CAPTAIN POWER AND THE SOLDIERS OF THE FUTURE - Power On!

In Episode 26 of Secret Level, we talk about the classic 1987 interactive sci-fi series, Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future! We loved this show when we were kids, and after revisiting it after all these years, it’s actually so much more awesome than we remembered! Holy cow, this show was great! This show told an adult story but targeted at kids. We talk about how the series came to be, the people involved in creating it, why it was canceled only after one season, and what was in store for the future of the series had it not been canceled. We had a lot of fun talking about Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future and we hope you enjoy this latest episode of Secret Level!

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Transcript

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Power on. They said that at the beginning of every episode, Billy, they sure did power on. I'm not really sure where I'm supposed to go with this there, bud. You're supposed to power on. Oh, hold on. What is it when the, when the suit gets on him? Sure. Let's go with that. I am captain power. yeah. I keep wanting to say captain. Welcome to another episode of secret level. I am your host, Joey par and joining me is Billy Fisher on? Yes. That made me, man. That made me excited today. We are going to talk about man. Are you ready for this guys? I don't know if you're ready for this. We're going to talk about captain power and the soldiers of the future. Wow. Yeah. I'm holy cow, man. This, this show, this game slash show. I. I have fond memories of it. Yes. I've I watched the first season, there was only one season of captain power in the soldiers of the future. I watched that season. I had the captain power jet XT seven. Do you remember that one? That was like the hero ship, right, dude. I so remember that because I never got it. I got all the action figures, never the ship. See, and here's the thing that's because the action figures were only like 3 99, you know, how much the ship was, those ships that you had to buy to play the game. Do you remember? 30, 39 bucks. Yeah. They were like 40 bucks. Yeah. Which is equivalent today, like nine$90. It would cost you$90 to buy one of those toys today. Insane. It it's so expensive. So expensive. It was like a Christmas present for me. That's the only reason I got one. Uh, yeah. I asked for mine for Christmas and I got tank and Lord dread, not the ship. Just tank and Lord dress. You can't even do anything with the action figures. right. The whole point was to own the ship and to watch the show. So you could like point the ship at the TV and blast it during the battle sequences. Right. And that's what my parents didn't understand. They were like, you can't really do that. That doesn't really exist. That kind of technology is not happening. And I tried to explain to them, duck hunt works, duck hunt. It's a perfect example of what captain power is. Right. But they didn't see it. And I missed out plain and simple. Well, I'm sorry, Billy. It's okay. I'm over it. Now you watched the show though, didn't you did. I did watch the show. And as a kid, when that came out, blew my mind. It was so fun. Like it was, it was a fun show and what's crazy though, is it was way over my head at that time. Yep. This was an intense show. Anyway, before we get into it, before we get into it, right Billy? Yes, sir. Tell me something about your life. So I took a page out of your book this week. Oh man. What page? Yeah, I started watching monk for the first time. Oh yeah. Boy. one of the best shows I've ever seen. Right. It's so good. Oh my goodness. It's so Tony Shalu should just went all the awards for this show. All the awards forever. yeah. Forever and always. Yeah. I mean just his character. He, in the first five minutes of the show you're hooked. Yeah. Just him standing in the middle of a crime scene saying exactly what's happening. Then worried if his stove is on, nonchalant only saying, Hey, the killer has this, this, this, and that. Can someone go check and see if my stove is on? And all of the police are standing around, how do you know this? What is going on? And just to watch him get so agitated and finally be like, look. He lowered the seats. He wiped the keyboard. He did this, this, this and that. Okay. Do you guys understand? I gotta go check my stove. I was like, yep. I love this. Awesome. Oh, I'm glad you started watching it. Yes. And I can't wait to, to finish it just so I could watch it again. Nice. Yeah. How about you? What have you been up to? So I just started watching this show on Netflix. Mm-hmm My brother told me about it. It's called extraordinary attorney. Woo. And it's a Korean comedy, uh, legal comedy. And the main character is a young lawyer with Asperger's syndrome. Okay. And it's absolutely adorable. It is such a charming freaking show. You just have a smile on your face to the whole thing and it's emotional and it's like, you're rooting for this attorney who. She has this high IQ. She has this like amazing memory where she just can memorize anything involving legal stuff. Like she can, she is just a master of, of law. Okay. And she has this like creative thought process, but struggles with her everyday interactions with people. Right. Of course. So she has to juggle this stuff, but it was, it's just a beautifully made show. I've I'm, I've only watched a few episodes so far and each one is like a mini movie and I just, I love the, I, the writing is great. The, the actress who, who plays the main character is just wonderful. She's fantastic. And if there's a show, To watch right now. That'll like lift you up and make you feel good. Extraordinary attorney. Woo. Go watch this show. It is so far there's 16 episodes and they release'em on net. It's like, they re it's not like they release it all on Netflix. So they release them every Wednesday and Thursday. Okay. So it's it. But yeah, love this show. It's so good. And it just makes me happy. It gets emotional sometimes. And it's just, it's just a beautifully made show. So watch it, watch it. I'm gonna watch it. You just sold. I I'm gonna go watch it right now. It's you take care of the podcast. I'm gonna go watch. Awesome. Alright. So while Billy's gone, we're gonna talk about captain power and the soldiers of the future. yes, we are. I'll I'll every once in a while in the background, you'll just say, hear me say Uhhuh and that's it. All right. Well, I'm excited that made me really excited. I really wanna watch this show. Yeah. It's very, very well made. It's in Korean, but it's, there's subtitles. You can read, you can read, right? You're good. Sometimes I can read, but we'll get to back. We'll get to that later, but let's move on to captain power. It's captain power time guys. And when this show was made, Mattel was in need for a new franchise, right. They needed to replace Heman because after masters of the universe bombed at the box office, their toy sales plummeted Mattel. Right. I know. But, um, they kind of did it to themselves though. They, they did, you know, they had a thriving toy line that