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Idea: Captain Power & the Soldiers of the Future - a preservation of?

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Hey, this was a great show, circa 1987, though sadly short lived. I know there is one guy over at [site withheld in case somebody asks] who sells the episodes on a DVD (or multiple cd’s), but sadly the quality is not that great (it’s just a DVD-ROM with the avi files dumped on it, not a player playable disc), compared to what it could be for somebody capturing the VHS tapes.

My dream is to be able to pop a DVD (or two) into my player and be able to still PLAY the interactiveness with my ebay purchased powerjet…

Any takers? The quality needs to be virtually 1:1 for the flashing lights and stuff to still work and make the “game” playable. Excellent show just to watch, too. There’s 23 episodes (22 plus a blooper tape). There are also three “animated” tapes with some live action footage at the beginning. All are available on Ebay, though sadly I think only half the episodes were released on commercial NTSC and PAL. The rest are in private collections of those who taped them off TV. There are also apparently at least two “movies” created from linked together various episodes. One was official, the other was a bootlegged “alternate ending” to the first season and introducing the second, though I haven’t seen either one to know much more about them.

Captain Power was great though. Sure it was inspired by Star Wars, Terminator and Battlestar Galactica, but it also went on to inspire certain things like the look of Robo-Cop and the Borg from Star Trek TNG. Really ahead of its time, and decent budget for the time ($1 million per episode). Rather mature for a “kid’s show.”

Edit: To clarify, the “playable” parts were done by putting flashing “targets” on the bodies of enemy troops and ships, and when they fired towards the screen (in the many battle scenes in the show) they could register on your powerjet (which was essentially a lightgun you could purchase, and you can still find them on Ebay) and make the action figure fly out (eject) if you took too much damage. The animated “training videos” were more oriented towards pure play, but the TV show episodes all had playability that way. The quality needs to be good in order to be able to retain the playability, which is why I dream of a fine DVD release of this!

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You wouldn't happen to be a Highlander fan, would you?

[EDIT] Welcome to the boards, BTW. I'd like to help, but I'm already behind on projects.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Someone made a torrent for these on demonoid a while ago and there were 23 episodes. I just checked and it seems that the torrent has disappeared. I don't know much about the quality but you could request that whoever did it could post it again in the demonoid forums.

Hope this helps you out.
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There's a discount store down the street which is full of Captain Power toys, still in good shape. It's just one big vehicle, but they've got a lot of 'em.
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Sorry I didn't have a chance to respond for awhile, what is demonoid and where do I find it?

I know people have passed around a loose bunch of avi files of this, I have them. I'm more interested in somebody constructing a fan made DVD with menus and such of them, or even, if somebody has the original VHS tapes, to create some higher quality versions for such a project. I guess it helps if more people know about the lower quality mpegs out there already. Those tapes just keep on aging, I'd like to see it preserved for the fans...

And I do own some of the toys (well the PowerJet and accompanying "Training Videos" anyway). I check Ebay now and then for stuff.
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www.demonoid.com, it's a torrent site. I have all three cartoon training videos and one official release episode of the show on VHS. I was just thinking about having this on DVD the other day!
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The normal episodes combined live action with (at the time) cutting edge CGI and were interactive games as well as entertaining and often surprisingly mature-themed for a "kid's show." The interactive action meant each episode had lots of action, but always a plot (a bit rushed in the short time frame though, except for the multi-parters).

The real trick is if somebody can encode the tapes into a quality so high that you can actually use the DVD's to play the interactive stuff on a TV.

I tried to do this on my family's hardware DVD recorder with my "training videos" but I ran out of time (and accidentally put them on the "low quality" setting. They're animated, so they need high quality.

Thankfully the TV episodes are only 20 minutes long, and I believe each Training tape is like 10 minutes long. So you could max out the quality on some single layer DVD's I would think. The mpeg encodes out already are too low quality, the flashing lights drop frames and turn into solid colors, and don't work with the game.

Might want to put an epilepsy warning on these, they flash as much as a lightgun game in places, and the colors in those targets are BRIGHT!

Family Video chains still often rent the episode tapes (which are also interactive). The training videos are usually sold as a 3 tape set or with a powerjet (originally I think the powerjet came with one tape, the phantom striker.. that is the "bad guy" version came with another tape, or you could purchase them seperately). I think only half or 1/3rd of the 22 official episodes (there was also a commercially released "gag tape" which I believe was censored since there is a low quality alternate version that's shorter and has some swearing and a gay joke or two in it) were released, so any other tapes you get would have been fan dubs. But the TV show when aired like on SkyOne (?) or canadian space channel would be interactive as the day it was first aired. The 15 year old tapes I bought worked for me!

I wish they would show these on Sci-Fi, or even some HD channel, that would be totally awesome!
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I had two of the videos for sure the "Beginner" and the "Intermediate". There was an "Advanced" level that involved an assault on Lord Dredd's palace (Mount somethingerother?)

I remember finding my VHS copies sometime in the late 90s and being pretty astonished at the high-end pesudo-anime "interaction" sequences. The VHS were seperate from the series - which aired VERY early on Sunday mornings (something like 6 or 6:30). I remember always missing the show and only catching the end credits if I was lucky.

Michael Reeves, a writer who's done so much work I can't begin to place it all (Disney's Gargolyes, Star Wars books, an episode of Star Trek TNG), was a staff writer on the series. They even drew up an idea for Season 2 that went to the trash when the show was canceled, largely thanks to Parental Watchdog groups and the show's poor time placement. Siskel And Ebert actually commented on the show at one point - saying that even thought it was darker and more adult themed, it was proof that children don't need to be talked down to and were smarter than people gave them credit for. Given this is the age with He-Man (which now that we look back on it, is botom barrel trash), the fact that Captain Power had not only continuity but an actual death on the show, shows the levity they were attempting.

Also: there was to be a "Doctor Sevarious" (sp?) in season 2 - a name that was later reused in Disney's Gargolyes, voiced by Tim Curry.
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Right, and don't forget JMS was the mastermind of this series, who would later go on to do Babylon 5.

Jessica Steen hasn't done much since this except bombs and low budget movies (Armaggedon, Judgement, Left Behind: World at War, etc).

Body builder Sven-Ole Thorsen (Hunt for Red October, The Running Man) of course is in this too. And the actor who played "the cigarrette smoking man" on the X-Files is in one episode.

Lord Dredd went on to play "George" on La Femme Nikita the tv show (which I really didn't watch, only caught bits of it, but I saw the movie, which of course was totally different).


IMDB.com lists a "Captain Power: the Beginning" (aka "Against the New Order") which I never saw. Apparently it's a feature length thing that's some episodes stiched together. I wonder if there's any way somebody can release that? A bootleg was also released by someone on VHS that I never saw (but saw advertised on ebay once) called "The Return of Captain Power" or something like that. Apparently it was some kind of fan edit to bring back Pilot.
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Originally posted by: Kurgan
Right, and don't forget JMS was the mastermind of this series, who would later go on to do Babylon 5.

I actually can't stand JMS - but I'll pass over that subject for now...

Originally posted by: Kurgan
Lord Dredd went on to play "George" on La Femme Nikita the tv show (which I really didn't watch, only caught bits of it, but I saw the movie, which of course was totally different).


He also played Magento on X-Men: The Animated Series as well as ... Booth? on the syndicated "Earth: Final Conflict" for the first 3 or 4 seasons.
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I have the entire series taped in SP mode from TV repeats a few years back. Now to just get a new computer and some decent capturing gear. You folks are giving me too many ideas for preserving good old material!