Gatchaman Episode 60: “Science Ninja Team, Number G-6”

[Thank you, Saturn, for the screencaps!]



Gatchaman Episode 60: “Science Ninja Team, Number G-6”

BOTP Episode: “Giant Space Bat”







This is one episode that immediately begins with some action. A rocket-like Galactor mecha is flying through the sky above some snow-covered mountains. On its bridge, the Captain of the Week issues an order to his crew of goons to “Start the test!”







From beneath this Captain’s mask cascades a mane of puffy hair that suggests his fashion inspiration was either a British barrister or King Louis XIV.

Still flying along, wings now extend out from either side of the mecha –wings that resemble those of a bat, each having a claw-like device on its end. The mecha swoops towards a couple of mountain peaks and, as it gets close, the front edge of each wing emits some kind of energy that shoots ahead in a sheet-like formation. Each wing targets a separate mountain peak, and as the mecha flies past, in its wake the tops of the mountain peaks –now sliced clean through- break off and fall away.

Somewhere else, Berg Katse is observing the test on a view screen.







Katse laughs evilly for a moment, pleased with the test’s success. Raising his arms triumphantly, he declares “With our powerful new mecha, the Sky Squealer, Galactor will finally realize our destiny and conquer the world!”

Now, what is producing this footage of the mecha’s test that Katse is watching?

We find out now, when the footage cuts out and the mecha’s Captain suddenly appears on Katse’s view screen, informing him that the mecha’s “enormous power” damaged the observation plane and caused it to crash.

Katse bangs his fist on his console in irritation, calls the Captain an “idiot” and demands to know what happened to the troops on the observation plane.

“We believe they all died,” says the Captain apologetically, “That’s all I know. Sorry, Sir.”

‘If there are survivors,” declares Katse, “You must execute them. I’ll have no security breaches. Go bury them all.”

(This is a bit less ruthless than Katse’s line in the subs, which is “You must immediately kill anyone who isn’t useful to Galactor.” Yikes, I guess Galactor’s company health care plan mandates only “putting you out of your misery” if you’re injured!”)


But now we see Ken’s plane, in civilian mode, flying over a mountainous area that resembles the region Galactor’s test took place in.

Ken is studying the ground below, and then he contacts Dr. Nambu.







Ken informs Dr. Nambu that he’s flying over the crash site of the unidentified flying object now, and Dr. Nambu responds that, according to the ISO, the object’s identity is still unknown. He instructs Ken to investigate the crash site at once.

I wonder how the ISO was able to detect Galactor’s observation plane, but apparently doesn’t know about the mecha that was flying with it. Maybe the mecha has some sort of cloaking technology the observation plane lacked, or the observation plane only came to the ISO’s attention because it crashed.

Ken acknowledges his orders, and almost immediately spots some wreckage on the ground far below.







Next we see Ken, he’s landed his plane somewhere and he’s walking towards the wreckage. In the background is nothing but mountains and forest, so it’s clearly a very remote region.

Ken, inspecting the wreckage, notes that it’s odd that all of the plane’s critical components are missing from the wreckage and that there aren’t any survivors or dead bodies.

Clearly the “clean up crew” from the Galactor mecha have already been here.

Ken starts shouting “Hey, anyone alive down here? Just call out!”

(In the subbed version, Ken’s voice echoes throughout the mountains –a cool effect- but not in the dubbed version.)

As Ken’s voice fades away, all remains silent.

“Oh well,” he says, and begins to walk away –but then he pauses suddenly and turns. Something on the ground, some distance away, has caught his attention. He runs in that direction, and once he’s close he gasps in shock to see that it’s a young man in a yellow and red uniform (with a parachute pack on his back that apparently never deployed) sprawled unconscious on the ground. The young man’s helmet has come off and is lying a few feet away.







Now we cut to this young man lying in a bed. He’s got a bandage on his head (just like the one Joe had in episode 20 –must be Dr. Nambu’s standard treatment for all head trauma) and Dr. Nambu’s hand lifts his eyelids to briefly reveal blank, staring blue eyes.

Then we get a view of the whole room, revealing that the whole Team is there.