everyone loved. They came out with a movie and it sucked ass. It, it literally just destroyed. The Mattel name for it. It killed him. It killed Heman, definitely killed Heman. And it's a shame, but because of that, Mattel was looking for something to like another property, another franchise to build on. Right. And Gary Godard who directed Heman and the masters of the universe, mm-hmm, had this idea for captain power and he pitched it to him and it kind of was like a perfect storm of how it came together. Mm-hmm it just didn't work out the way everyone thought it would. I, I don't say this very often, but this show was definitely ahead of its time. Like if they released a show like this right now, Oh, it was, it would kill. It was ahead of its time. 100%. It launched with 2222 minute episodes in 1988. Um, Mark Scott SRE was brought on to work on the series as a writer. And this is a guy that worked on centurions, super friends, black star, the real Ghostbusters Smurfs, Heman Twilight zone star track the next generation. And on top of that, the head writer of the series was Jay Michaels, who is the creator of Babylon five. And so you had no schlubs these were, this show had talent. It was legit. And it's funny because when I'm rewatching, some of the episodes, the writing is great. Like it has good, solid writing and quirky, fun dialogue. Like I was, it's something that I don't remember paying attention to when I was a kid. Cause I didn't pay attention to that stuff. I just wanted to see the action and shoot my ship gun at the TV and then watch my guy pop out of the seat when he got shot. And that's what, like I was into, I was a kid, but I'm like, re-watching, I'm like, man, this is just a good show, but well, yeah, it is. And it's funny. I mean, like I said, we all know the show didn't get past one season, but it didn't help that the time slot that they put this show in was Sunday mornings at 8:00 AM. Right. Like, how is this show supposed to survive at on the Sunday morning at 8:00 AM? well, here's the deal too. So if it was just purely aimed to kids, a hundred percent aimed to kids, that's a perfect time slot. Sure. The writing in it was aimed to adults. Like the action was for kids. The writing was for adults. Like the first episode is like the emotional standard that it takes on it. You're like, oh crap, this is gonna be a crazy series. Cuz he goes to go like captain power goes to find his best friend who has essentially been thrown into the matrix. Yeah. And brought back out to bring her friend into the matrix. So she's like torn apart about this whole thing. And in 22 minutes you're like, oh shit, This is crazy. And not only that, but things take a turn like right. It gets dark. And they're just like, man, this was like, yeah, this was, it was, it was made for kids, but it was also made for adults, but it was a kid's show. They wanted to target it towards kids, but it was more adult oriented and it just, the, it just, there was no clear market. It was like, the market was muted. Like it was right. They didn't know where, who was watching it. And, and anyway, before we go on, before we go on, oh, please do it. Here we go. You ready? Yep. This, this isn't only the synopsis. This is the opening of the show. Fantastic. Every show fantastic started with this earth. 2147, the legacy of the metal wars where man fought machine and machines won bio dreads, monstrous creations that hunt down human survivors and digitize them Volcan center of the Biore empire stronghold in fortress of Lord dread feared ruler of this new order, but from the fires of the metal wars, a rose, a new breed of warrior born and trained to bring down Lord dread and his Biore empire. They were soldiers of the future. Mankind's last hope their leader, captain Jonathan power, master of the incredible power suits, which transform each soldier into a one man attack force major Matthew Hawk, Masterson fighter in the skies, Lieutenant Michael tank, Ellis ground assault unit Sergeant Robert scout, baker, ESP espionage and communications, and corporal Jennifer pilot, chase tactical systems expert together. They form the most powerful fighting force in the Earth's history, their creed to protect life, their promise to end Lord dreads rule their name, captain power and the soldiers of the future. Dude, if that doesn't get you stoked. I don't know what does dude, right. Wow, bro. So that gives such a like detailed. look into what you're looking for. And then later in the, see in, in that first season, the storylines start coming at you and you're like, oh crap. I know like we'll get into the twists and the turns in a little bit, cuz there's one that I was just like, it was on epic level. It's not, you know, I am your father, but it's pretty damn close. Yeah. In that first season, it's, it's pretty crazy because I'm watching this show mm-hmm and they spent a million dollars per episode on this thing per episode, this was not like a cheap show. No. So they put, they put a lot into this and I'm watching it and I'm like, man, this kind of has a power Rangers type vibe to it. Right. They, and I was just gonna say that it was the grandfather two power Rangers thing. Yeah. It almost so much stage from it. It, it did. Right. And usually I'm like, oh my gosh. And this came before, like power Rangers came out a few years after this, this came to an end, but power Rangers just did it. Right. They just market it to the kids. They right. And, and they built the franchise around selling action figures. Just it's exactly what Mattel wanted to do. But unfortunately for this one, it was like an adult show that they were trying to sell the kids right. Right. And I, I think they were basing it off of, you're not supposed to talk down to kids, but when it's an action thriller and you got 22 minutes for the actions, or like, as an adult, I was completely intrigued by the stories that were going on in this show. But as a kid, I know for a fact I was like, I don't give a crap. Start blasting things. Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? Well, uh, Joey and I are very excited about this. We recently were at some conventions and some dude had almost every single captain power toy. That's what inspired us to do this episode because we were, I was like looking at these old toys still in the boxes and I'm like, oh my gosh, captain power. Oh crap. I remember that. And like, all the memories started flooding back. I'm like, Billy, we need to revisit this and we need to do it on our podcast. yes, absolutely. And I forgot cuz yeah, I still have tanks somewhere upstairs. Like he's the, the last remaining captain power toy I have. And I was like, crap that's I remembered how into it. I thought I lost interest. I thought there was more seasons, but apparently it was just the one. Yeah. I, I, I loved it's funny because I loved just playing with that ship and pointed at the TV and blasting away and getting points. And like, it was also fun when you got shot because your guy came flying out of the canopy of your ship. Yep. He completely gooses it out of there. So fun. So fun. I had to enjoy the fun at other people's homes who had