Power Rangers

[Cyke101]

Samurai8472 wrote:

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And you didn't think it was best to forget Saban's Masked Rider? LOL

Zing!

Two things I liked about the PR/Masked Rider pilot:
1. We finally met a superhero in the PR verse that otherwise wasn't connected to the Rangers at all. It added a great sense of variety to a universe they were the only rangers; this was before the Alien Rangers, and even then, they were Rangers. I like variety, and it was neat to see that

2. Though Tommy and Rocky were holding back, the show essentially (and perhaps unintentionally) maintained the unspoken rule in Japan that Kamen/Masked Rider = one Sentai/Power Ranger team, or at least multiple sentai/ranger heroes. The real world logic would be that the stunts and feats we see attributed to an entire team of Rangers would be essentially duplicated and compressed into one Rider b/c of the nature of the Rider show. In the PR/MR episode, Masked Rider fought pretty evenly with the combined Red Ranger & Sixth Ranger, traditionally the two strongest rangers (I say traditionally because I don't think Rocky was supposed to have that status despite being Red, but hey, go with me here).

[Chris3123]

Christopher wrote:

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Just because it's an out-of-continuity crossover doesn't mean it isn't a crossover. There have been other cases of crossovers that were not acknowledged in the continuity of one or the other of the participating shows.

Fair enough.

Indeed, there's even precedent for a spinoff series altering the continuity assumptions of the backdoor pilot it's based on -- for instance, when Robin Williams first appeared as Mork on Happy Days, it turned out to be a dream at the end, but the character was popular enough that they retconned him into reality and gave him his own show.

Bad example. Mork was always real. He only made Richie think it was a dream. Remember, after Richie wakes up, Mork shows up at the Cunningham's door pretending to be somebody (a guy asking for directions or something). After that we see him making his call to Orsen.

[stueyross]

I have to admit to a fondness for MMPR because that was the first one I really saw and the first one which caught the UK by storm. When the first movie came out at its height of greatness here I remember some pretty favourable reviews. Which brings me to my question I guess...

The series have always felt a bit cheap and the costumes....well theyre not exactly amazing imho. The movie costumes were a real step up. Why didnt they continue (even into the 2nd movie) with those armoured suits? They looked really good.

[Takeru]

stueyross wrote:

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The series have always felt a bit cheap and the costumes....well theyre not exactly amazing imho. The movie costumes were a real step up. Why didnt they continue (even into the 2nd movie) with those armoured suits? They looked really good.

Because the movie suits were crap and fell apart during the filming of the movie.
Using them in the second movie wouldn't have worked anyway, because it was in the same continuity as the show, not some irrelevant alternate world adventure like the first movie.

[Christopher]

I thought the Ranger costumes from the first MMPR movie were hideous. The helmets in particular were badly proportioned and lacked the elegance of the originals.

Chris3123 wrote:

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Bad example. Mork was always real. He only made Richie think it was a dream. Remember, after Richie wakes up, Mork shows up at the Cunningham's door pretending to be somebody (a guy asking for directions or something). After that we see him making his call to Orsen.

That was a retcon after the fact.

http://www.tv.com/happy-days/my-favo...3/summary.html

In the original ABC broadcast of this episode, the last scene where we saw Robin Williams was when he appeared as a normal guy on Richie's porch after he woke up from his dream. The episode ended with some gag at Arnold's about UFOs. When ABC ran that episode for the second time the following August, after Mork & Mindy was announced for the fall schedule, they added a scene at the end. Mork talks to Orson and tells him that he made everyone forget about him, let Fonzie go, and was heading off for a mission in the year 1978.

I saw the episode when it was first broadcast, and it definitely ended as a dream. I distinctly remember being aware of the contradiction when it was announced that Mork was getting his own spinoff. The only thing I didn't remember was that they later added a new scene to the Happy Days episode to reconcile it. Maybe I never saw the rerun.

[Mark_Nguyen]

Takeru wrote:

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Because the movie suits were crap and fell apart during the filming of the movie.
Using them in the second movie wouldn't have worked anyway, because it was in the same continuity as the show, not some irrelevant alternate world adventure like the first movie.

^ This. The Red Ranger outfit from the movie is on display in a store at Disney World, and it's clearly seen better days. One wonders if they LITERALLY put it through a grinder in the interm for some reason, or they simply fell apart due to shoddy construction.

I'm long-since removed from watching anything PR, and SPD was the last season I really liked. I'm glad it's coming back though, it somehow feels comforting to have around and know people are enjoying it, even if I'm not. Kinda like The Simpsons. :P

Mark

[Kelthaz]

I'm not sure if anyone here is a fan of That Guy With the Glasses, but TheSpoonyOne is running a new show called the Deadliest Character. In this parody of the Deadlist Warrior he pits two fictional characters against each other, accompanied by a fantastic animation of the fight, and each character is defended by a guest star. The first (and only) episode so far is Mechagodzilla defended by The Angry Video Game Nerd vs. the original Megazord defended by Linkara.

MechaGodzilla vs. The (original) Megazord

[SG-17]

I thought the same exact thing as James when I saw the Dragonzord being summoned.

[Sephiroth]

meh, I allways perferred Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad

[Christopher]

Sephiroth wrote:

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meh, I allways perferred Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad

Oh my gods, I loathed that one. The worst of the bunch. The new US footage was just a lame high-school sitcom that had no real connection to the Japanese Gridman footage, so that the "cyberspace" battle sequences could've been interchangeably inserted into any episode. So it felt repetitive and pointless.

[Chris3123]

Christopher wrote:

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Oh my gods, I loathed that one. The worst of the bunch.

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.

[Christopher]

^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.

[Chris3123]

Christopher wrote:

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^No, I never saw that one.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Yep. Even Saban himself couldn't capture lightning in a bottle a second time.

[Admiral_Young]

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.

[Agent Richard07]

The pirate show looks and sounds interesting. I wonder what the english title will be.