He’s got his eyes open now, but when Jun sees that he’s awake and asks him his name, he’s completely unresponsive. Ken asks him why he was flying “over such dangerous territory,” and now the young man looks like he’s thinking and trying to figure out what to say but is dazed or confused.







“It appears that he’s lost his memory,” remarks Dr. Nambu.

Ken comments that a lot of “strange incidents” have been occurring in that mountainous territory. Dr. Nambu agrees, saying Interpol is aware of that. He concludes that the young man must be a victim of these incidents.

And, since he’s not immediately at risk of dying, Dr. Nambu wonders if he can use the “memory recovery device” on him. But he isn’t sure if the young man will ever make a full recovery, and also thinks he isn’t healthy enough for an attempt with the device to be possible yet.

(Joe is probably thinking “Watch out –I bet it involves a centrifuge!”)

The young man is just looking around at all of them, and he doesn’t say anything. Dr. Nambu announces that he will continue to monitor him and he instructs the Ninjas to take their G-Machines out and search for more victims.

Presumably much time has passed now. Dr. Nambu is in some other room, looking in a microscope, when Ken enters the room behind him and asks if Dr. Nambu has learned anything new about the young man.

Dr. Nambu, it turns out, has been studying pieces of the wrecked plane. He tells Ken that the body of the plane was “cut to pieces” (and he shows Ken a close up image of a sliced piece of plane wreckage) and that the edges of the pieces show that it “was burned clear through.”

Ken immediately suspects that Galactor is involved, but Dr. Nambu says there’s no proof of that yet. Ken, however, is sure that this means Galactor has created a new mecha monster.

“Yes,” agrees Dr. Nambu, “But what kind is it?”


Now we’re on a city street. “What the hell is that thing?” cries one horrified man as we see several other frightened people all staring up at the sky. “It must be a monster!”

And now we see Sky Squealer flying in low over the city’s many tall buildings.







As we saw during the test in the mountains, Sky Squealer now emits sheets of intense energy from the front edges of its wings, slicing an entire tall building and causing its top half to break apart and fall to the streets below.

It shoots again, and another building breaks apart.

And again, and pieces of a third destroyed building land in the street, crushing a bus and causing an explosion.

Elsewhere, more rubble and debris are falling into the streets and people are running about in panic as fires burn around them.







Sky Squealer slices up four more buildings and then it begins flapping its wings. This apparently creates intense wind that also causes buildings to crumble apart.

UN fighter jets arrive on the scene and fire missiles at Sky Squealer but the missiles don’t do any damage to it. As ever, the mecha easily destroys the UN fighter jets with its energy attack, and then flies off into the blue sky, leaving the burning, devastated city in its wake.

“The Sky Squealer’s power is incredible,” gloats Berg Katse, from a base somewhere, “It can defeat anyone in the world –even Gatchaman!”

As Katse breaks into evil laughter, we cut to an exterior view of Dr. Nambu’s house.

Now we’re shown a part of Dr. Nambu’s house I don’t think we’ve ever seen before –an outdoor terrace, where Dr. Nambu and Ken are sitting.







“So Galactor was behind that monstrosity after all,” Dr. Nambu is saying. “There has got to be some way for us to defeat that thing!” declares Ken, fist in the air.

Dr. Nambu can’t understand how the mecha can cause the damage that it does by merely spewing flame. So, Ken decides that they need to figure out the mecha’s weakness, but he doesn’t know how.

Now Dr. Nambu points to something.

It’s the young man, now resting under a tree in Dr. Nambu’s yard.







“If his memory is restored,” Dr. Nambu tells Ken, “Then we can ask him about his accident and he may be able to give us a lead.”

Ken asks if Dr. Nambu’s been able to get any information from the young man, but Dr. Nambu, unfortunately, says that he has not and that he believes the young man is still in a state of shock.

Ken takes this news glumly, but Dr. Nambu continues “But there may be another way. Judging from how the young man reacted to the word ‘Galactor,’ I’m sure there’s some connection.”

Dr. Nambu turns on a screen that shows the young man standing outside in the yard, spinning Ken’s boomerang in one hand as a smiling Jinpei looks on.








“If we use him in our operation,” says Dr. Nambu, “It may be possible to get a reaction from Galactor as well.”

