Power Rangers

[Christopher]

So my first Kamen Rider series (not counting the American adaptations) comes to an end.

Spoiler

It was a pretty good resolution for Sento and Banjou, but I feel the other characters kind of got short shrift. The girls were basically reduced to being spectators. I'd hoped that at least Misora would have some key role to play in the finale, using Bernage's power one last time.

So the merged world is basically the world that would've existed if Evolt and Pandora's Box had never existed, or at least never been found and brought to Earth by Isurugi. And apparently, without Pandora's Box and the Walls, Nanba Heavy Industries never became a force for evil, and Sawa and Utsumi were never brainwashed as Nanba Children -- although I don't think the timing works out there, since the divergence would've been only 10 years ago. Does that mean the Children are still sleeper agents who just haven't been activated?

Except the trailers for Zi-O imply that the world Sento & Banjou are now on is the world inhabited by all the other Heisei Riders, the one seen in Generations FINAL. I'm not sure how that works out, since I haven't seen any of those yet. Well, maybe it's a blend of elements from both worlds.

It's sad that Sento and Banjou have lost all their friends and loved ones except each other. Well, I guess they could always hang out at Cafe Nascita and get to know the Isurugis again. Although they'd have to deal with having relatively famous lookalikes in this world.

Also, there's still that dangling thread of Banjou having Evolt's genes in him. That could come back to haunt this new world in some future crossover movie...

Anyway, I like the revelation that it was Evolt's coffee that was terrible, and Isurugi-san's is actually quite good. I guess making coffee is like being a Kamen Rider -- to do it well requires human emotion and caring.

There were a few minor gripes like the dodgy CGI for Rabbit Dragon

Yeah, I couldn't really make that out through the glow. It just looked like Rabbit Tank with a color change. I was expecting them to reuse the Build/Cross-Z merged costume that I've glimpsed in previews for the movie.


As for LvP... Some clip shows are better than others, and a lot of shows these days have found ways to make their clip episodes engaging and worthwhile. This one... not so much. It had its moments, with Noel trying to convince the Lupins that they should help Keiichiro, and the party scene at the end was nice (the ladies looked really good in their kimonos), but the clip setups and voiceovers were pretty routine, boring clip-show formula. All in all, a forgettable one, aside from that ending scene. (Have we ever seen Keiichiro genuinely smile before?)

 

[Samurai8472]

So my first Kamen Rider series (not counting the American adaptations) comes to an end.

Spoiler

.

It's sad that Sento and Banjou have lost all their friends and loved ones except each other. Well, I guess they could always hang out at Cafe Nascita and get to know the Isurugis again. Although they'd have to deal with having relatively famous lookalikes in this world.

Spoiler: Build

I do think everyone will get their memories back. The fact is the narration at the beginning had everyone doing it from time to time, not just Sento and Ryuuga. So since we know that it happens at the very end, it makes sense.

 

[Christopher]

Spoiler: Build

I do think everyone will get their memories back. The fact is the narration at the beginning had everyone doing it from time to time, not just Sento and Ryuuga. So since we know that it happens at the very end, it makes sense.

I think that's taking an in-joke a bit too literally. I mean, there were one or two cases in the series where characters actually remembered/referenced things from the recaps, breaking the fourth wall, so those bits can't be taken as strictly literal.

 

[Christopher]

Here's an extended version of Tommy's fight with his robot double in "Dimensions in Danger":

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The existence of this clip suggests there's an extended cut of the episode as there was with "Legendary Battle."

 

[Samurai8472]

A preview of Kamen Rider Zi-O's theme song before the premiere today. This does not represent how the opening of the show will look like btw.

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[Christopher]

Another weak, sitcommy Super Ninja Steel today -- inexplicably a Valentine's Day episode on Labor Day weekend. It did have one funny moment, though -- when the Rangers struck by the bee monster's love arrows were trying to figure out where to find her, Brody said "Monsters always hang out at the quarry." Calvin's suggestion of the beach would be a close second, though.

