Power Rangers

[Kelthaz]

I just finished watching Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie a few minutes ago. Haha, wow, it almost made Samurai looked good. Almost.

[Christopher]

I don't remember Turbo being that bad. It did introduce Hilary Shepard Turner as Divatox, one of the best Power Rangers villains ever. And it had the advantage over the first movie of actually being in continuity, even though it ignored/overwrote some plot threads from the end of Zeo. Plus, the movie budget let them build sets and equipment that they could then use on the show, so Turbo the series looked better because of the movie.


I DVRed the Samurai Christmas episode, which was another clip show, so I fast-forwarded through most of it. There was some nice-ish material with Bulk & Spike visiting Master Ji, though. It kind of gave them the sendoff and recognition for their efforts at heroism that they didn't get in the finale.

It's odd how many installments this season have been shown out of order -- the series premiere was delayed for a year, the (alleged) RPM crossover was made as part of the Super Samurai season but aired before it began, and now the Christmas episode comes along a week after the series finale. It rather undermined the viewing experience -- not that it was such a great experience to begin with.

[Praetor]

Turbo felt like it should have been on TV, to me. The production values weren't that much better than the series that followed. The plot wasn't dreadful, it just didn't really go anywhere to me. Divatox was definitely the highlight.

[Samurai8472]

The Turbo movie felt like a DTV movie bundled with a "Casper The Friendly Ghost" DTV sequel

[Praetor]

Ew, don't remind me of those Casper sequels.

[Stephen!]

Praetor wrote:

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Turbo felt like it should have been on TV, to me. The production values weren't that much better than the series that followed. The plot wasn't dreadful, it just didn't really go anywhere to me. Divatox was definitely the highlight.

It seems to work well enough for Japan, with the Sentai movies basically just being oversized episodes.

And on an unrelated note, Amit Bhaumik has posted details on the "Hexagon" concept.

http://amitbhaumik.tumblr.com/post/38658236644/hexagon

The “Hexagon” was the original plan for the 11th season of Power Rangers to adapt the Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger season of Super Sentai for the season after Power Rangers Wild Force. The plan intended to continue some of the ideas and storylines from the Forever Red team-up episode of Power Rangers Wild Force as well as wrap up all loose ends from MMPR-PRWF. Just as PRIS essentially brought together and wrapped up the five or so preceding seasons of Power Rangers (MMPR-PRT), the intention was for the 11th season to bring together and wrap up all the preceding seasons.

[Christopher]

^Ooh, sounds like that would've been a lot better than the lame Ninja Storm.

[Takeru]

Christopher wrote:

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^Ooh, sounds like that would've been a lot better than the lame Ninja Storm.

Wrong, it sounds like dumb fanfic shit, it would have been an awful season.
Also, Ninja Storm wasn't lame, it was the breath of fresh air that Power Rangers needed at the time, it had great acting and was a fun season all around.

It's pretty ridiculous that this Amit guy claims that Hexagon was the original plan to adapt Hurricanger, it wasn't! It's just something he personally came up with and Disney said "Err ... no", they then hired Doug Sloan and Ann Austen while Amit was shown the door. Just because he worked for PR at the time doesn't make his idea more than what it was, the silly idea of a PR fanboy.

[Samurai8472]

Kyoryuger revealed to the public for the first time in Japanese magazines

Till now, only toy sellers knew about them through the toy catalog.


They'll have a cameo in Go-busters VS Gokaiger













Role call!


KyoryuRed : Kiba no Yuusha, the fang hero.
KyoryuBlack : Dangan no Yuusha, the bullet hero.
KyoryuBlue : Yoroi no Yuusha, the armor hero.
KyoryuGreen : Zangeki no Yuusha, the slashing hero.
KyoryuPink : Tsuno no Yuusha, the horned heroin.



The enemy's grunts are called Zori Soldiers.

[Christopher]

Takeru wrote:

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Wrong, it sounds like dumb fanfic...

An odd reaction, considering that it would've done the same thing for the first eleven seasons that "Countdown to Destruction" did for the first six. And "Countdown" is still probably the most beloved story in PR history. I'm not sure what makes it sound like fanfic to you.

[Takeru]

Countdown to Destruction is a two parter and it only brought two actresses back who had been on the show very recently (the rest were rubber suits and voice actors), the biggest part of the season was still a Megaranger adaptation. This Hexagon idea would require tons of original footage, it's completely at odds with the Hurricanger footage, the storyline as presented requires specific rangers to appear when not a single actor had been approached about his availability etc.

Look at Power Rangers in Space, it featured the search for Zordon, it brought back some older characters but those were small parts, most of the time the show revolved around the new villains, the Andros/Astronema story and the other current rangers. Hexagon sounds like Countdown to Destruction stretched over an entire season, there's so much wrapping up and fanservice going on that the new rangers seem like an afterthought (did you notice that they are barely mentioned?). Power Rangers should always be about the current team, you can throw in references to the past, you can bring back old characters but only to seve the current characters stories.

That's why Gokaiger worked, they brought back countless characters but at its core the series was about the Gokaiger themselves, it was their story, they learned and grew, the old characters just helped them out along the way. Hexagon is too in love with the franchise's past and puts too much focus on it, that what makes it sound like dumb fanfic to me, it's a fanboys wet dream but not a realistic approach to an adaptation of Hurricanger.

