Technic Heroes

**Technic Heroes** (Japanese: テクニック英雄; Hepburn: *Tekunikku Eiyū*) is the name given to the long-running Cowellan cowellsatsu franchise created and distributed by Metro Astro Studios and Walt Disney Pictures alongside Toei COW. Technic Heroes spanned through films, television movies, television series, video games, board games and more and is the one of the film series with the most entries, having 69 films released in its total during its 45-year-long run. Technic Heroes is sponsored by Technic, an Cowellan energy drink.

It was planned from the late 1950s as *Heroes of CTC1*. When Technic and Cowell established their relationship, it was renamed to *Technic Heroes* in 1974 and the first film in the franchise, *Robotman* was released only in Cowell in 1976 (*Nova Orbis* was the first film to be released internationally, it was released in Cowell, the Soviet Union, and Brazil in 1978 and the rest of the world in 1979.) It's supposed to be Cowell's belated answer to *Kamen Rider*. A couple of years later, it became a *Super Sentai*-style franchise, with advanced armor.

*Quest for the Masks*, which released in 1981, is the most popular film in the Technic Heroes franchise, with a gross of $1,025,782,904 ($2,823,894,710 in 2018 dollars) and becoming the first film on Metacritic to achieve a perfect score of 100. Because of its success, it is now considered by critics to be one of the greatest films ever made.

U.S. syndication rights for the TV series and movies of the franchise were first held by The Program Exchange, and are currently held by Trifecta Entertainment & Media

## Overview

In almost every Technic Heroes film, television series and television film, the protagonist are the team of people and sometimes, a person, who transform into superheroes known as *Technic heroes* (or *Toa* in the Bionicle franchise) and gain superpowers, advanced color-coded armor, signature weapons such as tools like a hammer, swords, claws, axes, and many others and fighting skills, in order to battle a group of evil beings that threaten to take over Cowell and sometimes, the entire world.

Other Technic heroes can transform into anthromorphic animals as well, like in *Aqua* installments for instance.

## History

### Concept and development (1955-1976)

Elkan Boukough came up with the idea of Technic Heroes as early as 1955 while he was reading some pulp fiction magazines like Startling Stories. He contacted Metro-Astro Productions to request to make a movie about a robot as founded on Startling Stories. In 1957, the development of the which now known as the "1957 Robotman draft" was canceled and the film was never filmed likely because of the suits, at the time was extremely difficult to make.

In 1971, during the time CTC was suffering the 10-year-long downturn, Elkan rediscovered the draft, where it is laying here in his bedroom closet while he was moving to the new house. He decided to rework the entire film from scratch by redesigning the characters and rewrite the plot. He requested Ryu Hamasaki to write the film for him. Elkan wanted to make the film series of it. When he found that Technic, the energy drink came to Cowell Television Corporation and said that they wanted to sponsor Heroes of CTC with their own drink of same name, Elkan, CTC and Technic renamed the series from Heroes of CTC to Technic Heroes.

### The Initial Era (1976-1978)

In 1976, Metro-Astro Productions and Walt Disney Productions released the original Robotman movie. But it was only moderately successful. The Nova Orbis movie was first released internationally in 1978.

### The Golden Era (1978-1996)

In 1981, Quest for the Masks, based on Bionicle comics was released. It was the critical acclaim and it saved Brampton Bryan Films Limited's film industry.

In 1988, Metro Astro Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures released Technic Heroes Extended Pack. In 1994, the *Technic Heroes* film series took a-year-long hiatus. In 1996, Metro Astro Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures and Toei rereleased the Technic Heroes movies in Platinum Edition formats.

On the same year, CTC appointed Lego to license it to create the sub-toyline based on Technic Heroes movies, making Technic Heroes Lego's first licensed toyline.

### The Dark Era (1996-2000)

On July 29 of 1996, due to the mixed reception of the 1996 film *Bionicle: The Next Generation*, Cowell Television Corporation announced that Bionicle is officially canceled again which marked the start of the Dark Era.

In September 1996, Technic Heroes created Lana X, a female robot that sparks with butterflies, colours, and glitters. They work after 4 years of original creation. It was first released starting with a comic/manga in 1997, then with a TV show in 2000, and her film debut in 2003.

In 1997, Cowell Television Corporation (known as CTC) launched the series of flash-animated webcasts on the Technic Heroes' official website, that was produced from 1997 to 2005. Cowell Television Corporation stated that the purpose of the webcasts is "to keep Technic Heroes alive".

The successful revival of Robotman dubbed as **Robotman Y2K** during Millennium.

On June 19, 1998, the online multiplayer RPG game, *Technic Heroes World* was launched on the web. It was a commercial success and at the end of 1998, over 500+ users were registered.

In March of 1999, Metro Astro Pictures released *Technic Heroes vs. Blitzivan*, which was considred "the most expensive crossover film of all time" with a budget of $100 million. The film is also a crossover with *Blitzivan,* a new science-fiction tokusatsu franchise created by writers Max Axis and Akira Hisashi.

### The Renaissance Era (2000-2010)

The first Lana X movie was released in 2003, it was critical acclaim and commercially successful. It marks the first female Technic heroine character Lana X.

### The Silver Era (2010-present)

Fred Abrams is retired from writing and replaced by Matt Lee in 2011. In 2016, Metro Astro Studios and Walt Disney Pictures released the new Hunterbots franchise.

## Music

The music for the films is generally composed by Ryota Yamada, who plays a large role in composing the films' soundtracks. The music is recorded by the Technic Band, which is comprised of just a few people, rather than a massive orchestra. A lot of the *Technic Heroes* songs are mainly grand orchestra and electronica, as well as rock and heavy metal. The Bionicle and Lana X films had the Technic Band being stood in for by Rinava, known for their more keyboard-oriented music with much guitar work.

Some of the series' well-known songs are *Technic Fight!*, which plays during fight scenes in the films. Some of these songs also appear in some of Cave's *Technic Heroes*-themed maniac shooters, such as the *Donpachi* series and others.

## Reception

Technic Heroes received very positive reviews from critics. It was praised for its costume designs. It is one of Brampton Bryan Films Limited's biggest successful franchises.