Power Rangers
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"Past, Present, and Fusion" finally forms the full Ranger team (well, the first five) and provides the basic exposition. Essentially, you could say this was a 2-part premiere, although it's not too different from the format of a lot of the Sentai seasons.
Not sure how I feel about Kendall as the team's mentor. She seems too young for the role (with apologies to Dr. K), and her contempt for Shelby seems gratuitous. With only two women in the cast, it's not good to have them being hostile and catty with each other rather than getting along. It also bugs me when they set up a relationship like that where the one expressing scorn and condescension is white and the one on the receiving end is black. Presumably it's not the intent, just the luck of the draw in casting, but it carries some uneasy implications. (See also the Ninth Doctor/Mickey Smith and the Twelfth Doctor/Danny Pink.) Hopefully Shelby will prove herself to Kendall soon enough.
I guess Keeper is the real mentor, though; evidently Kendall found him first (or he found her) and they've worked together to recruit the Rangers. Unfortunately, I don't like him much. He's got a fairly ugly design and an unappealing voice. I guess he and Kendall are an improvement on Gosei and Tensou, but that's the faintest possible praise.
The T-Rex Zord ("Rexie"?) is kind of interesting in that it behaves like an autonomous animal rather than a vehicle (although I assume that will subside and we'll soon enough get to the point where it's only briefly glimpsed before joining into the Megazord). But it's also kind of ridiculous that something so massive could be doing all those acrobatic flips and somersaults through the air.
Not sure how I feel about Kendall as the team's mentor. She seems too young for the role (with apologies to Dr. K), and her contempt for Shelby seems gratuitous. With only two women in the cast, it's not good to have them being hostile and catty with each other rather than getting along. It also bugs me when they set up a relationship like that where the one expressing scorn and condescension is white and the one on the receiving end is black. Presumably it's not the intent, just the luck of the draw in casting, but it carries some uneasy implications. (See also the Ninth Doctor/Mickey Smith and the Twelfth Doctor/Danny Pink.) Hopefully Shelby will prove herself to Kendall soon enough.
I guess Keeper is the real mentor, though; evidently Kendall found him first (or he found her) and they've worked together to recruit the Rangers. Unfortunately, I don't like him much. He's got a fairly ugly design and an unappealing voice. I guess he and Kendall are an improvement on Gosei and Tensou, but that's the faintest possible praise.
The T-Rex Zord ("Rexie"?) is kind of interesting in that it behaves like an autonomous animal rather than a vehicle (although I assume that will subside and we'll soon enough get to the point where it's only briefly glimpsed before joining into the Megazord). But it's also kind of ridiculous that something so massive could be doing all those acrobatic flips and somersaults through the air.
i'm pretty sure this is actually from the V-Cinema.ToQger finally gets a 7th ranger, albeit in the final episode.
i'm pretty sure this is actually from the V-Cinema.ToQger finally gets a 7th ranger, albeit in the final episode.
Yep, it looks like it. That seemed to be just speculation on Rangerboard that it was from the finale.
A bit off-topic: It's just been announced that Eka Darville, formerly the RPM Red Ranger, is joining the cast of Marvel's AKA Jessica Jones, the second of its four Netflix original series. This is after having had recurring roles in The Originals and Empire. What with Adelaide Kane starring in Reign and Rose McIver about to star in iZombie, the RPM cast is really getting around. I don't think any single season's Ranger cast has had so many veterans going on to major TV roles at the same time. But then, I always felt RPM had just about the most talented cast of any Power Rangers series, except perhaps the original MMPR cast.
Well, there IS a reason that RPM is higher on the list of series beloved by the fandom, IMO. In addition to taking a lot of the overarcing plot fairly seriously, they actually made some decent casting choices. Almost a shame it ended that era, really.
Mark
Mark
^Absolutely. RPM totally reinvigorated the franchise, but they scuttled the whole thing after one season and Saban's followups were a huge step backward, vastly inferior in writing and casting both. It was a terrible disappointment.
