Hootie: “That does it. All present and accounted for!” Why couldn’t Eagle Riders do the crew check so well?

There’s a nice pan-over of the team here. Aggie’s and Pewee are standing slightly back and Hootie, of course, is at the controls. But Ace and Dirk are the most interesting in terms of positions showing personalities. Ace is standing at attention, while Dirk has his left hand on his hip, the cape on that side pushed back, he’s leaning a little so that most of his weight’s on his left leg, and he’s got our favorite ‘cranky Condor’ expression on his face.

Brighthead welcomes the team back aboard the Phoenix –makes sense, since they would have been training- and gets down to business. The Stegosaur has disappeared from radar, so they’ll have to find it on their own. That’s not as crazy as it might sound. Presumably, calculating the mecha’s last known position, direction, and rate of speed would give them at least a ballpark idea of where to look. You know, all the stuff Zark never seems to be able to do?

Ace: “Roger.”

Brighthead: “Your mission is not to fight. It’s to find Galactor.” Anyone taking bets on how long before fulfilling order B will mean disobeying order A?

Triumphant tenor trumpets.

Aggie and Ace discuss whether the mecha will show up. Aggie says, “Ace, you want to find that giant robot so you can engage it combat, don’t you?”

“Sure. I’d like to crush it to pieces!” Then, realizing what he’s said, “Uh, no! I take that back!”

Aggie gets the giggles.

Hootie: “Hey? What’s that down there?” There’s a really weird and BIG disturbance in the water.

Pewee’s clacking his bolas (the red-and-yellow ones). “Hmm. The sea and a monster. That’s weird-” He’s interrupted by Ace.

Ace: “Hootie. Submerge.” It’s to be noted that when giving orders, Ace tries to make his voice deeper. Fortunately for the viewers, he gives it up fairly early in the series.

Hootie: “Roger.”

They dive. After a few minutes, they enter a tunnel through an underwater cliff.

Hootie: “I think this is an underwater passageway leading to one of Earth’s secret defense bases.” Put this down to Brighthead making sure the team was well-informed. I just hope the base on the other end of the tunnel is well-informed as to whose side the Phoenix is on!

So there’s the giant Robot Stegosaur tearing everything up. It knocks over some 1972-style rockets (or are they missiles?) and a voice says, “There goes our shuttlecraft!” Give them points for trying to sound 1985-modern. And anyone want to explain why something with lasers is smashing things apart with its legs? The smashing could cause damage to the hitter as well as the target.

So the team emerges and sees the base… And who got there first.

Pewee: “Look! We found the Stegosaur robot!”

Dirk (his first lines of the series): “Yes, and he’s smashing the Earth base to smithereens!”

More explosions, more destruction…

Dirk: “I can’t watch this anymore. Let’s get down there and help out!” What were the good Dr.’s orders?

Ace : “Hold it! Dirk, you can’t disobey orders!” Hello, this is G-2 we’re talking about!

Honestly, Ace must have figured out that Dirk can and will disobey orders he doesn’t agree with within about two minutes of them starting to train together.)

Dirk: “It’s an emergency, Ace. We’ve got to get into that steel reptile and blow the thing all apart immediately!”

Ace: “Our orders are not to engage in combat but to locate Galactor’s headquarters. As you may remember. Hootie, you get us out of here before we’re spotted and blown apart!”

Dirk: “I hope you’re making the right decision, Ace!”

Ace (worriedly): “I hope so too, Dirk.” Making sure the orders you’re following make sense is always a good thing. G-2s tend to be good at that even when ignoring said orders.

Aggie: “Ace, the Stegosaur Robot, headed right for the city!”

Pewee’s watching the smaller screen on the control panel in the center of the bridge. “That poor city! It’ll be totally destroyed!”

Aggie (firmly): “Ace, you and I have to get inside that monster robot.”

A shot of just how close Steggie is to the city.

Aaagghhh! Cardboard boxes…

Hootie: “Why risk your life, Aggie? I’ll go with Ace.” He generally rubs his face that way when he’s feeling emotional.

Pewee (looking downcast): “You’re needed here. I’d better go.”

Aggie (even more firmly): “That ship is carrying uranium and I’m in charge of dangerous substances.”

Dirk: “Look, why don’t we blast that flying reptile from the sky with our Bird Missile!?!” Raise your hand if you’re surprised. Frankly, I’m surprised it took him this long to bring it up.

Ace grabs Dirk’s wrist. “Hold it!” There a small and short struggle.

Dirk: “What are we waiting for?!”

Ace: “Hootie, get as close as you can to it.”

Dirk (smiles): “The two of us will fly there!”

Ace: “No, Dirk. Aggie and I. She’s right about dangerous substances.”

Hootie sneaks up right beside the neck. Since all of Steggie’s detection equipment stupidly seems to be in the head and facing forward, this is probably as good as anything.

