Why is G-Force about Gerbils When It Should Be About Birds?

When I saw that there was a G-Force movie coming out, I got all kinds of excited. After all, I grew up watching G-Force -- it was one of my favorite Japanese cartoons, along with Voltron and Macron 1. Then I saw a picture from the movie... and it was of gerbils in spy gear. This was not the G-Force of my childhood. This was something very, very different.

No, the G-Force I loved (full title: G-Force: Guardians of Space) was the story of a group of teenagers trained in martial arts who dressed up in jumpsuits to fight off alien attacks. Their costumes were designed to look like birds -- an eagle, a swan, an owl -- and their capes had feathered edges. It was a re-edited version of an earlier American series, Battle of the Planets -- actually a more faithful edit of the original Japanese cartoon, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman -- and it was pretty dark stuff, with violence and death and a little bit of gender-bending. It aired on the Superstation in the mid-1980s, then turned up on the Cartoon Network a decade later. Fans of the 1970s BotP series were confused and a little frightened, and it didn't do well, especially since not all of the original episodes were translated, and the run ended on a cliffhanger.

Now, there will be a real G-Force movie, kinda: The same people who did the CGI TMNT movie are doing an updating of the original Japanese cartoon, simply titled Gatchaman, and due for release next year. While I suppose I should be happy we're getting anything at all, I wish it was live-action and not animated. Heck, I wish they had just taken the cast of the G-Force gerbil-movie and cast them as the flying Gatchaman/G-Force team members. Nicolas Cage could have played Ace Goodheart, Will Arnett could have played Dirk Daring, Penelope Cruz could have played Aggie, Tracy Morgan could have played Hooty and Sam Rockwell could have played Pee-Wee. Oh, and Bill Nighy could have played Professor Brighthead!

...I suppose I'll have to settle for high-quality CGI. I can dream, though.

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