Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future

Show Summary

Aired: 1987 - 1988
Show Type: Live Action
Country of Origin: US

The Plot:
In the 22nd century, mankind has fallen in the wake of The Metal Wars. Machines, led by the cyborg Lord Dread have subjugated the human population through a process called digitization. All is not lost, though. Small cells of The Resistance led by battle hardened men and women struggle to maintain their humanity both spiritually and literally. One such leader, Captain Jonathan Power of the Heroic Soldiers of the Future, and his faithful team which include Lt. "Tank" Ellis, Major "Hawk" Masterson and Jennifer "Pilot" Chase fight to preserve and eventually overcome Lord Dread and his BioDread machines.

The Story:
In 1987 Mattel created a toy tie-in series to take advantage of the sci-fi market much as He-Man had taken advantage of the fantasy market.

The products developed included standard 3.75" figures (the same size as GI Joe and Star Wars action figures of the day) with moderate articulation and made of quality plastic, each of which had vacuum-metalized armor. Released simultaneously were , beautifully designed, relatively sturdy space ships which were capable of not only housing figures, but became part of an interactive media event.

Viewers with their Powerjet XT-7's, Phantom Strikers, Interlocker and Energizer toys could play along with the televised live-action adventure which incorporated elements of early computer animation and certain other colorized animation which would interface with infrared beams fired from the ships and other accessories. This allowed players to not only acquire points for shooting certain colored objects, but to lose them from other colors and flashes of light.

On top of that, the ships and other accessories could interact with one another and players could engage in dogfights, forcing ejections if one ran out of hit points.

All in all, the elaborate series created by Mattel only fell through due to the show's cost per episode (rumored around $1 million apiece), syndication troubles and flagging toy sales.

A comic series, computer game and cult-following have developed in the years since.

Comments

rbrown26Posted: 04/20/2007

I had both jets that were guns you had to shot at you're television and if you got shot you're guy would be ejected from the jet. You had to shoot at the flashing neon pink/red on the screen. I thought it was really cool. Thank god my parents were rich and I had all these odd-bal toys.

eternalshogunxPosted: 06/02/2007

Holy Cow! I still have the ships from this series and the VHS Tapes that came with them! Wow!

dumbdonaldPosted: 01/01/2008

god did i love this show. the toys were ok.

WKBSFanPosted: 01/22/2008

I too was part of the Captain Power event! I got the PowerJet for Christmas, along with the first two episodes on VHS! A few years ago, I got a sizable collection of Captain Power action figures, an Energizer, and a PowerJet. And I found that the Energizer STILL WORKS WITH THE SIGNAL, EVEN ON THE INTERNET! I always hope that this will end up on DVD some day! POWER ON!

droopyPosted: 04/26/2008

i had the over lord his name was dred lord dred
it was called the interlocker

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