Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero

I grew up watching 1980s scifi TV. So, this was not as good.

Although, it suffered from poor acting, fans will be treated to some notable guest actors. Jeffrey Combs and J. G. Hertzler were both from Star Trek. There were cameo appearances from Bill Mumy and Rose Marie.

The monster designs were definitely cool. Not quite Jurassic Park level FX, but it was moving in the right direction. How it stood out from its source material was in the battles. Someone decided that not all the monsters had to die.

I would have loved to know how the team knew of the monsters.

Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero could have been a game-changer in the Ultraman franchise. The first (and so far, only) live-action Ultraman series to be filmed in the United States, and only the second to feature a cast of English-speaking actors, the show could have opened up the world of Ultraman to the lucrative American market that has long dismissed this world famous hero due to sometimes cheesy and irreverent dubbing.

The Ultimate Hero has all the standard characteristics that make a good Ultraman show. A titanic alien hero bonds with a human partner who works for a scientific investigative team with high tech vehicles and weapons. The team regularly encounters giant monsters, alien invaders and their unstoppable superweapons. When the team battles something they cannot defeat, Ultraman's human avatar transforms into the giant hero and evens the odds. Besides his battle prowess, Ultraman also has an arsenal of energy-based weapons for monster-slaying. But he's also solar-powered, which limits his ability to operate on Earth. His limit is marked by a warning light, usually on his chest, that creates suspense by telling the audience he's running out of time.

The English-speaking cast is adequate to the task of handling the outrageous story material, with two exceptions. Rob Roy Fitzgerald plays his hot-shot sharpshooter character a little too broadly, making him more obnoxious that gung-ho. And Kane Kosugi, who plays Ultraman's alter ego, is kind of a blank slate, rarely showing much emotion beyond some occasional lip-biting anxiety. That this is intended as a children's series (despite some occasionally disturbing violence) is apparent from the one-dimensionality and broad performances of the guest cast.

One would think that an Ultraman series made with American production values would look great, but this show had a low budget and it often shows. The model works and miniatures are about standard for a Japanese Ultraman series but should have looked much better. Ultraman's monster fights are uninspired (more on that later), and the practical effects are about one short level above a typical Sid & Marty Krofft production.

There are some good things about the series. The stories are solid and varied, even if the acting and dialogue is occasionally over-the-top. There is genuine menace to the monsters, who often kill guest characters on-camera. And the monsters - mostly re-designed from the original Ultraman series - look spectacular: colorful, intricately detailed and heavily textured. Sadly, that's a double edged sword. Reportedly, the monster costumes' complexity made them fragile and easily damaged, as well as eating up a substantial part of the show's limited budget, which results in suit actors playing way too safe during the fight scenes. The monsters - and Ultraman, sadly - move with ponderous slowness, shoving and swinging blindly at each other instead of grappling and throwing.

The Ultraman franchise goes far beyond the simplistic "guy in silver unitard beats up stuntmen in rubber suits" rap that has been used to denigrate the franchise for over 50 years. It's a fully-realized and complex multiverse that drew legions of fans from around the world decades before the Marvel Cinematic was a glimmer in Kevin Feige's eye. With the 35th Ultraman series due to debut in Japan in July 2022, it's sad to think of how far it could have reached, and what sights we could have seen, had the first live-action American effort not failed.

Things just didn't gel very well in this series. This is by far the worst Ultra series made, and no, it's not the fault of the production company or the actors. Japanese style production probably didn't work in Hollywood.

The Australian made Ultraman Great (Ultraman G) was not a bad production, so something didn't work out well in this program.

I never even knew this series existed. It certainly didn't get a good distribution on the TV network. May be just as well, because it would have been a disastrous introduction of Ultra series to the American audience (although Ultraman G was shown in Saturday morning slot in some parts of the US around 1992).

The problem I think is the extremely low budget the Japanese Ultra series are made, and that just didn't work in the United States. Ultra series in Japan are produced for around quarter million dollars per episode. That's extremely low budget for an American TV show (and it shows). They probably tried the same formula in the US and completely back fired. Australian TV crew might be more used to working under low budget situation, and that might have contributed to the success of the Ultraman G.

