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With their new six-part series, Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix, streaming giant Netflix and video game powerhouse Ubisoft have given writer and creator Adi Shankar free rein to blend television and retro video games as much as possible. “This feels like a video game world come to life,” says Shankar of his new show, which premieres October 19 on Netflix. “At the end of the day, I would also compare it to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, because it’s a whole new universe like [Robert] Zemeckis made, but then he populated it with known IP.”
‘On one level, [I wanted] to deconstruct the archetypical Western action hero and put this guy on a spiritual journey of self-discovery. [It’s] a little Joseph Campbell, but growing up in the East, I’m also inspired by Eastern stories and archetypes.’
— Writer and creator Adi Skankar
Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix takes place in a dystopian cyberpunk version of Earth in 1992, where a powerful corporation named Eden has seized control of America. Through their nefarious manipulation of the media and currency, Eden has turned most of the American populace into a docile slave class. Dolph Laserhawk (voiced by Witcher: Blood Origin‘s Nathaniel Curtis), the series’ protagonist and a cyborg super-soldier who formerly served as one of Eden’s top enforcers, finds himself captured in the corporation’s prison facility, known as Supermaxx. Once inside Supermaxx, Laserhawk and a ragtag crew of fellow prisoners comprised of a few iconic Ubisoft characters are forced to carry out several violent clandestine missions for their captors.
“On one level, [I wanted] to deconstruct the archetypical Western action hero and put this guy on a spiritual journey of self-discovery,” says Shankar, who is best known for executive producing the anime-style vampire series Castlevania. “[It’s] a little Joseph Campbell, but growing up in the East, I’m also inspired by Eastern stories and archetypes.”
Readying Player One
Similar to the medley of influences that permeate the visual style and narrative of Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix, Shankar’s worldview is a tapestry of interconnected cultural perspectives that help shape his work. “So, I was born in India, and at the age of five, I moved to Hong Kong and then Singapore and then back to Hong Kong,” says Shankar. “I moved to America when I was 15, by myself.”
Touting his love for American pop culture as the impetus behind his decision to venture to the States, Shankar’s affinity for various forms of media is on full display in Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix. “I love world creation, and I’m a constant pontificator of alternate history and alternate timelines,” says Shankar. “Moving a lot as a kid creates this instability psychologically where you’re constantly extrapolating on the different micro decisions and macro decisions that will make your life play out in different ways.”
As the “remix” in Captain Laserhawk’s title implies, Shankar loves to concoct new projects by reevaluating the pop culture that inspired him as a child. “Most of the things I do stem from some form of alternate history, or, ‘What would happen if we swap this with that?’” says Shankar. “[It’s], ‘Hey, what would happen if the Power Rangers were in their 40s and realized they were made to fight an intergalactic war and they were psyop-ed by Zordon?’”
Given Shankar’s penchant for reinterpreting classic characters through the lens of modernity, it’s easy to see why Ubisoft approached him to create Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix. However, to paraphrase Willy Wonka, strike that thought and reverse it. “I came to them with this concept,” says Shankar. “This wasn’t a, ‘Oh, hey, we want to do a shared universe kind of thing.’ Like, I was working with them on some stuff, and I just kind of sent them this, and I knew right away which characters I wanted to use.”
Perfecting Game Theory
In addition to the roster of memorable Ubisoft characters that round out the show’s cast, Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix often transitions into pixel-animated segments of video game action, almost akin to how a musical breaks into song. “Originally, in the script, I was like, ‘Hey, I want to do this mixed media thing,’” says Shankar. “That’s the Captain N-inspired vibe, but I also wanted to use the language of different old-school video games to tell pieces of the story.”
To most people, the video game aesthetic of Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix will probably seem like the most pivotal component of the project’s appeal. However, for Shankar, the synthwave and alternative history found in Captain Laserhawk are arguably the most compelling elements of the series. “Usually, the way it works for me is I’m working on three or four different things,” says Shankar. “And at some point, a lightbulb goes off, and I realize they’re actually the same thing. So, one is a vibe, one thing is an aesthetic, and one thing is a story structure.”
When it came to the subject of vibes, Shankar has always been drawn to the moody synthwave genre, which is an intentionally atavistic reimagining of ’80s electronica. Throughout the entire series, including the show’s dynamic opening title card, reminiscent of a classic Sega Genesis game, synthwave is the bonding agent that unifies the disparate elements of Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix. Shankar, an avid devotee of the genre, felt like synthwave’s inclusion in the series was a no-brainer. “I’ve been a part of this whole synthwave thing for years,” says Shankar. “I was obsessed, and I am still obsessed with this art form because, in my mind, it was the first example of the internet congregating and coming together and creating something new that’s a memory of something. It’s almost like the Mandela Effect, but applied to art.”
Aiding Shankar in bringing his vision to fruition is his team of collaborators at the French animation studio Bobbypills, responsible for animating or “remixing” the multimedia series — as they’re credited for in Captain Laserhawk’s opening title card. “I didn’t direct this project,” says Shankar. “This was all Bobbypills; it was [director] Mehdi Leffad; it was [studio creative director] Balak and the whole team at Bobbypills.”
And while Shankar can’t help but radiate humility and gratitude for the talented crew at Bobbypills, Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix is inextricably tied to its imaginative creator in more ways than one. “Yeah, Dolph was designed to look like me,” Shankar jokes. “So there’s also a narcissistic aspect to it … so if [the character] seems progressive, great.”
Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix premieres on Netflix on October 19.