the actual ship, but I'd bring my, my action figures over to put in the ship just so I felt like I was a part of it. Yeah. Now I don't know much about trigger, activated strobe, light, reactive integration, or TV frequency, output modulation, as it relates to the functionality and the line of action figures and ship toy ships mm-hmm But whatever it was, it worked. It was the coolest thing ever. Like you felt like you were a part of that show. Yeah, it was, it was wild. Like, I can't believe that existed back then. Right? Yeah. It, like I said, it was way ahead of its time. It was, it would sell so well right now, It would be interesting to see. I mean, they tried to reboot it and it didn't nothing ever happened. Like a few years ago they tried to, it was at ComicCon. It was at Comicon in 2016. We were gonna go, but we had another thing to go to, but then nothing ever happened with it. It just, yeah, nothing happened to it fell apart. Like I'd be curious to see how that would work today. Like what would they do with it? I don't know, but the show itself and the stories had like, I mean, they went into like fascism mm-hmm eugenics. Yeah. Uh, captain powered was always tackling these political themes. Mm-hmm but it's the individual story arcs as well. That were even more interest that even brought more interesting stuff to that story. Like the story arcs for these characters were great. Like just the ending of season one. I remember the ending of season one, uh, is close to the ending. When we found out that captain power's dad, who was the scientist that created all of the captain power suits and all that, his best friend was Lord dread and they were working on it together. But Lord dread was like, we should make people wear these and be robots. I know it's so crazy. What? Yes. Oh, and it's wow. I'm it's, it's like blowing my mind revisiting this show guys, like seriously, because it's so much better than I remember. Like it's such a good show. I am so impressed with the storytelling. Right. And the character development. It's crazy. Right? I mean, you, you gotta remember this is from the eighties, so. Like the character. So on, on it, the Soren robot that was like dark, uh, Lord dreads, evil henchman, the robot bird guy. Yeah. When I first watched it as a kid, I was like, that is the like epitome of special effects. That guy is a hundred percent the craziest bad guy. Yeah. There was that you look at it now there, but there's, you know, it's a early CGI animation stuff. Like it was cutting edge back then they were doing some cutting edge stuff for TV. Mind you. Right. And not only that, but like even talking about those, the themes of the show. And like I was talking about the characters, they are seasoned long story arcs. They aren't just arcs the play out over the course. One episode to the, you know, here's something that happens in this episode and here's something that happens in another episode. No, there's these story arcs play through the entire season. Right. And they're, and it's aimed to evolve. You know the story and, and give kids. I mean, they wanted to give kids something like amazing, right. To like, remember, and I didn't remember any of that when I was a kid. I'm just revisiting it again for the first time since I was a kid, I haven't watched these since I was a kid and now I'm watching them again. I'm like, holy crap. This stuff is awesome. Yeah. The that's the thing is the themes didn't hit kids. Like they saw people getting killed and they saw people getting digitized and all this stuff. But as an adult, you're watching it. And you're like, like she's talking about the complete pain of being digitized and being brought back to life and how she didn't wanna go through the pain again, like, as a kid, you don't care about that. But as an adult, you're like, yeah. Now for those of you who. Don't know what digitize is. Lord dread explains it like this. Oh yes. Every cell in your body, implodes, when you are digitized, then when you are reformed, these same cells explode. what? Yep. So every cell in your body implodes and then explodes that is like mind blowing to think about. And then he's in this quote that he is talking about. He is like now, and he is like questioning. He's like interrogating someone, torturing them and trying to get information out of him. And after he says that, he says now then where is the woman? And there's a moment where he just waits for a beat and he says, too, Saw Herron digitize him again. And he is like, wait, pleasure. dude, such a bad guy. Like, oh man, it's crazy. Like, yeah, that, that was like, I don't remember that. So I'm watching this. I'm like, oh my gosh. That is, that is nightmarish being digitized is not cool at all. no, it's like really like the first step into the matrix, you know, like you could totally see it. The ma the guys that WWKI is looking at and going, Hey, what if we were sucked into a computer world? Yeah. That hap that happened in captain power down, back in 86. Exactly. And, and going back to the story arcs of the characters, it's like, even though it's like captain power in the soldiers of the future, like the future is like, there's a lot of talk of the future, the show. Is informed by the past of the soldiers. Like it. Yes. Really dives into the background and history of these characters and their past propels, the show forward into the future. It is, Ugh. It is. So cuz there's not only struggling with the, with the, the BioD dreads, but they're struggling with their inner selves and their past and their history. And they have to like reconcile that stuff and, and learn to live with, with these things that they had gone through. I mean, kids shows don't do that. This was very much an adult series and adults didn't watch it because they thought it was a kid show and it was on it Sunday at 8:00 AM in the morning. Right. I mean, These soldiers are dealing with situations. So like, if we as adults, we, all of a sudden the apocalypse happens right now and we have to see everything go from amazing. We have all this technology to, Hey, I have to fight every day to live, but I can remember how it was. Yeah. And, and that's a theme that a lot of kids aren't gonna understand, but now as adults we're like, Hey, this could really happen. This is like, we could lose everything in a minute. Yeah. And kind of, you know, talking about the influence of the past on these characters, mm-hmm, there's life altering choices that these characters make. Like in the episode, a, a fire in the dark, uh, a blind artist discovers. What the machines have done to the earth. And so she ends up rejecting Lord dreads technology for restoring her vision and decides to live with her memories. Instead she tells Jonathan, he offers me nothing. However, the world, as I remember it is there, the world I live in is superior than yours captain. I would like for you to view it, and then in flashbacks, Jonathan's late father, like you said, Dr. Stewart, Gor power, devotes his life to undoing the unintentional contribution he made to the rise of the machines and finally pays the price for it. But right. Like, look at that, just that little