I like my Megazord like my Optimus Prime -- with a mouth plate, dammit! Though, yeah, the cockpit shots into the various megazords rarely made any sense in the first place (where's the nose bridge? Why are there two eyes but one windshield?), so a glass plate would go a long, long way.
The mouth piece could be like a shield/barrier for the rangers in the cockpit. That way a monster's fist to the megazord's head won't shatter the entire glass face
"Deep Down Under" was a pretty good one. It did a good job introducing an antagonistic guest character and his conflict with Shelby, although of course it resolved things in a way that redeemed him, as one would expect. I think Camille Hyde's acting could use a little refinement, but I love her edge and intensity -- she even reminds me a bit of Nicole Beharie from Sleepy Hollow (and anyone who's seen that show presumably knows what high praise that is). You know, when they introduced a Zord based on an aquatic creature like a plesiosaur, I did not expect it to go into space. That's kind of a non sequitur. Still, it was a nice variation on the usual climactic fight. I do have to wonder why they didn't just go find Sledge's ship and blast it while they were out there, though. Now that they have orbital capability, they should take the opportunity to destroy the Magna-Beam, at the very least. At the end, when they apparently just flew straight home in the Plesio Zord, did they just leave their clothes and suitcases behind in whatever hotel they were staying at? Did they pay their bills? (Well, I guess the hotel would've run their credit cards when they checked in and would just charge them.) And I wonder if they bought round-trip plane tickets and had to eat the cost. Those things are non-refundable, you know.
"Wishing for a Hero" was an odd one. It was doing two distinct stories at once, the thing with the wish monster and the introduction of the new villain Heckyl. The latter one kind of fizzled out strangely, but I assume it's setup for future appearances. Maybe Heckyl is the main villain for next season -- the Zedd to Sledge's Rita, as it were (though hopefully without the eventual marriage, because I don't see anyone shipping these two characters). I can't see any other reason for introducing such a powerful and dangerous character and then not doing much of anything with him. So... they were just repeatedly putting Kendall in danger in the middle of the street and hoping some random passerby would save her? How did they get the permits for that? Didn't people start to notice that something strange was going on, with the same accident happening over and over? How did they rig the rope to fray on cue? What if Kendall hadn't ducked in time? And let's not even get into the ethical problems with encouraging random strangers to risk their lives in order to test their heroism. While we're at it, do these guys know about any of the former Power Ranger teams? If they're so hard up for a hero, there are a couple hundred retired Rangers who all got back in the game just last year for the Legend War, however cursorily. Anyway, that cursed-wish monster was pretty bad at his job, as cursed-wish monsters go. Usually when a wish turns out to have evil consequences (which is, let's face it, most of the time), it's rather more lethal than just a tummyache or a sore back or ants at a picnic. Granted, the Rangers' wishes were pretty basic to begin with, so they didn't give Wish Star a lot to work with. But surely there was a way to make Tyler's wish to be reunited with his father turn out more horribly, say, by condemning him to the same fate. I mean, sure, it's Power Rangers, so nothing too grisly's gonna happen. But it still seemed kind of underwhelming as cursed-wish stories go.
David Yost wanted an MMPR episode with a monster posing as Billy's dead mother. https://www.reddit.com/r/powerrangers/comments/3ugkyl/david_yosts_lost_episode/
Yesterday in Japan was the annual Bandai meeting with toy retailers. The retailers see the new sentai and the first quarter catalog. It gives them a chance to estimate how much they should order. Currently the next sentai series is not publically known to the general audience yet. The catalog is just for them to see. The first quarter catalog details the toys for the first 3 months. Here is the rumored toy listings. Interestingly we start with 6 rangers. There will be two sets of DX robo's. Each have 3 pieces to them. There also seems to be an underlying theme of 3(cubed, power of three)
They seem to be running out of animals to base Rangers/Zords on. Maybe they need to mix it up some and go farther afield in their choice of animals. Red Cassowary! Blue Koala! Yellow Gecko! Black Capybara! Pink Platypus! Or maybe, instead of dinosaurs, do other types of extinct megafauna, like Megatherium or those giant armadillos. How about an arthropod-themed team? Spider, centipede, scorpion, moth, beetle, things like that. Although I guess Kamen Rider already has a claim on the insectoid motif. Or maybe there are some mythological creatures they haven't used yet. I liked how Dairanger used creatures from Chinese mythology, like the qilin and the Chinese dragon.
