Power Rangers

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by SG-17, Aug 7, 2010.

  1. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2007
    Well one change noticed by set photos and promotional art is that the Dark Buster costume used near the finale of Go-busters will be used more frequently in "Beast Morphers"


    [​IMG]

    I wonder if he could be reformed later on to be Gold buster's American counterpart


    No clue why the Beast Morphers are on kids bikes

    [​IMG]
     
  2. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2007
  3. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2007
    Lupinranger VS Patoranger 38

    https://www.mp4upload.com/w3xwcdnrmmqc

    Hey remember Zamigo? Yeesh so much potential wasted and we've got about 10 or 11 episodes left. Well anyways he's back

    I actually thought the inclusion of three new pieces of merchandise would hinder the episode but it actually worked. The Lupinrangers dealt with Victory Striker while the Patorangers dealt with Destra.

    Keiichiro staying calm shows his growth as a character. His early self would have scolded the Lupinrangers and Noel for giving a collection piece to them.

    I wish he would have gotten the power up but I now see that Noel represents both teams in his armor.

    Lupin-X mode with an "S" for Patoranger

    This week's collection piece is the control panel for the vehicles from Boukenger/Overdrive



    Episode 38 commercials. Just for fun! Get a taste for how Japanese do their commercials.

    https://www.mp4upload.com/ywmq9hq1pqts





    Kamen Rider Zi-O episode 9 and 9.5

    https://www.mp4upload.com/ayb7khonjo6s

    https://www.mp4upload.com/hdwu28le119k

    Having Another Rider who's a returning character (and like Another Wizard, one that can speak) is raising the stakes in a fun way. It gives them something to do rather than mug for the camera and then leave.

    Some backstory for Dan Kuruto. He's a power hungry game designer from Ex-Aid. He created the dangerous zombie game so that he could always resurrect if he's defeated(game influences)

    He was finally killed in EX-Aid but made a backup copy of himself(more game influences) He started with 99 lives.

    Having Kuroto's selfishness and god complex is a nice contrast to OOO's Eiji's selflessness and dedication to give a helping and acts as a good catalyst for Sougo to grow as a king - good mesh of characters from two shows.

    The mummy foot soldiers are from OOO's btw since Dan was using OOO's themed powers

    We also get a return of the supporting actress who played Hina from OOO's. Seems like after OOO's series ended some characters now work with Ex-Aid's characters.

    The choreography was frantic, my favorite part being when Geiz kicked the Driver to transform Sougo and Geiz punched through his Build Armor.



    Next week is a break for both series. First time for Lupinranger VS Patranger I think
     
  4. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Power Rangers: Even the first half of the series finale is pretty mediocre stuff, and frustratingly written. Hayley and Calvin have a fight and break up because Calvin let her down due to his own forgetfulness and self-absorption (what, he couldn't have called her and let her know he had car trouble? Or taken a cab, as she suggested?), and yet the episode ends up declaring that Hayley was the one in the wrong? That's not quite as backward and disquieting as the one that said Levi was in the wrong for not indulging an obsessive fan's delusion that they were friends, but it's still pretty one-sided. Meanwhile, it's bizarre that Mme. Odius's idea for a broadcast that will hypnotize the world is Victor & Monty in clown suits. You'd think that broadcasting stock footage of their past Ranger battles would be a bigger draw. (Also, what was that weird bit where Preston mentioned his cousin Zack's upcoming birthday party in Angel Grove? Maybe it was a reference to the 2017 movie's version of Zack? But the recent anniversary special established SNS as being in the main PR continuity.)


    Zi-O: I can't figure Sougo out. Is he really so cluelessly fascinated by a "king" who's obviously a brutal tyrant? Or is he putting on an act? Anyway, it's encouraging to see a story raising the stakes to the level of national politics, something that was pretty routine for Build, whereas this show has focused more on high school.

    I somewhat remember him and Eiji from the Generations Final movie. He was Kamen Rider Genm, so it's kind of ironic to see him become Another Rider OOO. Oh, and I guess Eiji never became OOO in this timeline so he became a Diet member instead.


