The History of Power Rangers FINALLY returns! The Rangers have been lead by a giant floating head, a guinea pig, and a useless Princess... eh, why not a dog?
SPD continues with a bold new character... who is a ball of light.
SPD Concludes with our main villain getting replaced by a magnificent tentacle monster.
Watched it all, and enjoyed it immensely. While I don't feel much reason to comment on the series itself, I do have something of note that I kind of wish you would have commented on:
If you notice the design of the SPD command room, it is mostly empty space, just a few panels lining walls, with a center console in the middle. A center console with a very "particular" shape. Now, call me crazy, but I noticed that if one was to paint the entire room in flat white, and paint the console in flat white, the command room would look almost EXACTLY like the inside of the TARDIS in Classic Doctor Who. This was made even more obvious to me when the time came for SPD to send the dino rangers back in time, at which point a large clear plastic cylinder came out from the center of the console, making it look even more like the console in the TARDIS.
Now, all of that is almost guaranteed to be unintentional, but I seriously could not help but think it as I watched the review of this series. Knowing you to be quite the Whovian, I hope you can see where I'm coming from when I make the comparison, lol.
Once again, thanks a bunch for the HOPR. I eagerly await the next installment. ^_^
Lovely review. If you go back to the DinoThunder preview to SPD, you could LOL that the voices sound nothing like the current actors.
I do find Unfortunate Implications that the only major people of color were criminals and that the second black red ranger also eventually got replaced by a white guy. Not intentional, most likely, but these things rarely are. :/
I think it was said that they couldn't afford another out of suit actor for Sam, and that pissed off the production team enough to use him as little as possible, though they regretted it.
Also, I read SPD was basically someone's "Baby." I can't recall who, but I think it's Greg Aronowitz. I read an interview where someone, probably him, watched one episode of Mystic Force and wasn't much impressed by it.
I know you're not interested in the Super Sentai, but you should look at the Japanese counterpart of Doggie and lol at how he looks like a life-sized plastic action figure.
Fandom-wise, Bridge/Sky is the most popular slash pairing...which is strange, since I thought Jack and Sky had more chemistry. Also, Doggie is a Bara icon, and apparently fanart always puts him in the sub position.
Ever thought "Man, this season has a big cast?" Wait till you finish Mystic Force. ;)
-Based off of your comments about the laziness of the Disney seasons' fight scenes, I think you'll really love the pirate season when it comes out. Gokaiger had some absolutely breathtaking fight choreography with an emphasis on swordplay, and not really any places where Kalisplosions could crop up. I actually debated cutting together a video of some of Gokai's better fight scenes to give you an idea.
-On the "Kalisplosion" vs. "Koichiplosion" debate, I'd point the blame more towards Kalish. Koichi Sakamoto has been doing a lot of work in Japan lately, directing Kamen Rider Fourze as well as Kamen Rider Double's movie and a few episodes of Gokaiger; while they show some of his other trademarks (like lots of wire work and motorcycle fighting), the ludicrous explosions were nowhere to be found.
-Yeah, I'm sure you'll get a million posts about it, but the Omega Ranger was indeed supposed to be #6. The Nova Ranger was even odder, since her logo seems to be #7 but is arranged as IVI, making some think it's supposed to be #1000. The Gold Ranger (who only appeared in Dekaranger's movie and didn't make it over here) has a large X on her suit, obviously making her #10.
-Kind of surprised you didn't discuss the apparent reason for Omega being a ball of light, namely that Disney supposedly blew the budget on the final battle and didn't have enough to cast an actual actor for him.
-It's strange, I'd always heard people saying Silverback was a riff on R. Lee Eremy (the most famous fictional drill sergeant of all time), but I really didn't get that impression in the clips you showed. Of course, it'd be kind of hard to translate his dialog from "Full Metal Jacket" into a Power Rangers series...
-Also, I'm a little surprised you didn't discuss the animatronic costume used for Kruger, especially considering there are plenty of fans who hate it and say that the cheaper-looking Dekaranger version is must more appropriate for this kind of show.
-As for where Kruger's muzzle goes when he morphs...I honestly don't know. With Kamen Rider, at least you have the excuse that it's an actual transformation of the person's body into an entirely different form. Sentai and Power Rangers, OTOH, just seem to have them summon up the costumes from "storage space" and don them, as evidenced by all the scenes where they take off their helmets.
-I hate to bring up the subject so far in advance, but in the Mystic Force review will you make mention of the two theme songs Ron Wasserman made that were ultimately rejected in favor of...what we got?
-Finally, I'm actually a little surprised you didn't give a disclaimer saying "I've already heard about Go-Busters and how much it references Power Rangers, please stop telling me." Have people not been flooding you, or did you just not want to bother?
Yeah, Omega (Dekabreak) is numbered 6. Catranger (Dekaswan) Was only used in two episodes of Dekaranger, so if they wanted to use the morphed form more, they would have needed to shoot it themselves. Nova (Dekabright)likewise, only appeared in Dekaranger episode 40-Though they didn't use any of her footage for SPD. Even the fanbase doesn't know whether she's numbered seven or one-thousand, as the roman numerals for hers are well, odd. With The Disney era being stingy on budget for new footage, it's probably best that they rationed what they had for the two. The quarry thing? Well, when they do include sentai footage for those, guess where the Japanese production team sets up in the later years? YEah...Sorry. Despite using very little footage from those, and you not caring about sentai, clearly the production crew decided to take the initiative from there. I know you don't care about the sentai side, but sometimes your gripes can have answers rooted in the Japanese sides of the stories. Especially as starting with Mystic Force, you are going to be coming across the problem that the power ranger series will become more and more just a rehashing of the plots of their Sentai Counterparts, with superficial changes that really don't work well and detract from the overall narrative.
"-Finally, I'm actually a little surprised you didn't give a disclaimer saying "I've already heard about Go-Busters and how much it references Power Rangers, please stop telling me." Have people not been flooding you, or did you just not want to bother?"
Eh, people have waited eight months for the SPD review, I figured I should probably just jump right into it. XD
"I know you don't care about the sentai side, but sometimes your gripes can have answers rooted in the Japanese sides of the stories. Especially as starting with Mystic Force, you are going to be coming across the problem that the power ranger series will become more and more just a rehashing of the plots of their Sentai Counterparts, with superficial changes that really don't work well and detract from the overall narrative."
See, stuff like the Omega Ranger's number? That's not a GRIPE for me, that's just a "Huh, that's weird" kind of thing. A gripe is "there's very little character development in these team-ups" and "they use the same explosion effect so many times that if they spliced in the same explosion from a previous episode I wouldn't notice."
Hoo boy... SPD... SPD. I said in my comment for the Dino Thunder review that that particular series brought me back into the entire franchise. SPD quickly lost my interest. I'm guessing it was the mainly the Kalishplosions the made me lose my interest, but part of my nature told me that SPD was exactly like Lightspeed Rescue except in the future so that might've been a factor as well.
I think I may have to agree with you on a certain point. Now that I've actually watched the entirety of SPD and let it sit my brain for bit, if you ignore certain nitpicks and flaws the season had, it was pretty solid and the team-ups were okay at best.
Trivia note about Kalish seasons: for every season he's been a part of Power Rangers, the season has to have the same number of words for how many seasons he's done thus far, barring multi-parters. The idea is stupid, but I will admit I actually thought the single word episode titles made sense and were pretty clever; they were basically like a police report that had to be summed up in one word, even if there were plenty of two-parters. We'll see a similar kind of cleverness for, IMHO, the So Bad, It's Good Mystic Force.
Glad to finally see that another video has finally come out, but I'm just a little surprised that you didn't mention that Grumm was another American Only villain as Brood Wing was the original main villain for the sentai version.
Hmm... Haven't really bothered with Power Rangers outside of the current season since your last review, but this one seemed alright from what I recall of the few episodes I took the time to watch. I was a bit surprised that they did 2 team ups with Dino Thunder, but I didn't mind that fact at all since I could probably say I liked Dino Thunder just based off of how many episodes I saw both while it aired, admittedly just bits and pieces at the time, and after you started this show, full eps.