The kids that are now 3 and 4 weren't around or were unaware of when the last time a lion or tiger was used in the series. So it's new to them. Yeah. There's some weird rule where a whole sentai team can't be insects because Kamen Rider is around. It's silly since Kamen Rider hasn't been insect based in years. We just finished Kamen Rider Drive(based on cars) and now we have ghosts Speaking of Dairanger. Don't know if it was mentioned but are you ready to buy the complete series? [YT]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnNEUfJhiBU[/YT]
I'm not enough of a fan to want to buy the series; it was interesting, but I didn't love it. But I'm glad the Zyuranger release was successful enough that they're doing more. Hopefully in time I'll be able to rent some I haven't seen from Netflix.
Yep, it's another forgettable clip-show holiday special. Once I realized it would probably be a clip show, I decided to let the DVR catch it and watch later so I could fast-forward through the clips, which proved useful. Weird premise, too. There's only one Santa who has children sit on his lap, and it's the real Santa, and he has his ginormous naughty-or-nice mainframe just sitting there in the open with no security? You'd think he'd keep that data on a secure server at the North Pole, or have it constantly routing through the cloud so that it was never in a single server farm for more than a brief time. After all, as we saw here, Santa's surveillance puts the NSA to shame, so he should have better defenses against hackers. That thing wasn't even biometrically protected! The monster-of-the-week was a total afterthought, not given any plot justification or individual traits at all. They could've at least found a red-and-green monster or a snow monster or something with a tenuous Christmas theme.
ANNNNNNNDD.....Here we go definite Minecraft inspirations They transform with the cube The mecha The rangers! The mecha in cube form
I predict poor toy sales, since everyone will be building them out of Lego instead. :P As for this week's PRDC, yup. Don't want to remember it. I was shouting at the screen to get Santa to do whatever the hell he did BEFORE he had an ENIAC next to him to tell him who's been naughty or nice. Also, haven't fake Santas been part of the franchise before? And I was happy at the use of continuity for having Chase mention he was going back to NZ, what, three episodes in a row, including two episodes where they were IN New Zealand but he didn't go see his family (on account of not having time? How's that work?), and then they actually DO send him back through this nonsense. Meanwhile, Keeper can just teleport there. Jerk. Mark
He can't. He used to use elves as surveillance assets on the ground, but he laid most of them off once he digitized the whole thing. Well, the holiday specials aren't necessarily in continuity, and they certainly aren't being aired in production order. Both the Halloween special and the Christmas special were filmed after the season finale which we're getting this coming weekend. I think of this one more as a Christmas fable sort of thing than an actual event. I mean, it's hard to think of a valid reason why Sledge would be wearing a Santa hat in his brief appearance.
It's funny, I'm flashing back to childhood, and many of my classmates dismissed Power Rangers because, among other things, the zords looked too blocky. Now here we have Toei just outright embracing the block. It's a full circle (of sorts), I tellz you. On a side note, I disliked Toqger's combiners precisely because they looked way too stiff compared to past mecha. But I'll give the Minecraft Zords a shot.
The ToQger mecha was a giant pan flute. I was always half expecting Gheorge Zamfir to show up for a guest role. Granted, actors in giant robot suits tend to look a lot better in motion, and the above pics are of the toys (?). Perhaps they'll do one of those things where the big robot morphs into a more streamlined version for a minute or something. Back to Christmas, I agree that in general these holiday themed episodes are take-em-or-leave-em in terms of continuity. I just found it frustrating that this one had a payoff for Chase that wasn't a payoff at all. And how'd the rest of the gang not know what his picture-present was? How'd he get them all to take that group shot? Who was taking the picture, Keeper? Ah, the magic of Christmas.. Mark
Stack the cubes, stab it with the sword, and unfold them to form Jyuoh King. Sword can then be pulled out (without helmet attached) and used as the weapon.