Battle of the Planets
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Battle of the Planets (1978) is an animated television cartoon from Sandy Frank Entertainment originally produced in Japan in 1972 under the name Kagaku ninja tai Gatchaman (lit. Scientific Ninja Team Gatchaman). It consists of 85 of the 105 original Gatchaman episodes.
Battle of the Planets casts five young people as G-Force, consisting of Mark, Jason, Princess, Keyop, and Tiny. G-Force protects Earth from planet Spectra and other attacks from 'beyond space'. Their main ship is called The Phoenix, which can separate into five small ships, each operated by one team member.
The Gatchaman series was edited for US TV broadcasting standards, removing scenes of violence, and replacing the lost time with an R2-D2 type robot named 7-Zark-7 to fill in the plot holes left from editing. The show was a favourite with the juvenile audiences of the time and decades later it continues to bring in new fans. Subsequent seasons (Gatchaman II and Gatchaman F) were released as the Saban-produced show Eagle Riders. Only 13 episodes of this series were aired in the United States, although all 65 episodes were seen in Australia.
In 1986, Gatchaman was re-worked in the US as G-Force: Guardians of Space from Turner, with a good deal of the original content that had been edited out of Battle of the Planets put back in to the show. It followed the plot of the original Gatchaman much more faithfully than Battle of the Planets because of this. However, the lack of Hoyt Curtin's original score and inferior voice acting prevented this series from attaining the high praise given to Battle of the Planets.
Originally released in comic book form by Gold Key, Battle of the Planets was revamped by the comic book company Top Cow (http://www.topcow.com). Two soundtracks and several DVDs have also been released.
The movie rights to Gatchaman were recently picked up by Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
External links
- Gatchaman - Home of the White Shadow (http://www.chronicsite.com/gatchaman/)
- Gatchaman (http://www.gatchaman.com/)
- Gatchaman,BotP, G-Force (http://www.vacuform.com/Gatchaman/GatchMain.htm)
- Gatchaman and BotP Links List (http://www2.angulang.org.uk/)
- Theme Tune (links to TV.Cream.org) (http://tv.cream.org/specialassignments/themes/Botp1.wav)Template:Anime-stub