Design wise... I liked this season pretty much from the start, except for Gruumm himself. I think it was the horns more than anything else.
I was interested to see that I had already seen one of the cast outside of Power Rangers, not terribly surprised since they moved to New Zealand by this point so it was bound to happen, Morgana's actress. Hercules, Xena and a few other short lived shows produced by the folks behind those shows.
Anyway, I look forward to the next one and, as always, take your time.
I've been waiting for SPD ever since you started doing the history of power rangers. I've not watched the reviews yet. I'm someone who only remembered the original series and the film. I was never a big power rangers fan so when I stumbled upon this show, I was surprised how good the first few episodes were.
I liked the look of the show. I remember the dog being a great effect. Most films would have had some terrible CG thing, but the dog looked like he was really there. The themes and ideas, such as super heroes as cops and following the stories of the B team, really appealed to me. After missing a bunch of episodes I never got back into it.
So, I dug the review as usual. The detailed summaries and analyses do a swell job at letting me see what came after I stopped watching PR without having to actually watch it :p
But, I do have some suggestions in regards to pacing. Obviously, the reviews have gotten pretty long because the seasons have become more complex and require more explanation than previous seasons. You even stated yourself that SPD seemed like it had more "important" episodes than usual. However, I do feel there were a few things that could have been trimmed in order to cut down on the runtime.
The first thing to come to mind is your criticism of the explosions. Mind you, I think its a valid criticism and belongs in the review. However, you spent five minutes (I checked the timestamps) just discussing the explosions. You went into what was probably a little too much detail, and then repeated yourself going into too much detail a few times. I actually thought for a second that you were maybe making a joke. One of your comments was in regards to the repetition of the explosions and how "we get it already!" Probably a minute and a half into your speech I understood what the "Khalishsplosions" were, why they were a bad thing, and in particular how much you hate them. And I still had 3.5 minutes to go until you were done talking about it. Again, I'm not saying its not a valid criticism or doesn't belong in the review. I'm just suggesting that you could have trimmed that a bit and cut down on some of the already length runtime without losing any actual content.
Additionally, I didn't feel your bit on the PR timeline or suggestion that PR years were different than "our" years was really necessary or added anything to this review. I guess its kind of interesting, but, again, the runtime is already pretty long. Someone such as myself, who hasn't really watched PR since I was a kid, isn't really going to notice any timelines discrepancies just by watching your reviews. Someone who does watch the series will probably already have discussed it on some board or another. It just doesn't really add anything to the review itself and could probably be nixed for time.
Just to reiterate, I enjoyed the review and look forward to seeing your Mystic Force review in 2013 ;). I just think that, as length as just the summaries of the seasons themselves are, there could be a few snips here and there to cut back on the runtime.
In my opinion, Kalishplosions are what happens when a Japanese director tries to do "American style" action scenes, despite not really understanding what they are about (hence why his work in Japan is better than his work in PR). I'd say it's the same problem that some games in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise had: Sonic games have always been more popular in the West than in Japan, but their quality began to decline when the team (a Japanese team) started to taylor them to cater to what they thought were Western tastes.
My point is: if you want to please a certain culture, then don't try to copy what they do, because you can't get all the intricacies unless you're very familiar with it. What you can do, however, is doing things in your own style while drawing inspiration from other cultures (which is basically what Sakamoto does in Japan).
Good retrospective. I liked SPD. Bridge was probably my favorite actually. I personally kind of like the fun-guys, plus his powers were very useful to the plot as well. What do you think of Bruce Kalish's era? Well, I know that you are not fond of the Kalish-splosions, but what about his other works in Power Rangers? Personally, I like how the A-Squad Red Ranger was a girl as a sort of call back to the beginning to secretly one-up Sky.
Just when I thought you'd abandoned this series, bam a new instalment. And it only took you 9 months upload it.
As is said in my post on your In Space review SPD feels very much a season of 2 half, it's slow at first however it does build up and, in my opinion, once you get to SWAT things just seem to escalate.
The idea that the 5 presented are not the best and the brightest that SPD has to offer is an interesting notion, makes me wonder what other shows like Lightspeed Rescue or Time Force might have been like if they had gone a similar route. Like in other shows such as Star Trek the Rangers are presented as being the best choices to fend off whatever the villains of of season are, however instead Jack and the others are, as you said, are the back up crew, the guys who clean up after the A squad, It allows for bit more of a group dynamic as well as growth even if it isn't handles as well as it possibly could be.
Whilst its not perfect, the things you pointed out never really bugged my until you pointed them out, on the whole SPD is a pretty good show and one of the better ones of the Disney era.
From this point however on though the shows are gonna get a lot more hit or miss.
Huzzah! I'd been waiting for this! I liked SPD; the civilian fights were pretty well choreographed and it used some nice ideas in the characterisation and plot that differentiated it from Dekaranger. I'm personally a fan of PR series that don't try to follow the sentai too closely; Samurai to me feels like a dumbed-down retelling of Shinkenger, while by comparison RPM takes the goofy Go-Onger and makes something dark, clever and tongue-in-cheek out of it. I'm hoping that they decide to take Goseiger and make a PR series of it that's...well, not incredibly bland like Goseiger.
I hope to see more HOPR soon! I really enjoy these videos.
As someone who's just finished watching Dekaranger, I have to make a few comments : Yes, Omega's number is 6, because his counterpart is considered the true 6th ranger. That's the thing that bothered me most with SPD: that since they didn't want to hire another main actor, they just reduced his character to the minimum. Otherwise, I quite enjoy the season and the Sakamoto fight scenes, even if the explosions are boring. One theme that I found is that the Zords from this season are a call back to Lightspeed : A main Megazord composed of 5 individual vehicle Zords, a huge Megazord which can contain the individual ones, a 6th ranger piloted Zord which transforms into a Megazord and can combine with the main Megazord, and a Megazord composed of flying machines. Also, trivia: SPD was dubbed in Japanese by the original Sentai actors.
I actually like the SPD helmets a lot, they're probably the most aerodynamic helmets of the franchise. I think the wide visors are meant to evoke an alien oval shaped eye, so that (with the siren lights) it reads to the viewer as "Space Police!"
You are correct about Sam. An interview with director Greg Aronwitz said Omega Ranger did not have a corresponding actor because the higher ups were looking to save money. However the money they saved allowed them enough cash to film the new zord fight with the Magnificence.
As for Syd, I thought she was wealthy and that being a Ranger was something she couldn't buy her way into, she had to earn it though hard work and pressure, much like the diamonds she frequently admired.
Thats just my two cents. Take that for what its worth... if anything. May the power protect you!
"Eh, people have waited eight months for the SPD review, I figured I should probably just jump right into it. XD"
Fair enough. XD
Also, I don't want to sound confrontational, but I think the way you kind of dismissed the Sentai when discussing the Battlizer is just going to cause problems. There are already people who don't understand that you're reviewing PR and not SS, but that remark seems to have made some of them think you outright hate the Sentai version, and those guys really don't need the encouragement to be even bigger jerks.
But as you've said, this is completely voluntary on your part and done using your own free time, and MOST of us appreciate it. There's always going to be a few complainers, but let's face it, some of these people wouldn't be happy no matter what you did, so to heck with 'em.
Well, after watching this that's another season I wouldn't mind checking out (and this time not just because of the villains, though I'd say the same is true of Dino Thunder).
This season looked a lot better than I thought it would be. Darker, more hard hitting, and not afraid to go a more "adult"Z route with some of the things.
Evil power rangers that joined by their own personal choice. Best part of the season.
Firstly, good things come to those who wait. Always enjoy another HOPR installment. Secondly, blowing your budget on over the top morphing sequences (Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force, Ninja Storm-Samurai) and also the equally over the top Kalish-splosions doesn't make budgetary sense IMO, though to the credit of the producers, Kruger's been more streamlined than his Sentai counterpart, looking less like a Muppet on steroids. Thirdly, this might have been answered in an earlier post, but out of curiosity, what equipment and software do you use to record and edit the sound and vids for these?