    LvP: Not one of their strongest episodes, since it prioritized plot and new toys over character. But I imagine the Patrangers meeting Zamigo and seeing his ice attack in use will come into play later when they discover what the Lupins are fighting for. What's interesting is that his attack on the Ganglar fit the pattern of what he did with the Lupins -- freezing someone's close friend or family member, in this case Janake's. Here, he did it to force Janake to work for him (or for the don), which reinforces a suspicion I've had all along -- since the freezing of the Lupins' loved ones was what got them to work for Kogure in the first place, what if that means Kogure is really working for Zamigo rather than Arsene Lupin? Or what if there's some other connection between Zamigo and Lupin? Samurai, you mentioned how little has been done with Zamigo to date, but I suspect that's because they're saving some big reveals about him for the climactic arc.

    Also, how come they never budget for any extras in the Bistrot Jurer scenes anymore? The Global Police are their only customers! How do they stay in business?


    Who knew the Japanese were so into Italian food?
     
  5. Mark_Nguyen

    Mark_Nguyen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Calgary, Alberta
    You have no idea. Post-WWII, with supplies scarce, it became a thing to make spaghetti with readily-available American ketchup rations instead of tomatoes, now called "Spaghetti Napolitan" over there.. Similarly, using US tins of taco meat over veg, and rice instead of a tortilla became "Taco rice", especially in Okinawa. :)

    Mark
     
  6. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2007
    Since Lupinranger VS Patranger and Kamen Rider Zi-O were off last week there is no subs this week.

    It will be "Retro Week" this week with past seasons still focusing on cops and time travel

    Here is 2004's "Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger" episode 1 and 2. This was the first series I actively followed in 2004. The episode clips quality was horrible back then. It was still mindblowing to see and hear the Japanese original footage for what would become "Power Ranger's SPD".

    In 2004 I was losing interest in then Power Ranger's Bruce Kalish's "LAZERS!!!" and "Oh yeah!!!" seasons. He is also known for his over use of explosions "Kalishplosions" they were dubbed.

    Example is an scene from "Power Rangers Dino Thunder"




    So here's Dekaranger episode 1 and 2

    https://www.mp4upload.com/ylzobr6f0f14

    https://www.mp4upload.com/ein2u0h2207d

    Dekaranger became an insanely popular season (probably due to the emergence of subs becoming more readily available. )

    It had a 10 year reunion movie. Ban the red ranger made multiple appearances in various other sentai's way past it's 2004-2005 airdate.




    On the flipside is Kamen Rider Den-O

    Episode 1

    https://vk.com/video-76914147_170080045

    Episode 2

    https://vk.com/video-76914147_170080039


    Den-O IMO was probably the first heisei rider series to be part Sentai and part Kamen Rider. From what I've seen for 2000 to 2006 the Kamen Rider revival was more Scifi Japanese drama.

    It can get quite wacky at times(sometimes downright WTH?) but there's quite a few dramatic moments. It was also the first Kamen Rider series I started following as well.

    The shows main rider starts out very meek and easily bullied but over time gains confidence. First time we've seen a rider defend himself with a broom

    The show was INSANELY popular. There was alot of spin-off movies and various other media appearances by some of the shows characters. This lasted for on and off for about 10 years! It was still in the public's mind way past it's airing date(2007-2008)

    No doubt there will be someone coming back for Den-O's tribute episodes in Zi-O
     
  7. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Super Ninja Steel actually had a halfway decent finale, since the focus was on a high-stakes fight to save the world rather than school-sitcom hijinks, and the Rangers had to try to save some of their own (Calvin, Mick, Dane) from evil mind control, even if the conflicts were resolved too easily by blowing up a satellite dish rather than breaking through the mind control with The Power Of Love as I expected. They also contrived to keep the Rangers out of costume for most of the episode, so there was some nice unsuited action, especially from Sarah up in the ship, although it looked like she was stunt-doubled for the most impressive moves (since the face was kept hidden).

    I'm not happy that they let Victor & Monty be heroes by saving the abducted civilians (they should never have been able to figure out that teleporter) and somehow destroying the villains' ship (why would Cosmo have made them juggle explosives if they were powerful enough to blow up the whole ship?), and to earn Victor's 50th trophy honestly without either of them learning a damn thing. I mean, when Bulk and Skull got their heroic triumph in "Countdown to Destruction," that was after years of earning redemption, going from bullies to more sympathetic characters, and it was something they really earned on their own merits by choosing to step up, rather than just following the Rangers' instructions like V&M did here. So V&M's triumph was totally undeserved. They've pulled off so many extreme scams that they should be in juvenile prison by now, so seeing them get a reward rather than their due comeuppance is a distasteful ending to the arc of the worst characters in Power Rangers history.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2018
  8. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    I was instantly hooked on this, and I've bookmarked the site so I can watch the rest. It's wildly imaginative, with clever concepts and some striking visual ideas, like the Imagin moving around with their lower halves above their upper halves. Ryoutarou is an appealing underdog lead, and I like his reflexive kindness, like what he does for Tetsuo at the end of episode 2 -- that was very moving. Hana and Naomi are quite lovely (ironically, the supposedly gorgeous big sister at the coffee shop is, to me, the least beautiful of the three female leads). It's kind of odd that Momotaros takes over as Den-O, so that the lead doesn't really do the heroics himself, but I guess he's in there to an extent -- it's sort of like Firestorm, two personalities sharing a superhero body.