The new Megazord's final attack is bizarre. It literally fires the Rangers themselves at the monster, whereupon they destroy it with their swords. If they could do that by themselves, why the hell do they even need the Megazord???

 

[Samurai8472]

SPD's Dekaranger Pink's actress has remarried and married her co-star who played Dekabreak(Omega ranger in Power Rangers SPD)

http://tokusatsunetwork.com/2018/08/dekarangers-mika-kikuchi-and-tomokazu-yoshida-wed/

Her ex-husband was Kishi Yuji (Red Racer from CarRanger).

 

[kirk55555]

Apparently Super Ninja Steel's episode on September 15th is using certain sentai footage people were assuming PR would skip, which means

Spoiler

Jiraiya from the Metal Heroes series Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya is appearing, renamed Space Sheriff Skyfire (him being a "Space Sheriff" is a reference to the first three Metal Heroes series, all feature characters with that title).

In case anyone doesn't know, the Metal Heroes series is where VR Troopers and Beetleborgs got their Japanese footage from. I think this will be the first Non-Sentai Japanese Toku heros to appear on Power Rangers since the Masked Rider crossover in the MMPR days (not counting the reused Beetleborgs costumes in Forever Red). I don't watch Ninja Steel, but like with Dimension's in Danger I'll definitely check this out for the novelty (although not being a "special" episode I'm sure it will be as bad as NS usually is).

 

[JD]

I'm cofused. I've been watching the old '90s American Gladiators on Charge, and the one on today had a guy who did stunts for MMPR, they even showed a picture of him in the Red Ranger suit, and what I'm assuming was him filming a fight scene with Goldar and some Putties in the Green Ranger suit. I thought all of the scenes with characters in the Ranger suits came from Super Sentai?

 

[Christopher]

I'm cofused. I've been watching the old '90s American Gladiators on Charge, and the one on today had a guy who did stunts for MMPR, they even showed a picture of him in the Red Ranger suit, and what I'm assuming was him filming a fight scene with Goldar and some Putties in the Green Ranger suit. I thought all of the scenes with characters in the Ranger suits came from Super Sentai?

No -- MMPR kept using the Zyuranger costumes for three seasons, so once they ran out of the special "Zyu2" footage that Toei had shot for their use, they went on creating new action scenes themselves. (In the first Saban era, it was pretty easy to tell the difference between US and Japanese footage because the Sentai footage was on far grainier film stock. These days it's harder to tell.)

 

[JD]

Ok that makes sense.

 

[Christopher]

I never really understood why they kept the Zyuranger costumes instead of swapping them out for new ones every year like they started doing with Zeo. I guess they didn't think US audiences would understand the change, or something. But it led to an awkward mismatch between the animal themes of their costumes and those of their Zords. Plus, the Dairanger costumes were pretty striking designs, yet the only one we ever saw in Power Rangers was the KibaRanger costume (Tommy's White Ranger incarnation) -- at least until Super Megaforce, when they were glimpsed briefly as one of the "new powers" the Megaforce Rangers could summon. At least we got to see some of the Kakuranger costumes/footage as the Alien Rangers in the tail end of MMPR's run.

 

[Samurai8472]

I'm cofused. I've been watching the old '90s American Gladiators on Charge, and the one on today had a guy who did stunts for MMPR, they even showed a picture of him in the Red Ranger suit, and what I'm assuming was him filming a fight scene with Goldar and some Putties in the Green Ranger suit. I thought all of the scenes with characters in the Ranger suits came from Super Sentai?

?

I'm confused by your question.

MMPR had access to Zyuranger monster and villain costumes to film american footage when it was required.

If they couldn't get Toei to sends over costumes and materials from Japan they made their own. Notice the cheap shield that Saban made for the green ranger costume compared to super sentai footage. It's embarrassingly cheap

It would be pretty restrictive to not be allowed to have anything outside of the sentai footage to use so that the American crew could film American specific scenes.

I never really understood why they kept the Zyuranger costumes instead of swapping them out for new ones every year like they started doing with Zeo. I guess they didn't think US audiences would understand the change, or something.

Yes. That's basically why. The MMPR image had ingrained itself into the public eye with the TV series,movie and merchandise.