Ken just stares, clearly not liking where this is going…

“It’s extremely dangerous,” concedes Dr. Nambu, still watching the young man on the screen, “to use him as a decoy, but I’m afraid we have no other choice.”

Ken looks rather appalled, but closes his eyes as if acknowledging Dr. Nambu’s decision.

Commercial break!

So now Ken, and the young man/live bait are riding motorcycles along a coastal road that overlooks the sea far below.







Ken laughs cheerfully and tells the young man (who as ever, is rather dazed and inexpressive) that he’s “pretty good!”







But, suddenly a Galactor helicopter appears overhead (Hmm, I guess Galactor’s figured out the Ninjas didn’t actually die in that gorge).









A door on the bottom of the helicopter opens up and arms clothed in goon-green and holding a machine gun appear. The goon opens fire on Ken.

Ken, who is behind the young man, stands up on the seat of his own motorcycle and leaps ahead to land on the young man’s motorcycle.








Ken’s motorcycle then crashes and explodes into flames, but Ken is now a passenger on the young man’s motorcycle.






They both look behind, to see that the helicopter is still closing in on them and before Ken can do anything, the young man reaches behind for Ken’s boomerang and then hurls it at the helicopter.








It strikes and damages the machine gun that was firing on them, but when it comes back, Ken catches it.

The goon in the helicopter then tosses a grenade at them. It misses but its explosion is enough that the young man starts losing control of the motorcycle.

The motorcycle crashes into the guardrail, but Ken leaps clear of it, soaring with his cape’s wings and taking the young man with him, and the motorcycle explodes into flames.









The young man, staring at the flaming wreckage of the motorcycle below, is terrified and remembers himself screaming and surrounded by flames inside an airplane.







But now Ken and the young man are falling down, down to the sea. As they hit the sea’s surface and go beneath the water, the helicopter arrives overhead and now two goons with fresh rifles start firing at the sea’s surface where Ken and the young man went under. We can faintly see Ken’s cape beneath the surface, but nothing else. With the goons satisfied that their victims are dead, the helicopter flies away.

As soon as they’re gone, Ken and the young man surface, gasping for air. It seems that they must have been underneath Ken’s (detached) cape and that it shielded them from the bullets.









“Man, that was a close call,” thinks Ken, and he starts shaking the young man (who’s just clinging to the cape), asking if he’s okay.



Suddenly the young man glares at Ken and demands “Tell me why! Tell me why am I still alive!” But, he sure sounds a lot more clear-headed and coherent now!

Now we cut to Dr. Nambu’s house, where everyone (except Joe and Ryu again) is gathered around the young man.






The narrator tells us “Typically, when someone recovers their memory, they forget their current situation. However, in this young man’s case, the shock he experienced was so debilitating that he seemed to be stuck in some sort of in-between state.”

Dr. Nambu puts his hands on the young man’s shoulders, staring at him intently, and asks him what happened to him when he got in that accident.

“Observation plane, Galactor, data on Sky Squealer,” stutters the young man. Dr. Nambu nods encouragingly, but the young man stops.

Now we see that all five Science Ninjas are, in fact, present and standing together now.

“So he was a member of Galactor after all, huh?” says Ken as Jinpei and Jun look sad, Ryu looks shocked, and Joe scowls.

Dr. Nambu, still with his hands on the young man’s shoulders, says he’d suspected this.

Ken now realizes that the Galactor helicopter was really after the young man, not himself.

“They wanted to kill him so he wouldn’t leak their secret information,” agrees Dr. Nambu.

Jinpei is angry on the young man’s behalf and Jun can’t believe that someone as nice as the young man could have been in Galactor.







“Sounds like something Berg Katse would do,” adds Ryu.

Joe continues to scowl silently. I don’t think it matters to him how “nice” the young man is, if he was a member of Galactor.

Dr. Nambu asks the young man what the secret of Sky Squealer’s weapon is, and asks him rather vehemently, shaking him by the shoulders now.









“It spews flames and second later, fires a laser beam,” the young man says, “But if fired in the wrong sequence, it’ll explode.”

“Now I see how it works,” declares Ken, “It shoots out flames to hide the laser beam!”

Now Dr. Nambu tells Ken to deploy the God Phoenix again, but to “proceed with extreme caution this time!”

