Power Rangers

[Christopher]

As for Tommy, why not leave it for a sequel? JDF certainly acted the role well, but the whole Tommy arc is worth its own movie as well as giving the "main" cast some setup before letting a new Tommy make most of them into guest characters on their own show.

Maybe. But Tommy has come over the years to be seen so much as the star of the original team that it's hard to believe he'd be left out of even the first movie, if they were doing a remake.

Granted, I'm biased because I'd prefer a new team to a remake/recasting of the originals, but we won't know which it is until they announce character names. I do think it's telling that the initial casting announcements listed the characters as Jason and Zack but that subsequent ones have listed them only by Ranger color. That makes it plausible that there's been a reworking of the script to change it from remake to sequel. At the very least, it leaves things ambiguous enough that it could go either way. We can't rule out a remake, but we can't rule out a new team either.

 

[DigificWriter]

Christopher, I suggest you read through the last 10 or so pages of the following thread:
http://www.rangerboard.com/showthread.php?t=174829&page=140

Collider is generally credible, but, in this case, they are being given information that is entirely devoid of facts.

 

[Cyke101]

If it's a remake, Tommy's going to pop up in there in some way. Maybe towards the end to tease a sequel, but he'll be there.

I very much prefer focusing on the original 5, but Tommy is to MMPR what Wolverine is to the X-Men.

 

[Christopher]

DigificWriter, I am not talking about the Collider article anymore. I heard you the first time, and I took it into account then. What I'm saying is that the other facts we actually have, i.e. the official casting announcements and the almost completely different ethnic mix, suggest that they may not be remaking the original cast.

 

[DigificWriter]

https://mobile.twitter.com/PowerRangers/status/660196750133620736

@Christopher: Sorry. From my POV, though, there wouldn't have been any reason to worry about these actors not playing the MMPR characters if it weren't for Collider's massive error in trusting an Internet Troll as a source.

 

[RoJoHen]

If they want to set this up for a trilogy (and isn't that what everybody does these days?), Tommy would likely appear in the first movie, but I doubt they'd do much with him. They'd set him up to become an evil Ranger in Movie #2.

 

[Christopher]

You know, given that they've changed the appearances of the other five Rangers, if they do use Tommy, I hope they cast a woman in the part. The franchise has been far too slow in giving us female Sixth Rangers (or Red Rangers), so this is a chance to correct that.

 

[DigificWriter]

Gender-bending Tommy wouldn't really serve much practical purpose, though. The franchise can get better at including more gender diversity through other and better avenues.

 

[Christopher]

Gender-bending Tommy wouldn't really serve much practical purpose, though.

Neither would changing the ethnicity of Zack, Kimberly, Trini, and Billy, but reportedly they've done so. The point is that it shouldn't really matter; the essence of the character doesn't require them to be a specific sex or race. Surely that was proven a decade ago with Starbuck.

The franchise can get better at including more gender diversity through other and better avenues.

This is the better avenue, which is my point. The TV franchise is limited by what Super Sentai does; we haven't had a male Sentai Ranger changed into a female Power Ranger since MMPR. And Japan is at least a couple of decades behind the US in its gender attitudes, so I don't hold out much hope of Super Sentai giving us a female Red Ranger or Sixth Ranger anytime soon. (Not in a lead role, anyway. The female Red Ranger from Shinkenger/Samurai was a supporting player only in a few episodes, and the female "Sixth" Ranger in Go-onger/RPM was half of a male-female pair.) A project originating in America, like this movie, is the only place where I'd expect that kind of change to come from.

 

[kirk55555]

we haven't had a male Sentai Ranger changed into a female Power Ranger since MMPR.

Um, that's not true. If you mean Power Rangers putting a female into the suit of a male sentai ranger (like how Trini in MMPR was a female even though the yellow zyuranger her footage came from was a male), there have been several more cases of that, and all Yellow Rangers, actually:

Yellow Gingaman was a male, Yellow Lost Galaxy Ranger was a female

Yellow Gaoranger was a male, Yellow Wild Force Ranger was a female

Yellow GoGo Five was a male, Yellow Lightspeed Rescue was a female

Yellow Timeranger was a male, Yellow Time Force was a female

 

[Takeru]

we haven't had a male Sentai Ranger changed into a female Power Ranger since MMPR.

Every male yellow up to Wild Force was gender switched, the switching only stopped when Disney told Doug Sloan not to do it anymore when he did Ninja Storm, otherwise the navy ranger would have been female.

And Japan is at least a couple of decades behind the US in its gender attitudes, ...

It's not like america is particularly advanced in that when it comes to children's television, I can count on one hand the kid shows primarily targeting a male audience that have significant female characters, usually it's a token chick.
Sure, Saban added a second female (but sentai did it first) but they picked yellow and not someone significant. Saying that PR is limited by sentai isn't exactly true, they changed yellow so they could have changed red or the sixth. For Lightspeed Rescue they created a sixth ranger from scratch, it was still a male character.

