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TV shows from our childhood that deserve modern-day remakes

TV shows from our childhood that deserve modern-day remakes

The ’80s and ’90s were rife with television shows that inspired a generation of children. Among them, Power Rangers has already gotten its gritty movie remake, Captain Planet is in the hands of Oscar-winner (finally) Leonardo DiCaprio, Masters of the Universe is in the works and we can’t wait to see what Kevin Smith does with Gargoyles.

Others, such as G.I. Joe, Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, have already seen their time on the big screen, while a rarer few have been remade for a new generation, such as Thundercats.

Let’s not forget the Super Friends, which was the childhood version of the current DC universe, and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and the X-Men cartoon series, all of which are successful in their own ways (look, Suicide Squad won an Oscar).

However, there’s still an entire trove of classic cartoons that we think deserve their own time to shine. Here are some candidates, in no particular order.

M.A.S.K.

M.A.S.K. was one of those franchises created to sell toys, and what cool toys they were. The main plot revolved around a secret task force called M.A.S.K., or the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand, and their battle against the evil organisation V.E.N.O.M. (Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem). Okay, so their names could do with an update, but anyone who remembers M.A.S.K. will surely remember their cool vehicles which could transform from ordinary civilian models into armed military vehicles. And their masks, of course.

Centurions: Power Xtreme

A trio (and later, quintet) of men fighting the evil Doc Terror (really, they had naming issues), the Centurions wore coloured exo-frames that allowed them to “fuse” with military equipment and become actual living weapons (yeah, take a cue, Iron Fist). Each member had their specialty – Max Ray with the green suit was the underwater guy, Jake Rockwell in yellow was their land expert, Ace McCloud with his blue frame covered the aerial angle. The two later additions, Rex Charger and John Thunder, wore red/green and black, respectively. Yes, their exo-frames will probably need an update, but if the concept artists can do it with the Power Rangers, they can do it with the Centurions.

Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light

Visionaries is set on Prysmos, a planet where all electronics have been EMP’d (electromagnetically pulsed) to the great beyond and society now needs to rely on magic. The Visionaries are those who have been given the power to channel their inner animal totems by the wizard Merklynn (yes, yes, names again). Some Visionaries also had a staff that could be activated to cast magical spells, while others could imbue vehicles with magic. They were divided into the Spectral Knights and the Darkling Lords – and no one gets a prize for guessing who the bad guys were. The series itself lasted less than a year, with only 13 episodes, but come on, how could you deny advanced civilisation magic knights a chance at another life?

Dino-Riders

Another short-lived series, Dino-Riders involved a war between the human-looking Valorians and the Rulons, presumably cousins of the lizard-people living under the Earth’s crust waiting to take over the planet. In their attempt to escape, the Valorians rip a hole in time and end up on prehistoric Earth, where they realise they’re better Dino-whisperers than Chris Pratt in Jurassic World. The Rulons, on the other hand, slap brain-washing devices onto the dinos to subjugate them. Both sides then arm their dinos with military hardware, and that is all you really need to know to want this to be remade. Granted, the new writers should consider which dinosaurs lived in which era (the T-rex and the Brontosaurus lived in different time periods), and they’d have to figure out how to deal with the Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals… But how could anyone but PETA say no to armed dinosaurs?

BraveStarr

In the Pen Pineapple Apple Pen of childhood shows, BraveStarr combines the allure of the American Wild West with cyborg future that inevitably awaits humanity. Marshal BraveStarr is a descendant of Native Americans who can call upon “spirit animals” to gain superpowers, in addition to all his fancy sci-fi guns. He uses these to fight the evil Tex Hex and Stampede (really, the ’80s weren’t great with names, we know). But the best part about BraveStarr isn’t its giving a minority race a leading role… it’s the horse. Yes, BraveStarr’s talking cyborg horse, Thirty/Thirty, who can turn into a more humanoid form and carries a gun he calls “Sarah Jane”. It’s a talking cyborg horse with a named gun. Seriously, why isn’t this a remake yet?

