Who is Ulysses S. Powell? The History of Mustache Maniacs Film Co.'s Original Time Traveler

 By: Andrew Bermudez

(Mustache Maniacs Film Co. Headquarters; June 17, 2024)

    Later on in the year, we plan on finally releasing our first major time travel film, A Future in the Past. Based on the LEGO Time Cruisers product line, the film features all of the theme's characters, including Dr. Cyber, Tim Timebuster, Wacco, Ingo, Professor Millennium, and Tony Twister. However, there is another character in this film that fans of the theme may not recognize: the time-displaced American Civil War veteran Ulysses S. Powell. Today, we're going to dive in and learn more about this original character who has been time-travelling for fourteen years now.

2010: When Barrels Fly: Ulysses the Inventor Experiences Time Travel that was Accidental Both in and Out of the Story!

    In 2010, right off of the release of the insanely popular Johnny Thunder and the Gift of the Nile (which still holds the record for Mustache Maniacs Film Co.'s biggest opening weekend), there were questions on how to start broadening our films. At that point, our content online was mostly centered around the Johnny Thunder Saga, and the desire to diversify our content had begun to rise. This resulted in the film Wonders of Buoyancy, a school assignment that nevertheless was then retconned back into the aforementioned saga, but the first Twenty-Four Hour Animation Competition that we ever entered, THAC 8, would really begin to push the envelope with an entry that was designed to be completely disconnected from anything else that we had ever produced. The initial idea for what would become When Barrels Fly would come from Teresa Bermudez, who literally knocked around one of the barrels from the LEGO Wild West sets. Seeing it hop through the air, she immediately outlined the story in detail, which was originally going to end with the barrel just crashing to the ground.

    Andrew Bermudez ended up writing the script from the outline, which included figuring out the staging and naming the protagonist Ulysses S. Powell, after U.S. Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant and the protagonist from Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Collin Powell. Just a few hours into the day of the competition, the script was completed, but with one issue: the ending was too anticlimactic. Something had to happen to Ulysses and his flying machine the Mega Wing, but what? That's when Daniel and Teresa collectively decided on time travel to really throw a curveball. Originally to make the ending even more absurd, Squidward Tentacles was going to run around the prehistoric jungle, but this was changed to Amelia Earhart being stuck in the past as well. This led to the concluding scene that connects the two disappearances together.

    The film fared well with audiences, enough so to warrant a special edition in 2018 that overhauled the entire film with new effects and sounds. And while it didn't win any prizes, this film did set the groundwork for a much bigger development that, at this film's release, no one saw coming.

2012: Late for the Soccer Match: The Interactive Film that Birthed the Cinematic Universe

    In 2012, right on the heels of interactive experiences like The Lost Ruby and Shady Acres Super Sleuth, Bricks in Motion announced a contest that would take full advantage of YouTube's annotation technology: Kitchen Sink. The idea was that if a film had a choose your adventure format, you would be able to throw everything in, including the kitchen sink. Immediately, preparations began that summer for an October 19 release date, but there was a problem: what should it be about? The answer came, of all places, from the LEGO Studios website (it's been partially backed up via the Archive.org Wayback Machine). There, one of the preserved pages featured four story starters based on four then-current LEGO themes: Alpha Team, Life on Mars, Arctic, and Sports. The Sports-based prompt in particular surrounded the premise of the team captain turning up missing, with everyone looking for them. However, we instead flipped the prompt on its head and turned a story about a team into a story about the captain. Thus, Late for the Soccer Match was born.

    From the get-go, the consensus was that there shouldn't be any "good" or "bad" endings, with almost all of the endings leading to Peter Whitman, the team captain, arriving at the stadium. And it was with this decision that Ulysses S. Powell entered the scene. In addition to featuring a jet ski, a fire plane, a train, and other modes of transportation as ways to get to the game, one of the endings has Peter Whitman, in his attempt to get to the soccer stadium, travel back in time and end up stuck in the past. It was funny and surprising, but also oddly anticlimactic. Enter Ulysses S. Powell, who manages to get himself, Peter Whitman, and the T-Rex to the soccer stadium on time. This created the most memorable ending and helped the film win second place in the contest's 13+ category, but it also did something more.