The green ranger in the movie franchise will be male, this isn't even a question, Saban isn't that progressive.
Even changing the yellow ranger seemed like an automatism towards the end of Saban's first PR ownership, in Timeranger the yellow ranger was the tallest and most muscular. Who can look at this picture:

and pick yellow for thee gender switch? It makes no sense unless you cast a woman who has a matching stature (hint: they didn't), if they had thought about this for five minutes green would have become female to make the american character match the sentai footage better but they cast a woman as yellow because that's how it was supposed to be. That's a problem in itself imo, yellow apparently couldn't be male.

Despite Japan being behind in gender politics they were the ones creating a female sixth and a female red even if they were a part of a two person team and a short term character respectively, Saban didn't do that even once although nothing was stopping them from having a temporary female red replacement for example.

 

[Christopher]

we haven't had a male Sentai Ranger changed into a female Power Ranger since MMPR.

Every male yellow up to Wild Force was gender switched, the switching only stopped when Disney told Doug Sloan not to do it anymore when he did Ninja Storm, otherwise the navy ranger would have been female.

Ahh, okay. I hadn't realized that GingaYellow, GoYellow, and TimeYellow were men. I knew GaoYellow was, but I forgot. I just didn't recall seeing the same kind of obvious switch from female in new footage to male in stock footage that we got with Trini in MMPR. Did they get better at hiding it/reshooting Yellow Ranger scenes?

Still, why would Disney have been so opposed to adding more female Rangers? No, wait, rhetorical question... I know the likely answer and I'm not happy about it.

And Japan is at least a couple of decades behind the US in its gender attitudes, ...

It's not like america is particularly advanced in that when it comes to children's television, I can count on one hand the kid shows primarily targeting a male audience that have significant female characters, usually it's a token chick.

All the more reason why a feature film might have more leeway.

The green ranger in the movie franchise will be male, this isn't even a question, Saban isn't that progressive.

Probably, but there's no harm in expressing the desire for it to happen. Change isn't brought about by the people who make excuses for the status quo, but by the people who question it. I'm happier being in the latter group.

 

[Samurai8472]

And Japan is at least a couple of decades behind the US in its gender attitudes

It was just two years ago that the producer of Kyoryuger upset some fans with his comment about no yellow ranger in the series

Producer Takahito Ohmori explained why the 2013 installment lacks a Yellow Ranger

https://beatemupdaily.wordpress.com...r-because-girls-arent-manly-or-some-bullshit/

“This is actually not the first time a team is without a Yellow member, J.A.K.Q, Battle Fever J and Dengeki Sentai Changeman never had a Yellow member. When it was decided that the Kyoryuger’s would be required to defeat a dinosaur in order to be able to transform, we wanted the characters to be absurdly strong. In order to show this, we chose to have more male characters over female characters. Seeing how modern Yellows have been female, we couldn’t have a male Yellow. If the Yellow was a male, the kids would probably think is feminine and we wanted to avoid that.”

We get a male yellow ranger in Ninninger though.


So a male ranger in yellow in their eyes wouldn't be strong enough to tame the dinosaur's

 

[Christopher]

It was just two years ago that the producer of Kyoryuger upset some fans with his comment about no yellow ranger in the series...

Ohh, that's just pitiful. They were right to be upset.

 

[Takeru]

Did they get better at hiding it/reshooting Yellow Ranger scenes?

I don't think so, it's as ovvious in the sentai footage as in MMPR.

Still, why would Disney have been so opposed to adding more female Rangers? No, wait, rhetorical question... I know the likely answer and I'm not happy about it.

There's a difference between not wanting to add a female ranger and not wanting to change an existing male one, I think the likeliest reason was that someone at Disney looked at the navy ranger and said "But that's a man". I actually agreed with Disney and was glad they stopped the gender switching, it always bothered me because it was so obvious.
The Disney seasons had a bunch of female supporting characters as friends/mentors/villains, so it's not like they had a problem with females generally, they have a much better track record with that than Saban since he got the franchise back.

Ninja Storm: Marah, Kapri, Kelly
Dino Thunder: Cassie, Elsa, Hayley
SPD: Kat, Mora, Morgana
Mystic Force: Udonna, Clare, Leelee
Operation Overdrive: Miratrix
Jungle Fury: Camille, Fran
RPM: Dr. K, Tenaya 7
Samurai/Super Samurai: none
Megaforce/Super Megaforce: nada
Dino Charge: Kendall

For Saban that's one female character (I'm only counting face actors, not rubber suits) in five years and they have abandoned gender switching as well.

Probably, but there's no harm in expressing the desire for it to happen. Change isn't brought about by the people who make excuses for the status quo, but by the people who question it. I'm happier being in the latter group.

But we should also be realistic about that, MMPR already has two female rangers on a team of five and a female main villain, that beats Transformers and TMNT right from the start, for female representation MMPR looks already very good without making any changes to the tv show's gender ratio.
BSG didn't make Starbuck and Boomer female for shits and giggles, they did that because the original series was severely lacking in female characters, that's not the case for MMPR.

And don't get me wrong, I'd like a female sixth or red, I'd also like a male pink, I just don't think it's going to happen for this movie, no chance.
If I'm proven wrong, great! I'll do a happy dance and eat crow for three days straight.

It was just two years ago that the producer of Kyoryuger upset some fans with his comment about no yellow ranger in the series.