story. It is so heavy. It's and there's so much to think about mm-hmm with that little example. I mean, right. And on top of that, you've got, the character pilot, Jenny pilot chase. She who was, who was hot. Oh my gosh. She was hot. I was a fan. I was a big fan continue. Yeah. She's part of Jonathan's team mm-hmm and his potential love interest. And she spends the entire season coming to terms with the acts she watched and participated in while a member of the evil Biore youth group. Mm-hmm she finally finds the atonement in the finale when she valiantly faces off against the squad of Biore troops to defend her new found team and cause, but she sacrificed her own life in the process. And it's just like, these are, she was part of the Biore youth group, the right. They did full on complete back stories on these conflicting factions. And she was a part of the evil, went to the good and ended up giving her life to save the good. Yeah. I never paid attention to this stuff when I was kid. No, no, no way. And I almost wish. They would've just done away with the toy aspect of it and kept the show and just made the show right. And focused on that. But they did though. That's, that's the crazy thing. And we'll, we'll get into that. The, actually the toy aspect of it and the story aspect of it were completely separate. They didn't, they didn't really like mess with each other. They did their own thing. So the story was like the focus for the creative team. Mm-hmm But again, it just came down to the way they marketed this show. It wasn't a kit. It, it shouldn't have, it was all wrong. It was all ahead of its time. And no one knew what to do with that kind of storytelling, interactive technology yet. They didn't know how to market it. Right. They didn't know who to market it to. Ah, man. Like, like I've been saying, dude, with how society is today with the technology that we use. This would've been a perfect outlet for kids today. Yeah. Cause your parents would be watching for the story. The kids would be watching to fight bad guys in the show and they understand that technology, they, they know phones, they know iPods, they know how to use a tablet, that kind of thing. Yeah. It was just way ahead of its time man, way ahead. And I'm sad that we don't have it today to spend that time with our kids, showing them this and getting the storylines that we, because now the, the I'm watching, I'm watching these shows on YouTube right now and the quality is crap. Right. But I'm enjoying the story. I wish these would be released at HD. Some. They're on DVD. Okay. You can buy them on eBay right now for like the DVD set. Okay. And I've been super tempted to pull the trigger and buy it, like watch it better. I do, because I just wanna, I wanna watch good. Qu I wanna watch this show in a good qu decent quality. I mean, DVD's not gonna be the best, but man, I'd love to see'em remaster this stuff into like 4k right. Oh, definitely. And that's the thing. If you look at the cover art for the DVDs, I guess it would've been VHS back then, but even that's super high quality. Like they put a lot just into the cover art. I know these guys. Oh man. Yeah. But let's anyway, so Godard, pitched this idea to Mattel and there's a documentary on it that I watched that I totally recommend called out of the ashes, the making of captain power and the soldiers of the future. It's a great doc on watch that. That was good. Great doc on YouTube. Yeah. And in that, Godard says we got this meeting and we said, we think we have the next great thing. It was not interactive at this point. The big innovation was going to be that it's a live action show for kids with CGI robotic villains that are live action. Guys are going to fight against that's. That was their initial pitch. It wasn't even a game. Wow. But again, they're like, Hey, we're gonna do this kid show, but it's like, no, this is like a show for all ages. right. You know? Yeah. Um, Mattel responded to that. by showing him this new interactive technology that they have been working on that would allow kids to aim and shoot at moving targets on TV screens. Perfect. And it was like, holy cow, we have something here, guys. We got this great story idea. We've got this new technology. If we blend it together, we could have like a very successful franchise on our hands and toys and TV shows if you could go on forever, right? Yeah. Yeah. It was a great vision and it was a great dream and it was a great show and a great idea. Like I wish it wouldn't have failed. Absolutely. I don't know if it did fail. I think it succeeded. I think it succeeded that first season was so good. And the story tell was so strong that. They managed to, start something and they just weren't able to finish it because they didn't know what to do with it. Right. And well, I also watched a, another documentary on it that was on YouTube. Um, that talks about the fall of it. Parents at that time, didn't understand what kids were doing. They thought that it was teaching their kids how to shoot and how to kill, which yeah. At that time they, they were calling it an overly excessive, overly violent look, excessive violence in a TV show. This show was super violent. There were more people being killed off or robots, I guess you could say, but more things being killed off in this show than you'd see in any cartoons. There were more things being killed off in this show than. Then people that were being killed off in the, a team you know what I mean? Right. Absolutely. And I, but I think the backlash of it made it, so they didn't wanna spend a million dollars in episode after that, like too many there's too many people against it. Well, and they weren't, and the sales of the toys weren't just coming in, it was just right. It was too expensive. How are, how are like, like kids with no money gonna get, you know, where are they gonna get 40 bucks to buy a toy? Right. Yeah. That's why I only, I only had the action figures, man, that's it? Yeah. It's like, I think I had a little tank, like a little car. Yeah. I remember the, yeah, I remember the tank. I had that, but that was it. That's all, that's all my parents could afford at the time, you know? Yeah. It's, that's crazy. But, uh, there's so much, so much more into this. Yeah. Uh, the screenwriter, one of the screenwriters, it says in the doc, he explains that the world that they created for captain power was a bold risk. He says it would have to be a big vision and a big world. And I was committed to the idea that this would be an adult show that we would create it exactly as if it were an adult show. We wouldn't condescend at all. Now I get that, but you've got Godard saying it's for kids. And the writer scene, it's an adult show, right? I mean, you're talking about future writers of Babylon five. Exactly. You know what I mean? Exactly. So the live action elements of the show were shot over the course of six months in 1987. Mm-hmm all the footage was shot in one big old building in Western Toronto. That used to be a bus Depot. Not only were the sets built right there, but also the miniature. According to the actors. It was unbearably hot during the summer. And