The Kalishsplosions...well, they're not exactly unique. You don't see them often in the Sentai side of things, but there have been a few tokusatsu series which are grievous offenders. (Kamen Rider Decade, I'm looking at you.)
Also, another, somewhat more subtle bit of meddling by Disney is how they word things. Since it's a children's show, certain things can't be said. The hemotech stuff? The full line is technobabble for "Synthetic Blood." That kind of thing isn't exactly atypical of Disney's Standards and Practices department. After all, Disney is family friendly at all times.
An interesting season indeed, especially seeing how it merges story elements of Abaranger (Dino Thunder) and Dekaranger (SPD)
To further clarify, Dekaranger did not have a big bad of it's own. The closest thing was Abrella (Broodwing's counterpart), who was however just a mere weapons dealer, who appeared selling equipment to the various criminals. Each episode would feature a different criminal, ranging from jewel-thieves to inter-planetary terrorists, each of whom had their own individual agendas. The only exception would be the trio of serial-killers - Bon-Goblin, Succubus Hell, and Blitz (the counterparts of Shorty, Morgana, and Devastation), who are fought in a three part episode, and make a comeback for Dekaranger vs. Abaranger. Most of Dekaranger is generally focused on the character-arcs of the individual rangers, rather then fighting a universal threat.
Seeing how Dinothunder used none of the Abaranger story, they essentially lifted allot of the plot from that series. Kruge's been given allot of the back-story of Abare Black, who lost both his original team and family to the villain Dezumozorlya (Magnificence). The difference is that Dezumozorlya brainwashed Mahoro (Abare Black's wife) into becoming his minion (serving a role similar to Emperor Gruumm), but also forcefully impregnated her (and yes, Dezumozorlya is a tentacle monster as well, this IS Japan after all), to bear his "apostle" - Lije (Mora/Morgana) Lije spent most of the series as a little girl, but afterfalling in love with Abare Killer (White Abaranger, who was pure evil in this series, only joining the other Abarangers at the very end in an act of vengeance against Dezumozorlya, his "heroic" sacrifice being the only good deed he ever did - "feels good"), she artificially ages her self up, so that he'll find her attractive (while she still keeps a childish personality) Through the series run, Mahoro manages to brake free from Dezumozorlya's control, and after his defeat, Lije reverts to a mere baby, to be cared for by her mother and Abare black (who accepts her as his daughter, despite her origin)
In a way, Morgana is the mix of the two most disturbing female characters in Sentai history Lije, who was essentially the Anti-Christ, born from rape, with some disturbing undertones (a little girl in an adult body, hitting on a cold-blooded murderer) And Succubus Hell, a cannibalistic serial killer, who wanted to make Deka Yellow her sex-slave. (ah, those Japanese) Sweet dreams
And on another note, why didn't they use a replica of Anubian Kruger's original mask? So far the Power Rangers crew didn't seem to have a problem with getting the replicas from Japan
Your comment on the Kalisplosions just seemed to remind of the robot chicken "Michael Bay Presents: Explosions" also it's neat that they had not one but two crossover episodes something no other season has done before. Though as others had said it would have been goof if you had talked about the sentai a bit as you said we'd been waiting long enough
"And on another note, why didn't they use a replica of Anubian Kruger's original mask? So far the Power Rangers crew didn't seem to have a problem with getting the replicas from Japan"
They chose to make an entirely new costume for Kruger so that he could actually emote, is the gist of it.
Get used to seeing John Tui and Kelson Henderson, they're sticking around for a while. Disney liked to reuse their second-string actors during their run of the show.
I remember being in a mixed relationship with this show when it was on. I was getting older (I was 13 when it started) and starting to learn about Sentai. I could never decide if I liked it or not, it was a really mixed bag. It was the last show I saw in full. I skimmed Mystic Force and haven't seen anything but snippets after that. Looking back at SPD, I have to agree it was pretty okay, but I can definitely see why I started losing interest. It IS cool that they subtly built up towards their final gambit throughout the entire season, instead of just getting to the end of the season and saying "Okay we're out of resources, THROW EVERYTHING WE'VE GOT AT THEM."
I know you care naught for Sentai but just a note about their use of the battlizer: they only brought it in during the crossover with the next team, and I think they handled it better by virtue of not showcasing the Battle Thong, just going straight to the full-armored version. The first stage would have been immensely better if it didn't include the briefs.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that caught the uncomfortably sexist undertones that kept cropping up on the topic of female red rangers. Considering the target audience is little boys, you'd think they'd want to ENCOURAGE gender equality, not have the role models scoffing at female reds. Kind of scary that Disney was against the idea, too. I mean, yes, show for little boys, boys like male role models, so I understand why the core red will probably never be a woman, but a character set to appear in only 2 episodes? At least it shows that "HEY BOYS, GIRLS CAN BE LEADERS TOO. DON'T DISRESPECT"
And lastly, here's an interesting little aside, the voice of Dr. Oliver in the crossovers was provided by Trent's actor. And that second crossover (where they went to the past and everybody's memories were erased) was originally a DVD-exclusive. I think you had to buy it at McDonald's or something. It was like a little bonus episode that they originally weren't going to show on TV, which is why they had the characters forget about it.
So. Here's to not waiting quite as long for the next installment! Let's shoot for just 7 months this time! :P
Dave, dude, that's not the worst thing they did to him. Doggie Kruger (yes, with a K. That's the Dekaranger version) is one of the most bad-ass characters sentai OR power rangers EVER had.
His motivation for not engaging in active field duty, next to being the earth branch's chief, reflects that. "If I have to out to catch this criminal, I would not have any need for you.". Not his exact words, bust close enough.
We are talking about a man who has earned the nickname Jigoku no Banken (Guard Dog from Hell). The number on his chest symbolizes the amount of enimies he can defeat under two minutes. Sporting teh D-Sword Vega, the Master License and his "Galaxy Sword" fighting style, this man has earned the title and rank of Deka Master.
The power rangers equivalent has some bigger hurdles to take. He was apparently married (whereas Kruger was romantically interested in Miss Swan), who disappeared during a tragic incident. He then chose the path of passivism. He later takes on the suit of Shadow Ranger in the exact same scene as in Dekaranger. It takes away of the awesomeness of this scene. In that very scene, in Dekaranger, Doggie Kruger showed he was NOT a man to be messed with. In PRSPD he regains his resolve to fight.
Doggie Cruger is an interesting character, maybe that's why the also changed his appearance and gave him a less gruff voice. But to my opinion he is a shadow of what Doggie Kruger is.
I last saw Doggie Kruger in the Dekaranger tribute episode of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. He's still bad-ass...
About the Kalishplosions, I honestly never had a problem with them. A bit part of Power Rangers, and tokusatsu as a whole for that matter, is the sheer over the top-ness of it all. People do dramatic poses, shout the names of their attacks, and kick monsters in the face until they explode. It is part of the charm. An excess of explosions, even if they are not edited as quite as well as they could have been, isn't really a bad thing in my view.
That said, I can completely understand your complaint about the drop in fight scene quality. But then again, it is often difficult to find quality actors who also happen to be skilled martial artists, so oftentimes a tradeoff has to be made somewhere.
Now with that said, I would like to point out that Koichi Sakamoto is honestly a spectacular fight choreographer, who often does an absolutely splendid job of lending a sort of fluid grace to actors in big clunky outfits. This is especially noticeable of you watch some of his Japanese work, notably the Kamen Rider Double movie, and the more recent Ultraman movies.
As for the timeline issues, I was always under the impression that Earth in the rangers-verse had been trading and in communications with various alien species since the end of In Space. This would give over two decades for alien immigration to become commonplace, as well as explain how we suddenly got the technology to create an interstellar space station in Lost Galaxy, and our own set of government funded ranger gear in Lightspeed Rescue.
I'm sorry but I HATE devices that can supposedly tell guilt or innocence. There's a reason why lie detectors are not considered strong evidence in courts. It's because they aren't strong in any way*.
