at risk, why couldn't he have let Mark know, much earlier, that he was his father? Mark, after all, was certainly capable of looking after himself, and was already being targeted by Spectra anyway as the Commander of G-Force -he'd have been in no greater danger knowing Cronus was his father. I guess we must assume he didn't want to distract Mark from his G-Force duties.
That's always seemed the rationale for Red Impulse not letting Ken know his secret, even after Ken's become a Science Ninja.
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It hadn't occurred to me that "brother" here could be more metaphorical than literal -that would clear up one mystery!
There's just never any way, it seems, to completely make sense of Cronus, and Mark's other possible relations, though it does make for fun speculation, trying to reconcile all the disparate, ambiguous facts.
That's what makes us fans!
Posted by Transmute Jun on 10-04-2011 at 17:46:
Of course, what makes all of this interesting is that the entire premise of BOTP when it began was that all five members of the team were orphans. I can see that being a factor for Sandy Frank et al...
Oops, we said they were orphans, and now, only 19 episodes in, we find out that the Cronus guy is supposed to be his father. Uh... let's re-write that...
As for Keyop, even as a kid, I always figured that there must be something alien about him. Frankly, his speech made him seem like he wasn't very bright... as a human, that was the impression he had on me. I couldn't reconcile that with his being on G-Force. So in my mind, he had to be somewhat alien, because why else should a mere kid be part of the galaxy's elite fighting force?
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Posted by RIgirl on 11-04-2011 at 01:04:
It's a pity that the writers didn't get to sit down and really think things through.
Had they made Cronus Mark's brother (a la Racer X and Speed Racer), then all of the rest of the story as they had it would have made more sense.
Mark at a gravesite, saying "brother" would have implied the one he thought dead (that being Cronus).
It would have also made Cronus's wife and son Mark's aunt and nephew, and it would have kept the premise of Mark being an orphan as Cronus would have left Anderson in charge of his younger brother when he went on that mission to Riga. And Mark would have still had a reason to be upset when they finally killed off Cronus.
Just a thought.
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Posted by lborgia88 on 11-04-2011 at 12:35:
That's a good idea, and would have worked well!
The writers would have had to explain who this woman holding Mark is in "The Sky Is Falling Part I"
She looks rather young to be the mother of Cronus and Mark, but that might have still worked. Especially as, if I recall, Ken's memories of his parents aren't included in "Peaks of Planet Odin." But they could have said she was Cronus' then-girlfriend, or the nanny or something like that.
Posted by RIgirl on 11-04-2011 at 13:25:
Or could have been a middle sister who actually did die when Cronus was supposed to have died as well ...
You're right, most of Ken's memories of his parents were cut from BOTP, but when Cronus wakes Mark up, he does say he was dreaming of his father .. but that could have easily been changed to have him say his brother.
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"It is a rare man that is taken for what he truly is...We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream...." Peter S. Beagle
Posted by Transmute Jun on 11-04-2011 at 14:12:
It's a good hypothesis, RIGirl, and one they could have used.... had they known.
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Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 11-04-2011 at 23:01:
The folks at Sandy Frank probably never imagined that they'd receive any episodes in which the familial relationship would drive the plot. And given the speed at which they were churning out scripts, they probably just forgot that they'd killed Mark's father about halfway through (the 'Gartz' episode), and given Cronus a wife and son on Odin.
Sigh.
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Posted by RIgirl on 12-04-2011 at 01:49:
Actually, UW, if I remember correctly, they saved Cronus at the end of "The Sky is Falling," only to kill him off in the Gartz episode, when they must have realized Mark was mourning his father. (And I really wish they had at least let him have his moment, instead of having him murdered in his sleep, which was just so ... wrong. Even as a kid, I knew Cronus did not survive after "The Sky is Falling.")
I think they gave Cronus the wife and son prior to realizing that Mark was his son (oops).
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"It is a rare man that is taken for what he truly is...We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream...." Peter S. Beagle
Posted by clouddancer on 12-04-2011 at 01:59:
That is what I always remember as well RIgirl ... that Cronus was murdered in his sleep.
Although in my AU, I use that as another ruse used by Cronus so he could infiltrate another Spectran cell/base before he returns again to "torment" the team (and Mark.)
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Posted by RIgirl on 12-04-2011 at 02:13:
Not "torment" CD, "help"; he was only helping...