The series essentially turned into a Japanese TV show acted by American actors. It has a weird look and feel to it that just doesn't work well. Japanese has a big handicap in that they don't speak English. Compared to this, Hong Kong based directors like John Woo has an advantage in that they can communicate with the actors much more fluently. This probably sealed the fate of this television program.

Best avoid this, and watch the other Ultra series instead.

Disappointing cannot begin to describe "Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero". There was zero publicity, zero promotion, and other than a few isolated broadcasts and pirated videos, there was never an official video release distributor. The series's largest selling point is that it was "made in Hollywood". But guess what, you can get a Beverly hills college student to film his dog and that film would still be called "made in Hollywood". Instead of hiring some reputable director , "A list" actors or even a decent production studio, Tsuburaya Productions decided to be total cheapskates. They hired a production team of mostly new comers, a first time director and some unknown production company called "Major Havoc Entertainment".

Sure, it would be easy to throw all the blame on Hollywood for how this show turned out. For a great show, any great show, you need expertise, experience and money. This show only had the first out of the three and it is apparent in the great looking creatures and sets. All the costumes for the various alien creatures look really convincing due to them being made out of sculpted foam latex and plastic instead of soft rubber. The monsters had animatronic heads that allowed lifelike movements in the eyes and mouth and the latex could be sculpted to mimic scales or armor plating. This version of the Ultraman character is possibly the best looking of all; no horns, no extra bling, just a leaner, meaner and more streamlined version of the original Ultraman design. The sculpted costume gave him a more muscular look and special effects that produced his powers, though dated by todays standards, was years ahead of Power Rangers.

A lack of experience and money is to blame for the show's failure. Starting with the story, Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero, or otherwise known as "Ultraman Powered", consists of 13 episodes which are essentially remakes of 13 of the better episodes from the original Ultraman TV show. The main focus is on the "Worldwide Investigation Network of Response" or WINR(pronounced "Winner") and their attempts to investigate and put down any alien activity. Their main enemy is the Baltans, a race of bug-like aliens who want to destroy earth and almost succeed at doing so with a giant Baltan warrior until the mysterious space giant "Ultraman" shows up. Ultraman is an intergalactic law enforcer who pursued the Baltans to earth and saves the life of WINR member Kenichi Kai by joining with his life-force. Now in times of danger, Kai can transform into Ultraman to do battle with other giant monsters.

Now though the story is made of up 13 separate stories taken from the original Ultraman series in the 60s, the writers have tied each episode together by having a back-story that each monster was an attempt by the Baltans to test Ultraman's abilities. The episodes themselves were of varying quality but episode 6 "A Father's Love" stands out as the most emotionally charged of all. THe flaw came in the overall "feel" of the show. THe writing and dialog took itself quite seriously, perhaps too seriously. Afterall this was a show where members of WINR flew about in a giant multi colored space ship and used ray guns. Perhaps a more realistic or down-to-earth set up would have worked better.

The inexperience of the production crew obviously shows despite the best efforts of the writers and the special effects team. The director has a tendency of choosing all the wrong camera angles and does not seem to know how to creatively mask props. For example, the director would constantly use a ground shot to give Ultraman a sense of scale. However this makes the hot wheel toys that the crew put in place of cars along the road very obvious. Star Wars also used props on strings yet director King Wilder's camera-work makes the plane props look like nothing but props on strings. Fight choreography is almost non-existent; Ultraman hardly punches or kicks anything, most of the time he just jumps about and lightly shoves monsters around. While the monsters themselves look great, they are extremely stiff. This makes for some really silly moments where a monster merely taps Ultraman on the back with a finger (perhaps the script called for a powerful swipe but since the monsters were so stiff, such a swipe came off as a tap) but it sends Ultraman careering into cliff-side.

Rumor has it that Tsuburaya Productions themselves refused to increase the budget or hire a more experienced production company. It is also said that they insisted that the sillier elements like the corny spaceship and ray guns be kept. It is as if they came to Hollywood expecting a blockbuster on the scale of Jurassic Park but forgot that to make a big show you first need a big budget.

Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero could have been much more than how it turned out. If you do not have time to check out the entire 50 episode 1966 Ultraman, then check out this show for an effective summary. If not, just check out this show for the fun of it.