crew members had to stand by with buckets of ice and wet towels. And, and then it was freezing cold in the winter. So you got the two heavy extremes, right? While shooting this show. We talked about this earlier, but captain power was the first TV series to integrate live action, CGI and digital effects. All the digital effects were created, prior to the digital compositing tools being invented, the entire series and all the VX layers used one inch videotape and a lot of shoot from the hip visual effects treatments. When green screens were forgotten on set manual, rotoscoping was done in the online edit suite, using a B and w graphics camera, bits of white paper and white out to create the necessary mask. Average time for one effect, 3.5 hours, man, that actually explains a lot, right? Yeah. Cuz Soran, wasn't used as much as he should have been. Like he was coming in for like, you know, dominant scenes and then he'd be gone for the rest of the episode. Yeah. But now that makes sense. Cuz each time he came in, it was three and a half hours of editing that you had to do. That's crazy. Yep. The trench run for the end credits at the end of every episode is loosely similar to the trench run in the climax of star wars. A new hope of course. I mean anybody who watched a new hope got feeling they had, they had to pay some kind of tribute in homage to star wars for crying out loud. Absolutely. So kind of moving forward in what they wanted to do after season one, actress, Jessica Stein who played pilot in the series did not want to return for a second season. She wanted to move on and do other things. And she found, a lot of negativity in the shows postapocalyptic setting. She just didn't, she wasn't happy with, I guess the story and the bleakness of it. I okay. I assume that's what that means. Right? So, Godard was obviously disappointed. And that is why she was killed off in se in the season one finale and ended up giving pilot, uh, powerful sendoff, which is actually, it works for the story while, right. She didn't wanna return. I was fine with pilot being killed off in the story. Well, it just adds realism to it. You know what I mean? Add this powerful element because it's like, oh my gosh, they killed off a character in this show. They killed off a character, like a main character, like a main character. And you know, if you wanna say this is a kid show, right? Mm. What kid show kills off characters. Right? The only one to ever try to do was transformers, the movie with optimist prime and they had to bring him back to life. Right. Traumatizing him. And then after that, they wouldn't dare kill off duke and GI Joe, the movie because you just don't kill off main characters in kids shows. So I thought it was a very, I mean, I know they were forced to do it, but it was a, I think it was a great creative choice too, and right. Great. I'm glad they did it. Sorry, Jessica. But you know, you wanted off the show anyway, but it, but it made that it made the series so much more powerful. Yeah. It made good TV. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, and for those of you don't know, pilot sacrificed her life by heroically defending the power base from blast star on Christmas day in captain powers, soldiers of the future retribution in 1987. What a stud. Yeah, she did it, man, but she was hot. I had a major crush on her when I was young during the series. Pepsi ran a competition to promote it. Do you remember this? I do. Whoever come, whoever collected the letters, power under the caps of bottles of Pepsi and seven up would win a power jet XT seven. Yeah. Um, couldn't find the w ever. Never. Yeah, I never, I never, I always got, I always got like Ws and RS. Oh dude. That's all I needed. I had everything, but a w and I was like, they, I guarantee you, they don't make Ws. Cuz I would had it by now. I was a brat, but still Oh man. I wonder if we could find it now, as for the show's undoing. And we, you touched, you touched on this earlier, but it was kind of getting into a little bit more detail. Mm-hmm uh, the show was set in a post-apocalyptic future, uh, in the aftermath of a nuclear war mm-hmm uh, there were allegories on topics, including Nazi-ism, uh, fashion and what was more dread doing yeah, he was trying to make everyone like his soldiers, not like him, but like his soldiers. It was very violent. Mm-hmm for a kid show. It was, and yeah, it just, I, I think that mature aspect of it, that ultra mature aspect of it just drove audiences away. Mm-hmm uh, other factors. That contributed in the show's failure included the high cost of each show,$1 million a show in the eighties that's insanity. And the reason why they had to put a lot more money into it is because there was, there was both the gameplay aspect of it and the live action aspect of it. And cartoons didn't cost that much because animation was cheaper to do back then. Right. And you're, you're getting into the, the very new ground of CGI in a TV show. Yeah. But personally, I think the main thing that killed the show was that Sunday morning, 8:00 AM time slot, right? Yeah, no, one's gonna watch it. Only kids are gonna watch it. And the, the adults are really like, oh, they're just watching a stupid. Kid show. Right. But the thing is it wasn't a stupid kid show. It was like a very well made adult show. Right? At least we think so we, we were fans and we were still fans after I, I have a new appreciation for it. Now that I've watched, watched it as an adult, man, this show would've kicked so much ass in high school. Like in that time slot where you could understand things and get the pleasure out of watching the little guy flat or your sheet ship. It was, I won man to fly outta my sheet too. But yeah, yeah, that, I mean, but we don't want that right now, but, uh, there was a second season in the works. Like they had plans for season two and they were already working. They had updated the show's Bible to reflect new directions that they were gonna take the stories of the show and keep it fresh. Mm-hmm And according to the writers, at one point, everything looked positive. Everything was hunky Dory, quote, hunky, Dory. And it was gonna happen until January, 1988. Yes. One of the writers on the series, Larry Dillo says. We were starting to hear rumors that Mattel was getting ready to pull out. I told the writers of the 18 scripts that had been assigned for the second season. They were gonna do 18 episodes to hurry up and finish them so they could get paid if there was no second season So it's like, Hey, finish those scripts, get, get your money and run, get your money and run Uh, on, on top of da also goes on to talk about, you know, some of the reasons why the show was canceled, which we had already gone through, but, uh, parents groups, uh, you know, we're angry with the show and claimed that the show was too violent. And, on top of that, there was the whole, he, he pointed out another thing that we haven't pointed out yet saying. Due to the screen actor's Guild and writer's Guild. They needed to pay out residual payments because captain power was live action. Whereas animation, you don't have to pay residuals. so