Judging by a newly revealed toy it looks like the movie's.Goldar will actually be controlled by Rita rather than an independent character.
I got that impression from the trailer, and from a plot detail I'd heard,
that Rita was gathering huge quantities of gold, presumably to form Goldar. Although I hadn't considered that she'd be inside Goldar, piloting it like a Zord.
Anyway, Ninja Steel aired its second episode, "Forged in Steel," today, introducing the Yellow and White Rangers, Calvin and Hayley, and finishing the setup of the show's status quo. These two don't have as much personality so far as the first three; Calvin is basically defined by loving his truck and Hayley by liking dogs. But one rather unusual thing is that they're boyfriend and girlfriend. I can't think of another instance where two core, series-regular members of a Ranger team are a couple from the beginning. Generally they only have vague romantic tension that eventually leads to them vaguely dating, like Tommy and Kimberly or Tyler and Shelby, or that goes unresolved until the end of the series, like Jen and Wes from Time Force.
This episode also introduces the Zords, and I didn't realize until reading about it on RangerWiki afterward that the Ninninger mecha/Zords don't have a single theme as usual, but instead are sort of an homage to a bunch of past themes -- humanoid warrior, fantasy animal, real animal, construction vehicle, train. It's an odd hodgepodge. I guess it can work because the Ranger helmets this year aren't styled to reflect the Zord designs, just a general shuriken theme. One problem is the way the Zords emerge out of buildings and hidden panels in the road and all that. That made some sense in Ninninger, where the Rangers' clan had been expecting the villains' return and had time to prepare, but these Zords are supposed to be newly created/arrived on Earth, so the Sentai footage just didn't make sense here. (Also, I wonder what thoughts were going through the heads of the occupants of the cars that were on that stretch of road when it flipped over to reveal the Nitro Zord... and what happened to them once they were upside-down and trapped underground!) I did like the agility of the Red Robo Zord, which is an unusual action style for a Megazord battle. They haven't explained why it has the same body design as Redbot, though. I'd thought that Redbot was going to enlarge to become the Zord, but apparently not.
Although it seems they're using the idea of the Zords being newly formed as the excuse for their various, non-themed appearances -- each one reflects something connected to its corresponding Ranger. Brody's Zord looks like his robot pal; Preston's is a dragon, reflecting the costume from his magic act; Sarah's is a maglev train kind of like her hoverboard; Calvin's is a truck because he loves his yellow truck; and Hayley's is a dog like her pet dog. Although, obviously, in real life the cause and effect is the other way around, with the character traits/props being chosen to set up the pre-existing mecha designs.
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