Captain Planet Reboot Thoughts

Hello, I’m Emily and Captain Planet is one of my guilty pleasures. That is probably surprises no one who has read The Blue Codex. Yes, I like watching Captain Planet both as a kid and even an adult. I think it’s just the optimism the show has. Like the people who were creating it really wanted to create a show that could change the world in some way. I admit it’s preachy and gets a lot of things wrong, but I can’t help it, I love it. So yeah, I’m excited to see how they would do a live action version with the help of Leonardo DiCaprio , and I have a few idea on how they could make it work.

Make All the Villains A Spirit Like Zarm– Okay, one of the biggest problems the show had was the fact that all the main villains were one dimensional, which really doesn’t work. According to the stuff I have read, this was actually done on purpose by the creators since they didn’t want kids to freak out if their parents were worked for some polluting factory or whose job involved damaging the environment. However, two things I noticed when watching the show. One, that villains like Doctor Blight and Lootin Plunder often had normal people working for them for sympathetic reasons like trying to provide for their families, and that the Planeteers would often have to convince them that they were working for the wrong side or that they were being short sighted. The second thing I noticed was Zarm was the scariest villain on the show probably because he has been part of every dictator in history, and his powers did allow him to do the most damage compare to the rest of the villains.  So why not make all the villains similar to  Zarm? That they are all spirits that get more powerful by people misusing science, being greedy, or feeling hatred. It makes the Planteers’ job harder because they have to convince ordinal people to listen to them, and allow more room for grey areas since they have to go in to why people are tempted to do these types of things.
Make Captain Planet Fight Only The Villains- I admit one of the things that I really didn’t like about the show was Captain Planet. He spoke way too many puns and often fixed everything at the end of the day. That is not really a good idea when your TV show is trying to tell you how fragile the environment is. But you can’t have a movie called Captain Planet without him so if you why not have him only fight spirit villains. It would make sense that the kids can’t them fight alone own without magic. It would also explain why the Planteers done’t just summon him right away since they need the help of the person who is being used by the villain. Like the person ahs to complete reject the evil. That will along with all the rings is needed to summon Captain Planet. He is the only one who can fight the villain spirit, and it would explain the limitations of the kids rings, such as why they don’t just make giant earthquakes or shoot fire at the bad guys. Most importantly, this would limit Captain Planet so that any actions that the someone does to earth can’t be easily fixed. He can be called upon by a desire to save the world, but it’s still up to the humans to fix the damage they caused.
Give All the Planeteers Backstories- I admit the show did a decent job with this. There are a number of episodes where we do focus on the Planeteers’ backstories and why they care about certain things. However, certain things were left out like what countries Kwame, Ma-Ti, and Gi were form! We know the continents they are from, but not their countries. In fact, I’m not sure what country Linka was actually from because she was from the Soviet Union, but then it broke up during the show’s run so they changed her to being from Eastern Europe. So the movies need to show what countries these kids are actually from, not to mention how their family and friends react to them being planeteers.
Include Both Environment and Social Issues- Contrary to what many people think, the show did focus on an number of social issues such as war, bigotry, drugs, and even AIDs. And since many of those were my favorite episodes I hope the movie makers don’t forget to include them.
Keep The Show’s Optimism- This maybe the most important thing because the whole motive for even making the show was to encourage kids to help save the world. Now the movie needs to be honest in that it is a hard thing to do and complex issues involving that, but it shouldn’t make those issues seems hopeless or impossible because in spite what a lot of people say, they are not. People can change the world for the better. People have been working to do that since the dawn of time. It can dangerous and often people will look down on you for even trying, but I truly believe that it is something we are all called to do. Even if it’s only in the littlest of ways. So the movie should be complex, yes, but it can’t be hopeless. That would be the ultimate betrayal to the franchises.

So what do you all think? Are you excited for the new Captain Planet Movie? What do you hope to see it in? Let me know in the comments below.