It's entirely possible for someone to panic because they're worried that the device will malfunction and so give the device a false positive. Or what about someone who casually lies about everything? Or what about someone who is a guilty of a crime, just not the one that they're being accused of? Then there's the question of how the heck the devices can tell the difference between someone stressed out because they just saw their friend shot and someone stressed out because they just shot their friend.
For that matter, why were they equipped with the devices? Earth is facing alien invasion, not a massive crime wave.
In the explosions' defense, the shockwave actually would throw you around if it's close enough...but it also would probably kill anyone that close anyway.
As for the female Red Ranger, nice to make a woman the leader of the team but points get taken off for then making this character a traitor. I know they were limited by what had been done originally but it doesn't help when women's rights in the show take a step forward and then two steps back.
*Although someone really needs to tell Hollywood that.
First, let me say, that I love watching your videos. I find your analysis and interpretation of the Power Rangers series very fun and interesting to listen to.
Now that I have gotten the nice comment out of the way, I can say this. It does make me a little sad that you don't really compare Power Rangers to Super Sentai however I can completely understand why you don't. It did make me really happy when you commented on the scene where Sky meets the villain who killed his father and how you liked that they covered all the mirrors. This scene is literally cut and pasted from Super Sentai. While it is a really good scene, nothing about it is original b/c it is simply a copy. Even down to the camera angles, in some cases.
Keep up the good work and I look forward to your next video.
Well HOPR finally returns. you did a good job Linkara and I'm happy you enjoyed SPD. To me it was the last really good Power rangers show for awhile. Personally for the next episodes I didn't have that much of a problem with Mystic force at first. At best it's the equivalent of Wild force & Ninja Storm with the mixed reaction. The way I saw it, it started out strong but then started to decline by the middle espically when a certain villain comes into play and he has the most hairbrain 3 parter scheme I've ever seen. Still I think you'll be fine during that season. Operation Overdrive on the other hand.......good luck with that. Still good job can't wait for Mystic force.
I'll admit after this series I barely watched Mystic Force, only watching the episodes they pretty much shoved in your face in the morning, basically the first episode, the sixth ranger episode, the battilizer episode, the super armor for all the rangers episode, and then the finale, I caught all of those and I didn't think I missed much of it. Really from here on out besides Samurai I'm going in blind and these will be interesting to watch.
Mind you: I watched this last night and had 24 hours to think about it so I doubt it completely is going to be comprehensive...then again I also read too many of the RangerBoard reviews of your review:
Although I am a PR fan, weirdly the series SPD is adapted from, Dekaranger, is the first Sentai I actually have completely watched. And as I watched your review of SPD, all I could do is sort of see how the concepts were adapted in America and sort of saw what worked and what didn't. I know you will never watch any Sentai since that isn't nostalgia, understood. However this review actually makes me see that some of what SPD did was take some of the better aspects of Deka and made it their own, in some ways even better.
-First of all, I like the idea of Jack and the story arc he went through this season, even though I'm a huge Ban fan being the hot-blooded cop of the Sentai team. Ban is Ban, but Jack actually is someone who just found himself thrown into the Ranger business, did it to make sure he did his obligations, then just wanted to leave it behind once it was all over. In some ways I actually relate to Jack because I went through some similar situations: I took up a massive responsibility, did my best even though things really got screwed over, and then chose to leave it behind when realizing my true path. His quest is different from someone truly dedicated to their job (such as a Carter) or someone thrown into a situation and rising to the occasion (the Dino Thunder lead or even the original MMPR), in that he is changed through it even if it isn't his calling.
-Likewise I think Sky was way better than Hoji, more or less because of his legacy and the tragedy. Hoji had great episodes, but more or less was an obsessive perfectionist and rather one-note at time. Sky wanted to prove he could be a Ranger like his father and overcome the problems in his life such as the tragedy of losing him. (even if that part was more taken from Tetsu's plot)
-Cruger is a weird one because Deka's Kruger was just awesome, being a leader who respected his team and knew when to kick it. Cruger, though, had more of an overarching story and the connection with Grumm that made him surprisingly stand out just as much as the Sentai version.
-The stuff that SPD did that Deka didn't do were just really nice touches, including splitting Swan into Kat and Boom (though I wished Kat kept her morphing powers more than one ep...at least in Deka Swan joked about it but still had morphing capabilities) and the choice of A-Squad to betray Earth for Grumm. The whole A-Squad/B-Squad comparison was just really fascinating and interesting and really did show off the interesting aspects of the season and what it did right.
-Sadly there were things I found somewhat better in Deka compared to SPD: obviously Tetsu is way more interesting than a ball of light (even though some of his story was taken by Sky) and Umeko was a way more comedic Pink making Syd feel rather just "there" even from how you made her. Also, Abrella seemed to make more sense as a villain than trying to make an overarching evil empire even if Grumm and the A-Squad made it work. (yeah Broodwing did similar but Abrella more or less was the overarching villain of an anthology story and his development was just interesting seeing him get more and more involved); while Mora was just probably an excuse to use the Lije/Lijewel concept from Abaranger with a one-shot Deka villain. And...what was the point of the brain in a jar?
Overall, a great review for a duo of seasons that were ultimately good on both sides of the Pacific. And take your time considering how much shorter seasons are going to get...
Hey Linkara, awesome HOPR review definitely worth the wait, especially liked how you linked the civillian powers to the rangers distinct personalties, I was however just wondering why you didn't add it to your page on TGWTG with all your other HOPR videos.
One thing you left out was the episode where Syd was brainwashed. Bridge canceled out her brainwashing by convincing her to morph - that is, in SPD, morphing cancels brainwashing.
And "expanded universe" notwithstanding, this is the way that we know the A-squad wasn't brainwashed: we see them in morph.
Great review. Aside from some serious flaws (too many explosions, Omega Ranger being reduced to a ball of light), this looks like a great series. This has been definitely worth the wait.
Here's to the next feature on Mystic Force . . . and the beginning of the decline of the Power Rangers.
Incidentally, have you checked out EZ Rider's reviews on the SPD/Dino Thunder crossovers?
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers debuted a couple of weeks after my eleventh birthday, which put me right in the demographic, and I fell in love with the show, or maybe it was just Amy Jo Johnson, not really sure. I only watched the initial MMPR series, all three seasons, but after that, I just stopped. Never even bothered to check out any of the other series. It wasn't until I found your HOPR on TGWTG that I discovered that Power Rangers even continued past Zeo.
Having watched every episode of HOPR, I've come to see what I was missing, maybe it's just your descriptions and your passion for the series, but I really feel I should try to track down the series I missed.
So, Fun Science Fact - Iridium is a Thing That Exists, and it looks like the show is even using it a real fashion, based on what Linkara passed along in the video.
Iridium (according to Wikipedia), is a transitional element in the platinum family that is hard, corrosive resistant, but brittle and very rare. Generally it's used in alloys with other metals - particularly when those metals might need to be made harder or more corrosion resistant.
Also, because it is so incredibly rare, and potentially incredibly useful (particularly if you're building mechanical stuff) it makes perfect sense for Gruumm to steal every gram of the stuff he can find.
The only thing it's not really useful for is structural supports and armor because of how brittle the metal is.
And with all the metallurgical-science-info-dumping out of the way. I really liked the animatronic for Kruger's head. It was expressive and emotive and - since this was apparently built specifically for the US production, money well spent. I think that just might be the most expressive animatronic used for a show like this. (Okay, the Ninja Turtles Live Action Series That Does Not Exist might have similar, but I still Kruger's head more.)
You know i'm glad you finnaly got the review up, though i'm really lookingo forward to some of the later reviews.
