"Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future" (1987) TV series

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Creators:

Tony Christopher
Gary Goddard

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

1 September 1987 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Sci-Fi

Plot:

A group of guerilla fighters battle the evil machine forces that dominate a future Earth.

Plot Keywords:

Resistance | Based On Toy | Cyborg | Computer Animation | Post Apocalyptic

Awards:

2 wins & 6 nominations

Cast

Tim Dunigan	...	Captain Jonathan Power (22 episodes, 1987-1988)
Peter MacNeill	...	Major Matthew 'Hawk' Masterson (22 episodes, 1987-1988)
Sven-Ole Thorsen	...	Lieutenant Michael Ellis (22 episodes, 1987-1988)
Maurice Dean Wint	...	Sergeant Robert 'Scout' Baker (22 episodes, 1987-1988)
Jessica Steen	...	Corporal Jennifer Chase (22 episodes, 1987-1988)
David Hemblen	...	Lord Dread / ... (22 episodes, 1987-1988)

Runtime:

30 min (22 episodes)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Landmark Entertainment Group

Trivia:

The "pulses" used to add or delete points from the interactive toys were created by blending various frequency black to white pulsing into backgrounds, clouds, flames, explosions and general mayhem. It was always fun to blend in point gain pulses JUST until something distracting was about to begin, then switch to point loss pulses to suck points back out of the toys. This was all done in the online suite as one of the final layers of the VFX compositing process.

Quotes:

Narrator: Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. Earth, 2147. The legacy of the Metal Wars, when man fought machine and machines won. Bio-Dreads, monstrous creations that hunt down human survivors and digitize them. Volcania, center of the Bio-Dread empire...

Movie Connections:

Edited into Captain Power: The Beginning (1989) (TV)

a marvelous Saturday morning sci-fi series

Captain Power & his soldiers of the future may have been saddled with one of the worst titles for a t.v. series, but don't let that fool you. It was one of the most sophisticated sf shows of its time.With terrific scripts,some of which were written by Babylon 5 creator J Michael Straczynski,a wonderful cast, and some cutting edge computer animated special effects,all make this series memorable.While it was a Saturday morning kids show, it managed to be dark & edgey in its atmosphere.The adults acted as such, & there were no stereotypical cute kids,cute animals, or funny sidekicks to distract us from the intriguing plots.In an interview with JMS that I read years ago,he said that he & the other writers decided not to approach this show as being just another Sat morning show for the tiny tots.They were going to write as mature & cool a show as they could & not limit themselves under any labels.The result was one dynamic sf series.What a shame such a fine show was cancelled because the interactive toy associated with the it was not a huge seller.