Power Rangers

[Kelthaz]

Christopher wrote:

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And having Gosei be Zordon's protege/inheritor is a nice touch, but if Zordon put Gosei there to defend the Earth in time of need, then how come he's never gotten involved in fighting off the nine previous threats to Earth that have arisen since Zordon died? (Not counting Lost Galaxy since it was in space, or SPD and RPM since they were in the future.)

Perhaps the threat that awakened Gosei isn't the current Megaforce villains, but the rising of the Zangyack (Or whatever PR decides to call them). Either Gosei doesn't know about the true threat or he recruited these teens to deal with the minor threat of whatever they're facing now to prepare them for the real danger.

[DalekJim]

Action packed opener, not sure what to make if it yet. The pink ranger is fucking hot and the red ranger is fucking bland, otherwise it was more of the same fun sentai action.

Hard to judge the show on the opener as it was mostly action. It was no worse than the original MMPR opener though.

[Chris3123]

cylkoth wrote:

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^ The awkward part of the dialogue had them asking what the figures lining the walls were...

Christopher wrote:

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One of them asked "Who are those?" in reference to all the Ranger figurines along the walls.

Ok. I have to disagree though that this means that he couldn't possibly have heard of PRs before. That he must be able to recognize them if he has heard of them is just an assumption.

cylkoth wrote:

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plus a main character having visions of the Legends war. They should've recognized that those were the previous Ranger teams who've save the planet for 18 near consecutive (SPD excluded) years!

Those two scenes (him waking up and being reminded of the dream by the figurines) do appear to vaguely imply that he had no idea what he was seeing in his dream, but not definitively.

Anyway, as dumb as the idea of one or two of them having heard of them but not knowing what they look like is, it's certainly more believable than the idea that they have never even heard of them before, right?

Hmmm, maybe I'm giving the writers a bit too much benefit of the doubt.

[Christopher]

Chris3123 wrote:

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Ok. I have to disagree though that this means that he couldn't possibly have heard of PRs before. That he must be able to recognize them if he has heard of them is just an assumption.

But come on, we're not talking about novelists or diplomats or other minor celebrities that people may have heard of without seeing. We're talking about groups of people that, over the past 20 years, have had weekly, extremely public battles with giant monsters bent on destroying the world. The human race owes its very continued existence to the Power Rangers dozens of times over. They'd be world-famous, revered figures. And they all have a distinctive, formulaic, and very flamboyant appearance that would surely loom very large in the public's image of them. And if these characters are high school students, that makes them under 18, which means there has never been a time in their entire lives that the Power Rangers have not been an integral part of the world they inhabited. So hell yes, they should absolutely know what Power Rangers look like.

[Mark_Nguyen]

Well, who knows what kind of society the Power Rangers universe is in - the populace as a whole may be very closed-minded and not at all global-thinking. After all, this is the same USA that allows two teen bullies to become junior law enforcement officers, massive alien complexes to sit undiscovered in plain sight on cliffs just outside the city, and for jungle-raised wild children to be placed into society without any governmental intervention. To say nothing of all the massive urban destruction and hidden giant robots all over the landscape. Furthermore, while the scope of the danger is usually global, for whatever reason the evil guys of a given year tend to keep their assaults on mankind to one small city or town; presumably to move on from there, if multicolored kung-fu heroes weren't conveniently there to stop them cold. Sounds like the stuff of legend to me.

So, it wouldn't surprise me if as a whole, human society in PR is full of people who by nature keep their heads down and see nothing, while remaining happily simplistic and optimistic about dance competitions, science fairs and recycling campaigns run entirely by young people - the kind of Pleasantville that in the 1950s would have had lots of perfect caucasian families and young boy rascals always getting into trouble. Only our (mostly) teenaged heroes are able to see the bigger picture and, by extension, be the kind of kids that get chosen for this sort of after-school work.

Or something.