Like Andrew Hartford of OO, this man was not only their mentor but was going to be the red ranger until he was basicly out voted in favor of his team, that gets a lot of respect from me. I also didn't rewally see the OO rangers as quiters durring OaR like others do. when they were ouright Replaced (as per SK) they hung around trying to be useful. But it was clear they had no use. So they fell back on their old lives, and were CLEARLY not happy with that, in fact they JUMPED at the chance to do something wirthwhile when Mac spoke to Rose only (she contacted the others), not to mention they fight the badguys Unmorphed (even if they di get their asses kicked) sure they lost faith a couple times but it never lasted long, and that makes sense if you were litterly brushed out for a new team of rangers and were utterly powerless you'd feel a little lost from time to time. Also since i'm writing a MF fic i'm very curious to se your MF thoughts.
The Kalish Era, Power Ranger's Dork Age, in later seasons of this era, it's not pretty.
Honestly,
I like the Sentai Kruger a lot better, total badass. Not to mention being voiced by Tetsu Inada the huge amounts of fanart (and yes it's THAT kind of art) he gets. It's a sort of "I'd go gay/furry for him" thing Inada's furry roles have.
Yeah the Battlizer is treated better in the Sentai.
Can't wait for the Mystic Force review (wish the morph call was different, and the spell for it).
First, I sort of had a moment of glee when I saw the Swat uniforms, because I actually know that sentai series! The toys and books are at the preschool where I work. I pay no attention to these shows and stopped watching PR after the second season.
I have one adult student who can't quite believe that sentai shows come over to America; would you be against me showing her a little of one of your reviews as proof?
Finally, I loved this review. Your passion for the series really shown through. I only planned on watching the first part of this last night, but the way you narrated it, you perfectly captured the sense of continuing story and I couldn't leave the review unfinished.
I do have to agree with another poster that the extended fan theory on years lasting longer etc. probably wasn't necessary. Fan theories are most interesting to hard core fans, and outsider viewers like myself frequently just don't care. If you had simply raised the "Will in the show in 2015 actually have aliens?" issue, that would have been sufficient.
That said, would it not be awesome if the show in 2015 actually did start introducing alien characters into the world so that the timeline matched up?
I look forward to your next review whenever you finish it. A Google search reveals Power Rangers with capes? This will be interesting...
"I have one adult student who can't quite believe that sentai shows come over to America; would you be against me showing her a little of one of your reviews as proof?"
Also let's be fair Omega is from the future, 15 years to be exact, that's 15 iteration of the SPD uniform (going by normal conventions) so maybe he was the 6th Ranger of SPD 2040
Holy $#^# that's the Sky Tower! In the second vid at 22:08. It's the famous landmark in Auckland, New Zealand. The palce where I live.
I know it's not much, but I find it hilarious to think that 'the future' is set in NZ. It sticks out so much to a Kiwi every time they shoot something in NZ, cos I can reconginze it straight away.
And yes I know Power Rangers is shot in NZ, which is why I find it funny to see actors who I recongize from various TV shows over here (and how it's meant to be a stand in for America).
Man I love this series, if nothing more then seeing NZ masking as somewhere else lol.
FINALLY for the past two days I've actually been thinking about this series; I was wondering if you decided not to do it any more, good to know you still are. I know you do this series as more of a hobby and you don't really owe us anything. But Lewis please don't make us wait so long for the rest. Not asking you to rush them or anything... just remember that some of us really want to see your opinion on specific moments in specific seasons. So waiting months at a time can be a real downer. It would be nice if maybe you could drop a hint in your other videos every now again or something, so we at least know it's coming. Or maybe, seeing as how you've gone through most of the series you could incorporate it into your general video line up and put it on your list for things your dong in a specific month. You don't have to do anything I say and again you don't owe us anything, but it would just be nice to have an idea of when to expect these.
I like SPD. It has a certain amount of significants for me because it was the last ranger series I actually watched in it's entirety. I watched most of mystic force and liked it, but around that time I lost interest in TV all together and stop watching; causing me to miss out on the last few episodes. After that I watched an episode of overdrive and couldn't take it, then got sick one day and watched a marathon of jungle fury on Jetix... thought it was ok. After that I watched the first two episodes of RPM and haven't seen anything power rangers since.
Now while I liked SPD I also view it as sort of being kind of a generic power rangers (if that makes sense). It has the same basic formula but it feels different. I agree with you about Sam not really being a character. But I think that even if they had made him appear in his true form, they still wouldn't have done anything with him. I would have liked it if they did an episode where we saw him interact with his younger self, just to see how much he has or hasn't changed since then. I also wouldn't have minded if they developed Kat a bit more. Mainly in regard to her friendship with Cruger, just so we see where they were coming from. It would have been cool if they made her katranger morpher permanent. Given what her workload must be like at the base it would have been understandable is she was hardly involved in any fights, but it would have been useful in times of emergency.
Speaking of Cruger, I also wondered what happened to his snout. I mean I suppose if we can except that when Justin would morph it would alter his physical form to something closer to an adult. We should also be able except that it could do something similar for Cruger. However it seems so unnecessary from the stand point of him being a ranger and engaging in combat. With Justin it made sense because he was a child. Without his body being altered even in ranger form, he would have been more limited than his fellow rangers, thus he would have been a liability in a fight. But with Cruger his snout doesn't seem to make that much of difference. I also have to question what happens when he takes off the helmet in ranger form. I mean if it alters his facial features to accommodate it then what would he look like, what would we be seeing? If it doesn't then obviously he wouldn't be able to speak nor fight, seeing as how it would probably limit his oxygen intake causing him to get winded faster. The only other way it could make any sense would be if his helmet is a TARDIS and is bigger on the inside.
I also never found Gruumm to be very threatening. I agree with you that in comparison to his predecessors his general plans always seemed to work out it one way shape or form. But I just did not find him threatening, I get why he's suppose to be but it never hit me. I also agree with you on Mora/Morgana. They really should have expanded more in terms of her character and back story. I would have loved it if they had an episode that figuratively went into her head so we could find out why she doesn't want to be an adult. It really could have been groundbreaking moment for the series if really really explored the psychology of one of their villains.
In regard to the zords, I hated that they made the base a zord. I saw it as stupid. Suppose anything ever happened and it got destroyed. Not only would they loose a zord, but they would also loose their base of operations and possible half or more of their staff/troops in the process. I mean I understand them giving it weapons and it's tank form. But only in the sense of it having them to use during emergency situations, like if the city becomes overrun and they need to get away, regroup and form a new strategy. Or if the rangers are in a bind they could have a weapon on the sidelines to help them. But making it a zord and including it directly into a fight seems stupid because of how much they stand to loose if things go wrong.
Either way I really liked this season and liked your review. Keep it up.
the "sentai" excuse is kinda bullshit regarding fem red rangers. If you have notice some of the yellow rangers in sentai were male and they became female here in the states
My god, so much talk about the Sentai in the comments. Makes me feel like I'm the only Power Rangers fan that doesn't watch Sentai(except for Linkara I guess xP).
Clearly Cruger's muzzle (as well as his and Sky's considerable height) go inside Optimus Prime's trailer when they morph.
ALTERNATIVE, MORE TECHNICAL EXPLANATION Just a thought, since Cruger's shapeshifting as Shadow Ranger has everybody's panties in a twist. It's called "morphing" for a reason. Cruger is the most glaring example, because you're always wondering where his nose goes, but I'd like to point out that he also loses about a head of height when he morphs. Then there's the relative heights of the other rangers. Sky towers over everybody else on the team, including Jack, but when they morph, Jack is the tallest, with Sky a close second. Now, obviously the Real Life™ reason for these anomalies is just the difference in height between the actors and the stock stunt team, but in fiction there is clearly some growth/shrinkage going on with ALL the cast in their morphed and unmorphed states, so they are literally morphing into new body shapes during transformation.
" My god, so much talk about the Sentai in the comments. Makes me feel like I'm the only Power Rangers fan that doesn't watch Sentai(except for Linkara I guess xP)."
No, you're not. I've seen exactly ONE episode of Gokaiger (the 35th anniversary season) and exactly ONE episode of Kakuranger (the one where the Ninja and Shogun Megazords came from), but that's pretty much it. Also, in both cases, it was the first episode. I WANT to see more of Gokaiger, but I haven't really had the opportunity.