Ace: “G-Force!” (I file this under first-mission nerves.)

Aggie: “Fly!” (See above.)

So Ace and Aggie take a flying leap. And who designed the Swan gear, anyway? Sheesh.

Ace: “Into that ventilator shaft.” Is this just stating the obvious, or just making sure they’re headed for the same landing zone?

Aggie: “Roger.”

The Phoenix gets its shiny -and highly obvious- tail outta there.

That vent shaft was WIDE open, no grill or no-thing. Shoddy construction, anyone? Talk about asking the birds to come in and set up housekeeping. Wait. Forget I said that.

ongratulations, you two are the first Galactor soldiers to meet G-Force. Your prizes are a fist and a yo-yo.

The second soldier almost gets the drop on Ace, but Aggie nails the green goon. (I think they would have covered ‘watching your back’ in Battle 101…)

Aggie’s standing there humming as her yo-yo goes up and down.

Ace: “Nice work, Aggie! You may have saved my life with that yo-yo.”

Aggie: “You owe me one.” Is she flirting? She might be flirting…

Ace: “Sure do.”

Aggie sheathes the yo-yo. Flying – almost straight up, from a standing start- she says, “Ace, I’ll look for the uranium up here.”

ce: “I’ll look for it down here.” That is quite the downward leap.

After a few TV-minutes of poking around, Aggie lifts a hatch and finds herself in Steggie’s (very big) laser room. “Wow, that’s some laser! It’s aimed through the monster’s eyes… That’s how they navigate!” Considering we can’t see her talking –the shots are from above and/or behind- they weren’t matching mouth movements. So why couldn’t they have her say that the lasers are aimed through the navigation system in a slightly more understandable way. And as for routing the main weapon –aka high attack receiver- through the navigation system… I’m not going there. I might be wrong anyway.

Ace seems to be in some sort of storage room. If the uranium isn’t here… where is it?

Aggie starts playing with the laser’s wiring system…

The Phoenix is still flying around. It flies within range of the viewscreen on the Stegosaur

On the bridge of the Stegosaur:

Evil Galactor Captain with the Silly Outfit: “That must be part of Earth’s Defense Forces.” (You have no idea.) “I’ll teach them not to interfere with the attack force of Galactor!”

We see one of the laser-outlets aiming.

EGCwtSO: “Heh. I’ll blast those Earth defenders from the sky with Galactor’s Invincible Ruby Red Beam.” Some things just declare themselves capitalized.

Over to Aggie: “I’ll just switch these wires around a bit…”

Steggie’s bridge: The Phoenix is in the crosshairs.

Back to Aggie: She closes up the panel on the laser and hightails it.

Back to the Steggie’s bridge: The EGCwtSO pushes his red button. Three guesses as to what happens to the laser.

EGCwtSO: “Hey, there’s something wrong with the Invincible Ruby Red Beam!” (Thanks goodness for copy and paste.)

Switch to Ace opening the –is hanger the right word?- the big spiral door in the floor. Apparently the Phoenix has been called, since it seems to be on an approach course.

Pewee: “They’ve done it!” Don’t jump to conclusions, kid.

Hootie: “Great! Fasten your seat belt. We’re going in!” And he takes the Phoenix right in. And lands in the bay.

Do I even have to get into the idiocy of landing in unsecured enemy territory?

G-2, G-4, and G-5 leave the Phoenix –IN ENEMY TERRITORY!!- and manage to look really cool as they land.

Ace: “We’ve check out the ship thoroughly. No uranium.” Since he’s not chewing them out, I’d say he the idiot who called for them. At the very least, not chewing them out shows tacit approval for the current moronic situation.

Hootie: “So we went through all this just to spin our wheels.”

Ace: “No! Aggie did a great job of disabling them! Now let’s clear out of her before we get ourselves into trouble.”

Pewee: “Gee, I think we’re turning back at the half-way point-“

Maniacal laughter echoes through the bay. The EGCwtSO has figured out that he has intruders. Considering this is not that long after the laser blew up, this gives him an 8 on the Galactor IQ scale. (Most goons get a 1. Maybe a 2, if they run away as soon as the team shows up. And yes, Katze’s a 10.)

__________________
Candi

Hollywood is a land of money and cowardice.

-Henry A. Lee, Cracked.com columnist

Someone with time on their hands and access to Gatch, BotP, and GoS could spend quite a bit of it doing side-by-side comparisons of the changes. What was cut, what was reinterpreted, how the characterizations changed from version to version.

Which means that nobody on this board will be doing that any time soon. We all have lives (of a sort).

__________________
Benefits, not features; benefits, not features

In all three versions, G1 is tricked into admitting he wants to fight. At least he has a sense of humor about it in all three.

I was thinking along the lines of a side-by-side chart. Say, Gatch in the middle (and the occasional screen-shot), with BotP and GoS on either side.

__________________
Benefits, not features; benefits, not features