that's just more money that had to go to everyone that was working on the show. Yeah. Uh, he says it could have been any or all of those reasons, but the bottom line was that in January we were informed, there would, there would not be a second season, man. We really missed out on that one. STR Zinsky blamed the name of the show for its demise. He said, yeah, for science fiction fans who were looking for a serious story, they wouldn't tune into something called captain power. And those who would watch a show called captain power. Weren't often in the mood for a serious science fiction story. And I think he has a point. I think there's a point there to be made. But it wasn't called captain power. It was called captain power and the soldiers of the future. and, and dude, yeah, that should draw you in right there I don't know. The second season though, was to focus on captain power, neglecting his duties and the leader of the team and obsessed with killing dread and Locke, the slicer who had betrayed him and to avenge pilot's death and major Hawk, would've assumed leadership as power goes off on his vendetta and the season was to had seen the introduction of the new characters. Chris ranger. O'Connor a woman who would be tank's love interest and private chip T and T ma a soldier. That had appeared in the first season under the name of Andy Jackson. Okay. So that sounds pretty awesome. Yeah. What it does sound awesome. A revenge season. That sounds great. Hell yeah. Right. Bring, bring the vengeance and the captain power. Holy crap. This is how the series is explained. Uh, by one of the writers power basically stops the war to take personal vengeance on dread for pilot's death. It was the beginning of an evolution that was going to make power less of a goofy. Goody hero and more of a bitter mad max kind of character. The heroic leader is a pretty limiting and thankless role. We hope to add some real dimension to his character by having him evolve from a relative innocent to a bitter loose cannon. What, what we missed out on this absolutely. I would've totally watched this and that's not all. So the second season, okay. Would've also found the soldiers of the future homeless and to a large extent, vulnerable after the fiery destruction in this, the episode retribution, they become more urban gorilla in their outlook. As they travel across the battle ravaged landscape in search of a new power base, dread and to a larger degree over mind, continue to wreck havoc and, and do battle with power and company along the way, the war dogs and other new and old characters put in appearances. Hell yeah. Why don't we have this? I dude, I know. Okay. That's not all though. You ready? Here we go. Yes. Yep. Let's do it. The till continues to say the tone of the second season was similar to the empire strikes back. There were many threads from the first season that would unravel in the. Eden two was going to become actively involved in the battle with dread mm-hmm Several new characters were going to be introduced. And the characters returning from the first season would undergo changes in personality. We were going to do more multipart stories that would carry a thread from the previous episode. It wasn't going to be just ruined earth scenario anymore. Power in his group would be on the move. And consequently, we would've used different locations. We were also going to show throughout different episodes that the post Holocaust society wasn't made up entirely of helpless people. Interesting. It just gets more and more interesting. Doesn't it like? Oh, yes. Ah, wow. We are missing out on this. I know. I know, I mean, it would've launched with a two part episode titled vendetta and that episode would've launched the story with captain power, addressing pilot's death in a deciding UN heroic manner. Oh dude. Yeah. He always had that underneath his skin, man. He, he was just like a, a hair away from turning crazy. So I'm really excited. I'm getting excited and it's not happening. I, I know, I know I'm ready to see this right now. You know, they, even, they even offered some details on how the characters would change. In the series, when, you know, they talked about it in that quote earlier mm-hmm and said we basically, and, and in regards to the character scout, who was bad ass dude, dude, bad ass bro. So, okay man. So in regards to him, we basically got so wrapped up in the thread of project, new order that we didn't realize the good chances we were missing with scout. He played an important part in a number of the second season episodes in particular face of darkness. It was a real from the heart kind of story scout also figured in an ongoing relationship with one of the new characters and in the light of. In the light of the fact that power would get progressively crazier. As the season progressed, we had plans for Hawk who got quite a bit of play during the first season to assume more of the leadership role for the group in regards to tank. Yes. We knew that for tank to shine, we had to get him out of the suit and involved in doing physical things. There were also plans for him to become somewhat involved with another character in on the show. Conspicuous in the captain power production offices during the first season was a vast array of sketches of possible new characters for guests, for guests shot or reoccurring rules with the possible exception of andy Jackson, who to till claims who would've least made a token appearance during the aborted second season. None of these characters made it past the drawing board, but with pilots, demise in retribution, some new additions were planned. They go on to explain with pilot gone, we felt we had to have another female in the crew. And from the beginning we felt she had to be much tougher than pilot. More of a commando type. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That works. This would've resulted in the introduction of a new character called ranger, a no nonsense survivor of an early dread attack who has sworn her own kind of vengeance on dread to explain ranger would've presented some interesting departures from the show, unlike power in the rest of the soldiers of, of the future. Ranger has no problems with killing. She also isn't big on taking orders, which would've been the cause for further conflicts. Plus after pilot's death, power is reluctant to risk the life of another member of his group, especially another woman ranger was also going to figure in a possible relationship with tank tank is uncomfortable around women. So we felt it would make things interesting. If we threw ranger at, in her first meeting with tank, she was going to take one, look at him and say that's for me. She was going to be hustling him. Nice. Okay. I'm yep. I'm still sold, bud. Let's see this. I I'm not done yet. oh, no, there's more, there's more we're missing out on Okay. Hit me. All right. Lord dreads, tin can robots. Would've been replaced by invincible balls of energy called hunter seekers. Dread was also going to get an assistant named Morana too. Mm-hmm Morna too is to an extent an Android light creature she's human she's human