    I'm not convinced by the time-travel mechanics, with destruction created in the past manifesting in the present as if it had just happened. Surely all the damage done years before in the changed timeline would've been repaired by the present, or at least the fires would've long since been put out. But I guess it's not quite as incoherent as the temporal illogic in Zi-O. And while the magical time train is kind of silly, I guess if you have to travel through time, a train is a pretty classy way to do it.

    Odd that two of the three female leads, totally independently of each other, seem preoccupied with making coffee.

    Maybe I'll look at the Dekaranger episodes later, but not tonight.
     
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  9. Takeru

    Takeru Space Police Commodore

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    Sep 6, 2007
    Location:
    Germany, EU, Earth
    "Kalishplosions" is a bad name because he wasn't responsible for them, Koichi Sakamoto was. Your example basically proves this because Kalish didn't do Dino Thunder. Bruce Kalish also did some really good seasons with great characters, of course Overdrive also happened and didn't really work but SPD, Mystic Force and Jungle Fury are all good.
     
  10. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Well, I never really got into S.P.D. -- I respect its complex characterization and storyline, but I never warmed to the actors or the Rangers' personalities -- so I was hoping I might like Dekaranger better. As it turns out, I rather dislike it. Ban/DekaRed is intensely annoying, and Blue and Pink are also very broad, one-note caricatures. The "Doggie" mask is really silly-looking, especially with the lack of mouth movement when he talks; I remember the S.P.D. version having a more sophisticated animatronic head. I don't think I'm interested in seeing more.
     
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  11. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Admiral Admiral

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    Mar 27, 2007
    Back then I grew quite attached to the cast because they were my first exposure to another side of "Power Ranger's. I was also enamored by the music and passion the cast put into the series. Ayumi Kinoshita is still really pretty. First sentai heroine crushes

    I mostly just watched the main story point episodes. For the most part it was mostly procedural ofcourse like a cop show.

    The final moments of the finale had so much emotion



    but it might not be for everyone
     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2018
  12. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Okay, I'm far enough into Kamen Rider Den-O for all four of Ryoutarou's Imagin to have been introduced. And I realized something this morning: Den-O is basically a harem anime, except with monsters instead of sexy women.
     
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  13. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Admiral Admiral

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    Mar 27, 2007
    It made me realize that Takeru satoh worked really hard on that series. It was his big break into alot of other projects.

    -The breakdancing
    -The constant switching between imagin persona
    -the music tracks(So many redone musical tracks)

    ( Plus grueling hours and being overworked which will rear it's head late into the series for someone.....)

    I particularly like the first "Double Action Sword form" Momotaros version which is Takeru satoh and Momotaro's voice actor

    I don't know if he'll be back for Zi-O. Some Japanese agencies tend to not want their bigger actors and actresses going backwards to stuff they use to start out in. It would look like a step down.

    I'm sure Takeru would love to appear in something Kamen Rider related but his agency would probably not allow it
     
  14. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    The temporal mechanics in Den-O are still weird. The idea is to defeat the Imagin in the past before they change history, but often they aren't defeated until after they've destroyed a bunch of buildings and killed a lot of people, and there's never been any clear depiction of the damage being undone. Although there was a shot after the defeat of the Imagin in episode 18 featuring three prominent skyscrapers, two of which had been shown to be destroyed in the Imagin's rampage a few minutes earlier. So I guess we're supposed to conclude that the damage the Imagin do in the past somehow doesn't "stick" if they're defeated soon enough, that the timeline resets and erases it. But the show is very vague about this.

    There's some pretty moving stuff with the characters, though. Airi's story (at least up to episode 20) is really quite sad.
     