Ken promises to be careful, and everyone runs for the God Phoenix but once again Ken pauses and turns back.








Ken asks Dr. Nambu if they can take the young man with them.

“I think not,” replies Dr. Nambu, “Only the Science Ninja Team should board the God Phoenix.”

But Ken protests that he’s “the only person who really knows how that mecha’s put together.” I suppose Ken could add that other people –that girl Naomi, Ryu’s little brother, Jiro and Taro, the Galactor scientist Nakamura etc.- have been on the God Phoenix, but that probably wouldn’t help his case.

“No, I can’t,” protests the young man with some anguish, “I used to be in Galactor. Sorry, I can’t go with you guys.”

It seems that his problem is that he feels unworthy.

But Ken points out that he’s not with Galactor now, and that they could really use his help.

“This is your one chance to redeem yourself,” says Ken, now striking the right note, “And exact revenge on Galactor.”

The young man stares at Ken intensely for a moment, and then he stands up and asks Dr. Nambu to let him go with the Ninjas and help them.

Dr. Nambu clearly doesn’t like this plan, but (accurately) notes that he probably can’t stop them from doing it anyway.

It turns out that the other four Ninjas are standing in the doorway out of the room, waiting, and now Jinpei pipes up “Hey G-6, let’s get a move on!” before being shushed by Jun with a “Jinpei! He isn’t even officially in the Team yet!”

“G-6”? “Yet”? It surprises me how quick Jinpei and Jun are to accept this guy as a possible new Ninja. Aside from some ability with thrown weapons, he hasn’t demonstrated any particularly impressive skills –or much charisma (though he has been dazed and confused most of the episode). I suspect they mostly feel sorry for him.

So, all the Ninjas go running and, with a “Come on!” from Ken, the young man goes too.

“Science Ninja Team member G-6?” mutters Dr. Nambu, frowning in thought.


So now the God Phoenix is flying along over the mountains yet again.

On the bridge, Joe is frowning and demanding “Damn! Where the hell are those jerks hiding?” as he casts a glance and the blank radar screen.

But in that instant, a red blinking light appears on the screen. Jun calls out the coordinates and Ken notes that it’s getting near.

Ryu assures him “I’ve got it covered.”

“Looks like it’s about to be payback time,” says Joe, as he sees Sky Squealer draw close.








Ken tells Ryu to get them as close as possible to Sky Squealer. Standing up, he beckons to the young man and they leave the bridge together.







“Please be careful, Ken,” says Jun as Ken and the young man are lifted up to the dome by the circular platform in the floor of the bridge.

“Hey G-6! Good luck!” calls out Jinpei.

“Don’t call him that –you’ll get his hopes up. He’s not G-6,” declares Joe.

In the subs, Joe more pointedly says “I don’t like this. He’s not G-6!” I wonder if Joe would resent any new addition to the Team, if he specifically dislikes this young man just because he’s a former Galactor member, or he if simply just dislikes this young man regardless of his background.

My guess is that the young man’s Galactor past is a big part of Joe’s dislike of him (after all, he doesn’t know about his own family’s Galactor past yet).

Ken gets up and runs towards the young man, crying “Why did you do that? Why did you let the boomerang hit you?”








“I had to do it,” gasps the young man weakly, “At the very least I wanted to die, not as part of Galactor, but as a friend of the Science Ninja Team…” He sinks even lower to floor.

“Just hang on!” says Ken urgently, “You’re one of us now, you’re G-6!”

But the young man drops the gun and gasps “I just remembered something –give me your boomerang, Gatchaman!”

Ken does.









The young man holds it up in a trembling hand but throws it at the wall and where it hits, a panel pops open to reveal a device that had been concealed there.








Ken doesn’t understand what he’s seeing so the young man explains “It will reverse the firing sequence of the flame and laser. Hurry, you’ve only got 30 seconds before it blows.”

“Come on! Let’s get out of here!” cries Ken, reaching down to try to lift the young man to his feet.

“I’m done for, Ken,” says the young man, not moving, “I can’t even see now.”

Ken doesn’t want to leave him but the young man implores him to go.

“Please, you have to hurry up and escape, Gatchaman. And please tell everyone that I say ‘Thank you,” are his final words before he collapses completely.