consciousness, transplanted into a metal body and a creation who is very beautiful, very lethal and very mysterious. Her storyline would've been a surprise and would have opened an additional threat for a plan third season. Wow. The till doesn't say what that was, but he says we were going to have her become involved in a relationship with scout. They're both fascinated by machines. So we felt it would be interesting to throw them together and see what developed, but, and, but we're not done yet. the biggest development beyond captain powers, new vengeance attitude. Would've been the next phase of the Lord dread dreads changes were going to be considerable with his brain have been linked with over mind, dread was becoming more of a machine anyway. So we decided to take the character to the next logical step and put his human consciousness into a machine body. He would become visually more imposing, a sleek killing machine who would begin thinking more like a machine, but who's lingering sense of humanity would slowly but surely drive him mad. Dreads agenda would also change at this point. He's no longer interested in digitizing human survivors. What he wants to do is wipe them out over mind was also going to. Beefed up. He was going to come to the four in the second season, unveil a hidden agenda and make it plain that he is the one running things. Fantastic, man, like make this right. They were gonna take right. They were gonna take this series to a whole new level of insane awesomeness that no one was prepared for. Like as a kid, I wouldn't even know what to think. No, it was not a kid show. I'm re I'm I'm going through this. I'm like, this is just a bad ass show for anybody who likes sci-fi it makes me upset that it never, we never got this second season, man. But remember when we were at ComicCon in 2016, there was captain power, Phoenix rising. There was a panel for it. I know we couldn't, we couldn't get to it in time. What, but the, the trailer was released. There's a trailer online. You can watch for it. It's out there. Yeah. It's a teaser. I know, but if we could have, we were just, but what would it, what would they have done with it? And would've been, would it have been as good as this? Like, would they have gotten these same writers to come back and develop this story? Cuz the reason why this story is so good is because of the talented writers they actually had on this show. And I don't know if anyone else could have pulled it off the way that they pulled off the first season. Well, Goddard was involved. He was the showrunner of it. Sure. He had the keys in his hands to drive this vehicle into the future, but we never got it. Never got it. I'm sorry. A lot of what it could have should have in this one, but damn it would've been fun. Ah, it would've been awesome. There's so much. That was just there's. So like they were gonna flip the show on its head with season two, like wow, amazing. Amazing. And I it's so sad that we're, it's so sad that we're never gonna see it, like only right. You can only live it through these descriptions and it sounds so badass. I'd watch that. I'd definitely watch that right now. A couple other things they were gonna do with the second season, they were going to cut down the battle scenes mm-hmm and the battle sequences mm-hmm in favor of story. They wanted the stories to take precedence. like, that's what they were going for. And I would've happily loved to see that. It's like, it's kind of exactly what, like what battle star Galacia did. Right. I mean, I guess they set the standard for other shows to use and jump off of. Yeah. There are some people that think that, Mattel forced them to have a certain number of interactive scenes right. In the show. Right. but when talking about it do till kind of clears the record on that scene. Forest is not a good word. we were given parameters of having a minimum of one minute and a maximum of three minutes of interactivity per episode, because of the technology involved, it proved easier to incorporate the interactivity over battle sequences. And some episodes, we were told that some battle scenes would be necessary and that meant in some cases, story elements had to go. Most of those involved with the show, weren't happy with the interactivity at all. We would all be thrilled to do this show without the interactivity now that we were all away from Mattel. And I agree, like I said earlier, the show never needed that, but right. That's what funded the first season. That's how they got that first season made. one to three minutes of action scenes for people or for kids to like shoot at the TV. That's not too bad. No, that's really not bad at all. That's 1, 3, 1 to three minutes. and if that's all they had to give up to get$1 million per episode that makes this show, they shouldn't have been complaining. Let's be honest, just do it right. But, but I see what they wanna do. And I, and I like the, I like the fact that they were really wanted to just really dig deep into the story and into these characters and their lore. Like, that's what they found. Interesting. And as a kid, I didn't find that stuff interesting. But now I find it fascinating and I'm like, my mind is blowing up all over the place. As I watch these episodes. I'm like, this is amazing. right. And I, and it's like, I'm rediscovering something. It's almost like I had never watched the shows before. Like, I feel like I'm watching them for the first time. It feels that way. Like, cuz I never paid attention to the stories before. Yeah. I paid attention to the scenes. I was like, I was watching this cool eye candy, you know, right after that shooting dude sounds explosions. Explosions. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was amazing. But now when I'm watching it, like I just found myself most of the time, if I find a show boring or if I'm not into it, I'm just watching it to watch it. I'll play it on my phone or I'll talk to somebody. But I found myself phone down, involved in the show going, wow. Yeah. Good job on these guys. Like it was so good. I mean even the poor quality of YouTube right now, I, I it's a little distracting, but the storyline itself made it interesting and their dialogue made it fun. Yeah. And the till also goes on to explain. That over the course of that first season, it did get away from its kid's show label. Right. He says, but I think we got the adult side of the show across more often than people might think, which is 100% true. He says, you've gotta remember that we were saddled with the worst title for a TV show ever created. However, yeah, we were also dedicated to doing a show that the kids would watch, but that would be geared totally towards an adult science fiction fan. We always had the robot blasting for the kids, but the stories were definitely adult in nature. You can see by what I've told you so far, that the second season was going to be even more adult and yes, it was, ah, he also said there is the possibility of a, and this was, this interview was a, was a while ago, but he said there is the possibility of a TV movie. If somebody doesn't pick up the check for a second season, there are certain