  15. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2007
    Kamen Rider Zi-O episode 10 and 10.5

    https://www.mp4upload.com/vwptr7lwy2n5
    https://www.mp4upload.com/8x1t1o4rf0fe

    Lupinranger VS Patranger episode 39

    https://www.mp4upload.com/tuk0z9zcupto

    Zi-O

    Well it now makes sense why Sougo would turn on Geitz and tsukuyomi. Sougo has set some standards in his pursuit on becoming a Demon King after Eiji taught him the heartwarming meaning of helping others.

    It was an alright episode. In Kamen Rider OOO's Hina had unexplained superhuman strength that was never explained. She's a bit shy talking about it. We continue the tradition here. I'm just now understanding it's a allusion to "Don't be fooled by my small frame. I'm really quite strong.

    Interesting that the Time Maizer can take on attributes of previous heisei riders. Uhr's time machine took on attributes of Kamen Rider Kiva's castle dragon.

    Odd at the end with Eiji and Hina still being in the King Dan Kuroto timeline at the end, after Dan's defeat? Seems like a continuity error?

    LOL at the 10.5 jabbing the staff

    [​IMG]


    The little tease for the next tribute looks exciting


    Lupinranger VS Patranger

    We're getting somewhere now. Seems like Noel was just waiting all this time for that one ganglar that froze someone he knew.

    Interesting ability gained by becoming Super Lupin Red Kairi can predict the moves of someone. What annoyed me was everyone saying his ability out loud lol. It's not very covert if you're telling someone you can predict their moves.


    The Pats literally stand to the side and watch as the Lupins take care of things. I mean, they're there so Noel can access their database (with no cyber security blocking him apparently) and Keiichiro becomes more of a big brother for Kairi as well as notices LupinRed's anger. They're good touches, and it's important to do those little details

    Nice Noel moment between him and Blue/Yellow.


    The Collection Piece of the Week is an item based off of Jetman. The item’s art has the rangers drawn in a way that references a scene in Jetman's opening where the rangers drop off their Jet Machines, wingsuit-style.
     
  16. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Zi-O is finally starting to get more interesting, but maybe that's because they changed the writer for this last pair of episodes. If they bring back the previous writer after this, I'm not sure the improvement will last. Still, the characters and relationships/conflicts are starting to deepen, so it could be worthwhile if they keep that up.

    Anyway, from what I've seen of Eiji here and in Generations Final, I think I'm going to like OOO when I get around to watching it. The OOO armor is certainly one of the most elegant ones.


    Wasn't it because Sougo inherited the OOO powers? I think they've said that once Zi-O claims a Rider's power, that Rider is wiped from history. (Which makes me wonder if this is a way of rebooting the continuity so they can start the next era with a clean slate. Although that would be ironic coming right after an alternate-timeline season.)


    On LvP, things are ramping up with the Zamigo arc at last. Plus it looks like we're getting around to the inevitable "betrayal within the villains' ranks" subplot, with Gauche offering to back Destra in a coup against Dogranio. I guess we're about 10-11 weeks from the end now, aren't we? So the pace will probably continue to pick up.

    I continue to be impressed by Haruka Kudo's acting. When Tooma denied knowing about Zamigo, the play of emotions on Umika's face revealed so much without her saying a word.


    Except as Kairi said, Noel didn't know about Zamigo. So someone else took his loved one -- or else he's lying about being motivated by a captive loved one.


    Except you could say that about every tokusatsu or anime hero who calls out their attacks before using them. (Except for Kintaros/Den-O Axe Form, who calls out the name of his final attack after delivering it -- something Ryoutarou even remarked on as unusual the first time it happened.)
     
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Yes. I just reached the point where that happens. I'm really going to miss her.
     
  18. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2007
    Too bad she retired. She's really pretty. There was something intriguing about her lip

    https://kamenrider.fandom.com/wiki/Yuriko_Shiratori

    Cross my fingers they can persuade her to appear in a Den-O tribute for Zi-O
     
  19. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    That's an understatement. Try knock-down gorgeous. Although in Hana's case, "knock-down" is hardly a figure of speech.

    What disappoints me is that I was hoping Hana, who's also a "singular point," would become a Kamen Rider herself eventually. I gather there have been a small number of female Riders, and I was hoping she'd be one. Of course, we did see a child Den-O in the movie...
     
  20. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2007
    I recommend looking into "Kamen Rider Kiva" for strong female characters and "Kamen Rider Gaim" Marika has got a crazy psycho stare

    "Gaim" is a bit noisy but the story is on par with Build IMO