"Captain Power" to return as "Phoenix Rising"

[Ian Keldon]

This would be mega cool if they can pull it off.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/58689

Captain Power, for those of you not old enough to remember it, was a late 80s half-hour live action sci-fi show written for the YA audience. You could buy toys that interacted with the tv show while you watched it.

The toys were crap, the show was too expensive for the studio and considered too dark by parents, so it only got one season.

Nontheless, it has a good cult following due in large part to it's strong, character-driven writing. Many of the scripts were written by J Michael Straczinsky (later of B5 fame) himself.

The reboot project is being helmed in part by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, who (along with Many Coto) almost managed to save Enterprise, and are considered strong writers and showrunners.

I really hope they can pull this off, as it would be a blast to see CP done with todays special FX...

More on Captain Power here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Power_and_the_Soldiers_of_the_Future

 

[Admiral2]

Honestly, I only watched that show back then to see the boobs molded into Jessica Steen's armor. I didn't find the show itself that impressive.

 

[Kegg]

I've heard of this show mostly because it was something JMS had worked on in the past. Scanning the wikipedia page, I note other future B5 hands - Doug Netter, Larry DiTillio... even Marc Scott "I have a kickstarter project now" Zicree.

I like the Reeves-Stevens (who doesn't?) and Manny Coto well enough, but I'd wait to see what this new show actually looks like before venturing any hopeful opinions.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Eh, the show wasn't that great. You could tell it was mostly a vehicle to sell toys. I wonder if they'll bring back the toys too?

 

[Ian Keldon]

I've heard of this show mostly because it was something JMS had worked on in the past. Scanning the wikipedia page, I note other future B5 hands - Doug Netter, Larry DiTillio... even Marc Scott "I have a kickstarter project now" Zicree.

I like the Reeves-Stevens (who doesn't?) and Manny Coto well enough, but I'd wait to see what this new show actually looks like before venturing any hopeful opinions.

Just to clarify: I didn't mean to imply that Coto was involved with Phoenix Rising, only that he had collaborated with the Reeves-Stevenses on Enterprise.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I've no recollection of this show. Of course at the time I didn't pay much attention to kid's shows, even those with a SF angle.

 

[Ian Keldon]

^Get it on DVD if you can, from the library if you don't want to risk money on it.

It's VERY adult in many aspects, including major character death, which simply wasn't done on youth programming back then.

 

[JD]

I've never heard of this before, but it looks like it could be pretty cool. I'm gonna have to check out the original version sometime. The fact that the Reeves-Steven couple is involved gives me hope that the reboot could be good.

 

[Christopher]

I mainly remember Captain Power for the cast, which included Tim Dunigan (the original Faceman in the A-Team pilot, replaced by Dirk Benedict), Jessica Steen (the original Dr. Elizabeth Weir in Stargate, replaced by Torri Higginson -- sensing a trend here), and Sven-Ole Thorsen (Arnold Schwarzenegger's trainer). Oh, and the really cheesy CGI monsters you were supposed to shoot with the toys. I guess they were technically innovative for the day, but even then they looked kind of silly. I do remember the writing being fairly smart, though.

 

[MilleniumLance]

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

 

[Guy Gardener]

I watched a few episodes recently.

Horrifying.

Even if it was made for children, no one did anything for logical reasons.

Maybe it got better, but everytime I watch some this bad i used to think was cool i doubt my youngerselfs choices and beliefs.

Saw Jessica on Supernatural recently. Thought she was still quite attractive, however the Winchesters were treating her like some ones mum when they should have been making googoo eyes.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Jessica Steen (the original Dr. Elizabeth Weir in Stargate, replaced by Torri Higginson

THAT'S where I saw her! I knew I'd seen her in something else but couldn't for the life of me remember where (and was too lazy to look it up).

Oh, and the really cheesy CGI monsters you were supposed to shoot with the toys. I guess they were technically innovative for the day, but even then they looked kind of silly.

They don't age well, that's for sure.

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

J Michael Straczinski was one of the big writers on CP, and of course was the showrunner on B5.

 

[Christopher]

Wasn't Phoenix Rising a working title for Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda at one point? Or a working title for something. Anyway, I'm sure it's been the title of many things over the centuries.

 

[Ian Keldon]

^Dunno.

 

[Pindar]

I had a vhs of this in the early 90's, I thought it was awesome.

Id certainly give a reboot a chance.

 

[Agent Richard07]

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.

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]

^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]

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.