Ken stares at the device behind the panel, with a timer that’s ticking down…

Outside, Sky Squealer is still on the God Phoenix’s tail (it must be following a programmed flight plan for pursuit because there’s certainly no one alive on its bridge to guide it). The mecha must still be creating strong wind still, or something similar, because the God Phoenix is still shaking and Ryu is still having a terrible time keeping it under control.

“It’s no use,” groans Ryu.

“Just do something! Anything!” snaps Joe.

“I think it’s the end!” wails Jinpei, clutching onto Jun.

“Don’t give up, Jinpei. I know Ken will succeed!” declares Jun.

But now Jun stands up and cries “It’s Ken!”

The others all look at the view screen now and see a small winged figure soaring away from Sky Squealer.

Using his bracelet, Ken contacts the others and warns them to hurry up and get away from the mecha.

Now, suddenly, the God Phoenix is able to do that and it zooms away from Sky Squealer just before the mecha’s energy weapon fires, now causing the entire mecha to explode into a ball of flames.

On the bridge of the God Phoenix, everyone is relieved. As Ken soars, the God Phoenix comes around again and he’s able to land directly on the dome.

But as he lands in a crouch, Ken looks back one last time at the flaming wreck of the mecha, that’s falling towards the ground now.







The remains of the mecha hit the ground and explode again.



Visibly very distressed, Ken contacts Dr. Nambu to say “Dr. Nambu, this is G-1, Gatchaman. Galactor’s mecha monster, the Sky Squealer, has been blown up by the valiant efforts of the Science Ninja Team’s G-6.”








As a final gesture, Ken hurls his boomerang into the midst of the still-burning explosion on the ground, the young man’s final resting place.

Watching for a moment, Ken then descends from the dome, into the God Phoenix’s bridge to impart the sad news to the others and the God Phoenix flies on over the snow covered mountains.


The End.




Okay, another (briefer) recap of the BOTP version.

Battle of the Planet’s “Giant Space Bat”


Zark the hypochondriac is at Center Neptune and is highly perturbed (or, in his words, “going completely out of my fosdic”) because he apparently didn’t pass his last physical. Now he’s scheduled to have two of his proto-capacitors operated on and have a total synchro-server transplant –all because he’s having trouble with his memory banks and control centers.

1-Rover-1 barks at him.

Zark reassures him “they do wonderful things with parts replacement these days.”

Zark then flies across the room, only to admit that he hadn’t really wanted to do that. He only hopes that he can “muddle through” until he’s fixed. He has to keep an eye on the evil planet, Spectra, located in the “Crab Nebulae” [sic].

Except he brings up an image of Saturn, not Spectra. Don’t worry, Zark. There’s probably something evil on Saturn too.

Meanwhile, somewhere, a rocket-shaped aircraft is flying over some mountains. On its bridge, a peculiarly dressed fellow orders “Activate the force ray!”

And, the force ray demonstrates that it can lop the tops off mountains.

Zoltar, somewhere else, is watching this on a screen. He is evilly gleeful that, with the force ray “All the universe shall be mine!”

The peculiarly dressed fellow –a Spectran Captain- informs Zoltar that they encountered a manned spaceship and downed it with the force ray.

Zoltar is cross, certain now that “We’ll have G-Force on our backs!”

The Captain admits that anyone on the spaceship “would have seen everything.” So Zoltar decides he’d better act fast against the Earthlings and orders the Captain to “Attack Metropolitan City at once!”

Now we see Mark flying in his plane over some mountainous terrain. He contacts Chief Anderson and explains that it’s not going to be easy to spot wreckage over such a large area. But, Anderson tells Mark that according to Zark’s calculations, he should be near the crash site and to keep looking.

Naturally, as Zark predicted, Mark immediately spots the wreckage now.

On the ground now and inspecting the wreckage, Mark realizes that the spaceship didn’t crash but rather was brought down by some kind of weapon he’s never seen before –“cut in two like a knife through butter.”

He shouts out to anyone who might be in the vicinity, to no avail, but then he spots something and discovers an unconscious astronaut lying on the ground.

