Friday, April 8, 2011

Hero Profile: Ultraman Great


Ultraman: Towards the Future is a 13 episode series produced in 1990 in Australia by the South Australian Film Corporation and Japan's Tsuburaya Productions (the creators of the Ultraman character). The first 6 episodes were the "Goudes Threat" story arc. Distributed in the United States by Sachs Family Entertainment, the show was broadcast in weekly syndication from 4 January to 28 March 1992. Although simply called "Ultraman" in the original Australian version, he is called "Ultraman Great" in Japan to differentiate him from the established original Ultraman. At the time, eco-awareness was at a high, and many episodes included environmental themes. Ultraman's three minute time limit is also attributed to "Earth's polluted atmosphere" in this version.

Jack Shindo and Stanely Haggard are members of the first manned expedition to Mars, and on the red planet find a giant slug-like monster, Goudes/Gudis. Suddenly the giant warrior, Ultraman, arrives and fights Goudes, but is knocked down for a period. Shindo is pinned by a rockslide and Haggard tries to escape in their ship but is blown up by Gudis. It is then that Ultraman gets up, and when he is on the verge of victory Goudes changes into a virus and travels to Earth, where it mutates other creatures into monsters and awakens existing ones.

Needing a human host to survive on Earth, Ultraman joins with Jack, allowing him to become the mighty alien when all seems lost. He joins the Universal Multipurpose Agency, or UMA, in order to help them battle the monsters. Halfway through the series a new Goudes, more powerful than the first, appears. It imprisons Ultraman, but Jack ultimately shows it the futility of its mission. Even if it does manage to corrupt all life, eventually there will be nothing else to corrupt, and Goudes is destroyed once and for all. For the rest of the series the environmental themes are stronger and the monsters usually arise from human pollution.

In the series finale, a doomsday scenario begins with the appearance of three powerful monsters: Kilazee, Kodalar, and the Earth itself, which tries to wipe out the human race for abusing it. Ultraman is defeated by Kodalar, but Jack survives. Ultimately the humans use an ancient disc to destroy Kodalar by reflecting its own power at it and Ultraman defeats Kilazee and carries it into space, separating Jack from him and restoring him on Earth as a normal human. The victory is seen as another chance for the human race.

Dore Kraus as Jack Shindo

Picture of him with a fan.

1 comment:

Mr.Randy said...

Oh man I miss this movies, do you know where I can download them?