Silverhawks

The Silverhawks are a team of galactic law enforcers who are “partly metal, partly real”, fighting against the evil alien mob boss named… Mon*Star and his evil henchmen Yes-Man, Buzz-Saw, Mumbo-Jumbo, Windhammer, Mo-Lec-U-Lar, Poker-Face, Hardware and Melodia (look, we didn’t name these guys, okay?). The Silverhawks have bionic bodies and metal armour, and most of them can fly. Also, they have special weapon-birds that are exactly what they sound like – weaponised birds of doom. It’s probably interesting enough a premise, and since Warner owns the rights to the series, it might make for a change of pace from the DC film universe?

Bionic Six

Featuring a family of six who have undergone partial cyborg augmentation, Bionic Six is an American-Japanese animation that aired in the late ’80s. Fighting against a mad scientist named Doctor Scarab (see comment on names above). who wants to gain immortality and rule the world, the Bennett family included mom (Mother-1, seriously), dad (Bionic-1), son (Sport-1), daughter (Rock-1), and in the interest of diversity, an adopted African-American son (IQ) and a foster Japanese son (Karate-1, again, seriously). And the best part of the show? The family had a robotic gorilla pet called F.L.U.F.F.I.

Battletech: The Animated Series

Battletech is all about people piloting big robots, and not in a Gundam sort of way. While the mecha seen in Japanese series are usually graceful and manoeuvrable, the Mechs of Battletech are as clunky and as hard to balance as they come (think the early part of Pacific Rim). As a TV series, the Battletech shows focused on one aspect of the war between the Inner Sphere (the known galaxy) and the Clans (humans who left the known galaxy and made warfare their entire reason for existence). The Battletech universe, however, has a rich history ready for conversion into a modern-day show, tackling themes like class and race in the same breath as giant robots that shoot lasers and missiles. Also, they occasionally use jump jets to propel these giant robots into the air and land on enemy giant robots in a move known as DFA (Death From Above). Can we have that in IMAX already?

Exosquad

Another mecha show, Exosquad focused on the war between humanity and Neosapiens, a race of artificially-created beings meant to be slaves for humans (hey, at least they didn’t try to use apes with enhanced intelligence), using exoskeletons known as E-frames. Most of the humans (Terrans in the show) are affiliated with the Homeworlds, but a group of exiles living on the Outer Planets formed the Pirate Clans, who loot Homeworld ships to survive. The Neosapiens, having been created to be stronger and better able to survive hostile environments, see this opportunity to revolt again because of their poor treatment at the hands of humans. There was also a tease for a new alien race in the series, but Exosquad was cancelled before that could be made.

Mummies Alive!

Let’s be honest, Egyptian mummies get a pretty bad rep. It’s bad enough Hollywood saw fit to have Brendan “George of the Jungle” Fraser beat one of them around twice, but now they’ve even got Tom “Mission-not-so-impossible” Cruise taking on the new lady mummy played by Sofia Boutella. So in the interest of keeping things fair, why not have a superhero mummy team instead? Mummies Alive! was just that, a group of heroic mummies channeling the power of sun-god Ra to protect the reincarnation of an Egyptian pharaoh. In San Francisco. And let’s be real, Hollywood made “Gods of Egypt”…

Biker Mice from Mars

Look, if they can make a movie about the Ninja Turtles, they can jolly well do one about the Biker Mice. From Mars. These aren’t just any anthropomorphic rodents. They’re mice with six packs that would put K-pop stars to shame on bikes that would make Luke Cage go “Sweet Christmas” several times over. The series also saw a revival of sorts in 2006, which included a businessman-villain called Ronaldo Rump… who was intended to be a parody of Donald Trump.

Read also:

Meet the new Power Rangers
All the Power Rangers series from the first to now
9 TV shows from your childhood that have Japanese origins
Power Rangers features first openly gay superhero

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