Now the astronaut is lying in a bed, surrounded by G-Force, and he appears to be awake. Princess wonders why he can’t speak and if he can hear, and Mark thinks he’s still in shock from the crash.

The astronaut mutters and gasps a bit, wordlessly, and Anderson and Mark wonder if he can’t speak or won’t speak. Anderson says he’s “ruled out a concussion,” and that “I think he’s unconsciously trying to block out what’s happened to him.”

Anderson thinks his memory and ability to speak will return in time, but he hopes it won’t take too long as they need to know “what happened to Jim and his spaceship.”

Hey, this astronaut has a name!

Later, Mark seeks out Anderson, who is busy studying pieces of wreckage from the spaceship. He points out to Mark that something sliced the spaceship “neat and clean, and without any apparent resistance.”

Mark wonders if it could have been a force ray of some kind. He and Anderson concur that Zoltar is likely behind it, but that they don’t know where and when he’ll attack next.

Meanwhile, as we see the Giant Space Bat destroying buildings in Metropolitan City, a voice over from Zark informs us that the city’s residents were warned of the imminent attack and have all taken refuge in bomb-proof shelters.

But Zark admits that he has not been able to contact Anderson or G-Force yet.

The Space Bat flaps its wings and more buildings collapse into rubble. Zark now tells us that his emergency alert to Air Defense has been answered and a fleet of robot-controlled interceptor planes has been sent out against the Spectran spaceship.

But they all get destroyed –which is okay because they were just robots. Considering how much he obsesses over his own well-being, you’d think Zark might feel for the fate of these fellow robots, but apparently that’s not the case.

Oh, and he’s still having trouble locating G-Force.

Well Mark is hanging out on a sunny terrace at a seaside house with Chief Anderson, and they’re discussing Jim’s situation.

“I thought a place like this might help, but he sits there hour after hour like a zombie,” says Anderson, pointing towards Jim who is sitting under a tree.

Jim gets up and approaches Keyop, asking to try the bolas Keyop is using. Keyop hands them over but unfortunately, Jim’s attempt at throwing them brings down a pigeon.

“Poor bird,” says Keyop, looking shocked.

“You’ve got to be very careful when you use a bola, Jim,” admonishes Princess gently, “See what happened?”

“Oh,” says Jim sadly, and clutching his head a bit, “I never meant to do that.”

Keyop releases the pigeon “as good as new.” Jim wishes “it were me,” but Princess explains that Jim is like the pigeon, “Brought down by a force you don’t understand, so you’re blocking it out.”

“Hiding,” says Keyop.

“Hiding… from a force…” stutters Jim. Now he clutches his head in pain, crying out “A force ray! A force ray!” and dropping to his knees and elbows on the grass and Keyop and Princess try to help him.

Mark hears the commotion from the terrace and runs their way.

Now, Jim is back in the bed inside the house. Anderson gets a phone call that Metropolitan City was attacked by a “devastating force ray” and that the robot-controlled jets sent to defend it were destroyed. He orders G-Force to mobilize. Mark pauses before rushing off to reassure Jim “You’re going to be all right,” though we don’t actually get a look at Jim (who surely doesn’t have a strange helmet on his head or anything like that).

Do the Bird Missiles work on anything anymore?

In the context of the show, it's a mystery that a nice guy could be part of Galactor. We know that in real life, many criminal or questionable organizations have nice people as members. Psychopaths make poor members.

I notice the CotW seems to have a case of gynecomastia. Or is it the costume?

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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features

I always wondered why they accepted him in so quickly, as well! I didn't see anything spectacular enough to call him G6.

This is another ep that gives us just a bit more info about the team, though. I found it interesting that the wings were not only detachable, but could also be used as flotation devices! I guess if they go down over the ocean, they grab their wings instead of their seat cushions! LOL

It was also neat to see a bit more of Nambu's place. I can't remember if the fans tried to map Nambu's house or not. I remember seeing the Snack J, and Ken's place...I need to go back and find that thread with the maps. They were interesting...

Great work on this Saturn and LB!

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There is no problem that cannot be solved with time, patience, and a judicious amount of high explosives.

James provided a map of Utoland City. Now, every shot of Nambu's house shows mountains in the background. We never see that it's on a peninsula. (Perhaps the God Phoenix is parked under his house? That would explain where it's parked after the Crescent Coral Base is destroyed. Ryu can cut across from his home at the yacht club.)

