Posted on 07/20/2011 2:03:40 PM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative
“By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!” That's right, the blue-skinned, green-haired, eco-friendly superhero may eventually be coming to a movie theater near you in a live-action feature film.
A press release on Tuesday from Stuart Snyder, president and COO of Turner Broadcasting System Inc.'s Animation, Young Adults and Kids Media division, says that Cartoon Network has struck a development agreement with Angry Filmworks to begin working on the film.
“The messages of Captain Planet are even more relevant today,” said Snyder. “We feel this team can bring the world’s first eco-hero to life in a powerful motion picture that is not only pertinent but entertaining.”
The original cartoon show, “Captain Planet and the Planeteers,” began in 1990 and featured a group teens who each received a ring, with each ring containing a different power. When they combined their powers in the air (via beams of light that came out of their rings) Captain Planet appeared and fought the bad guys who proved to be hazards to the environment. Once he successfully defeated his eco-foes, he would return to the rings and allude to the teen characters' responsibility to help the Earth, saying, “The power is yours!”
Ted Turner partnered with DIC Enterprises to create the original show as a means of informing young viewers about serious environmental issues. At the end of each show the characters offered practical advice, like making sure garbage makes it into a receptacle as opposed to throwing it on the ground, in order to show kids that they too could help the environment.
Angry Filmworks now has the exclusive rights to develop and package the property and move it closer to production, and notable producers Don Murphy and Susan Montford will be taking up the project. Murphy, notably, was a producer for the “Transformers” movie franchise, while Montford worked alongside him and Executive Producer Steven Spielberg on an upcoming Hugh Jackman film called “Real Steel.”
“We are extremely excited about bringing the good Captain back to life,” said Murphy. “His adventures are known worldwide and he is recognized across generations. We expect to make a spectacular series of films with the amazing team at Cartoon Network.”
“With the earthquakes, tornadoes, melting icebergs and all the other problems threatening the world right now, Earth really needs her greatest defender,” said Montford.
The Captain Planet cartoon series lasted six full seasons during its original run. It featured a number of celebrity voices, including Whoopi Goldberg (Gaia), Martin Sheen (Sly Sludge), Meg Ryan (Dr. Blight), and Sting (Zarm). “Captain Planet and the Planeteers” also received several Daytime Emmy nominations and won multiple Environmental Media Awards.
No matter what job that guy has, he’s in danger of losing it. Unless of course he works for the government, where weird people predominate.
But who can save Captain Planet from the fiery inferno of the burning box office?!?!
The polluted stink of sub-par tickets sells? The crashing tsunami of movie-goer indifference?
The violent earth-shaking quake of stampeding feet to the theater next door showing anything else, even another Dreamworks animation crap-fest?
HAHA! I will happily watch from my villainous lair as Captain Planet unleashes a collective gaping yawn that paralyzes jaws around the world!!!
Signed,
Sergeant Schadenfreude
Star Blazers and Battle Of The Planets were big favorites of mine. One good short lived American cartoon was the Planet Of The Apes.
I would take a live action movie of Space Ghost if it stayed with that mentality.
The Batman / Superman TAS of the 90s were really good.
Back in the 80s, GI Joe RAH was fairly good. One some of the commentaries with the writers, Hasbro dicated a lot of the near misses and such.
GI Joe Renegades, considering today’s society and what can be crammed into a half hour show isn’t bad. People have actually died sometimes violently. The Baroness is big improvement and the Cobra Commander is way darker, and Dr. Mindbender is interesting. I also like the new spin on the Crimson Twins.
I watched this when I was 11 years old. I could barely sit through an entire episode. I thought it was just because I was really starting to outgrow cartoons. There was one episode I remember. It was about two tribes, presumably in Africa. There was an arms trader who would convince the chiefs to buy this huge military machine to protect them from the other tribe. It was also implied that the tribes spent their food money on these machines. Of course at the end Captain Planet had to step in and destroy these machines and stop the inevitable war between the tribes.
I hate Cartoon Network. They are corrupters of children, the sewage of “entertainment.”
Not only is the guy in that picture gay, he is illiterate. He spelled it “captian” gay.
I’m not into anime, but the Japanese sure made some brilliant cartoons in the 60s/70s. Speed Racer I also liked. It was so well written, with fascinating plot lines. I particularly liked the episode where they race through a mountain that opens up every hundred years and they only have a certain amount of time before the mountain closes again. As a kid I always wondered why Speed wore a shirt with a “G” on it. But it’s because his Japanese name began with it.
All the old Hanna-Barbara action cartoons from the 60’s were awesome, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, Herculoids, Mightor, Dino Boy, many others. Many of the characters were designed by Alex Toth. It was just about entertaining kids, with no brainwashing “learning” crap thrown in for their own good.
Freegards
Those were the days!
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