Saban re-acquires rights to 'Rangers'

Discussion in 'TV & Media' started by Samurai8472, May 13, 2010.

  1. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I liked some of RPM's moments.

    -Using the "Go-Onger" van

    -Trying to explain some of it's Sentai counterparts ideas.



    By this point I had stopped watching Power Rangers and went over completely to Sentai, where the footage and ideas all come from.

    If anyone wants to check a sentai they should start with Shinkenger. Subs are available at www.tvnihon.com
     
  2. The Borgified Corpse

    The Borgified Corpse Admiral Admiral

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    Like what?

    Honestly, I do plan on checking out some of RPM on DVD, but it looks like they've only released 2 volumes of it. That's a total of, what, 10-12 episodes. Hardly a complete series or even all of Guzelian's run.
     
  3. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Well, beyond the generic Sentai tropes, there's the fact that Go-onger, the basis for RPM, was profoundly different in tone. Whereas RPM was the darkest and most mature Power Rangers season, Go-onger was one of the goofiest Super Sentai seasons. The giant robots were sentient vehicle-animal hybrids from another dimension, with googly-eyed designs based on Disney's Cars. RPM had to carve away as much of the original footage as possible to avoid the silly stuff, and even then they had to contend with rationalizing, or at least lampshading, the designs.
     
  4. Kibbin

    Kibbin Commodore Commodore

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    It's at times like this that I realise how talented the writers for 'Rangers' are, to take footage from a silly aintentionally campy kids show and try and turn it into a darker-er more mature-ish series must take some talent. All I'd probably end up doing would be re-dubbing it and recasting the actors.
     
  5. Cyke101

    Cyke101 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    After giving up at the start of Turbo, this is what got me back, specifically Ninja Storm. I know you weren't a fan of the show, but I wasn't looking for much depth when I came across it, since it was Power Rangers. Rather, I liked that the fight choreography was much faster, that hand movements (blocks, parries, punches, etc) were emphasized a lot more, and that superpowers were used far more often than they were before. It could have been a side effect of how Hollywood was adopting a more East Asian attitude towards fight scenes (American fight scenes used to serve only plot purposes, but Wuxia fight scenes serve to show off physicality, fluidity, and beauty) thanks to the Matrix and Crouching Tiger, but to see that attitude adopted much more deliberately for Power Rangers was such a nice twist to see. Doubly so since in the past, little actual martial arts were used; kicks were just kicks, they weren't really patterned after specific styles, for example. Fight scenes of the past seemed clunky and unappealing, but NS' fight scenes seemed terrifically modern and hyperkinetic.

    Story aside, my one complaint about NS was its legacy: it made sense for our heroes to have non-Ranger powers in civilian mode. They're studying exaggerated takes on traditional ninja abilities with a magical bent. However, each season after that, every Ranger team had to have civilian powers, and each reason became more convoluted and forced, such as mutantcy. The only one that really made sense theme wise was Mystic Force, for obvious reasons. (the two exceptions: Tommy and Adam holding their own with their superpowered successors, despite not having any real offensive powers themselves! Skill and experience over gimmicks)
     
  6. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Actually it's usually been the other way around. For the most part, Super Sentai has tended to be more serious and sophisticated than its Power Rangers adaptations. Certainly a lot more violent, without the whitewashing and avoidance of death that's usually mandatory in US kidvid. But over the years, the PR franchise has evolved to be more and more like the SS franchise, and perhaps there's been some reciprocal influence as well. Go-onger was unusual in adopting a more juvenile, comical style, and conversely RPM was exceptional in how dark and sophisticated it was for a PR season.

    And as I said, mainly the way RPM managed was by using as little Go-onger footage as they could get away with.


    To some extent, that's what the Wild Force season did, in a way. Usually the PR storylines are very different from the corresponding SS storylines, but WF was an almost beat-for-beat remake, the only major differences being the identities/storylines of the Red Ranger and the archvillain. Some seasons have adapted parts of the storyline fairly closely (like the Magna Defender storyline in Lost Galaxy) and gone in a very different direction otherwise (like setting LG on a space colony ship instead of Earth, and using original villains for most of the season).