If anyone has tried to map the house, they must have had problems linking the rooms into any semblance of a floor plan. It looks as if Nambu has a complete lab in the place! (When asked why they live on a peninsula, Ken has said, with a straight face, 'So the neighbors won't complain about the noise our hunchbacked assistants make when they lug the bodies around. And then there was the time the experiment escaped. We caught it before it reached the road.')

Joining Galactor: In my AU, I tried to show why people would join and stay in Galactor. If you look at most organizations of this type, whether they are the KKK, the Nazi party, local separatist groups, or the various versions of Communism around the world, you see that they have world-views they want to make reality. That's true even if the leader merely wants all the money and sex s/he can grab. Many followers truly believe that they are making the world a better or safer place for themselves and their children. (Actually, all governments or political organizations have that as a goal, however badly they go about it.) If you believe that you're making the world a better place, you can wrap your head around quite a lot of violence and treachery. (Can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, or use metaphors about disease, or other rationalizations.) Helen Geary joined because she saw injustice in the world, and it seemed that the firm hand of Galactor could make it a better place. Once Galactor rules, there will be no need for bloody regulations that dictate killing not only traitors, but their children as well. Nor will people be slaughtered over events from 1570, or victimized by bullies, and so on.

The young man could have been born into Galactor, rather than recuited or forced into it. He looks under 30. Could have happened that way.

The BotP episode, at least based on this review, has fewer holes than some. (Wait until you get to the ones derived from 'Jumbo Shakora' and 'Lay a Trap at the Crescent Base', and you'll see what I mean.) Could the intended audience have dealt with a skilfully-handled introduction of a Spectra soldier who wasn't such a bad guy? We may never know. At least this had footage that could be (re)used so that Jim's survival is not merely a Zark reassurance.

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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features

Thanks for the great review, LB, and the wonderful screenshots, Saturn!

I have to admit, I always thought it was strange that this talented guy (who apparently has all of these skills... enough that Jinpei wants him to be G-6) would have just been an 'obserrvation pilot'. This doesn't sound like a high Galactor rank, and that implies that most Galactor personnel are similarly skilled, and not the incompetent goons we usually assume. Just weird, that's all...

LB, I agree that it's interesting how resistant Joe seems to be regarding this man, especially once he learns that he is part of Galactor.

And as for the Bird Missiles not working on anything... that makes total sense to me. By now, Galactor has had plenty of opportunity to examine the results of Bird Missile firings/impacts and develop appropriate defenses/technology. This is why the Super Bird Missile was necessary later in the series.

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The implication in the GoS ep was that this was an Institute of Science (ISO in Gatch) trained man that, at some point in the past, was captured and brainwashed by Galactor's organization. It's never explicitly stated, and the young man does die at the end after sabotaging the Skysquealer. (His name is Neil.)

The end scenes are cut so that it looks like the CotW is holding Neil hostage and points the gun at G-1 (overhead shot). When Ace goes to nail the CotW, it seems that he accidentally gets Neil too. A sad circumstance that can and does happen in real war. (My dad was a private in Vietnam.)

It is heartbreaking, to see Neil trying to escape a situation he never wanted. When invited to go aboard the Phoenix on the mission, he at first refuses to go, saying he deserves to be treated like a traitor. On the ship, Neil manages to sabotage the firing mechanism, but an attack (that he fights off) leaves him fearing that he is still partially under Galactor's control. As Ace tries to get Neil to leave, to get treatment for his wound, Neil tells G-1 he never intended to leave once he realized that Galactor still has a hold on him. Neil passes out, and Ace cannot take the time to retrieve him if he is to have time to escape himself.

And yes, Dirk's grumpy and standoffish the whole time.

__________________
Candi

Hollywood is a land of money and cowardice.

-Henry A. Lee, Cracked.com columnist

It's quite something, just how much the rules must have changed concerning what could be shown in TV shows for children, between when BOTP was made and GoS was made (about 8 years?). I suppose the makers of GoS might have had a somewhat older target audience in mind too.

Niel's fate is grim and angsty, but BOTP's Jim survives just fine.