Even now you'll see the MMPR suits as the default association with Power Ranger's. Not Timeforce or Dino Thunder. The MMPR suits is what you'll see on merchandise

 

[JD]

I didn't know that. All I'd ever heard about was how the Power Rangers shows used the action footage from the Super Sentais, so I had assumed that was all the action footage was.

 

[Christopher]

I didn't know that. All I'd ever heard about was how the Power Rangers shows used the action footage from the Super Sentais, so I had assumed that was all the action footage was.

Well, a lot of the fight scenes in MMPR were of the unmorphed Rangers in civilian clothes. One of the things that impressed me about the show early on (despite the terrible writing in season one) was that the cast members all did their own stunts in those scenes. (Later casts were selected more for acting ability and didn't do as much of their own stunt work.)

But yeah, most of these shows -- Power Rangers and its various knockoffs around the time like VR Troopers and Masked Rider -- did import or recreate the original hero and monster costumes so that they could shoot new footage as needed, say, of the monster of the week attacking American civilians rather than Japanese ones, or the Rangers confronting that monster before they morphed. And of course season 2 introduced an entirely original main villain in Lord Zedd, so naturally they needed new footage of the other monsters to interact with him.

There was one really terrible knockoff back then from DIC, Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad, with footage taken from a Tsuburaya show called Gridman. Its premise was that a bunch of high schoolers were fighting a villain that operated in cyberspace, so the Ultraman-like heroes were basically just their cyberspace avatars. Which meant that there was virtually no connection between the recycled action footage and the new stuff involving the main cast, which was basically just a cheesy high-school sitcom (it actually starred future Boy Meets World lead actor Matthew Lawrence). The action stuff was all so generic and unconnected that you could've put any action sequence into any episode. It all seemed rather pointless to me.

 

[Samurai8472]

This post on the same type of topic is more informative

As mentioned by Page-Pagter at PMC 2018, the decision to commission Zyu2 came once production reached Doomsday, which is why the original script has Rita being sealed away.

The decision to cut Dairanger was informed by footage usability (kids hitting kids with sticks), but the bigger factor was iconography. Season 2 proved Saban could have filmed new Dairanger footage with high-kicks and Power Weapons, but filming new Zyuranger stuff was safer.

"Power Rangers Day" was art imitating life. Their brand wasn't a logo, it wasn't an emblem, it was that team.

https://imgur.com/eI89XLO

 

[Samurai8472]

Kamen Rider Zi-O episode 1

https://www.mp4upload.com/qaxc57jyqifo

So the last heisei rider series begins. We start off with an intense future where Ohma Zi-O Thanos snapped some people.

I immediately love the theme and the visuals actually are in sync with the opening this year. Build took awhile but it became a favorite of mine. I already got the TV version of "Zi-O's' theme on Itunes

I don't think the Sougo we're going to follow will become the Ohma Zi-O of the future. Dealing with time travel we have to consider it's an alternate version even if history is playing out the way Woz sees it.

I like how Sougo at the point believes he can alter the future. Obtaining his goal but not falling into the predestined future already set out for him.

How do you break that loop? I guess at the moment the idea being played out here is "You can't fight destiny" I hope the show ends on a positive note.

The naive part of "I want to be King" will hopefully be washed away from him when he becomes more mature

"I don't want to accept being a king!"

The anniversary bits didn't seem to be rearing it's head that much. Geitz did use a Ghost watch. That's good for people that haven't watched all 18 seasons. Let's face it. The kids watching probably weren't even born yet till about 8 years ago

I've only watched two episodes of Kamen Rider Faiz(2003 season) but I knew about it's tech. Tsukuyomi was using Faiz's phone. Could be an updated version.

Tsukuyomi: "Don't interfere with the past more than necessary!"

That's after she uses a high-tech device to generate money in front of a 16th century person to pay for a light snack LOL

At least Doc Brown gave Marty the money while hiding out in the field.

"SOMETHING INCONSPICUOUS!"