    I quite liked the action sequences in the early seasons. Walter Jones certainly used a distinctive style (called "hip-hopkido," kind of a capoeira variant) in his fight scenes, and it was damned impressive to watch.

    What I liked about the original cast was that they clearly did their own stunts. That was something that happened less as time went on, as new cast members were hired more just as actors with doubles doing the bulk of the stunt work. I didn't find that as impressive.


    Again, though, I like it when the cast members are shown in action out of costume, where you can see the actors themselves performing the stunts. So I like the idea of giving the Rangers "civilian" powers, and regret that the use of such powers generally fizzled out after the first few episodes.

    I think the powers in Jungle Fury made as much sense as in Ninja Storm, for much the same reason. The idea in JF was that they were tapping on the animal spirits within themselves, as an outgrowth of their martial-arts training. Indeed, their Ranger powers were presented as an extension of their inherent chi powers.
     
  7. lennier1

    lennier1 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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  8. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    ^Ai-yi-yi-yi-yi...
     
  9. The Borgified Corpse

    The Borgified Corpse Admiral Admiral

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    While I can understand not wanting to show people dying on an American kids show, I was always annoyed when they would say "destroy" instead of "kill." I admit, I was somewhat older than the show's target audience, but still, on a show that's all about ninjas & monsters kicking the crap out of each other, you'd think that the monsters' intentions to kill the Power Rangers would be so obvious that even the youngest viewers could understand them. So many kids shows are about one character putting another character in mortal danger. What about Tom & Jerry, Sylvester & Tweety, Wile E. Coyote & the Roadrunner?

    While ABC is cancelling Power Rangers, what about the original Japanese source material? Are they still making Sentai series in Japan?

    Random musings & memories about the toys:

    I wish they did action figures of the Rangers in their civilian clothes. Micro Machines did tiny civilian versions of the original Rangers. Then there were the auto-Morphin' Rangers that had them in costume but without their helmets. But they never did regular 5" figures of the Rangers in their civilian clothes and they even stopped doing the auto-Morphin' figures after Turbo.

    Ban-Dai was also really bad about doing action figures for the big bads. They never did a 5" Rita Repulsa, even though they had 5" figures of Lord Zedd, Goldar, Rito Revolto, & Master Vile. I think they did do a 5" Divatox but she was really hard to find. I don't think they ever did a 5" Astronema. And other than the Cogs, they never did any of the regular villains from Zeo--no King Mondo, Queen Machina, Prince Sprocket, Clank, Orbus, Prince Gasket, or Archerina. The only Zeo bad guys they did were random monsters of the week.

    In a way, it was apt that, in "Forever Red," the surviving generals of the Machine Empire were mostly reused Beetleborgs costumes. Since they never did any 5" figures of the regular Zeo bad guys, we always used to use Beetleborgs as the big bads during that era (or occasionally characters from Spawn). (I think, at one point, we even had Billy go dark side, and become the new leader of the Machine Empire.)
     
  10. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Even when Sentai can be downright silly at times it can totally pull out the kickass moments and dramatic moments

    take for instance the green ranger actually dying.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsUCa0iBFoc

    The red ranger and green ranger were actually brothers



    Or Abarekiller's death

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Do4-mYGKIo

    Sorry for the Hong Kong subs. No one has subbed this series properly up to the point of his death.






    They go on like nothing happened. They do their own thing.

    Do a youtube search for Goseiger subbed. It's a pretty interesting show.

    In the past all Toei(the company behind the marketing and such of the sentai series) did was provide a rough outline to the American folks and then the American production crew/writers winged it.

    Take this article for instance. It's almost spot on for what happened behind the scenes

    http://www.livejournal.com/users/deriksmith/4099.html




     
  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Yeah, that's been part of the bizarre rules of US kidvid censors for decades. Nobody can say "kill," "dead," "death," "dying," or anything like that; it has to be "destroy," "eradicate," "annihilate," "eliminate," etc.


    They were making Super Sentai for fifteen years before Power Rangers came along. I think it's kind of a tradition by now.


    Fascinating. I always figured the switch to the Sentai approach of changing the cast each year was Lynn's doing; since he took the show in a more sophisticated direction like the Sentais, I figured he was generally trying to emulate their approach. And there's a lot more I didn't know about the process.
     
