Sorry for the double post, but it seems appropriate to put a new-episode review in a separate post: Well, "Silver Lining Part 2" went surprisingly dark with Orion's backstory. This is a franchise that usually avoids the death of human or humanlike beings, except in rare cases like Cole's parents and Master Org in Wild Force. But here, they essentially showed the extermination of an entire planetary population -- well, implied rather than showed, but even if it was offscreen, they're all pretty clearly dead. And since this is totally unlike the Gokaiger version (where the main team are aliens and the sixth Ranger is a human Sentai fanboy), it's not like they just adapted the darkness of the Japanese version -- they chose to introduce such a dark backstory themselves. Which is really unexpected from this creative team. And if they build on the hints here about Orion's personal vendetta maybe getting in the way of being a team player, it could bring some much-needed conflict to the show. But it was addressed so cursorily here that I don't expect much. Cameron Jebo is okay -- a bit too cool and casual to be convincing as an alien, but then, who expects anything on Power Rangers to be believable? At least he's a more charismatic and expressive lead than Andrew Gray, but then, so is Gosei, the immobile tiki head. I'm starting to get tired of this show's conceit that the Rangers have to "unlock" certain pre-existing powers and weapons before they can use them, like in a video game. What's the deal, Gosei? These guys are fighting off alien invaders trying to destroy the world, so why are you hampering them by holding back their most powerful weapons until they meet some arbitrary goal?
I think I proved my geekiness today by buying this. Not complaining though. It's solidly designed and has three basic sound effects and three musical effects, which are accessed by holding the mouthpiece button first. These include the MMPR theme, the Dragonzord's theme and the Zord combination theme.
The Fifth Crystal Another Kelsey-centric episode, and one that, unlike the next episode (the Chad-centric The Chosen Path) tells us different things about her character. I don't know about anyone else, but I liked Kelsey's grandmother. She reminded me a little bit of Mr. Collins from Time Force, which made the moment when she showed up to help Kelsey pretty awesome. This episode's plot was an echo of the LR/Time Force team-up Time for Lightspeed, which I thought was neat. It also reminded me of the episodes in S.P.D. where things got stolen, which I found kind of neat even though I can't stand S.P.D. Finally, the nerd in me demands that I mention Vaughn Armstrong's guest stint as Agent Meyers. I was not aware that PR had a Trek connection before I noticed his name, but it made me squee when I saw it because both PR and Star Trek are awesome. The Chosen Path I had thought "MMPR logic" had disappeared from the franchise as things moved away from the episodic and towards the serialized, but this episode, unfortunately, proved that I was mistaken. This episode was not only a total rehash of the last Chad-centric episode we had (Up to the Challenge), 3/4 of it made very little sense, even by normal PR franchise standards. Yesterday Again I've enjoyed this season's previous 'tech episodes' and the two previous focus eps we'd gotten for Carter, so combining those two story ideas, as well as a nice take on the Groundhog Day trope, made for a pretty awesome episode that also pushed a few boundaries in terms of what is typical for the franchise. Olympius using the Unilaser against the Rangers was a nice demonstration of his ability to think strategically, and made for, as I mentioned, a nice moment of darkness that isn't typical of the franchise, although I do wish the effects people had used more smoke to keep the Rangers obscured, because it would've enhanced the idea that Olympius had destroyed them. It is what it is, though, and the story point worked regardless, so it's ultimately not that big of a deal. Her teammates might've given her non-verbal eyerolls, but I thought Dana's joke was kind of funny in a completely cheesy way, and was a nice way to reinforce the Groundhog Day aspects of the episode's story. I would've liked to have at least seen Vypra and Loki in the background of the Skull Cavern scenes, but that's just a personal preference and is really neither here nor there.
Time Force's Edward Laurence Albert (Mr. Collins) played the leader of the Bajoran mob in DS9: "A Man Alone." And of course the MMPR Command Center was a hybrid of two recurring Trek locations, the Brandeis-Bardin Institute (seen as Camp Khitomer in The Undiscovered Country and Lore's HQ in TNG: "Descent") and the perennial Vasquez Rocks.
Nice buy. I'm not a big Power Rangers/Sentai guy by any means, but I'd love to own one of those... Price tag looks painful though!
Yeah, I'm normally very careful about how much I spend in a given month, but certain circumstances have made my wallet hate me this month. There's a new Dragonzord figure coming out soon, and I can't decide if I really want to spend the huge dough on the Legacy Megazord so that the two can combine. I'll have to see. (and maybe play the lottery in the meantime... )
That's weird, I remember having one of those like 15 years ago, it looks exactly the same as I remember.
I was watching some compilations recently of all the Zord combinations. I don't think I kept up with the series after about Zeo, in part because the original cast was disappearing. Perhaps it's just me, but does anyone else feel the older Megazord SFX are better in some ways than the modern ones? That's not to say the newer ones are bad, inherently. But it's my experience that the CGI elements tend to look more cartoony and don't transition quite as well to the suited actor. Some of it is simply aesthetics, as I'm sure we all have our favorite Zords.
The old one was smaller, less detailed and of much lower quality, it was also made from plastic, this one probably has metal parts like the new morpher.
Saban Brands announces plans for a new movie, but with Lionsgate this time. MegaforceCast "The new film franchise will re-envision the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers". Sounds like a reboot to me, though i suppose it's possible (if unlikely) that it was just a poor choice of words on the part of whoever wrote the press release. Either way, I'm really interested to see how this turns out. I just ask that it's better than the previous two movies. ETA: Oops, someone else already posted in its own thread. NM
I just found out that Milo Cawthorne and Olivia Tennet from Power Rangers RPM got married last year. A late congratulations to both of them. Wedding Pic
Of course it was his idea, an MMPR reboot movie is so out there that no one else would have ever thought of it, he's such a visionary genius. It's not like movies based on 80s and 90s kids shows made a bazillion dollars in the last decade or that superheroes in costumes have any kind of success, no one at Saban Brands would have ever considered a movie if it wasn't for a washed up former actor turned mediocre MMA fighter with an ego the size of Manhattan suggesting a green ranger solo movie starring him. I hope Saban brings back Austin St. John for a cameo just to see JDF turn green in real life.
At least they've fixed the helmet now http://www.orendsrange.com/2014/05/behind-scenes-look-on-tommys-power.html And also, ToQGer is getting train armour.
I was watching some old clips recently, and I can't help thinking that Ninjor seems more awesome than I recall when the show as on the air. Maybe it's because he has a measure of badassery while sounding like Marvin the Martian.