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Power Rangers

I'm up to episode 18 of Samurai. It's not tedious to watch anymore. The gold ranger, Deker and a shady red ranger have made things more interesting.

I also checked out the intro for Megaforce. Did they have to use the same theme song again?
 
Kyoryuger opening and first morph for Daigo the red ranger

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBLlmw0OMNk[/YT]
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PshMElTW-Yo[/YT]
 
We've seen worse. In any case, I can see Saban wanting to fast-track this one for the dino-angle alone. Over Go-Busters, perhaps? I quite liked the latter, but apparently I'm in the minority. :(

Mark
 
The reason why there's no yellow ranger this year is because they're not strong

http://r25.yahoo.co.jp/fushigi/wxr_detail/?id=20130215-00028313-r25

Translation
http://henshinjustice.com/2013/02/18/why-there-is-no-kyoryuyellow/

“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.”
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Wha? The good news is that this is this years chief producer's opinion. Next year someone might think differently
 
Mark_Nguyen said:
We've seen worse. In any case, I can see Saban wanting to fast-track this one for the dino-angle alone. Over Go-Busters, perhaps?
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No, Go-Buster will be adapted before Kyoryuger, Saban doesn't get to decide which seasons he adapts, it has to be in order.

Mark_Nguyen said:
Modern Yellows? Hurricanger..?
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Hurricanger is not modern, it aired in 2002, that's ancient considering sentai is targeted at five year olds. The last male yellow was in Magiranger in 2005, still long before the current target audience was born.

However, I still think it's idiotic to say kids might think a male yellow is feminine because of the color. You want strong characters, show them being strong. And if they don't want a male ranger who could be seen as feminine, why did they decide to give black some pretty feminine poses? Not that the poses make him weak, but neither does the color yellow.
 
^In my experience, Japan tends to be 20-25 years behind America when it comes to gender attitudes and equality. Which is why Power Rangers 20 years ago was casting female Yellow Rangers to replace the male ones in Super Sentai. It sounds like SS ended up following PR's lead in that respect but now is having a backlash.
 
Christopher said:
Which is why Power Rangers 20 years ago was casting female Yellow Rangers to replace the male ones in Super Sentai. It sounds like SS ended up following PR's lead in that respect but now is having a backlash.
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This is ridiculous. There were two female rangers from Bioman to Jetman. Zyuranger was the first in almost eight years to have one female. The yellow being female/male depends on whose producing and writing. They had a yellow males from Zyuranger to Kakuranger probably because of the same writer. Gingaman to Abaranger probably because of how popular Gingaman and Gaoranger was.
 
I still can't believe that Mega Force is being created by the same people who did Samurai. I mean, what happened? How did we go from unwatchable dreck to quality television with the same people behind the wheel? Did Jonathan Tzachor come into contact with one of those Cytherian probes?

Well, whatever the reason, I'm not complaining. This episode was another Mega Win for Mega Force!

... I'll get my coat.
 
^So far it doesn't seem that much smarter to me. The writing's got some serious logic and intelligence problems, and the characters actually seem more superficial so far than the ones on Samurai. The main improvement is that the cast is more competent.

Although I haven't actually seen most of this week's episode yet. There were some serious digital glitches in the broadcast that distorted the image and sound, so I gave up after the first act and programmed my DVR to record the rerun on NickToons next Saturday morning. Hopefully that one will come through clearer.
 
Okay, I finally saw the rest of last week's episode, and it actually was fairly good. It's the first one in this season I've been impressed by -- partly because there was none of that stupid business about Power Rangers and aliens being unknown to the world. But there was some reasonably solid writing and dialogue. And the Megazord battle was fresh for once -- I don't think we've ever seen one done as a chase sequence before.

This week's episode was more mediocre. It's in the vein of old MMPR stories where the characters never had conflicts unless they were under evil spells. I prefer the later seasons where the Rangers were actually allowed to have natural interpersonal conflict. Not to mention that the depiction of Emma and Gia "hating" each other was nothing more than a little half-hearted squabbling.

Still, it's nice to get an episode focusing on the two of them at last. Even though it's a mediocre story, at least the two lovely ladies got plenty of screen time. I can't complain about that.
 
Kelthaz said:
I still can't believe that Mega Force is being created by the same people who did Samurai. I mean, what happened? How did we go from unwatchable dreck to quality television with the same people behind the wheel?
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Probably a combination of Saban having been "out of the game" for several years. Supposedly Samurai had rushed production. Yet now, after two years, they've likely got more of a handle on things, so production flows more smoothly.
 
Christopher said:
^So far it doesn't seem that much smarter to me. The writing's got some serious logic and intelligence problems, and the characters actually seem more superficial so far than the ones on Samurai. The main improvement is that the cast is more competent.
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I agree with this. The show is pretty broad, generic and back to basics. It definitely feels more focused than Samurai but I'd have liked something a bit more ambitious.

Still, it's watchable enough. Just wish they'd take a risk like Power Rangers In Space did.
 
I finished Super Samurai and jumped right into Megaforce.

Power Rangers Super Samurai

- In the end, it turned out to be a decent show. No, it wasn't RPM, but it had a lot of good hooks and I really came to like the characters. Not sure I liked Antonio though. Seems a bit too sanctimonious.

- Not all of them got to use Shogun mode. I was disappointed.