second season episodes that could be restructured into something that would effectively tie up the stories loose ends before Mattel pulled the plug. We had also begun discussing a possible third season, but none of that is on paper. It's all in my head. And I really don't see the point of going into specifics about another loss season, but the possibilities were endless. We might have even taken the show into outer space, which is the natural progression of that. Yep. Wanna know what the worst part about it watching the first season and then getting to that end and not being able to move the story forward is very, very distressing So in that sentence, he says the third season only lives in his head, correct? Yeah. Yeah. We lost Larry Dillo I know in 2019, I know. So there goes those third season, there goes, but yeah, the third season's gone, but they've got the second season somewhere. We need to find the second season. Well, it's not, hasn't been made. Someone's gotta make it. Well, it's been written. They've all been written. Yeah. Where are they? Does anyone have those scripts still? Like, someone's got to, ah, man, there's two. He gave us too much detail in his descriptions for each episode and for each character arc for not to be written down somewhere. Yeah. Dang it. I know. Anyway, that's captive power and the soldiers of the future. If you have not watched this show or you don't remember it, or you just haven't watched it since you were a kid revisit it, you're gonna be pleasantly surprised. I mean, sure. It ends and we don't have any continuing story, but man, they really did some great stuff with this. And, and I'm so glad that we saw those toys to remind us that the show existed. absolutely. And I didn't realize how many toys there were for this show. I knew the action figures and I knew the small tank. I knew the ship, but there was things in there that I was like, what? I didn't know. There was a so on action figure. I didn't have it. I thought I had'em all, but I was like, this guy was very proud of his collection and I was very upset at his collection cuz I didn't have it. Yeah. And there's some like fun dialogue in it too, man. And I think I want to get to the quotes here since we're gonna get into the dialogue, it's just funny to watch, like there's this scene where scout, it just like in the first episode. This is just a funny one that made me laugh. So they're out on their mission at the beginning of the show and scout says clear the door and count to five. And then scout goes, what are three, five he like, says it so fast. And it was so funny, clear to the door, count the 5 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Well, cuz yeah, he just had tripped the alarm, all the robots inside the facility were coming after him. So he said set the alarm and count to five. And that's what we got. It was fantastic. It was so funny. It was, it was great. Is there a quote that you liked, Billy? Okay, so it gets, so when you're talking about the blind art artist, her name is Jessica Morgan, right? Yeah. And she is with captain power at the end and, he was power was supposed to kill dread at the point, but he got her instead and he's taking her back and, as tanks trying to pick him up, Jessica says he offers me nothing, his world, but in my mind, Is the world that it was mine is better, is a better world. And the one you live in captain, I wish you could see it. Yes. And tanks like jump strips on our way where's dread. And here we go with the deep writing again, power just says alone, just leave. Like, no matter how massive he makes his empire, he's always gonna be alone. Yeah. I was like, dang, good job bro. Yeah. Deep stuff. There's there's a, there's amused. One Uhhuh. Landry is talking about the Workman and he says they object to being blindfolded before they're brought in. I can't say much. I like it either. Dr. Stewart power says, well then double their salary. Double yours too. If you like money, won't be much soon. Anyway. yeah, he knew he destroyed the world. He'd brought it down. He's doing the best he could to save it. There's a great quote from, um, there's a conversation between, Saron and power or Saron says, oh, he the younger one younger power. Yeah. and he said, Soran says, I have come for you. And power says, who are you state your purpose? I am, sir. I am forced the will of the machine. Are you a biom limited intelligence or can you think reason? Soran yes. I think first there was darkness, but now I think all the time I fight and I think I fly and I think, and I listen to the voices and I find something in my program. I do not understand. There is something in the dark, just a great right thought provoking quote, like what kid show, like, how's that kind of like riding in it? Yeah. I mean, and that's what we're talking about. It's, there's some funny parts, you know, like mostly come from scout when he's doing his thing. but it's the deep, the, the quality of the lines that we're getting at that it just make it that good of a show. Yeah, man, I'm just kind of going through these, like, Conversation between line and Taggart and over mind where, uh, Taggart says, I hurt over mind, says a remnant of your past. Now you are one step closer to the ideal. The machine is in you and you are in the machine. Taggart replies. His cyborg face appears on the screen. My Face. Sorry, says it dwells quite dread on you. It, it dwells quite dread on all who oppose the will of the machine Taggart. Yes. Dread over mind. Emotions are the enemy of order. You are now one of us immortal. Perfect. Lord dread says, yes, I understand. The past is gone from this day on Lyman. Taggar is dead and Lord dread lives. That is my command. Oh. it's so awesome. Anyway, watch this show guys. It's it's great, thank you for listening to our latest episode of secret level, where we discussed captain power and the soldiers of the future. This was a wonderful series to revisit very unexpected. I did not expect to love it as much as I did I, man. So watch it. Uh, don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Our handles are at GT secret level on both of those. Uh, leave a review, leave some comments, discuss some things, make some recommendations, have some fun with us. Be cool. Be awesome. Be alive. Live your life. Wow, that was inspirational. And until next time. Good journey everybody. Good journey. Good, good journey. How does it feel to be running out of life? Wait, wait. I'm not quite dead yet. I am not quite dead yet. That was creepy. Watch captain power and the soldiers of the future. Watch captain power and the soldiers of the future. You should watch captain power and the soldiers of the future. You should watch captain power and the soldiers of the future. Watch captain power. Yeah. Watch. 10 power. Yeah, you're gonna love it. You're gonna love captain power. You're gonna love, you're gonna love captain power. Watch captain power and not soldier. So the future. Yeah. Watch captain power and the soldiers of the future. Watch captain power and the soldiers of the future. Watch captain. That's it. That's the best song I've ever heard. Goodnight. Good night.