    At this same time, during the development of New Friends ~ An Environmental Fable, Andrew Bermudez and Raul Flores held discussions for other potential projects, including ideas that would lead to films such as Alpha Team: Mission Deep Jungle. However, one idea, a Mustache Maniacs Film Co. "Avengers Style" film, began to enter the fray. It seemed like a far-fetched idea... until Late for the Soccer Match was released. Now, here was a film that featured characters from A Very Patrick Christmas and When Barrels Fly side-by-side. This film, alongside those talks, is recognized as the birth of the Mustache Maniacs Film Co. Cinematic Universe, with that "Avengers-Style" film evolving into Legends of the Universe.

2015: Out of His Time and A Greater Cost: How Ulysses Adjusted to the Modern World and a Fan Film Giving the Character Depth

    However, with the birth of that cinematic universe, that brought up a big question: which version of Later for the Soccer Match is THE version that happens in-story, since that film has eight different endings? Ultimately, it was decided that the Test Shuttle version with Ulysses and the T-Rex would be the canonical ending, which meant that Ulysses S. Powell is now canonically in the present day! To follow up on this development, 2015 saw the release of an all-new series of comics: Out of His Time. This comedy series recounted Ulysses' adventures in the present day, including the introduction of the Time Cruisers characters that would become instrumental in A Future in the Past. While the comics only lasted for one year, they did start to set the tone for the shift in Ulysses' character, especially when they were connected to a contest from that same year.

    As an entry for The Quest for Canonization competition, TLFScarheart created an entry that would ultimately win titled A Greater Cost. Originally written as a way to fix a plot hole in Johnny Thunder and the Gift of the Nile, this story also started to show the consequences of time travel and how they weighed on Ulysses' conscience. Here, the story was written to tie back into the comics, where Ulysses is trying to pay off his back taxes, by seeing him using time travel to solve his problems. When this story was canonized, the comics then referred back to the events of this story, making this tale of loss, guilt, and morality a companion piece to the otherwise slapstick comics.

2022: Tale of Ulysses: Going Back to Before the Barrel Flew

    However, as the project line-up for the 2/1/21 announcement event was being finalized, the project Cancelled Film Revival resurrected a long-floated but also long-cancelled origin story for Ulysses, giving him his first new film appearance in a decade. Tale of Ulysses was written with both When Barrels Fly and A Future in the Past in mind, as well as the non-Mustache Maniacs Film Co. production America: Outlawed (which is recognized as canonical). This film, a BRAWL 2022 entry, acted as a bridge between all of them while also embracing the contest's theme of repetition, exploring routine, boredom, and the chaos of breaking that routine. It also acts as a true introduction for Ulysses S. Powell for anyone watching the cinematic universe in timeline order, as the film also establishes Ulysses as a budding inventor, preparing audiences for When Barrels Fly. And in an unusual twist, this film also sets up a plot twist in A Future in the Past. Speaking of which....

2024: A Future in the Past: Ulysses Teams Up with the Time Cruisers

    For this year, the big release for Twenty Years Young is expected to be the next installment in Project U. This film is unusual in that it takes an often-derided LEGO theme (Time Cruisers) and turns it into a pivotal installment into the cinematic universe. The development of this film was long and tedious, with the script seeing multiple changes ever since it was first written in 2016. The final film is one where Ulysses and the Time Cruisers set out on a mission to locate Dr. Bradford Rant, who mysteriously vanished in 1985. However, their mission instead sends them to the far future and the far past, where they encounter characters and locations from films such as New Friends ~ An Environmental Fable, America: Outlawed, Dino Attack RPG, Kilroy Was Here!, Pharaoh's Quest: The Curse of Amset-Ra, and many more!

2025 and Beyond: A New Mission to Save Every Reality

    After A Future in the Past, Ulysses won't be having too many appearances, but oh how that film will shift the landscape of the cinematic universe! Following up on that film's plot, Legends of the Universe is expected to be a massive film that heavily features Ulysses S. Powell in his on-going quest to save Dimension 418, which leads him to team up with some of the greatest heroes that the cinematic universe has ever seen! This film will also resolve many of the plot threads set up in films like New Friends ~ An Environmental Fable, A Friend of the Police, Solarum, Agent: Thorgood, and more!

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