"Captain Power" to return as "Phoenix Rising"

[Agent Richard07]

Ian Keldon wrote:

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Get it on DVD if you can...

Didn't know it was released on DVD. I just ordered it. I got into the show a year or two after it was cancelled and loved it. I remember trying to find the Pilot action figure (Jessica Steen's character) without any luck. Then last year thanks to eBay, I finally got it. After all the effort I put in two decades ago, I just had to.

Christopher wrote:

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I mainly remember Captain Power for the cast...

The entire cast is still active and doing quite well. Tim Dunigan though, has left acting. He's a loan officer now. Click here.

[RAMA]

Not a great show overall, but the plot was kind of dark for the time...humanity destroyed by robots and cyborgs and waging a partially super-powered rebellion on them. I recall loved ones lost, team members dying and so on. I also recall it had some cool cgi robots before texture mapping, but at least they moved and weren't stop motion.

Lots of potential for some up to date transhumanist commentary here, as the wiki entry suggests, though no doubt it'll probably be all be negative and evil:

The supercomputer, OverMind, required an equivalent to human brain patterns to become operational. Dr. Power's closest associate, Dr. Lyman Taggart (David Hemblen), became impatient with the slow pace of the project and hooked himself up to OverMind, using his own brain patterns to bring the supercomputer to operational status.
Both Taggart and OverMind were changed by the experience. Taggart became obsessed with the precision and "perfection" of machines and convinced himself that the next step in human evolution involved the merging of human consciousness in perfect mechanical bodies. OverMind became sentient and shared Taggart's beliefs. Using OverMind to take control of Bio-Mech armies throughout the world, Taggart launched a crusade to bring his vision to life. In mere months, the world was devastated by the Metal Wars, an apocalyptic conflict between Taggart's machine legions and the rest of humanity.

RAMA

[Ian Keldon]

^So what? Why SHOULD man throw away his humanity to become "one with the machine"? I have yet to see any Transhumanist demonstrate that his philosophy in any way represents a positive for humanity.

[RAMA]

Ian Keldon wrote:

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^So what? Why SHOULD man throw away his humanity to become "one with the machine"? I have yet to see any Transhumanist demonstrate that his philosophy in any way represents a positive for humanity.

Your negative connotations with the use of "throw away" are of course pretty common, and not unexpected but also a misnomer. The topic is more complex than simply man or machine, as the definition converges in transhumanism, and is also different from "posthumanism", which may be the definition you are thinking of.

Firstly, man as we would expect him to be for thousands of years biologically, is finite, and not capable of dealing with the advances in the world technologically on an equal level without an "upgrade". As Stephen Hawking suggests, we have ended normally biological evolution already, it's now in the hands of directed human intelligence, both in the biotech and hardware arenas as well as software an AI. These elements are already in play, and nothing other than natural Earthly disaster or worldwide totalatarianism can stop it. Just as men have applied science and technology to improving our lot in life (electricity, fire, materials science, agriculture, et al) we are applying it for our own improvement, possibly eradicating disease, poverty, hardship...all worthy goals of any endeavor and hardly lacking in good reasons for transhumanism as you state...it goes even deeper..questions of intelligence, human thought and attitudes would likely change if they could be backed up, exchanged in different substrates, and especially if intermingled with humanity as a whole, would our perceptions change? Would our differences disappear? Would a Borg consciousness appear or would it be a good thing...mutual understanding amongst all? Those questions have yet to be answered but are equally as likely in my book.

One of the major reasons to WANT to be transhuman, and beyond is the likelihood that AI may not be benevolent on it's own, we would want to mitigate this possibility with our own "uplifting" to an AI state...still human (humanity) which would retain human thought process, possibly emotions, and desires as opposed to solely machine AI directives. Any AI that does not contain these is posthuman. The event that might bring about such a clash is predicted to happen mathematically based on accelerated change, and may occur within the lifetimes of the younger members of this BB.

As the great short film True Skin shows, this transition will not be without drawbacks, natural humans may well be less desirable at some point, there will be a period of destabilization no doubt, both with economies and other human endeavors. It's worth exploring...as the new Captain Power series develops, they could explore this too, the original plot line contains such ideas. I reject the notion that there are only negative outcomes to a "better" human, using directed reason as a tool.


RAMA

[Forbin]

MilleniumLance wrote:

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wasnt this show ran by the people who eventually made Babylon 5 cant remember

Yes, as noted in the very first post in this thread.

[RAMA]

There's info on the official site of Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens

http://www.reeves-stevens.com/Phoenix_Rising.html

The Singuarity is coming..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iE9...ayer_embedded#!

[Owain Taggart]

That looks a lot like a Borg in that clip.

[C.E. Evans]

I had the Captain Power and Soaron action figures as a kid, but I really didn't think too much about the show itself.

Admiral2 wrote:

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Honestly, I only watched that show back then to see the boobs molded into Jessica Steen's armor.

It's sad that her boob armor is the thing that I remember the most about the show. I recall thinking that it took guts for her to wear it on the show.

[Anwar]

Owain Taggart wrote:

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That looks a lot like a Borg in that clip.

IIRC, the Borg's appearance may have been partly inspired by Lord Dread from the original series.

[Admiral2]

C.E. Evans wrote:

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I had the Captain Power and Soaron action figures as a kid, but I really didn't think too much about the show itself.

It's sad that her boob armor is the thing that I remember the most about the show. I recall thinking that it took guts for her to wear it on the show.

Very true. What makes it really sad is that when she guested on Stargate as the first Dr. Weir and I had to look her up to find out where I'd seen her before, the boob armor is the first thing I thought of when I found out. I don't recall seeing her in anything else.

[Anwar]

At least hers was actual armor that totally covered, instead of the usual chainmail bikinis you see on female warriors.

[doubleohfive]

I remember two things from this show. Jessica Steen was in it before she became a real actress on Earth 2 and 2) One of the toy jets from this show wound up in Star Trek Generations.

[Christopher]

doubleohAHHHHHH!!!!! wrote:

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Jessica Steen was in it before she became a real actress on Earth 2....

She was already a "real actress." She'd been in the business six years and had a couple of dozen screen credits to her name by the time Captain Power came along, and that doesn't even count her first screen acting credit at the age of eight. She also had over a dozen more credits between Captain Power and Earth 2, including a regular role on the series Homefront for two whole seasons.

[doubleohfive]

Christopher wrote:

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She was already a "real actress." She'd been in the business six years and had a couple of dozen screen credits to her name by the time Captain Power came along, and that doesn't even count her first screen acting credit at the age of eight. She also had over a dozen more credits between Captain Power and Earth 2, including a regular role on the series Homefront for two whole seasons.

Not that I don't appreciate the A&E Biography, Chris... I was being facetious.

[Admiral_Young]

Just saw the youtube video. This is exciting. I had the Captain Power figure along with the Power Chamber when I was a kid. I think my friend had the jet...we would go over to his house to watch the show.