*snicker*
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"It is a rare man that is taken for what he truly is...We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream...." Peter S. Beagle
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 12-04-2011 at 07:54:
In the Sandy Frank production order, The Raid of the Red Scorpion took place lllooonnggg before The Sky is Falling!.
The folks at Sandy Frank never knew what they would get in the mail, or in what order. So they likely never suspected they'd get the episodes where the Mark/Cronus relationship would be important.
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Posted by lborgia88 on 12-04-2011 at 07:55:
I seem to have the "production order" in my head these days, where the last episodes that feature Cronus are the two "The Sky is Falling" episodes, where Zark says at the end that Cronus survived.
Maybe I just like to see things ordered by their (real world) chronological history -I also get perturbed when I see the Chronicles of Narnia numbered such that "The Magician's Nephew" is #1.
Found a thread where the differing orders and their effect on Cronus' fate was discussed...
http://www.gatchamania.net/thread.php?threadid=2722&sid=
And a site that offer five different viewing orders, though some more obscure.
http://www.angelfire.com/ky/darthmaul/1.html
Posted by Madilayn on 12-04-2011 at 07:57:
But - if you follow the Sandy Frank viewing list for BotP (and I always believe we should) the Gartz episode comes before Odin.
I also believe the "brother" Mark mentions is a comrade of some sort or a mentor rather than a true brother.
I love your idea that Cronus would hae been better to be Mark's older brother than his father - and like your idea about the picture that it could be a middle sister.
Why do I believe we should use the Sandy Frank list for BotP? Because that's what it was designed for.
The Gatch storylines don't work in BotP and if you try to apply the Gatch order to BotP storylines you only get contradiction after contradiction and confusion.
But - if you use the Sandy Frank order for BotP it does actually make some sense.
Too many times, I think fans try to retro-fit BotP to Gatch - and you just can't do it.
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Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 12-04-2011 at 08:00:
The confusion probably stems from the Rhino DVD set, which follows the Gatch order.
There are still plenty of contradictions in BotP. If they'd had a little more time, some of those might not be there.
The most glaring contradiction is the 'Gartz' episode, given the later revelation about Cronus.
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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features
Posted by clouddancer on 12-04-2011 at 12:14:
No, I believe the confusion lies is how the broadcasting company who were given the BOTP tapes showed US(the viewer) the order.
As James has pointed out on several different occasions not everyone across the continent (or even the same region) saw the same viewing order or the correct viewing order based on the Sandy Frank production. You may have seen episodes 1-5 the first week 6-10 the second etc, where as the broadcast region beside you probably saw 6-10 the first week and then 1-5 the second.
So in my childhood eyes what happened may be very different from what you saw and how Sandy Frank produced the series. I do not know what happened in other countries for viewings so I can not speak to that, but I do know there are several things I see very differently because of the order I viewed the series as compared to how Sandy Frank says the series should be seen. Some of the events I DO see in the Gatch order, and some are in the S.F. order, while some only make sense because of the order I saw the series as a child.
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Posted by Transmute Jun on 12-04-2011 at 13:12:
You make a very good point CD. Add to that the confusion because the episodes cycled and were played over and over again... and not necessarily in the same order!
If yo ureally want to mess things up, Attack of the Alien Wasp is episode 19 in the Sand Frank production order. In that episode, IIRC (Can anyone confirm?) Zoltar says that Cronus was killed by his agents. And Cronus is simply described as Mark's 'good friend'. That's long before these other episodes.
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Posted by amethyst on 12-04-2011 at 17:43:
I think with Cronus, we can safely say, unless we actually see his dead body (which we know in BotP is not likely to happen), we can assume that most death reports are false. Some may be put out by Spectra to disrupt the Federation, possibly Mark or Anderson in particular, and some may be done by Cronus or Anderson to allow a Cronus a cover.
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Posted by lborgia88 on 12-04-2011 at 18:32:
I can't really recall having any notion of the episodes' order from when I saw them as a kid, other than being a bit confused about who Cronus was exactly.
I think I must have seen an episode where he was stated to be Mark's father, and then one where he was just an old friend of Mark's from Riga...
Who knows what order the episodes were being aired in, in Nova Scotia?
And then there's "Awesome Ray Force" where Gatch's Masaki becomes Cronus. I don't remember what I thought of that but no doubt it added to the confusion.
Posted by Transmute Jun on 12-04-2011 at 19:41:
I recall wondering why Cronus looked different!!!!
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