But he doesn't speak for all of Japan, he doesn't even speak for everyone at Toei. He uses "we" a lot in his comments but I think it was just him, Kyoryu Violet was supposed to be male for the entire series for example, Koichi Sakamoto fought for a change to female and Toei did it, so it wasn't everyone involved with Kyoryuger and it seems like Toei went out of their way to prove him wrong as soon as he was gone, ToQger had male characters change into yellow and pink all the time and with Ninninger we have a full time male yellow.
It's also worth noting that the japanese fans were as upset about his comments as the western fans.

 

[Christopher]

There's a difference between not wanting to add a female ranger and not wanting to change an existing male one, I think the likeliest reason was that someone at Disney looked at the navy ranger and said "But that's a man". I actually agreed with Disney and was glad they stopped the gender switching, it always bothered me because it was so obvious.

I suppose that makes sense. It was easier in MMPR seasons 2-3 where they used all-original footage for the Rangers because of the decision to keep the Zyuranger costumes.

But we should also be realistic about that

It was an idle musing. I never said I actually believed it was going to happen. Still, if we limited ourselves to expectations that conventional wisdom deemed "realistic," nothing would ever change.

MMPR already has two female rangers on a team of five and a female main villain, that beats Transformers and TMNT right from the start, for female representation MMPR looks already very good without making any changes to the tv show's gender ratio.

The human race is 1/2 female, not 1/3. Two out of six rather than one out of six is not "very good," it's just relatively less unrepresentative.

Sometimes I wish Toei would give us an all-female Sentai team for variety, but I'm afraid their Ranger armor would have a sailor-suit theme and their weapons would fire hearts and flowers or something.

BSG didn't make Starbuck and Boomer female for shits and giggles, they did that because the original series was severely lacking in female characters

No, it wasn't. It had Athena, Cassiopeia, and eventually Sheba as regulars, plus recurring characters like Apollo's love interest Serina, bridge officer Rigel, and pilot Lt. Brie. It had more recurring female characters than Star Trek did. True, it didn't use them very well, but they were there for the revival's creators to use and reinvent if they'd wanted to. But the revival didn't use any of them, aside from eventually giving Sharon the Athena code name.

It's also worth noting that the japanese fans were as upset about his comments as the western fans.

Good.

 

[Cyke101]

Gender-bending Tommy wouldn't really serve much practical purpose, though. The franchise can get better at including more gender diversity through other and better avenues.

I don't know, just simply having a female as the most powerful ranger on the team would alone speak volumes, even if nothing else is said about it. Like how anybody of any ethnicity could have played Barney in Mission: Impossible, but casting Greg Morris automatically meant greater protagonist roles for black actors, even though the show rarely talked about his race.

I just watched the latest Doctor Who episode (The Zygon Invasion), and AV Club mentions that it passes the Bechdel Test, perhaps not even at the intent of the screenwriters. But it goes over most heads because there's nothing in the episode that makes a big deal about it, only that there are multiple women just working as professionals. But it's important precisely because it barely happens at all in TV.

Like the God of Futurama said, "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

 

[Hound of UIster]

And Japan is at least a couple of decades behind the US in its gender attitudes

It was just two years ago that the producer of Kyoryuger upset some fans with his comment about no yellow ranger in the series

Producer Takahito Ohmori explained why the 2013 installment lacks a Yellow Ranger

https://beatemupdaily.wordpress.com...r-because-girls-arent-manly-or-some-bullshit/

“This is actually not the first time a team is without a Yellow member, J.A.K.Q, Battle Fever J and Dengeki Sentai Changeman never had a Yellow member. When it was decided that the Kyoryuger’s would be required to defeat a dinosaur in order to be able to transform, we wanted the characters to be absurdly strong. In order to show this, we chose to have more male characters over female characters. Seeing how modern Yellows have been female, we couldn’t have a male Yellow. If the Yellow was a male, the kids would probably think is feminine and we wanted to avoid that.”

I would point out even in this instance, the director of the show Sakamoto apparently didn't even agree to this to the point of spiking a good amount of the budget to cast a 7th semi-supporting member.

Sometimes I wish Toei would give us an all-female Sentai team for variety, but I'm afraid their Ranger armor would have a sailor-suit theme and their weapons would fire hearts and flowers or something.

It would probably be something related to makeup or shit like that. The Pretty Cure show does run thirty minutes after Super Sentai on Sunday Mornings there.

A lot of it is simply due to the fact: the show has degraded to mostly a toy selling vehicle aimed at children. Most of the themes are chosen by the toy companies. And it's the writers job to turn the merchandising into a story. The toy companies would never allow a female tv since the primary demo are boys.

 

[cylkoth]

The Rangers will pack up their zords and move over to Netflix in 2017.

 

[Christopher]

Good thing I already have a Netflix subscription.

Power Rangers Shuriken? I guess it'll be a Shuriken Sentai Ninninger adaptation. I wonder if there will be any format changes as a result of being on Netflix and getting the whole season (or at least half of it, as with Dreamworks Dragons' current Netflix-exclusive season) released at once, as well as being commercial-free?