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I believe that this was a made for TV movie, probably from the late '70s or early '80s. One scene has been stuck in my mind since, for unknown reasons, it terrified me as a kid.

In this scene, the character is in some sort of trailer workshop. He's been working on a powered exoskeleton suit that will enable him to walk. It is not a metal bars/springs/motors exoskeleton as some of the real "power assist" exoskeletons being made today are. It's more like a NASA space suit in hard, red plastic. I don't recall if there was a helmet, but I'm pretty sure that it was a full upper body/arms suit. He opens the back door of the trailer (I believe it's a ramp door like you'd use on a vehicle trailer) and walks out.

That's really all I remember of the show. I recall watching it with my Dad, and we didn't go to a lot of movies, so I'm pretty certain it was made for TV. However, it could have been shown in theaters and this was a TV cut of it.

I remember nothing of the rest of the movie. I'm reasonably certain that the making of this suit was at least one of the major themes of the show, though I don't know if it was the main plot point.

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This is Exo-Man (1977).

The main character builds himself an exoskeleton and fights baddies in a red spacesuit affair.

enter image description here

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    For the record, this film is terrible. If you feel the urge to watch it, might I suggest you use the time to ring your mother. You don't do it often enough and it puts her in a good mood for days.
    – Valorum
    Feb 25, 2022 at 15:07
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    Good answer. It's probably a better fit than my suggestion.
    – Pete
    Feb 25, 2022 at 15:11
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    @FreeMan - It was my top result for 'paraplegic exoskeleton 1970s movie' on google. I saw this years ago and couldn't remember the name, but it took longer to write up the answer than to find it.
    – Valorum
    Feb 25, 2022 at 16:19
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    I suppose I could have searched myself, but then... No magic internet pointz for doing my own work. :)
    – FreeMan
    Feb 25, 2022 at 16:22
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    @Astrid_Redfern - The 70s and 80s were a crazy time; images.says.com/uploads/story_source/source_image/7942/…
    – Valorum
    Feb 26, 2022 at 19:15
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This was a series, I believe, titled M.A.N.T.I.S. (1994-1997?), though the pilot was movie-length. It was set in Vancouver, BC (Canada). The protagonist was played by Carl Lumbly; he was paraplegic due to an accident, and created the suit to let him walk -- but found that it also let him do things that made him into a superhero.

As I recall, it only ran one (or a partial) season; while it had good production values, it was a 1990s TV series, in a genre that required special effects; overall quality was similar to the Bill Bixby The Incredible Hulk in terms of the hero's action sequences.

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    MANTIS was my first guess, but the timescales are wrong and the suit was actually not crappy.
    – Valorum
    Feb 25, 2022 at 14:46
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    Definitely far too new. Heck, I was out of college by the time this hit the air.
    – FreeMan
    Feb 25, 2022 at 16:06
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Sounds like an episode from the British TV series The New Avengers, episode The Last Of The Cybernauts?.

One trip too many to the well? Pursued by our threesome, double-agent Kane meets a fiery death in a car crash—or does he? Horribly deformed and confined to a wheelchair, Kane learns of the secret of the cybernauts and devises a means to inhabit a robot body in order to exact his revenge on the Avengers!

Here's the guy in his robot suit.

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  • The description broadly fits, but the 'cybernaut' is a metal-faced monster
    – Valorum
    Feb 25, 2022 at 15:18
  • In their first two appearances, yes. But this episode the baddie uses the technology to become part man part machine. Although I think Exo-Man is probably the right answer. TLOTC? doesn't feature him opening a trailer door.
    – Pete
    Feb 25, 2022 at 15:24

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