I'm guessing you haven't seen Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills then. SHSSS at least had decent Toku footage going for it. TTAFFBH was terrible, with god-awful fight scenes. It had a very low budget, and it showed.
^No, I never saw that one. Although I'd have to say Big Bad Beetleborgs was a strong contender for "worst of the bunch." I don't know what was going on there. It was on the tail end of the adapted-tokusatsu craze but was simultaneously trying to cash in on the Goosebumps craze, I think, hence the haunted-house element, yet was also trying to tie into comic books and tone down the violence and make everything kid-friendly... so it was just a bizarre hodgepodge that I found almost unwatchable. For whatever reason, Power Rangers was the only tokusatsu adaptation that really managed to work, to find a lasting formula for success, even through numerous changes of producers and owners.
It aired on USA. It was different from the other attempts to cash in on PR's popularity in that it didn't borrow from any Japanese show; it was 100% American. BTW, I really like actor Glenn Shadix in what I've seen/heard of him, but he really picked the wrong show to get involved with in that case (he voiced Nimbar, the Zordon-like mentor character). Yeah, it was weird in that respect. I still watched it, though. Well, for a while anyway. I stopped watching around the time they switched over to Metallix, but I don't remember why. Heh, I remember one time when I was watching the show my sister walked in. She saw Flabber (the ghost) on the tv and commented how he looked like Jay Leno. I wasn't familiar with Leno at the time but since then I came to realize how true that was. Yep. Even Saban himself couldn't capture lightning in a bottle a second time.
Wow Big Bad Beetleborgs and Super Human Samurai Cybersquad!! The latter was watchable for Tim Curry as the voice of Kilokhan! I also remember the show as being primarily a vehicle for Matthew Lawrence (little brother of Blossom's Joey) who was a rising teen star back then. My personal favorite show though was V.R Troopers!! The theme song was awesome and I note the show as launching the career of soap opera star Sarah Brown (who I believe is the partner of Shuki Levy at least according to Wikipedia Sarah played Kaitlin Star.
Power Rangers: Buccaneer Bandai Across the 8th dimension I'm interested in how many sentai alumni Goukaiger can bring back.
I know! They should bring back Paul Schrier and Jason Narvy as the leads of the show, and it would be called Power Rangers: Bulk and Skull and Crossbones.
Power Rangers: Pirate Warriors!!! Or Power Rangers: Pirates Cos This Is the theme we're going with this season.
Power Rangers on the High Seas. Yeah, Flabber was like a cross between Jay Leno, the Genie from Aladdin, and Lorne from Angel... living in a haunted house... I still don't get it... Sarah Brown also played Tommy's love interest in a 3-part episode of Power Rangers Zeo. She was Tommy's rebound girlfriend after he got a dear John letter from Kimberly. Katherine set them up with each other despite her own feelings for Tommy. But Tommy/Heather ended up not working out because of the ol' superhero romance cliche where Tommy had to run out on her mid-date without explanation to repel a monster attack. She was actually pretty patient with it but he ended up doing it a LOT. But with the catchiest title. The 5 elements nature of their powers reminds me of Saban's original medieval PR-ripoff, Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog.
I think there was an element of Elvis impersonation in there too. And I think I was reminded a little bit of the Joker. Though I don't recall the character too well; I found him too repulsive to watch and I've tried my best to forget everything about him. Which was shortly after VR Troopers ended; it was probably something of a consolation prize. The lead male actor from VRT also did the voice of Trey, the first Zeo Gold Ranger (dubbing over the voices of the triplets who played the unmorphed character, an alien who could split into three selves). Speak for yourself. It's clunky and overthought, with a bad rhythm. A title like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has a nice, regular trochaic meter, the sort of thing that makes for a catchy title, but Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad has an irregular meter that makes it cumbersome to the ear and the tongue alike. And it's simply overlong as well. And the misspelling of "cyber" is obnoxious. Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. That was the most interesting and ambitious of the PR knockoffs -- rather than doing it on the cheap like all the others, they took advantage of their success with PR and invested the profits in doing a wholly original, well-produced, fairly high-budget show. They shot it in Ireland, assembled a respectable cast, tried to do intelligent scripts, even hired Foundation Imaging to create their special effects. It was an impressive effort, an attempt to level up in sophistication. Unfortunately, it didn't entirely work. Since it was a kids' show and bloodshed was forbidden, the frequent swordfights always had to be halfhearted and inconclusive, which undermined the effectiveness of the stunt work. And the climactic action scenes were usually just the four heroes standing still and firing their magic weapons at some airborne CGI creature, which was quite static and rather boring to watch, as well as quite repetitive. Mystic Knights worked well in every respect except the action, which is a problem in an action show.
I forget that Sarah was on Power Rangers...so long since I've actually watched any incarnation of the show.
Goukaiger's cameo revealed! They're catchphrase is "Here we come to invade your world, Earthlings!" or "Don't get in our way, Earthlings!" So for pirate enthusiasts yes they're not all that good.
It's the 35th anniversary of sentai. Goukaiger is going to use past Red's mecha as auxiliary mecha. Already confirmed are SPD Magiranger(Mystic Force Gaoranger AKA Power Rangers Wildforce (which will double as a samurai formation) They're also going to use ranger keys(all red rangers) to change into past heroes First post has collected information so far http://www.rangerboard.com/showthread.php?t=140298
Okay, for the Power Rangers audience, SPD is self-explanatory, Magiranger corresponds to Mystic Force, and Gaoranger was Wild Force.
Will any past actors come back, or is it a "borrow their powers without actually having to pay the older actors to perform" kind of thing?
Past actors are rumored to come back. The Goukaiger's will travel to past sentai's worlds/universes. Some teams will apparently feature new team members. Obviously since time has past. A run down of which actors are active in show business http://www.rangerboard.com/showpost.php?p=3626094&postcount=2272