Mark

[cylkoth]

It just occurred to me. Perhaps that line isn't a mistake. What if it's part of the overall storyline? This is not a spoiler for Gokaiger as it's been over for nearly 2 years, but the war against the Zangyack Empire occurred between the end of Goseiger and the start of Gokaiger. Since Megaforce will combine elements from both series,, perhaps the writers will rework this as the war having took place, and all memory of the past Rangers deleted. That would explain why Gosei decided to awake now, why the teens didn't appear to know what Power Rngers were, and the dreams Red was having. The second half of the season will have them tracking down the various former team powers....

[Christopher]

^See, the thing is, I don't want the characters' ignorance of the Rangers to be rationalized; I just don't want it to be that way at all. I think it's quite simply a bad idea, not just for continuity reasons, but because this is supposed to be the 20th-anniversary season, and it would be a far better tribute to the history of the series if the characters were aware of the Rangers' legacy, if the impact of the Rangers on the world were shown and highlighted rather than wiped away. So I don't want to try to justify and defend it because I don't think it deserves defense.

[Kelthaz]

Mark_Nguyen wrote:

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Furthermore, while the scope of the danger is usually global, for whatever reason the evil guys of a given year tend to keep their assaults on mankind to one small city or town; presumably to move on from there, if multicolored kung-fu heroes weren't conveniently there to stop them cold. Sounds like the stuff of legend to me.

It would be interesting to read a comic book that is an alternative retelling of the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Zordon tries to recruit the teens to become Power Rangers, but like the first time they refuse the call. However, they don't encounter the squad of putties on the way out. A few hours later the Command Center is destroyed and Rita launches her assault on the Earth without the Power Rangers to oppose her. I'd read it.

[Chris3123]

Christopher wrote:

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But come on, we're not talking about novelists or diplomats or other minor celebrities that people may have heard of without seeing. We're talking about groups of people that, over the past 20 years, have had weekly, extremely public battles with giant monsters bent on destroying the world. The human race owes its very continued existence to the Power Rangers dozens of times over. They'd be world-famous, revered figures. And they all have a distinctive, formulaic, and very flamboyant appearance that would surely loom very large in the public's image of them. And if these characters are high school students, that makes them under 18, which means there has never been a time in their entire lives that the Power Rangers have not been an integral part of the world they inhabited. So hell yes, they should absolutely know what Power Rangers look like.

Oh, I agree 100%. I guess I'm grasping at all of these straws because, like you, I find the idea that Noah has never heard of Power Rangers to be utterly preposterous, and I just don't want it to be true.

And of course, this kind of thing has happened before. The Ninja Turtles, as well as Ninja Storm Rangers Shane and Tori, all initialy thought Power Rangers were fictional. And then there was that scene in the Lightspeed Rescue episode "Trakeena's Revenge", where a woman tells a little girl "you know there's no such thing as monsters."

[DigificWriter]

Everyone brings up the NS thing, but it was a joke that people have taken as a serious factual statement.

I too am puzzled by the Mega Rangers' ignorance of who the Power Rangers are as an entity, but it wasn't a make-up-break issue for me.

[Christopher]

^Umm, for future reference, the saying is "a make-or-break issue," i.e. one that either "makes" it work for you or totally ruins ("breaks") it for you.

[Christopher]

Okay, I'm rapidly losing patience with the stupidly self-contradictory premise of this season. On the one hand, they acknowledge all the prior teams of Power Rangers as having been real, meaning that Earth has been under repeated invasion by aliens and monsters for 20 years -- yet not only have the characters never previously heard of Power Rangers, but now we learn that the existence of aliens and monsters is still an unproven fringe belief? I could've bought a reboot where this was the first Ranger team in history, but it makes no sense whatsoever to try to take this approach in the same season that's blatantly paying tribute to the past and referencing Zordon's legacy and all that. It's a bizarre and inexplicable contradiction.

