Captain Power - The Complete Series DVD Box Set | Action-Packed Sci-Fi Adventure | Perfect for Collectors & Sci-Fi Fans | Great for Binge-Watching & Gift Giving

OMG, I thought this day would never come.Firstly, I'd like to say when I got this boxed set, Parts 1 and 2 of "The Summoning of Thunder" absolutely refused to play. Amazon had already sent out my replacement copy before I had my mailing label printed out to return the poorly functioning set back. The replacement set works fine, big kudos for a trouble free exchange with amazon.Now back to the series...When this series first came out, like a lot of other sci-fi fans, I was chased away by the title. Then I heard reviews and decided I had to watch for myself,...and was I ever glad I did. The storytelling was amazing and created a Nazi era style world of machines bent on the destruction of all flesh and emotion.In the distant future, wars were fought by robots called bio-mechs. Human casualties became virtually non-existent which made war commonplace and easy. Enter Captain Power's Father, Dr Stuart Gordon Power and Dr Power's friend and colleague Dr Lyman Taggart. Their plan was to create a supercomputer named Overmind that could override and take control of all the warring biomechs on the planet, thus ending all war once and for all. But where Dr Power felt more testing was necessary, Taggart impatiently went behind his back and hooked himself up to Overmind. The experience changed both Taggart and Overmind, and the next day bio-mechs were marching into cities worldwide.The series was the first to have CGI characters. For those used to the Digital age with smoother looking integrations of computer animation with real life, this is the series that started it all. Younger impatient types might call it cheap or even primitive, but they weren't generating the CGI characters of this series with the small hand held devices we have today. It took hard work, multiple camera angles, and multiple, slower, computers.The fight scenes were also not the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon kind of today. It was the 80's afterall. But the storytelling came from the likes of J Michael Straczynski (Babylon Five), Gerry Davis (the original 1963 Dr Who), Larry Ditillio (He-Man, Shera, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, B5, Bionic 6...take your pick), Christy Marx (JEM, B5, GI Joe, and the 1978 Fantastic Four), and Gary Goddard (Star Trek...the ORIGINAL Star Trek).These same writers would go on to write the (at the time) new Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5 series. And you see hints of Captain Power in those series. People look at Lord Dread and comment on how he looks exactly like a Borg. Why did they copy from Star Trek, is what is often asked. They didn't. Dread came first, the Borg second. People were digitized in Captain Power first, assimilated by the Borg later on. When Tank talks about his escape from the genetic engineering lab, the name of the lab is Babylon 5.And then there are storylines with horror taken from history...mass genocide of humanity, a Dread Youth, much like the Hitler Youth, people being taken to places they don't come back from...in the episode "Pariah", Mitch talks about being in a lab where he was experimented on with others, and where he saw lifeless bodies being carried out, never to be seen again. In the episode "Judgment", Pilot confronts her former life as a member of the Dread Youth and the uniform she used to wear. She is put on trial by a group of townspeople who survived the fiery destruction of her first outing with her Dread Unit. Like Holocaust survivors pointing out Nazi oppressors, "It was you...It was you." There was an unaired, unproduced episode that had Dread ordering the burning of all books, destroying human culture. Historical memories with a very personal, emotional touch. That is what made this series great.This packet does have some equally nice gems in it. The Making of Captain Power (Out of the Ashes) had fantastic info of behind the scenes of the first season and what was contemplated if a second season were produced.There is also an original, unaired (in the US) TV movie called "The Legend Begins." Essentially it is the entire first season compressed into a movie format. It's very rough editting, and Soaron has a different sounding voice, but it has some interesting moments. There are two in particular:1. In Retribution Pt II, after giving false info to the Power team on orders of Lord Dread, Locke strikes the Overunit Commander. Locke's obviously disgusted with the betrayal he just committed but we don't know why. In the unaired movie, Locke asks the Overunit commander, "What about my kids?" It's a bit hard envisioning Locke married, never mind with kids, but interesting none the less.2. At the very end of Retribution Pt II, we see Pilot finally confess her love to Jon Power as she presses the self destruct blowing up the Power base, destroying Blastarr, and keeping resistance info out of Dread's hands. What we don't see in that episode, but do in the unaired movie, is Jon Power responding to Pilot over the com silently mouthing the words "I love you" just as Pilot blows up the Power Base.Gary Goddard has hinted that one day Captain Power might return as a TV series or movie...half of me is excited at the prospect, the other half leary given some of the horrible remakes I have seen. But I have also seen the proposed storylines if the second season were produced, and I would love to see this series return, if it lives up to the original.Power On.