Pen Pen's Evangelion
A Pen Pen for your Thoughts
This section will just be for, basically random thoughts and feelings. Since my thought process is mostly random you can probably expect this to be updated frequently. Back to Previous Pennys. Back to Pen Penny.
Captain Planet
You know what the world needs more of in this time without hope and lacking Speedo wearing heroes to stand against evil? Captain Planet, because he’s our hero, and other stuff about pollution fighting and whatnot. We all know the story, five rings being distributed seemingly at random to a bunch of teens around the world who, despite language and culture barriers that seem to be overcome immediately through pollution-fighting magic, form a cohesive team. At the head of this team is a polished blue leader, a hero, a green-haired titan, and a wearer of flaming red Speedos, Captain Planet.
The five rings representing the five elements; earth, wind, fire, water, and … heart? Okay, obviously the heart ring is kind of lame, compared to, let’s say, fire, or water, or wind, or even earth, but its still a “power” nonetheless. You can be like Cupid or something, although it’d be cool if they could control people’s hearts and make them explode or something. Together the Planeteers can call out Captain Planet to come to the rescue to solve their problems for them again and again. I wonder what being a Planeteer pays and what benefits you get, I’m sure you could get some money out of a speaking tour or two, though I don’t know if you’ll get much more than hippies to come. Do they get dental if they succeed in reducing the destruction of the rain forest or something?
According to the official website, this utterly fantastic series is “part science, part action, but always rooted in fact” Yes, villains who need radiation to survive and are themselves radioactive, rooted in fact, just look at Godzilla. Calling upon a Speedo wearing blue superhero from the middle of the earth to fight said villain, rooted in fact. Evil rat people wreaking environmental havoc (outside of Los Angeles), rooted in fact. Magical pollution-fighting powers coming out of magical rings, rooted in fact. Villains always having villainous names that betray their being evil, rooted in fact, well, that one can be argued.
“Each episode reveals some aspect of the physical effect of environmental destruction and ends with the same message,” that message being that we can always solve the problem through magic. Obviously Captain Planet is some sort of wizard who enjoys the constraints of Speedos, who knows; maybe that’s really where his powers come from. We all know that magic can only be harnessed from the flow of the ethereal forces by those who have trained to master these forces; however there seems to be an exception when it involves fighting pollution.
According to the website Captain Planet is a metaphor for teamwork or something of that nature. However, I believe Captain Planet is more suitably described as an irony, or perhaps a pun, maybe even an allusion. Ironic? Well, you see, the planet is not the “Captain” of its own destiny, and is guided by our actions as a race and cannot control us (I’m good). You see you just can’t judge how deep and philosophical the show really is by watching it at face value, its actually profound. - 9/19/04
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