Super Sentai/Power Rangers discussion thread

[tyrantqueen]

A thread for discussion of the popular tokusatsu show, Super Sentai, and its American derivative, Power Rangers. Who are you favourite characters, what is your favourite season, etc etc.

I used to watch the original Mighty Morphin as a kid, but my parents would not buy me the toys because they were too expensive. I remember wanting the Dragonzord toy so much. But luckily I was able to obtain some second hand toys from garage sales (Serpentera and the Falcon Zord, as well as toys of the Rangers themselves). Now as an adult I am rediscovering the series and I can buy all the toys I want 

Here's something to get the conversation started: there's a Power Rangers movie in the works

http://variety.com/2014/film/news/power-rangers-movie-roberto-orci-ashley-miller-zack-stentz-1201262735/

[Takama]

I remember watching them when I was younger. I loved the Mighty Morphin Movie. and I remember a time that I was at my cousins house playing with his toys.

Nowadays I don't remember too much from the show, other then that there chest emblems were dinosaurs

[Patrx]

I said it once before, but this is a great idea for a thread! Like every child in the'90s, I watched Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers every single morning - as you may recall, they were at one time showing a new episode every weekday. I kept up with the series until about the halfway point of Power Rangers Zeo, and I knew I wasn't coming back for Turbo; because cars are boring.
During college, I got involved with a movie project for the local anime convention. The movie was a Power Rangers parody, featuring a culturally diverse group of heroes that draw powers from their respective backgrounds to fight monsters sent by Wanda Wickedra, the evil space witch. In any case, I met lots of cool people who had also liked Power Rangers, and when Saban got the rights back from Disney, we decided to check out the new show, Power Rangers Samurai. Samurai was lots of fun, and sort of reignited our interest in the series. Since then we've watched lots of others on Netflix, started collecting toys, hosting PR panels at conventions, and wearing costumes.
On the sentai side, we'd never seen any until we decided to investigate Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger out of curiosity. Gokaiger turned out to be absolutely brilliant, but, much like Power Rangers, the Super Sentai series proved to be kind of hit-and-miss overall. Sadly, Power Rangers Super Megaforce, Gokaiger's counterpart, is definitely a miss.

Nowadays I don't remember too much from the show, other then that there chest emblems were dinosaurs

Interestingly, those emblems never appeared on their chests in the show itself - just the movie and the toyline!

Here's something to get the conversation started: there's a Power Rangers movie in the works

Indeed, and its certainly an exciting idea! So many questions regarding tone, characters, continuity, etc. Ultimately, as long as we get cool new Dinozord designs out of the deal, I'll be enthusiastic. This new interview turned up in my Facebook feed this morning. Interesting stuff, but of course the details are still very minimal.

[tyrantqueen]

I'm still watching MMPR and I haven't gotten to the other seasons yet, but why do people dislike the Disney Rangers? Did the quality of the series decline when they bought it from Saban? Now that Saban has the rights again, would you say the series is improving?

[Patrx]

I'm still watching MMPR and I haven't gotten to the other seasons yet, but why do people dislike the Disney Rangers? Did the quality of the series decline when they bought it from Saban? Now that Saban has the rights again, would you say the series is improving?

For my part, and from my discussions with others on the subject, there's really nothing wrong with the Disney seasons overall. They had a rough start, but ultimately, I think they ended up doing some great things with the show. Dino Thunder, SPD, Jungle Fury, and RPM are some of the best shows in the series. RPM in particular is impressive, because it was comparatively grim and serious despite the absolutely ridiculous (and terrible) sentai show it was pulling from.

I think a lot of fans, including myself, just expected the Disney era to be bad and never took a good look at it. Now that Saban has the rights again, they've done some good things and bad. Samurai, Saban's first new season, was great. Very campy and silly, especially compared to RPM before it. Unfortunately, the next show was incredibly bad, and the current one isn't faring much better. I can't help but wish Disney had gotten the chance to adapt Gokaiger instead.

[EmperorDinobot]

I've been watching Dairanger.

Love it.


And the PR movie is probably gonna be about anything BUT power rangers, but about how this one washed up actor lands a job doing PR, and history of the series, and about that one murder case from that one kid a few years ago, and it's gonna be so good it's gonna get an Oscar. Starring Meryl Streep as Rita Repulsa.

[Patrx]

I've been watching Dairanger.

Love it.

Dairanger is fun! Great costumes, great mecha, great martial arts. Really creepy villains. Sadly, I never finished the show. I think the main characters just weren't interesting enough for me.

And the PR movie is probably gonna be about anything BUT power rangers, but about how this one washed up actor lands a job doing PR, and history of the series, and about that one murder case from that one kid a few years ago, and it's gonna be so good it's gonna get an Oscar. Starring Meryl Streep as Rita Repulsa.

Don't be absurd. The Oscars have nothing to do with good movies 

[tyrantqueen]

I think I've solved your question regarding the location of the Megazord's cockpit, Patrx.



I took the footage from the episode "Birds of a Feather".

Seems pretty good evidence to me that they're inside Mega's head.  What do you think? 

[Patrx]

Well! Yes, that's pretty definitive. But I still can't figure out what's supposed to be going on when they're in Tank Mode formation, when the Megazord head is still stored inside the Tyrannosaurus.
Clearly, I am over-thinking this and it's just Zord technomagic!

[tyrantqueen]

I got my Redbubble shirt today

[EmperorDinobot]

That is a nice shirt.

[Patrx]

Looks like we'll  not only be getting a Legacy Titanus, but a Legacy Saba and Tigerzord:



Also, an MMPR: The Movie version of the White Ranger Legendary Morpher:

[EmperorDinobot]

I just want that Titanus....so beautiful!

