G-Force: Guardians of Space

G-Force: Guardians of Space is a Ted Turner cartoon.

Background
Doctor Benjamin Brighthead recruits five young highly skilled ninja soldiers to fight against Galactor.

Production
This cartoon, which omits many credits, originates as Science Ninja Team: Gatchaman produced by Tatsunoko Production Company, Ltd from 1972 - 1974. Doctor Benjamin Brighthead is Doctor / Hakase Kozaburo Nambu that works for Interpol and The International Science Orginization. His friend goes on a secret assignment and leaves his son in his care. Nambu also saved the life of the teams #2 when he was a child, trying to flee from Galactor. #3 takes in #4 on her own and are also raised by Nambu. #5 is estranged from his family and joins them as well. Earth / Chikyu is under extraterrestrial invasion from planet Selectol, inhabited by a species of giant pencils. Other extraterrestrials work for them as well. Earth / Chikyu is doomed when Leader / Sosai X discovers that Selectol has been destroyed. The Science Ninjas, who are quite young, must cope with the stress of fighting in a war.

The Anime would later be revived in Japan in 1977. The next year, copies of film reels from the original series was obtained by Sandy Frank who worked with Gallerie International Films to adapt it into a new series, Battle of the Planets. The extraterrestrial setting was expanded immensely in part to the success of other Science Fiction such as Star Wars. The original music from Bob Sakuma was used as well as new music from Hoyt Curtain. The dialogue was simplified (particularly with Keyop, based on Jinpei) and most of the battle scenes are replaced with additional narration. They were going to create new and original episodes for the following year, but was canceled instead. There were several other attempts to continue Battle Of The Planets as a separate cartoon, including its own compilation movie, and a "Battle Of the Planets: Phoenix Ninjas" sequel.

In the 1980s, a different adaptation was co-produced by Ted Turner. It went through several production changes until finally deciding to not have a regular narrator. Most narration is provided by the characters themselves. They also decided to not compose any additional music and instead replace the scenes originally containing various synthetized ambient sound effects with instead a very basic repetitive tune. However, G-Force is the only time that Jinpei's counterpart's voice matched.

After being canceled abruptly, Ted Turner proceeded to make Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Cartoon Network aired G-Force frequently during the 1990s. The 1977 - 1979 episodes were also adapted to Saban's Eagle Riders before the three part Gatchaman was dubbed fully into English. After Cartoon Network aired InuYasha, Science Ninja Team: Gatchaman itself was also dubbed in 2005 - 2006, along with a redub of the three part Gatchaman, and the movie from 1977.