- I've never seen this many megazord combinations before. Must have been hard work finding so ways to make them all fit together.

- The Gigazord looked odd. It looked like one megazord standing in front of a slightly larger megazord.

- It's a shame that Deker and Dayu didn't get to live happily ever after. I thought the spell would be lifted and they'd get a second chance. It was an unusually dark direction for a kids show. Maybe the Japanese version was so dark that they couldn't salvage it? I don't know.

- I loved the idea of having another red ranger show up, and this new one was pretty easy on the eyes.

- I didn't like the last Christmas special, but it had one redeeming moment… Bulk and Spike got to meet the rangers.

- I watched the Comic Con clip posted up-thread by Samurai. Thanks for that by the way. It was nice to see a cast I've come to like over the last few weeks. I saw that Paul Shrier thought that the show was starting to take itself too seriously during the Disney years and that he was glad to see a return to fun. I definitely don't see eye to eye with him on that one. I preferred the attempt to elevate the franchise and wish it would get back to that.

- Apparently Brittany Anne Pirtle is a trained health and wellness coach and has a holistic blog and a website with lots of great recipes. I've saved a few already.

Power Rangers Megaforce

- I saw the first two episodes. After Samurai, seeing aliens feels like a refreshing change of pace. One thing I didn't like though were all the similarities to Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Who's idea was it to go back there? Ever since Saban took back the franchise, there's been a lack of creativity. I'm surprised that he'd say that Disney wasn't milking it for all it was worth. The show still looks good though. I like the tone and I'm warming up to the characters fairly quickly.

- I didn't like how the kids were just thrown into the action and knew what to do with the morphers and whatnot. Not much of a setup. I know this isn't the kind of show where you think too deeply about this stuff, but still. Perhaps their skills were "programed" into them when they became rangers?

- I don't like that they're reusing the same theme song again, but I love the "Po-wer Ran-gers… Me-gaforce" riff. It would have been nice if they could have built something around that.

- I like the color scheme. Lots of bright blue with some earth tones.

- We've got a pretty good looking cast. More so than usual it seems. Looks like they're all teen models or something.

- Nice to see Jason Biggs on the show. :p

- Those morphers were huge. Brick phones anyone?

- One of the villains reminds me of Zoltar from Battle of the Planets.

- I don't like that the aliens are called "loogies" either. Gross connotations.

- I've read some of your posts about Troy's visions. I didn't know what to make of them and they were so brief that I didn't think much about them anyway. Is there supposed to be some ranger war or something? I've never heard about anything like that.

Christopher said:
As for the Goseiger footage, those disembodied heads docking with existing vehicles and taking form from them was bizarre -- the pilots and drivers of those vehicles must've been totally freaked out.
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Yeah, no kidding. :wtf: And what about the passengers?

I do love the zords though. It's the best synthesis of vehicle and animal I've seen to date. The megazord reminds me of the lion voltron though. Some of the design elements look similar.

Christopher said:
And given Jake's attempts to woo Gia, I had to laugh when their Mechazords merged by the tail of Jake's snake Zord sliding into an orifice at the rear of Gia's Zord. That's probably as close as he's ever going to come to getting lucky with her.
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:lol: I noticed that too.
 
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Agent Richard07 said:
- The Gigazord looked odd. It looked like one megazord standing in front of a slightly larger megazord.
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There have been a lot of bad Zord/Megazord designs in recent years. There were some cool ones in the past, but lately the Super Sentai art department doesn't seem to be as talented. Or maybe they've just run out of ideas.


- I didn't like how the kids were just thrown into the action and knew what to do with the morphers and whatnot. Not much of a setup. I know this isn't the kind of show where you think too deeply about this stuff, but still. Perhaps their skills were "programed" into them when they became rangers?
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That's been par for the course throughout the entire franchise. The Rangers usually seem to gain knowledge of fighting skills and the use of their weapons and equipment as soon as they first morph. Which kind of belies what Troy said in this week's episode about the Rangers being skilled because of their training. (At least in some seasons, they use the excuse that the Rangers are martial artists or athletes already before their recruitment. Here that works for Troy, Gia, and Jake, but not Emma and Noah.)


Is there supposed to be some ranger war or something? I've never heard about anything like that.
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It's a storyline from the 35th-anniversary Super Sentai series Gokaiger which aired in 2011. Megaforce's two seasons are going to be based on two consecutive Sentai seasons; the current one is Goseiger (the 2010 series) and the second will be Gokaiger (though they'll keep the current costumes, the way MMPR seasons 2 & 3 did). Gokaiger involves a "Legend War" involving all 35 Super Sentai teams, and a Ranger team with the power to summon the abilities (i.e. costumes and gadgets) of previous Rangers. Megaforce will be doing its own version of the Legend War at the end of the current season, and the Sentai producers shot special action footage for it featuring only the Ranger teams from the past couple of decades since Power Rangers started.
 
^ Sounds big. I like this kind of foreshadowing. Is it going to be like the RPM crossover with Samurai, or will old cast members actually be returning? What they did on Samurai was pretty lame.
 
I haven't heard anything about cast members returning.

And the bit about new footage being filmed without the pre-Zyuranger teams may have been just a rumor. Apparently the footage we've seen in Troy's visions does depict Rangers that have never been seen in Power Rangers before.
 
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