"A Fools Hour" [sic] gave us our first real look at Koda, establishing his "caveman" nature, and dropping quite a bombshell: These Rangers are immortal and unaging. (Which could be a problem for future reunion specials if the franchise is still going 14 or 19 years from now.) That's quite a big deal to establish so casually. And it doesn't make a lot of sense where Koda is concerned. If he's 100,000 years old, why isn't he smarter? He should have great wisdom and experience compared to the others, not be this monosyllabic dimwit. How is he so ignorant of our culture and its language if he didn't just recently wake up in it? I'm afraid I'm finding him a rather annoying character so far, and the illogic of his backstory doesn't help.
We also didn't get much explanation for why Sledge and his crew and prisoners are so unchanged after 65 million years. Does Judd Lynn have something against the concept of suspended animation?
The Zord summoning sequence is clearly inspired by Zyuranger/MMPR, with the different Zords emerging from different faraway environments and somehow almost immediately converging on the city. But it's a bit modernized too, in that the animated T. rex we see at the start of "Rexie"'s summoning clearly has a ruff of feathers on the back of its head. I'm not sure the same is true of the T. rex we saw Keeper interacting with in the pilot.
But I'm afraid I'm not crazy about the Zords this season. They're too agile and bouncy for such huge machines/creatures. And the way the Zords swallow, regurgitate, and swap the various "batteries" in order to form the Megazord is vaguely nauseating and perhaps vaguely pornographic.
We also didn't get much explanation for why Sledge and his crew and prisoners are so unchanged after 65 million years. Does Judd Lynn have something against the concept of suspended animation?
The Zord summoning sequence is clearly inspired by Zyuranger/MMPR, with the different Zords emerging from different faraway environments and somehow almost immediately converging on the city. But it's a bit modernized too, in that the animated T. rex we see at the start of "Rexie"'s summoning clearly has a ruff of feathers on the back of its head. I'm not sure the same is true of the T. rex we saw Keeper interacting with in the pilot.
But I'm afraid I'm not crazy about the Zords this season. They're too agile and bouncy for such huge machines/creatures. And the way the Zords swallow, regurgitate, and swap the various "batteries" in order to form the Megazord is vaguely nauseating and perhaps vaguely pornographic.
Power Rangers goes dark and gritty in Power/Rangers, a new fan film from the creator of Dirty Laundry (the unofficial Punisher short staring Thomas Jane) and Venom: Truth in Journalism. It stars Katee Sackhoff as Kimbely and James Van Der Beek. Just FYI this would be equivalent to an R rated movie, with some pretty gory violence, swearing, and a bit of sex. In case anyone was worried, yes, this is meant to be a joke, satirizing the whole "dark and gritty" phenomenon.
The short becomes amazing when it reached Zach's old video.
I'd actually watch a whole movie like that.
I'd actually watch a whole movie like that.
That was fucked up and brilliant and awesome!
Exactly how I felt.
Pretty crazy video. BTW, there's a more NSFW version floating around out there. Bare tits at least, I'm not sure if maybe there's more language or violence. EDIT: Played side by side that does seem to be the only difference...
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I'm sure there's a legal reason why Saban would do it, but I also feel like, deep down, this is yet another example of a fan doing much better work at a fraction of the budget, and they can't have fans, y'know, upstaging them at their own game.
By the way, I've been really turned off by James Van Der Beek for the past 15 years or so. But that sword fight has really raised him up a few points in my book.
^ Do you think it was actually lower budget? Seems like more was done with it than I've seen in PR, though I haven't really been watching for many years.
Honestly, I would not be surprised if it really was cheaper than an episode. 14 minute short vs. 22 minute episode, but even then, we've seen fan films look close to this in sharpness thanks to current computer wizardry and time, as opposed to PR which tries to shove everything imaginable on a tight deadline. I'd hazard to guess that the cost to do this short is less than the cost to do an episode of PR (if Van Der Beek and Sackhoff did it for free because Shankar's a friend, then that's even more money saved -- it could be that the cast and crew probably did it for free as well, simply donating time and professional ability for free like a Star Trek fan film series on Youtube).
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