[tyrantqueen]

Am I the only one who hates having to sit through the Bulk and Skull scenes? They're excruciatingly unfunny and I'm always tempted to skip through them. I know MMPR is not a show that is supposed to be taken too seriously, but I don't find they add anything at all.

Okay, I admit there was one time when I did laugh. When Tommy was turned evil by Rita Repulsa's spell, and his eyes glowed. Either Bulk or Skull (can't remember who) said something about him needing to get his eyes checked. I got a chuckle out of that.

[Patrx]

Am I the only one who hates having to sit through the Bulk and Skull scenes? They're excruciatingly unfunny and I'm always tempted to skip through them. I know MMPR is not a show that is supposed to be taken too seriously, but I don't find they add anything at all.

Okay, I admit there was one time when I did laugh. When Tommy was turned evil by Rita Repulsa's spell, and his eyes glowed. Either Bulk or Skull (can't remember who) said something about him needing to get his eyes checked. I got a chuckle out of that.

I certainly doubt you're the only one, but for my part, I've always enjoyed their scenes. They're easily the best actors of the main cast, and most of their stuff gets better writing because it's not dependent on the sentai footage. Particularly the later seasons give Bulk and Skull some noticeable  character development and interesting stories.
Except for that one time they were chimpanzees. That was stupid.

[Patrx]

I thought this might be worth re-opening this thread:



Hopes are high for this one. With the return of Judd Lynn as Executive Producer, many are hoping Dino Charge will be more like RPM and less like Megaforce. Lynn was also EP during In Space and Time Force, both of which exceeded my expectations.

Perhaps the most promising element of the new series for me is this fantastic theme song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ4v7w4Kiyc

[CityRaptor]

From waht I've read, they are making Nossan's counterpart a caveman...and there was a drama over making the toy of Dricera's counterpart purple.

[Patrx]

True to form, I never took a very close look at Kyoryuger. I do remember a pretty significant kerfuffle regarding the Triceratops mecha, which will indeed retain the correct pink color in the States. Unfortunately, it will still be A BOA Zord 

Kyoryuger has some interesting assets for PR to use, like a broad array of Rangers (including "Spirit Rangers", and idea borrowed from Power Rangers Jungle Fury). I wish I liked the mecha more, but they're all sort of ugly and the CGI is, as ever for sentai, very cheap. The costumes have grown on me somewhat, I particularly like the sleeve designs.

[Patrx]

Time to bring this thread back to life (again!)
To start, I figured out what's going on with the weird shape of the MMPR Megazord cockpit. The set is a holdover from the previous sentai show, Jetman, which is, by the way, an excellent show. The design made more mechanical sense as part of that machine.

Second:

From waht I've read, they are making Nossan's counterpart a caveman...

They did indeed! He's called "Koda" and he's possibly the best character in a cast of really great characters. The actor, Yoshi Sudarso, just gives an exuberant performance, possibly because he's a huge sentai/PR fan himself. Reportedly, the creators of Akibaranger and Gokaiger once had a discussion about whether Yoshi was more like AkibaRed or GokaiSilver (both, in different ways, fans who became rangers). Yoshi also appears in a cameo role in Shuriken Sentai Ninninger.

Dino Charge itself, and its immediate successor Dino SuperCharge, have been astonishing improvements over the last two shows. The primary villains are original, meaning lots of new footage and fight scenes. The characters, as I mentioned, are excellent and much more interesting than the previous set. In my opinion, the things that drag the show down are irreparable, more or less. The Zords are almost uniformly ugly and many of them are auxiliary attachments. Not quite as hideous as the "Gosei Headders", but pretty bad. The suits, I've gotten used to, but at a glance, they're not great. There are some unique new ranger modes designed by PLEX for the Megazord cockpit scenes, meaning those are also new footage. The series hasn't ended yet, so I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. I'd be very glad to see some use of the footage from Kyoruger's Dino-Teamup, bringing back the MMPR and Dino Thunder teams. The next show will use footage from the aforementioned Shuriken Sentai Ninninger to create "Power Rangers Ninja Steel".

Finally, there's been some big developments in the Legacy toyline. The Legacy ThunderZord set has been released, and I hear it's quite good. The Legacy BladeBlaster was suddenly discontinued, but will apparently be back next year. As mentioned above, the TigerZord is out, and there's been confirmation of a NinjaZord set next, including the Falcon. Pictures exist of the Falcon, but not the others, as, reportedly, the prototypes were not complete in time for the most recent toy fair. A Legacy Communicator has been announced, and there are pictures. It'll have five interchangeable colour-coded bands for the main team, but Tommy's colours, green and white, will only be available with a special edition of the communicator. In short, one would have to buy two communicators to get all seven colour bands. More Legacy Movie Morphers are on the way, but each one will be sold separately (instead of including a set of coins) because the holsters are colour-coded. Inexplicably, the coins will feature the Zyuranger animals, not Kakuranger's Ninja animals as seen in the film.
Also, a new set of action figures has been announced, one for each Ranger. Pictures have not been allowed, but reports compare them favorably to Japan's Figuarts line. Each Ranger will come with a Zord, which can be combined with its teammates' Zords to create a version of the team's Megazord, at approximately the same size (not scale) as the Rangers themselves. The first two teams to be released will be MMPR and Ninja Storm - the latter was probably chosen to tie in with the upcoming Ninja Steel. Reportedly, BOA predicts that it will take up to ten years to get through all of the teams it plans to represent with this line.

And that's all I've got! I do have a few pictures of the new Legacy stuff, if anyone's interested. Does anyone else have any thoughts on these things? What do you guys think of Dino Charge so far?

[tyrantqueen]

I just want to say I love Ninjor. He is hilarious. That is all