Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future

Earth. The 22nd Century. The evil Lord Dread has taken over the world, and with his machine empire seeks to eliminate the last traces of mankind and remake the world in the image of the machine. The only thing stopping him: a small resistance of humans, led by. . .Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future! A bit intense for Saturday morning, eh?

This was one of the best when I was a kid. Combining bits of "Star Wars," "The Terminator," and "Mad Max." And, unlike most shows from the 80's meant to sell toys, it actually had engrossing plots! It was the first TV series to use computer-generated special effects, and the first to have an interactive toyline. I tell you, science fiction doesn't get better than this.

Captain Power and the soldier of the future was transmitted on Italian t.v. at the end of 80'.I think that this and Visitors was the best series of 80'.In this serial appears for the first time the use of digital special effects for example to create the unforgettable Soaron. The atmosphere is dark, but the plot has a good development. Certainly the actors are not perfect, sometimes seems like they are children who are playing. The best idea was the Power suits, when I was a child I dreamed to have one.This serial didn't have a lot of success in Italy, so it was transmitted just once and I'm still waiting for another. POWER ON

I watched this TV show in early 90s when it was on TV in Russia for the only time ( I was 12-13 years old then). And I liked it very much then though I had no idea about the toys and the reasons why this show hadn't been continued. In our post-communist country we had no idea about it and for me it was just a fun to watch something new, something we'd never seen before. Now I am 30 and I suddenly remembered this show. Unfortunately I failed to buy an official DVD or Blue-ray issue in Russia, so I decided to watch it on YouTube. And I was stunned! Now when I'm not that young I can feel the importance of such things like friendship, courage, honesty and love. They are so rare things in our self-help time. And this film gives you all it. Forget about biodreads, forget about metal wars, forget about blusters. This film tells us that no matter how circumstances are tough, real friends should always stay together. And while they are united they are able to deal with the most difficult problems in this world. And machines and all nano-technologies that are so popular nowadays will never replace the basic things that always stay with us. But unfortunately we forget about them too often. Definitely this show is not for kids. I think the main problem of this show was that late 80s wasn't the right time for it. It was certainly too deep and serious for children but I think it wasn't actual enough for then adults. What else can I say? I can say that when I watched the last episode I was completely broken. However I think it was a great ending. Because sometimes we have to lose too much to understand the importance of the things we have.

Great film! I hope finally I will be able to buy it on DVD or Blue-ray.

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.

As a child of the 80's, I grew up with all the toy/TV fads. GI Joe and Transformers were kings, but there were many claimants to the throne.

Captain Power was one. It had the whole package deal, action figures and vehicles, a TV show, video tapes, and even a tie-in magazine.

The show itself was kinda neat, the only live action children's sci-fi show I think there was in the 80's. Now, the effects were hokey, but I recall that the writing and story lines were actually halfway decent (the excellent J. Michael Stracynzki was responsible for the writing). The show ended up on what was presumably to be a cliffhanger, and I remember thinking that the entire episode was very, very dark for a children's show. Unfortunately they never got to resolve that cliffhanger.

The show broke new ground in it's use of CGI, back in the late 80's before it became ubiquitous in movies about 5 or 6 years later. The villain's two major henchmen were entirely CGI creatures.

There were 3 tie-in videotapes which were just a short intro sequence with the main characters at their base before moving along into an animated battle sequence that was interactive with the gun/ships. There wasn't animation for the battles in the show, but presumably they just used cartoons to save money for the tie-in tapes.

I even had a subscription to the tie-in magazine, which was a disaster. It had it's glossy, shiny opening issue which of course talked all about the show and it's world, with a few side-articles about sci-fi type things going on in the real world (the Biosphere II project and the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation). By the second (bimonthly) issue Captain Power magazine merged with He Man magazine (a very dying franchise at the time) and production quality of the magazine dropped sharply from it's glossy premier. Then with the third issue it was only He Man magazine (with a short note that Captain Power magazine had been discontinued and the remainder of subscriptions would be serviced by He Man). Then for the 4th issue on the subscription He Man magazine folded and gave way to Muppet Magazine, and so on, as it fell between dying and fading children's entertainment franchises.

Unfortunately, the toys were the real let-down. I remember when Captain Power came out, at the same time as the Nintendo Entertainment System was in the US. Among all my friends, the two products were in direct competition. You could have fun being interactive with your TV by shooting it with light guns built as toy planes, or you could have video game cartridges. The toys themselves weren't exceptional either. I might have been spoiled by GI Joe, which had great figures with good sculpting, flexibility and variety. There were only 3 good guys and 3 bad guy figures (nevermind the variety of heroes and villains on TV), and 2 good-guy vehicles and 2 bad-guy vehicles. The interaction with the TV was glitchy at best (often taking hits when nothing on TV was shooting at you), and almost never scoring hits even when you get right up on the TV and hit it directly.

So, it was a decent show that might have had a shot of being successful, but the poor execution of it's tie-in lines doomed the brand.