  12. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    http://www.rangerboard.com/showthread.php?t=136853

    Might have to skip a few pages to get to the real information but the February 2009 to Febuary 2010 Sentai "Samurai Sentai Shinkenger" will be adapted.

    People are thinking this is the logical choice since the series is done and it gives the new writers a chance to take their time to plan out a series instead of rushing like in the past.

    I've been too busy but i'm slowly catching up in Shinkenger. I'm on episode 24 right now. I'd say it's a decent series so far.
     
  13. The Borgified Corpse

    The Borgified Corpse Admiral Admiral

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    I've just been watching the video history of Power Rangers at Atop the Fourth Wall. http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/search/label/HOPR
    It's interesting stuff, particularly the sincere affection with which he approaches Bulk & Skull. But so far, the funniest part of his review is the fever pitch to which his ranting ascends at the end of Part 1 of his Turbo review, pointing out all of the absurdities of the early series, like Lt. Stone taking over Ernie's Juice Bar, incompetant Elgar getting all sorts of important assignments, Divatox's easily defused detonators, Alpha 6's jive-ass voice, and Demetria's infuriating only-talks-in-questions quirk.

    EDIT: Although, I do have to vehemently disagree with him about Divatox. True, she's not as menacing as Lord Zedd or even King Mondo, but she was a hell of a lot more interesting than the Machine Empire. Turbo has an element of comfortable resignation to it. While the villains lacked menace, I don't think the show really wanted them to be menacing. It's like they said, "You know what, we've been on the air for 5 years now. Our viewers know what the formula is. They know that, outside of the occasional apocalyptic 2-parter, the bad guys will never win. And considering the monsters-of-the-week are the only ones that do any fighting, we need to do something different with the big bad to make her interesting." Scenery chewing is such an important part of melodrama, and Divatox could chew scenery like nobody's business. Plus, when done right, if you usually play a villain for laughs, it can make them that much more frightening when they do start accomplishing some hardcore villainy. (I feel the same way about Gene Hackman's portrayal of Lex Luthor in Superman: The Movie.)
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2010
  14. The Borgified Corpse

    The Borgified Corpse Admiral Admiral

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    Perhaps. But in the TV business, it often seems like tradition doesn't count for much. (Damn you, NBC! Bring back Law & Order!)
     
  15. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    But my point is that Super Sentai got along for half its existence without there being such a thing as Power Rangers, so there's no reason to believe that its viability in Japan would be affected by what happens to its American adaptation.

    Besides, Law & Order isn't co-produced by a toy company. As long as Japanese kids (and adults?) keep wanting to buy new Sentai toys, Bandai and Toei should be able to afford to keep making the series.
     
  16. The Borgified Corpse

    The Borgified Corpse Admiral Admiral

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    The 1st one seems pretty heartfelt & interesting. If you could do death at all on an American kids show, this is the way to do it.

    As for the 2nd one, damn that's a bloody death scene.:eek: You can't even do that kind of gory death on an adult series on American network TV.
     
  17. The Borgified Corpse

    The Borgified Corpse Admiral Admiral

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    Well, no, obviously. But not knowing the current state of Sentai, I wasn't sure if, perhaps, ABC's decision came from a new lack of Sentai footage or something.

    BTW, when Saban takes over the series again, I'd like to see them release a new, complete soundtrack album. There were a bunch of great songs that never made it to CD. I'm especially fond of the Piranhatron's theme. Plus, the Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie soundtrack is out of print & expensive.
     
  18. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Oh, okay. Well, Super Sentai is still going strong; they're already into their second season post-Go-onger. ABC/Disney's decision to end PR was due to purely domestic factors such as ratings. As suggested above, it may have something to do with Disney's merger with Marvel, giving them ownership of another action franchise with which to cater to the young male market, so that they didn't need Power Rangers anymore.
     
  19. lennier1

    lennier1 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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  20. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    New Power Rangers press release from bandai jp

    http://www.bandai.co.jp/press/images/3/56874.pdf

    Not so much, but is an official document from bandai, which is now. Explains that Bandai America has a "World Wide" License in play for the new Power Rangers series.