Linkara, when you do your Mystic Force review... Well, I won't sugar coat this. Please for the love of all John Williams has composed, /PLEASE/ point out how that theme they play at times (not the Mystic Force theme itself mind you) sounds like a direct ripoff of the Harry Potter theme.
I mean it's bad enough at times that it felt like they weren't trying to 'ride the Harry Potter popularity wave' at the time, but that little music bit... Gah. It just felt like Disney had scooped down so low that it was just ripping of HP music wise.
I totally watched this the day it came out, but being the last week of college classes, I had to put my comment on the back burner. Guh. XP
Anyways I loved the review! I know for sure that I was watching SPD when it was coming out on TV, though for the life of me I can't remember actually sitting down and watching it. Huh. Weird. I will say that I think you went on a little too long about the Kalishsplosions. It's insanely annoying, I'll agree to that any day, but I think maybe chopping that down would've helped. (Also, having watched Sakamoto's work on Kamen Rider Fourze and noticing that there aren't any crazy ass explosions like there are here, it's pretty much all on Kalish.)
I also completely agree with you on the whole B-Squad vs. A-Squad comparison. I loved it and it fit into the story so well. It's interesting how they make the first Female Red Ranger evil. It's original and a great twist, I'll give them that. But what the hell Disney? XD
I personally like the uniforms for SPD a lot (ignoring the mighty BATTLE THONG), including the helmets. They always looked so neat to me, like super space police!~ I also have to say that I saw the original Doggie from SS and he looks like a scary Muppet. I like the PR design much better (I'm not saying anything character wise, since I've never watched Dekaranger, but I still like PR!Doggie a lot). I also always just figured his snout just went into some weird negative space in his helmet, sorta like the same thing with Justin and growing taller when he morphed into the Blue Turbo Ranger.
Can't wait for the next HOPR! And I really can't wait till you get to RPM! Thanks so much for doing these Linkara! <3
P.S. While I completely agree with you on the premise of this series not making comparisons to the Sentai (since your videos would take years to come out then XD), I would like to say that just totally writing off everything that's weird or making it sound like "sigh...I should mention this" regarding Sentai itself isn't the greatest idea. While I myself have never watched SS until Gokaiger came out (and I have no plans on backtracking through 35 years worth of shows), I do have to say that just totally disregarding it is just a tad bit unfair. Again, I wholly agree with you on HOPR being all about PR and I myself would easily pick PR over SS any day, I do think mentioning the original series at least in the intro parts of the video are a good idea (and might make the SS fanboys shut the hell up. Ugh. So annoying. Believe me Linkara. I feel your pain). Though that isn't an excuse for SS fans to get mad at you for not saying anything at all about SS when it's clearly about PR, since I think that's just as unfair, since PR has a lot of original and freaking awesome ideas. It's just a small thing I figured I'd mention.
I also agree with Des Shinta waaay at the top of the comments page that you might wanna start doing a little research into the Sentai side, since some of the weirder shit in later seasons (at least MM, OO, JF, small parts in RPM, and a whole crap-ton in Samurai) comes directly from SS and will confuse people if it's not mentioned (they're pretty much carbon copy plots up till the awesome that is RPM, or include some stuff that's just...weird). I actually had to look into the Sentai to explain some things that just popped right the fuck out of nowhere in PR, so that helps. But I'm not your mother, so ignore me all you want. XD
I've been a fan of HOPR for a little while now, and I'm just going to comment on the upcoming seasons:
Mystic Force: 95% of all the hate I've seen aimed at Mystic Force comes from the theme song. Once you get past that, it's a decent series, with a good story, and at least one good villain.
Operation Overdrive: Hoo boy. Zords, Zord combos, and weapons that are useless after 3 episodes, Megazords that can be knocked over if you throw a soda can at them...
Jungle Fury: Started good, but got bad. I stopped watching after the game show episode. I saw the finale later, and it was good.
RPM: Don't believe what the sheep have been telling you: RPM is pure shit. I had to come up with a short version, a medium version, and a long version of how bad it is:
Short version: What can be said about RPM that hasn't already been said about dirty tampons, The Land Before Time XIII, or Batman and Robin? The fact that its fans blindly defend this toxic rip off of Sonic SatAM just makes it all the more infuriating.
Medium version is a song to be sung to the tune of the IGN Modern Warfare 3 Flame War song:
The fact is RPM is just a load of spam, There's a typo in the title: the "RPM" should be "SatAM". Unoriginal crap, new year, nothing new here, They literally didn't come up with one original idea.
What a load of rehash, can we get our time back, I never want to see this series again. Borg come to Power Rangers, unoriginality crushes danger. Kalish is to blame, just a load of the same.
Overrated season is overrated, Have its fans even watched it? There is nothing positive to say about this season. One word: UNORIGINAL. What a load of rip offs. Fail season is fail, This should be run out on a rail.
Worthless PoS, villain's from Star Trek TOS, darkness is a cheap ploy, The Zords look like F****** TOYS, The camerawork blows, what a spew, Schitzo writers and characters too, FX sucks, acting fucks, don't watch this, it's nothing new. I'd ban all of its cast and crew from conventions, It's a toxic pile of sewage, It's a copy paste of Sonic SatAM. It's so sad, actually, The letdown of the new century, Just another load of Kalish BS.
Wheel Zord rips off Zeo twice, Vote with your middle finger, The season finale ripped off GoldenEye twice. Robot army is a blunder, the theme song is anal thunder, If you want a good series, watch Dino Thunder.
No Battlelizer, I can see, The worst ratings in PR history, This season is actually worse than Turbo. Radio tower smash, worthless rehash, I've never seen a worse season in my life. FX does all the fighting, hasn't improved as of this writing, Zords suffer in result, this series is an insult.
Dillion and Tenaya 7 ripped off In Space, How unoriginal and lame, The writers all failed what a shame. "Cardboard cut out villains suck," Say that to a RPM fan, then duck. Do not buy, failure of a season die, Enjoy your McDarkStory, culture should be in purgatory. Just the same as Sonic SatAM, but much worse, This season could have crashed the franchise. The explosion explanation is BS, just a lazy writing fest. Sturgeon's Law kicks in, we take it on the chin.
Here's the long version, going into full detail about how awful RPM is:
People keep gushing over this, calling it "realistic" and "dark"; these are the only reasons they like it, because "dark" is in vogue right now. Being "dark" doesn't make any work of fiction automatically good, as anyone who's watched RedLetterMedia's review of Star Wars Episode III should know. They also gush about how under appreciated it is, when the lovers of the season outweigh the haters by far. I've managed to watch the intro, the first 2 minutes of episode 3, the Ultrazord finisher, the first use of the Street Saber, the scene where Gen and Gemma are introduced, and 4 minutes of the season finale, and from these and the "Does Power Rangers RPM Suck?" thread on Ranger Board, I've come up with this list. Some of my list is opinion, the rest is undeniable:
1: Excessive violence. It would have been rated PG-13 if it wasn't for… 2: Shitty, shaky camera work for the fight scenes. The camera shakes so much that it's not just impossible to tell what going on half the time: it's almost impossible at times to tell if anything is going on at all. And I thought the shaky camera from the fight scenes in Batman Begins was confusing. 3: Pessimistic, overused plot. Pessimistic (overused plot element) story about a last group of humans (overused plot element) fighting a last battle on earth (overused plot element) against a computer virus (overused plot element) spawning armies of robots (overused plot element) which adapt after every battle (ripoff the Borg, will you!?). Which brings me to: 4: Generic, cardboard cut-out villain that could have come straight from Star Trek TOS. No personality, no frightening presence like Mesogog, just a cardboard cut-out computer virus that wants to conquer the world just for the sake of conquering it. If this hasn't already happened in Star Trek, it could have. RPM also violates the rule "show, don't tell" with regard to Venjix, as we don't see how they got to conquer most of earth or how tough they are. Dino Thunder showed us the frightening awesomeness of Mesogog, gave us some hints of his power before he owned Lothor in "Thunder Storm, Part II", then had him really get powerful after he split from Anton Mercer. Plus the writers gave him an original motivation for wanting to take over the world. I've also heard that RPM's writing is schitzo, and I know for a fact that it's lazy, but we'll get to that. 5: Bad special effects for anything other than the Zord attacks and finishers-we'll get to that soon. This was from watching the radio dish in the season finale.
