G-Force: Guardians of Space was the second English-language adaptation of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, produced through the year of 1986 and first aired on TV in July 1987, followed by a full run on the Cartoon Network from 1995 to 1997.
This version skews closer to the Gatchaman source material than Battle of the Planets had, and had come about when Sandy Frank Entertainment wanted to market the license in a new way. However, Sandy Frank opted to not be directly involved in this production, and Turner Progam Services was left in charge of hiring people to adapt the series.
Fred Ladd and Norm Prescott (of Filmation fame) produced this adaptation, with many name changes harkening back to Ladd's fondness for descriptive, pun-based names that he'd utilized in other dubs he had worked on (Gigantor, Astro Boy).
Key Changes in the Adaptation
While G-Force generally stayed closer to Gatchaman, there were still many changes involved in the adaptation.
Name Changes
- Ken Washio became "Ace Goodheart".
- Joe Asakura became "Dirk Daring".
- Jun became "Agatha June", usually referred to by the nickname "Aggie".
- Jinpei became "Peewee".
- Ryu Nakanishi became "Hoot-Owl" (due to his Bird Style theme), with the nickname "Hooty" for short.
- Dr. Kozaburo Nambu became "Dr. Benjamin Brighthead".
- Director Anderson kept his name in earlier episodes, while later episodes had him named "Commander Todd".
- Berg Katse was renamed "Galactor" (simply the name of the organization in the original), and stated to be an alien ruler from outer space. Sosai X became "Computor", an artificial intelligence that acted as Galactor's consultant.
- Red Impulse kept his name, although his civilian name was never brought up.
- The Science Ninja Team was renamed "G-Force", as they had been in the previous adaptation. This was done to explain away the "G" symbol on their belts. Their G- designations were kept, although their Bird Style names were never brought up.
Excluded elements and other changes
- As mentioned above, Katse and X had their roles altered in this version. It is believed that this came about due to religious controversy surrounding the original English version and X being called "The Great Spirit". Some scenes with Katse and X were shortened, particularly him bowing to X.
- Inter-team violence was cut, such as the scenes of Jun being slapped.
- While deaths of Galactor soldiers tended to kept in more often and they were referred to as being human, some sequences of the team beating them up were trimmed a bit. Yet, the description on the "G-Force" DVD release refers to Galactor as having an army of "androids".
- Deaths via firearms also tended to be cut, or have dialogue added that suggested a character survived.
- The Devil Stars' deaths in episode 31 were softened by the team claiming that they were only "cyborgs", along with the death of Devil Star 2.
- Another edit in episode 31 involved the entire removal of Joe Asakura's backstory. In the G-Force version, Dirk explains via a voice over that his parents were "almost" killed by Galactor, and the female commander references a failed assassination. However, a later episode in the run would reference Dirk's parents as having indeed been killed by Galactor. It is also interesting to note that a scene where Dirk lies down and thinks he's hearing gun shots conveniently did not have the sound effects edited out.
- One notable edit involved the death of a king in episode 35, who had been impersonated by Katse. While in the original, the prince saw his father's skeleton and identified it by the ring on his finger, the G-Force version had the prince claim that his father had put his ring on a skeleton to let him know that he was safe and had escaped.
- Some non-violent sequences even tended to be trimmed slightly or entirely left out for time constraints, although sometimes narration by a character would sum up a missing scene.
- Although the first Gatchaman two episodes that were dubbed (18 and 87) used a series narrator, other episodes had Ace or Dr. Brighthead narrating.
- Some names and terminology were inconsistent, such as Director Anderson keeping his name in some episodes while being called "Commander Todd" in others. Hontwahl was also referred to as "St. Pierre" in its first appearance, but was called "Satania" in the two episodes that followed.
- This version did not get as far as revealing that Katse and the female commander were the same person. When the female commander did appear in this adaptation, she referred to herself as one of Galactor's most loyal followers. She was given the aliases "Ms. Tompkins" and "Veronica".
- A backbeat from the "G-Force" theme was utilized to fill all silent gaps within episodes, or to mask edits.
- Episodes 18 and 87 had their entire score replaced with one by Dean Andre, as they were the first two to be dubbed as test pilots for Turner to approve Fred Ladd's pitch. Andre was unable to re-score the other 83 episodes due to the dub having only three months to be completed. However, Andre did manage to make a completely new score for the broadcast versions of the pilots. The "pre-production" versions are available as an extra on Australia's PAL release of "Battle of the Planets".
- The title cards to episodes were left out, leaving the titles unknown for years until they were revealed via Usenet and from those who had worked on the adaptation.
Episode Order
85 episodes were utilized for G-Force, as it was deemed the appropriate amount for syndication, however some also believe that Turner's budget only allowed for 85 to be dubbed.
Episodes 18 and 87 of Gatchaman were the first to be dubbed by Ladd, as a way for him to show Turner that the series could employ an adventure story as well as a character-centric one. However, they are still placed in their proper order in the actual episode listing, although they still contain a few differences when viewed alongside the rest of the series.
Episode 81 of Gatchaman was not adapted, and it was long believed this was due to the violence and religious themes present in it. However, the real reason had to do with Tatsunoko not being able to locate the simple English script for Ladd to use. Episode 86 was also skipped, as with the two pilots and the dub reaching episode 85, the production team had filled their quota of episodes to adapt.