I just saw the story about the Power Rangers DVD's...finally. I've been waiting for Mighty Morphin to be released forever it seems. Also have been doing a casual re-watch thanks to Teletoon Retro...this show brings back a whole lot of memories for me lol.
Just read about it too. Now I can finally catch up. I only started with Operation Overdrive. I'm also looking to see what the next series will be called. I saw something about Power Rangers Angel Force, but that turned out to be fan fiction. Then I saw something about Mighty Morphin' Pirate Rangers and finally settled on Power Rangers Megaforce as the likely title.
Today's Super Samurai episode was the kind that really shows how slavishly they're retelling the original Japanese stories, and there's a lot here that would be lost on most American viewers. This was basically recapitulating the history of the samurai class, how they were rendered irrelevant when firearms brought an end to the age of the sword. Which would kinda make sense in a Japanese show symbolizing the culture's history and heritage and mythology, but still seems rather strange in the context of a show where various types of gun and blaster and cannon and the like have been a routine part of the Rangers' arsenal from the beginning. And you know, it occurs to me that they've missed an opportunity. In a show that's built around paying homage to the lore of the samurai, why settle for having only six team members instead of adding one more and going for the full Kurosawa? I mean, The Seven Samurai, so I gather, is pretty much the ultimate samurai film of all time. It seems an oversight not to reference it. Of course, a lot of stuff about this show is similarly rooted in Japanese cultural elements that don't translate well. One thing I was reminded of recently is that samurai wasn't a job description, but a hereditary noble class -- something they acknowledged to an extent with Antonio, since he wasn't born into the lineage and thus could never be a true samurai. But the idea of all these non-Japanese characters being samurai by heritage is rather ridiculous -- and of course Bulk & Spike's quest to learn to become samurai is missing the whole point. Of all the Sentai seasons that Power Rangers could've chosen to adapt nearly verbatim, Shinkenger is probably the worst choice, since it's so deeply rooted in Japanese culture and heritage. I wish they'd reworked the concepts and storylines some so that they weren't as incongruous when Westernized.
Since they're following Shinkenger so closely, we'll get our 7th ranger with female Samurai Red Ranger.
^Oh, interesting. I just looked her up on Wikipedia. I guess that would explain what this big "If you only knew" secret was that Jayden was talking about here.
Supposedly Saban want's to skip Goseiger and use Gokaiger. It would seem logical since pirates are more of a universal theme than Gosei Angels.
7 normal episodes + 2 holiday specials for a total of 9. According to episode synopses, the episode "Fight Fire with Fire", which should be the third episode aired once the show comes back from hiatus in September.
DAMN repeat today. Is this going to be a two week break or what? Also finished the rewatch of the entire series from mighty morphin to RPM, took me six months. Now a question on vinjex when was it created and how many years is this after jungel fury?
We're now officially on a four-month hiatus; new episodes return in September. The exact year in which RPM took place wasn't ever specified, but the flashbacks to the Venjix outbreak showed a fairly modern 21st Century society, and the general rule of thumb for PR is that, unless otherwise specified, each season takes place in the year in which it aired. This means that RPM would've taken place in 2009. Regarding JF and RPM and the timeframes of the two seasons, the question of how much time passes between them is relevant only if you ascribe to the idea that they actually occurred in the same dimension (due to the appearance of Jungle Karma Pizza in Corinth). Interestingly enough, if the two seasons are set in the same dimension, one of the most significant events of RPM - the release of the Venjix virus - would've occurred either during or immediately following the events of Jungle Fury (depending on exactly how much time passed in-universe between the events of Welcome to the Jungle and Now the Final Fury).
RPM is an alternate universe, it's not in continuity with the other seasons. That was part of the Samurai team-up's plot. It would have made sense if it was set in the future (maybe even a few hundred years) because we saw that in Time Force humanity seemed to live in big cities surrounded by wasteland, but the flashbacks in RPM were obviously on an early 21st century technology level so that's not believable. Putting RPM in another universe was the best choice.
There seems to be this perception out there that Clash of the Red Rangers making the events of RPM take place in an alternate dimension was some huge, earth-shaking change, but it wasn't, because those individuals who were involved with RPM - particularly the original showrunner, Eddie Guzelian, and long-time PR writer John Tellegen - made statements during the season's initial run indicating that it was meant to exist in its own, self-contained reality, so the only thing that Clash of the Red Rangers did was to explicitely confirm 'in-universe' what had already been in the minds of the PTB behind RPM. There were certainly things about RPM's world that conformed to it being in the same continuity as the seasons that preceded it but in the far future (flashbacks aside), but there was nothing about it that explicitely mandated that it be.
It's not like Power Rangers has ever had a tight continuity. Lost Galaxy was supposed to be several years in the future, long enough for Earth to have invented interstellar drives, but then later seasons treated it as if it had taken place the same year it aired. Alternate or no, RPM was clearly presented as being sometime in the future. As far as I know, there was nothing in "Clash of the Red Rangers" that precluded the two from being in different times as well as different timelines -- especially since there was zero explanation given for how the universe transfer even worked.
^ I don't recall anything in RPM that explicitely indicates that it's meant to be set in the future other than the fact that Corinth is a domed city. Most of the Corinthian technology is analogous to what we have today, and the flashbacks - which, as noted, take place a year prior to the events of RPM proper - clearly conform to current tech. There's nothing saying that the RPM dimension couldn't operate on a different 'time-scale' than the 'mainstream' PRU, but there's also, as far as I remember, nothing that explicitely says that it does. Regarding the Lost Galaxy timeline/continuity issue, the fault there lies squarely with the writers of Trakeena's Revenge, which, as a narrative story, doesn't make a whole lot of sense and is what I would consider to be the weakest team-up episode of the franchise.
I know, but I don't really care about writer's intentions, backstories or explanations, that's nice trivia but if it's not on screen it doesn't count. Up until Clash we didn't know if RPM was in an alternate universe or the future, the Samurai writers could have decided they're from the 23th century and that would have been it.