[Christopher]

Takeru wrote:

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This Hexagon idea would require tons of original footage...

What's wrong with that? MMPR season 2 was mostly original footage.

Takeru wrote:

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it's completely at odds with the Hurricanger footage

No, it isn't; read the article again:

The idea required the two teams of Rangers in a single season from Hurricanger...

The idea specifically grew out of the Hurricanger premise of two rival Ranger teams.

Takeru wrote:

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the storyline as presented requires specific rangers to appear when not a single actor had been approached about his availability etc.

Again, from the article:

Bear in mind that this was a plan in the very rough stages and should not be treated with undue importance. It was birthed during a rocky time of transition when the direction and even continued existence of the show was in doubt. This is just one of many potential visions for a season of the show; one that ultimately went unused.

Bhaumik never claims it was more than a tentative idea, one that they didn't get the chance to develop further because of the decision to move production to NZ. Any other idea developed at the same time would've been aborted at an equally preliminary stage (and it sounds like several other "potential visions" indeed were), so that doesn't make sense as a criticism of this particular idea.

Takeru wrote:

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Hexagon sounds like Countdown to Destruction stretched over an entire season, there's so much wrapping up and fanservice going on that the new rangers seem like an afterthought (did you notice that they are barely mentioned?).

False. There are several paragraphs' worth of discussion about the roles the new Rangers would play. Bhaumik again:

The main focus of the show would be on the new characters of the season, but many of the guest stars would be previous Rangers.

The article focuses on the ties to old continuity because that's presumably what the readers want to hear about. But that doesn't mean the actual season premise had an identical emphasis. What you're reading is not the actual proposal, but a discussion of particular aspects of it.

Takeru wrote:

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Hexagon is too in love with the franchise's past and puts too much focus on it, that what makes it sound like dumb fanfic to me, it's a fanboys wet dream but not a realistic approach to an adaptation of Hurricanger.

Speak for yourself. I think it's a marvelous idea and would've been a hell of a climax to the Saban era. Whether it's a faithful adaptation of the Sentai season is irrelevant to me. We've just seen a season that was a slavish adaptation of its Sentai equivalent and it pretty much sucked. Many of the best PR seasons, by contrast, have kept as little as possible of the source material and told their own entirely original stories.

[Samurai8472]

Christopher wrote:

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We've just seen a season that was a slavish adaptation of its Sentai equivalent and it pretty much sucked. Many of the best PR seasons, by contrast, have kept as little as possible of the source material and told their own entirely original stories.

Time force and wild force were 80% sentai adaptations. Time force was good.

wild force couldn't save an already bland sentai concept

As for the future mega force, IMO it seems Saban is trying grab hold of any MMPR nostalgia he can milk




Right down to megaforce pink wearing short shorts, blue being the geek and all being in high school

Contrast this with most of the weapons and gear keeping goseiger
Terms

http://www.rangerboard.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4

Their megazord is the "gosei great megazord"

Their mentor has "gosei" in its name

Morpher is the gosei morpher


So basically I have no idea if they're being slavish or nostalgic

[Christopher]

Samurai8472 wrote:

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Time force and wild force were 80% sentai adaptations. Time force was good.

Which only proves my point. It's absurd to think you can predict the quality of a PR season by how faithful it is to the Super Sentai equivalent. The quality of any adaptation is never simply a function of fidelity, because an adaptation is a new work with its own creative voice and approach. What matters is the execution of the work itself, not its relationship to its source.

The relationship of the PR season to the SS season is only significant to the people who watch SS. But those people are a tiny minority of the PR audience. I, for one, have never seen an SS episode in my life; all I know is what I've read about them. The whole point of PR is to use SS footage as source material for a series aimed at an audience that hasn't seen SS and knows nothing about it. So all that matters is how good the PR season's story is on its own terms. Sometimes it can be good by doing a close adaptation of a good SS season; other times it can be good by mostly ignoring the source material and crafting a solid original story. Or it can be bad in either of those ways, or anything in between.

Fans and critics are always trying to find these simplistic, monocausal explanations for what makes something good or bad, but they're overlooking the obvious: If the formula for making something good were that simple, then everything would be good. You just can't make any blanket assumptions about what works and what doesn't -- except that putting care and integrity and hard work into whatever you attempt is more likely to turn out well than the alternative.

Right down to megaforce pink wearing short shorts, blue being the geek and all being in high school

Huh? Why are you assuming the Blue Ranger is "the geek?" He's dressed quite stylishly and has a confident smile. And I thought we'd long outgrown the old stereotype that glasses are somehow equated with being uncool.

So basically I have no idea if they're being slavish or nostalgic

And that doesn't matter. What matters is whether they do it well, whatever "it" turns out to be. Samurai could've been a terrific season if they'd been willing to spend the money on more experienced actors and writers and cast Japanese actors as the Shibas so it'd be a little more plausible. The problem there was with the execution, not the concept. Any concept can be done well or badly.

[Praetor]

Stephen! wrote:

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It seems to work well enough for Japan, with the Sentai movies basically just being oversized episodes.

I didn't necessarily mean the TV feel as a bad thing. As for the sentai movies, some of them aren't even oversized.

While I didn't dislike Ninja Storm (even if it was Hurricanger-lite) I do think PR does better when it exercises some originality. Plus, it'd be nice to have put a bow on the previous seasons. For those reasons, fanwank or not, I like the basic Hexagon premise.