6: ZORDS THAT LOOK LIKE F****** TOYS. Blame this on reuse of Super Sentai footage all you want-the marketing ploy is obvious and desperate. 7: The ripoffs. I found 7 ripoffs in what I saw, and found a 8th elsewhere. The entire plot is a copy paste of Sonic SatAM, Venjix is just a reuse of General Venjix from the Red Ranger special "Forever Red", the Dillon/Tenaya 7 story is a ripoff of the Andros/Karone story from In Space, the Ultrazord finisher's firing sequence rips off SPD Blaster Confinement Mode, the zord consoles are obvious reuses of the OO consoles, the Street Saber rips off both In Space and Batman and Robin (rips off In Space's sword vehicle, and the motion of it rips off that scene in Batman and Robin where the title characters surf on the air on those metal plates), the season finale fight on central element of radio dish+said dish falling on and killing Venjix are both direct ripoffs of GoldenEye. And all of this while the driveling fanboys say that Dr. K explaining the explosions behind the Rangers was respectful to continuity. If the morphing energy wants a way out, it will go out through the weakest point in the field. So why are the explosions always behind the Rangers? Because Dr. K's line is the result of lazy writing intended to get the fans off the producer's backs before the series ended. And don't say that if I want to see ripoffs I'll see ripoffs, as that's both affirmation of the consequent and argumentum ad consequentiam fallacies and doesn't change the validity of what I'm saying. 8: Bad Megazord attacks and finishers. The Megazords are far too dependent on flashy CG in their attacks: the end result is that the original MMPR Megazord, which has less mobility than Darth Vader, has more thrilling attacks and finishers. 9: THE THEME SONG. It rapes the ears. Enough said. 10: Gen and Gemma. I've only seen the scene where they're introduced, and I can't stand their exaggerated personalities. Not to mention they look suspiciously like OO's Mercury Ranger. If half of what I've heard about them is true… 11: Offensive content. "Suck on this!" when faced with a vacuum monster (rip off of Wild Force)?! I'll accept such attempts to hide risque content if the effort is Animaniacs caliber, but not this. To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling and the AVGN, "It's not clever and nor is it art, it's offensive!"
In conclusion, RPM is hands down the worst season of Power Rangers ever made.
Yeah, Anonymous, just FYI, I didn't delete your post since people are free to post what they wish...
...But I didn't read any of it. The only reason I didn't do so is because I don't want spoilers. No matter what you think about the seasons, I will see for myself if I hate or enjoy them, but I want to walk into them with as little foreknowledge and information as I can, so sorry, but I won't be reading what you have to say about the season until I go back and read comments at a later time.
I'm not sure if anyone else has pointed it out yet, but the guy who played Trent also provided the voice for Tommy in the crossover.
I enjoyed the review as usual, but one thing I really have to disagree on is the A-Squad Rangers. While they were an interesting concept, I felt the series woefully underused them.
My biggest problem comes from the fact we never really see how awesome everyone claims them to be. We get one giant monster battle using Sentai footage, and then we don't really hear from them again.
Instead we just get everyone telling us how great they are, but nothing is really done to prove it. It's just "The A-Squad is the best of the best" over and over again.
It was an interesting idea having them be a challenge for the B-Squad to overcome, but that's all they were. We didn't know the A-Squad Rangers, we didn't care about them, so there was no emotional impact for when they were revealed to be evil.
Now I know what they could do with the A-Squad was limited by the Sentai footage. They didn't exist in DekaRanger, so there wasn't any fight scene footage with them to use. Still, it wouldn't have been that hard to work around.
What they could have done was show us some flashbacks of the A-Squad Rangers training the Sky, Syd and Bridge, similar to how the B-Squad was training the D-Squad.
It would have shown the B-Squad had some attachment to the A-Squad, and they could have shown them fighting as civilians to show the A-Squad were more capable and stronger than the B-Squad.
The key word here is show, which is something SPD never did with the A-Squad. They were, in the end, just generic bad guys for the B-Squad to overcome.
Still and enjoyable series despite its problems. It had enough different from DekaRanger to keep me interesting (one of the things I hate in Power Rangers is when its just a carbon copy of the Sentai series).
Thanks Lewis, for letting me post what I wanted to post. I just can't tolerate RPM, and the urge to get my rebuttal to it out of my system was getting really bad. I hope my comments prove useful to you after you've watched the seasons. I didn't get into PR until my mid teens, around 2005-2006. Dino Thunder and SPD are both really good in my view. I prefer Dino Thunder (liked the villains better, and the main cast has a special place in my heart now), but SPD was great too. If this is something of a double post, please let this version be posted only.
I hope Linkara understands but I just want to make a reply to the previous anonymous. So... DON'T READ THIS LINKARA, IT CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM RPM!
To Previous Anonymous: Judging from the text in your post, you have not watched all of RPM. I will not be afraid to spoil you if you hate on the show so much as you are most likely not ever going to watch it anyway. I will post my responses to each item you have on your list in order. 1. How does the rating determine a show being bad? It just makes no sense. 2. Shaky camera work is commonly used in Japanese media (especially in anime) and you shouldn't be phased if any of the Japanese crew decide to do this. This though is a small reason to complain. 3. RPM is cliche then? Yes. But can cliche stories be good? Yes. How about your beloved SPD? I see a lot of your ripoffs and overused plot elements in seasons like Time Force and in Space yet they are both good seasons. :P 4. The writing wasn't schizo, Eddie Guzelian who was the writer for RPM got layed off halfway through the season and Judd Lynn had to take over from where he left off. And Venjix is a computer generated virus, why would it have emotions? Emotions aren't exactly needed to establish a character. 5. RPM is not a Hollywood production. Mind you that this was made by Disney who barely advertised and funded this particular season (as it was the final one for them) and could not afford the budget on flashy effects. Like Linkara said in his in Space review; "You don't need great special effects..." or whatever it was that I won't quote word for word. 6. Yes, that was because they were limited by the Sentai footage. And your only partially right about the toy thing. While most of the funding is from toys, the writers at least put some reasoning into the "cutesy zords" that I doubt you have noticed. I can't remember where exactly it shown or hinted but Dr. K had an affinity for cute things and thus designed the zords as such. 7. See #3 8. You cannot blame the show for the effects that it could not afford. It's like saying everybody owns a Wii to a kid who can't afford one. 9. I actually agree with you on this. The first demo theme was pretty cool. :P 10. They were locked in a facility for their entire lives, it's obvious that they are mental. Btw, if you haven't seen the original MMPR, they aren't as goofy as some of the things you find in that. 11. I really don't get it. I get that offensive content is bad. It still does not make a bad show. There will always be people who will be offended with such little to very controversial things. Lots of these have happened in PR over the years like the obvious violence, death of characters like Kendrix or Cole's parents, blood like when Zen-Aku was found to be bleeding by Princess Shayla, burning buildings in several episodes of Lightspeed Rescue or the exploding buildings that you see every now and then in the stock footage from Japan.
For some interesting SPD Behind the Scenes by Producer/Director/Artist Greg Aronowitz Check out - http://barnyardfx.blogspot.com/2009/08/spd-part-1.html
For anyone wondering bout kaizoku sentai gokaiger whos never watched a sentai series. You might actually like this one. The fact that the cast are both aliens and anti heroic pirates gives the writers an excuse to free the cast from Japanese tradition and culture. IMO this makes the gokaigers much more similar to power rangers than probably any other sentai series. Also something about the series gives off a vibe of power rangers in space including the sixth rangers suit and their megazord. While their is no comedic side kicks like bulk and skull gokaiger green has a very similar fighting style too a certain pair. The character development is also executed in completely different way so much so that it would be a complete spoiler if I even elaborated on it. Finally its nice to see the sentai using guns more often than even carter grayson.
