Ultraman: The Adventure Begins
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Ultraman: The Adventure Begins was an animated movie joint produced by Hanna-Barbera and Tsuburaya Productions in 1981. In Japan, the movie was titled Ultraman USA (ウルトラマンUSA Urutoraman Yū Esu Ē?).
In the movie, three stunt pilots (the "Flying Angels"), Chuck, Scott and Beth are caught in a bizarre flash of light and crash, only to emerge unharmed. They are later informed by an agent of an interstellar peace-keeping agency (whose secret identity is the groundskeeper at a Pebble Beach golf course) that they have become the host bodies of warriors from the planet U40 (as in The Ultraman/Ultraman Jonias) to capture escaped monsters from the planet Sorkin who have arrived on Earth. They become the Ultra Force, headquartered within Mount Rushmore, and are assisted by a trio of robots, Andy, Samson and Ulysses. Although equipped with futuristic fighter crafts, inevitably one or more of the team is required to transform into an Ultraman, a gigantic red and silver superhuman being, to battle the monsters. After destroying the most powerful Sorkin monster, the Ultra Force remains together to combat further threats to planet Earth. The movie seems intended as the pilot of an animated series, but no further adventures of the Ultramen within were ever documented. However, costumes based on them were made for use in stage shows in Japan.
[edit] Notes
- The characters in the movie had no special devices to transform into their super-powered identities, unlike most Ultramen. Their transformations were an automatic defense mechanism when in life-threatening danger. This might have been one reason why a series was never made based on the characters, as a human host's inability or difficulty transforming was a fairly common plot device in other Ultra shows.
[edit] Trivia
- Tsuburaya Productions originally approached Hanna-Barbera to do this feature as a live-action pilot for a possible TV series, but Hanna-Barbera talked them into doing an animated feature instead.
[edit] Soundtrack
The music was composed by Shinsuke Kazato and released by Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd (COCC-72075). The soundtrack was released as a Limited Edition printing of 5,000 copies.
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