Power Rangers

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

  1. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Vice Admiral Admiral

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  2. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I can't say I care for the helmets. Strange. A mouth inside a mouth?
     
  3. Agent Richard07

    Agent Richard07 Admiral Admiral

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    Maybe it's a silver tongue.
     
  4. Freman

    Freman Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Pretty sure I read a quote from somebody involved with Megaforce, saying that the new show will only be using Sentai footage for Megaforce. The story this time around will be completely original.

    I'll see if I can track it down.
     
  5. Hound of UIster

    Hound of UIster Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Main writer for the new show is confirmed as the same guy who did the Double Rider. Sakamoto from PR as director. Guess this means they are really trying to do a reformulation seeing how Gobusters bombed and the previous two shows were ratings disasters.
     
  6. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    It's more of Toei, the company that finances and distributes the sentai series being scared by Go-busters dismal performance.

    The show and toys sales.

    So they fell back to a tried and true theme;

    Dinosaurs

    Kid's love dinosaurs. They'll love them even more because their bright and colorful.

    Profits should be fine next year. Better than this year's that's for sure.

    Rough translation of the story blurb

     
  7. Hound of UIster

    Hound of UIster Vice Admiral Admiral

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    It should be interesting. Having a writer do their individual take on Zyuranger has also been a tried and true tactic. I think this would be the fourth go on something like this.
     
  8. Mark_Nguyen

    Mark_Nguyen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    And I'm sure Saban is oozing over the possibilities of continuing their franchise with a "direct" revisitation of the original seasons. Jonny Yong Bosch for a full season as mentor, anyone?

    Mark
     
  9. Praetor

    Praetor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    You had me at Johnny Yong Bosch...

    Go-Busters really was not great. I struggled to keep watching it even after the addition of Matsumoto Hiroya from Magiranger who I've always crushed on. I think the problem was they had no real focus. Go-Busters was about too many things and the tone has been too uneven. Plus, the villains were boring. That never helps. Even Enter only has minor eyebrow-raising value.

    Samurai (and Super Samurai), for me at least, suffered from being adapted from Shinkenger, one of my top three sentai seasons. I knew going in I was not going to be inclined to like it but I was unprepared for just how much I was going to dislike it. That said, I still enjoy the Super Samurai XBOX game.

    YMMV, but I think the problem Saban faces with older fans who watch sentai is that they are always going to compare the two, fairly or not. I think if Saban focuses more on making a quality program, this won't be an issue. But Samurai had wooden acting, and the plots were pale imitations of Shinkenger episodes that more often than not didn't make sense outside the Shinkenger context.
     
  10. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Vice Admiral Admiral

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  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Which isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself, if the material being adapted is worthwhile. But it seemed problematical in this particular case, since samurai were a hereditary noble class, so the idea of non-Japanese people being samurai seemed incongruous.

    However, I did a little research (i.e. checked Wikipedia), and it turns out there apparently were a few Westerners who were named samurai by the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. And they were given honorary Japanese names. So I suppose it's not entirely impossible that this multiethnic bunch of characters could be descended from samurai families, and that Jayden and Lauren's family could be known as Shiba. It's a pretty huge stretch, but then, the franchise has never exactly been known for plausibility or historical verisimilitude. (Angel Grove somehow managed to be both a colonial American town in the 18th century and a Western town in the 19th despite being in California in the 20th.)
     
  12. Praetor

    Praetor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Fascinating. I had no idea.
     
  13. Mark_Nguyen

    Mark_Nguyen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Tom Cruise in "The Last Samurai"! Now based on a true story!

    Mark
     
  14. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Still, I would've been happier if the Red Ranger(s) in Power Rangers Samurai had been cast as Japanese, instead of as very, very blond. Having the other Rangers be multiethnic, and implicitly descended from those Western (honorary?) samurai, would've been okay given what I know now, but the Shibas, the elite and senior samurai on the team, should've logically been from an older and therefore native samurai lineage. Plus we've never had an East Asian Red Ranger, and this would've been the perfect season for one.

    Although I have to say, the ethnic diversity of Red Rangers has improved since production moved to New Zealand. Before then, we had one African-American RR and a couple of Latinos (if you count Rocky, who wore red but was never the team leader) out of a total of nine regular Red Rangers. So 2/3 of the regular US Red Rangers were non-Hispanic whites (although Tommy was alleged to have Native American ancestry, though I don't know if Jason Frank does). But since then, of the eight regular Red Rangers in the NZ era, two have been black, one Samoan, and one Arab, so fully half have been nonwhite.
     
  15. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Production photo for "Megaforce"


    [​IMG]




    Notice the Ranger key's on each side. They played an important role for the sentai series after this one(Gokaiger)

    Also "Megaforce" is supposed to last two seasons.





    As for Kyoryuger. Casting rumors have suggested the cast will be sort of mulitcultural.

    Nicholas Edwards was mentioned:

    http://ameblo.jp/0nyk0/

    Nicholas (or Nyk) is a model and actor. He's also American, and can speak Japanese.

    Card Fight Vanguard commercial:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKSbz7Ia8hE&sns=em

    [​IMG]
     
  16. Kelthaz

    Kelthaz Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I just finished watching Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie a few minutes ago. Haha, wow, it almost made Samurai looked good. Almost.
     
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I don't remember Turbo being that bad. It did introduce Hilary Shepard Turner as Divatox, one of the best Power Rangers villains ever. And it had the advantage over the first movie of actually being in continuity, even though it ignored/overwrote some plot threads from the end of Zeo. Plus, the movie budget let them build sets and equipment that they could then use on the show, so Turbo the series looked better because of the movie.


    I DVRed the Samurai Christmas episode, which was another clip show, so I fast-forwarded through most of it. There was some nice-ish material with Bulk & Spike visiting Master Ji, though. It kind of gave them the sendoff and recognition for their efforts at heroism that they didn't get in the finale.

    It's odd how many installments this season have been shown out of order -- the series premiere was delayed for a year, the (alleged) RPM crossover was made as part of the Super Samurai season but aired before it began, and now the Christmas episode comes along a week after the series finale. It rather undermined the viewing experience -- not that it was such a great experience to begin with.
     
  18. Praetor

    Praetor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Turbo felt like it should have been on TV, to me. The production values weren't that much better than the series that followed. The plot wasn't dreadful, it just didn't really go anywhere to me. Divatox was definitely the highlight.
     
  19. Samurai8472

    Samurai8472 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The Turbo movie felt like a DTV movie bundled with a "Casper The Friendly Ghost" DTV sequel
     
  20. Praetor

    Praetor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Ew, don't remind me of those Casper sequels. :p