BTW. The Edo set gets some teasing because it's the one set all time travel shows or Japanese inspired series(Kamen Rider or Sentai) use. It's the cowboy set for Japan TV studios. Didn't take them long to use it

 

[Christopher]

Kamen Rider Zi-O episode 1

Hmm, I'm still undecided on this one. Sougo seems to have benevolent enough intentions, but the whole "king" thing, the belief that he's the only one who can make the world better, is still supremely arrogant and the same mentality that drives countless tyrants. Hopefully he'll learn to outgrow it. It seems that may be the arc here -- that the "hero" himself is potentially the villain, and needs to be redirected by the others, or else destroyed.

The CGI looks pretty cheesy -- worse than Build's CGI. That's unexpected. There's some decent staging with the live-action fights, though; it seems to be following Lupin VS Pat's lead in using drone cameras to get dynamic and unusual action shots (in this case, the camera circling the two Riders).

The Build sequence confused me. We saw a glimpse of the Pandora wall when they arrived in 2017, so it must've been set in the original World of Build timeline, rather than the rewritten/merged timeline. How did they get there? Can the "Time Mazine" jump realities as well as times?

So all three of the consecutive seasons I've glimpsed so far -- Ex-Aid, Build, and Zi-O -- have featured monsters that were transformed humans the Kamen Riders had to cure/free, instead of being evil creatures that needed to be destroyed as with most Sentai monsters. I definitely prefer the less deadly approach. Is that standard for KR, or just a recent trend?

I immediately love the theme and the visuals actually are in sync with the opening this year. Build took awhile but it became a favorite of mine. I already got the TV version of "Zi-O's' theme on Itunes

I don't particularly care for the new theme. Part of what I love about "Be the One" was what a beautiful voice the singer, Beverly, had. I quite liked the chord structure too. This one doesn't work for me in either regard. Also, one other good thing about Beverly is that she's multilingual and thus pronounced the English lyrics correctly. This new singer's English pronunciation is so bad I wouldn't have recognized the lyrics as English without the subtitles.

I don't think the Sougo we're going to follow will become the Ohma Zi-O of the future. Dealing with time travel we have to consider it's an alternate version even if history is playing out the way Woz sees it.

I think that would make it less interesting. As I said, it could work if the story is about the battle for Sougo's soul, if it's ambiguous whether he's the hero or the villain. We had a bit of that with Build when his true identity was revealed. This would be different, though, because Sento's less heroic side was in his past, while Sougo's evil side is in his future.

 

[Samurai8472]

The Build sequence confused me. We saw a glimpse of the Pandora wall when they arrived in 2017, so it must've been set in the original World of Build timeline, rather than the rewritten/merged timeline. How did they get there? Can the "Time Mazine" jump realities as well as times?

They went back to the past before Sento merged the worlds.

In some way or form the Pandora Wall world of the past still exists. Which makes sense. It can't be erased from time otherwise Sento wouldn't exist.

We'll see how they deal with Post Pandora Wall Build. Maybe they won't and just say Sougo met Build between around episode 20.

Also yeah humans being manipulated to be monsters is a recurring theme of heisei Kamen Rider. From what I've seen of the past 10 years and peeking at other seasons

In the past it used to be the old sentai way of cranking out eclectic monsters

 

[Christopher]

They went back to the past before Sento merged the worlds.

Yes, that part's obvious. That's not the question. This show is about traveling back in time and meeting all the past Heisei Riders, which implies that it's set in the same universe as most of the Heisei shows. It's on "Earth-1," to borrow a usage from DC, while Build was on "Earth-2" until last week. So in order to get to Build's world, Sougo had to cross dimensions as well as traveling in time. So that's my question -- can the "Time Mazine" do both? Is crossing dimensions a routine ability, or was it a side effect of that fight in the time vortex, an accidental sideslip?

In the past it used to be the old sentai way of cranking out eclectic monsters

I don't recall seeing any Sentai where they routinely turned humans into monsters. I doubt they'd have let the Rangers go around killing them all the time if that were the case. And Timeranger is the only season I know of where they captured the monsters alive. Are you talking about older Sentai, pre-Jetman?