Eagle Riders has a 65 episode run, taken from Gatchaman II and Fighter combined. Gatchaman II has 52 episodes, and Gatchaman Fighter 48, and of the two, Gatchaman II seems to be the easiest to adapt (the darker, more violent subject matter in Fighter makes it harder to convert to children's television) . The first thirteen episodes aired in the United States were taken from Gatchaman II, so the dubs and rewrites were true to the original (barring the removal of personal violence). Unfortunately, only thirteen episodes were sold to US networks for reasons even Eagle Riders producer Rita Acosta admitted she wasn't sure about. This is a shame: Even at the awkward time slots allotted, Eagle Riders did well in the ratings during the premiere period, but dropped as soon as the reruns began to cycle. It was doomed to fade into obscurity behind the massively popular Dragon Ball Z, and Americans may never see what happens in the other 52 episodes airing in Europe and Australia.
...At least until our recent preview at the 1997 San Diego Comic Con. Judging from the episodes I had the opportunity to preview, the Americans are missing only a headache. Here's why:
- Once the Gatchaman Fighter material came into use, Saban gutted some of the episodes for parts, slapped the parts into other episodes and completely rewrote the stories. In the episodes we saw, the haphazardly patched footage made very little sense. There was no sense of an ending: Gatchaman episodes in any series have a clear-cut conclusion, usually ending in a sunset scene. Because of the fragmented nature of the Eagle Riders versions, there is no closure at the end of the episodes. The ending of one episode segues into the beginning of the next, then ends smack in the middle of a new story, leaving the viewer confused.
- As a rule, Gatchaman straddles the line between campy and serious: we get fleshed-out characters struggling with serious moral and ethical dilemmas... only they're wearing bird suits and using impossible "science weapons" to fight mechs that look like giant animals. The original series (which became Battle of the Planets and then G-Force, Defenders of Space ) managed, via its heavy adventure theme and sense of fun, but Gatchaman Fighter gets very dark: the lead villain conquers the world more through military might and guerrilla tactics. The lead hero, Ken, is dying from the effects of using the Gatchafencer (and at the same time, using a light saber to slice holes in giant mechs is both impossible and extremely trite). Just how seriously should we take this? Saban's answer is: not at all. By stressing the campy aspects of the show with silly names and slogans ("To Defend the Global Good!"), Saban makes the serious elements even more jarring. Here we have heaping helpings of angst, death and destruction all around, the good guys are engaged in a desperate battle to save the planet, and the villain who is causing them the most grief is named... Happy Boy? While I understand the difficulties involved in making this show even remotely acceptable to Action for Children's Television, it would have been better to avoid Gatchaman Fighter altogether.
Eagle Riders #47: "Encounter with Evil"
This was the final episode of G-II: After Sosai X captured and killed her mother before her eyes, GelSadora has turned against him, sabotaging his final step of the dreaded Solar Shift Plan. While escaping, she encounters Joe, who demands she take him back to X: Joe carries a bomb inside his cybernetic body that is designed to destroy X... and kill himself as well. The rest of the team try and stop him, and they track him to X's ultimate base just in time for the final showdown. In the end, GelSadora is killed. With death's release, her body reverts to that of her original form, six-year-old Sammie Pandora, and she rejoins her mother at last.
This segued into the first episode of Gatchaman Fighter. A new military force has become active in the world, conquering one country at a time. The leader of this force is the ruthless Count Egobossler, the bastard son of the country's ruler and a maidservant who has taken over the royal family through all sorts of treachery. At the same time, a tiny fragment of Sosai X that had survived the fireworks of Gatchaman II's climax revives and grows into the powerful Sosai Z. Interested in Egobossler's activities, he offers to combine forces. Egobossler agrees... reluctantly. not willing to fall into the same trap as the two previous leaders of Gallactor.
In Eagle Riders, villainess Mallanox doesn't die. We're treated to a long soliloquoy from Mallanox:"Oh, how
could I have been so wrong, trying to destroy an earth that is so
beautiful, blah, blah, blah..." She falls, and from the sky comes the voice
of... Cybercon. As Mallanox's body shrinks into that of little "Nancy"
Aikens, we hear:
"I'm afraid your little transformation into Mallanox wasn't effective
enough, so I'm going to change you again, little Nancy, into something much
more sinister than before. And because you like to laugh so much, I'm going
to name you... HAPPY BOY! (lots of evil laughter)"
Somehow, Cybercon has managed to transform one villain into another, and this is Count Egobossler's new name. This has to be one of the dumbest names in cartoon history. Fortunately, "Happy Boy" is not mentioned more than once. Egobossler becomes the nameless masked villain who threatens the ISO from afar. So what do they call him later?
The episode then segues into the first part of Gatchaman Fighter and ends partway through. It included snippets from the near-final episodes of G-Fighter--ten minutes of spectacular battle footage now reduced to a training run. I wouldn't have minded that so much if I could have figured out what was going on most of the time.This was only one example of the patchwork episodes to come.
To those of you in Europe and Australia: I hope you'll be able to make some sense out of this.