And then there was that idiotic line where Noah said to Jake "I told you UFOs were real" -- a week after they both got proof that the planet was being invaded by aliens. That was stupid even disregarding the legacy of previous seasons.

Also, if these guys are so ignorant of the legacy of the Rangers, how come they instantly recognized what Zords were without Gosei having to explain it? I wish these damn producers would make up their damn minds about whether Ranger history is known or unknown to the characters.

Mixed feelings about the Zords. Calling them "Mechazords" is a really bad idea -- a lot of viewers are bound to have trouble distinguishing the sound of "Mechazord" from "Megazord." As for the Goseiger footage, those disembodied heads docking with existing vehicles and taking form from them was bizarre -- the pilots and drivers of those vehicles must've been totally freaked out. And the heads coming off the Megazord to attack the monster remotely was pretty weird. But the footage of the individual Mechazords battling the saucers was pretty cool -- especially the dragon. Of course, as per usual Sentai/PR convention, I doubt we'll see much individual Zord action after this; they'll just go straight to Megazord mode and keep adding new variations thereon.

And given Jake's attempts to woo Gia, I had to laugh when their Mechazords merged by the tail of Jake's snake Zord sliding into an orifice at the rear of Gia's Zord. That's probably as close as he's ever going to come to getting lucky with her.

And I'm a little annoyed by how obvious they're making the fact that the action sequences in this show are basically commercials for whatever tie-in card game Bandai is marketing. I mean, I know it's all about selling the toys, but actually showing the cards onscreen during the key attacks is a little too blatant. Oh, well. I could live with it on Digimon Tamers -- but the difference is that that show was actually smart and well-written enough that I could tolerate the blatant toyeticism.

I kind of like the Zombat idea -- always good to get an explanation for how the monsters come back from the dead in giant form, instead of it just automatically happening. But the problem here was that the monster was already up and moving again before the Zombats attached and "resurrected" him.

[DigificWriter]

Christopher wrote:

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^Umm, for future reference, the saying is "a make-or-break issue," i.e. one that either "makes" it work for you or totally ruins ("breaks") it for you.

I posted that off of a Kindle Fire HD, and didn't even notice the screwup.

Just thought I'd make that clear.

Here's my review of Episode 2, cross-posted from elsewhere:
Now that's how you pace an episode of Power Rangers and set up a season.

Mega Mission laid the foundational groundwork for what this season is going to be, and He Basted Me with Science started to build on it. This ep reminded me of Race to the Rescue, Something to Fight For, and Save Our Ship n terms of how it used the villains and set up the introduction of the Zords and Megazord.

Plot-wise, I really liked the character interaction, especially between Jake and Gia; the writers are definitely going with a Zach/Angela and Joel/ Ms. Fairweather dynamic, which works for both characters. I also liked that they're parsing out bits of info about the villains but without really giving us a hierarchy for them, which can sometimes hold back character development since it can lead to pigeonholeing.

Aesthetically, I liked the return of the narration synopsis, but wish that they would've had it debut last week rather than this week. I also didn't mind not going to the 'command center' except at the very end of the ep because not having Gosei be 'exposition guy' let the Rangers' characters shine through.

I'm so glad we got individual Zord action; not only are the Mechazords freaking awesome design-wise, we get to see that they're all individualized as well. I didn't mind Troy's "I'm really flying a dragon" line, as it sounds totally like something I'd say if I were in his shoes.

I really don't have any gripes with this ep other than that I would've done Troy and Creepox's first encounter in real time instead of as a flashback. That's just a personal mindset, though, and isn't really a big deal.

[Christopher]

^I didn't interpret that as a flashback. I figured it was some kind of psychic vision, that Creepox contacted him telepathically. After all, we saw Troy get a vision of the Legend War at the start of the pilot.

[Kelthaz]

Troy was definitely having a flashback. Later in the episode Creepox mentions to Vrak and Malkor that he encountered a human that refused to fight him.