These videos are great and I can't wait for you to get to rpm which imo is the best at least as far as the first 16 episodes and then you start to wonder what the heck were they trying to do. However, even its still fun. Its sad you have to go through power rangers harry potter and power rangers indiana jones at least they finally return to martial arts.
Also if they do decided to use gokaiger for power rangers then prepare for tons of lost galaxy and gaoranger footage. Gokaiger could end up being a nightmare for editing. Makes me wonder if thats why samurai rangers is 2 seasons.
Ok, Lewis, I am and will never be a huge PR fan but I do enjoy watching your critiques because I enjoy your POV. I got to say Cruger's lips didn't move very well. Also, why did everybody have punny names like Cat and Dog. E. and so forth? As Lindsay said, nobody likes puns. Also, I thought Mora would have been an interesting and creepy addition but the show completely wastes her. Other than that, not much to say. I am glad that FINALLY diehard fans will get off your back about this for a while.
"Fandom-wise, Bridge/Sky is the most popular slash pairing...which is strange, since I thought Jack and Sky had more chemistry. Also, Doggie is a Bara icon, and apparently fanart always puts him in the sub position."
Sentai Doggie, at least; there's very little Ranger Doggie stuff out there, from what I can find, and I'm a huge fan of the character who follows the above "fetish".
As for the explanation for why Sam was a ball of light, that was basically it; the budget was pretty much wasted on the epic finale, and they thought it was more cost-effective to make him a ball of light.
Honestly, I hated SPD, even the theme song; it made me think the Rangers should be killing demons on Mars or something. I hate the reason behind Sam as ball of light, I hate the explanation for the SWAT two-parter (seriously, compare it to how they handled it in the sentai; it's like the difference between going to martial arts class after an assault because you want to protect yourself, and doing so as a punishment because you instigated the assault and blamed someone else for it). And I especially hate Doggie's wife surviving; what is the point of it? I can put aside the illogic of Sirius suffering from Krypton syndrome (ie. the entire populace of a space-faring society dying because their home planet gets blown up) on the logic that as a conquering empire Grumm's forces could've sniped at Sirian colonies along the way, but why in the hell would they leave Doggie's wife alive, and ONLY his wife? Wouldn't it be better to capture and sell a dozen hundred Sirians as slaves? And why didn't Grumm use the fact that he DID have Doggie's wife with him as leverage against Doggie? It would've been better had Doggie been the last of his kind; sure, he would've likely doomed his entire species to extinction with his eventual death, but at least his defeat of Grumm and the Empire would have more gravitas to it. Plus the costume designer for Doggie practically begged the producers to let him make his wife to show off his skills... and she looks like crap.
The question about Doggie's nose in the helmet was brought up in the Sentai, but it was brushed off as Doggie not knowing himself. I know there's a cute little comic out there that explains that his muzzle is actually detachable, but sadly I can't find it online. There is, however, a concept sketch out there that shows a different outfit with helmet designed for a muzzle for Doggie.
I may give the show another looking-at for my own comparison review of it vs. Dekarangers, but I'll likely not enjoy it.
And after looking through the comments, the HOPR for RPM (and the reaction to it) is going to be veeeeeeery interesting.
Just putting this out there before the flame wars go down: you folks do realize that this is all Linkara's opinion, and that it does not reflect badly on you or your tastes. Positive or negative, you can like or hate the show without his say-so.
One: While the A Squad had the first female Red Ranger she is not the first Female leader. Way back in season 3 of Power Rangers the Aquitians where led by their white ranger like ours and there white ranger was a woman.
Two: Bridge is the first Jewish ranger. In fact he blantantly says that during the series.
I loved the review though. This is my third favorite series. Space is my second and you haven't gotten to my first yet but once you do I'll talk about that.
Hey anonymous, way to be a dick to a season you DIDN'T EVEN FULLY WATCH.
While Mudkip pretty had very good points, let me add in my two cents (note that this doesn't include any spoilers, so Linkara, if you want, you can read this):
#0. From what you claim to have said, you basically watched maybe 15-20 minutes from the whole season. ....and you can claim that this is the worst season how, by that logic? That's like me watching 3 minutes of Star Trek and calling it 'the worst sequel to Star Wars' or something. #1. This show has always had violence in small doses. Hell, in Wild Force, we see two people murdered in cold blood with tentacles! And there's no more 'excessive violence' than the rest of the seasons. #2. The shaking camera is used to cover up when the actors shake while holding poses. It's in pretty much every toku show now to make everything more fluid. #3. So you pretty much hate almost 50% of sci-fi plots then? By that extension, you must hate Gobusters, the current Sentai series, which has the same type of plot? #4. Venjix was a very competent and frightening villain, which you would know if you watched the show (huh, that popped up again. I WONDER WHY?). He was very frightening in his simplicity and how he came to be, his motivation is actually told in series, and, since I'm not going into spoilers out of respect to Lewis's rules, he does more than sit in his hideout the whole season. And I never found the writing schizo, as you say. It was solid all the way through. #5. Since when did having great SFX determine if a series was good? This is still Power Rangers. Great SFX were never a big thing in this franchise. MMPR had the worst out of all of them, but it’s the most fondly remembered for the characters and stories it told. #6. This is a silly complaint and you really have to know it. Pretty much every single Zord/Mecha in PR and SS has looked like a toy. There is a saying we have for this: "it's just a show, I should really just relax". #7. Venjix from Forever Red and RPM aren't the same character. The name is the same, but they are completely different. RPM also had to use footage from Go-Onger, which was much more comedic than RPM was, hence all the 'silliness' in the designs. And God forbid there's some meta humor thrown in. Those dirty bastards! Hang them now! #8. See #3 #9. The intro they used fit the series better. While the demo was good and could've been used as an ending song, I can't imagine it as the opening. #10. If you just watched their intro to the series and then missed all their character development, then you really can't complain about them then, can you? #11. Offensive content? Where? Cause one of them said 'Suck on this!' to a monster? I'm pretty sure it's been used in other seasons. Is it the 'violence' you speak of? Cause it's just as violent as the rest of the seasons, only maybe seen in a more tragic light, possibly. I really don't get this complaint at all.
To me, it seems like you basically are hating on this based off of clips that really amount to nothing in the grand scheme of the show and a forum thread, which doesn't make any sense as a reason to condemn this season. If anything, you're basically trying to tell Linkara what to think based off the minority. I think you need to chill out and actually watch the season before you make any more judgments. You'll also note that people respect Linkara's request to not post whole season/ending spoilers, which you did repeatedly, and tell him, in fanboy rage mode no less, how much a season sucks before he can even watch it. I'm not his watchdog, but that's kinda rude.
P.S. I'm sorry for making comments to him Lewis and making you post up another rant to someone else in the comment section. I'm so sorry! > _ <
I didn't mean to sound like a total ass on the 'You should talk about the Sentai' thing. I really didn't. I actually really agree with you (like I said before) that they're two different shows and shouldn't be compared. I love PR way more anyways. XD
It was meant more in a 'keep the rabid SS fans off your back cause their bitching is annoying too' kinda way. I love HOPR and I can't wait for the next one! :)
Incoming rant: Linkara I love your videos and I apologise in advance if I come off as a jerk (i'm not very good at criticism) but that rant on the "Kalishplosions" was one of the most unnecessarily angry rants I've ever heard.
I understood and agree with what you were trying to say; over-use of poorly done and poorly presented special effects over martial arts fight scenes, but the way you conveyed that message with such forced anger and passion that went on for 3-4 minutes too long for something that could've been summed up in under a minute annoyed me somewhat and it makes you look like someone who gets angry (at Nic Cage levels) at the pointless things.
Don't get me wrong, I love it when you get angry and passionate in your reviews but save that passionate anger for things that justify it like morally repugnant characters, character derailments, pointless deaths, gigantic plot holes, exploitation and continuity errors not for mediocre special effects.
P.S. That bit about why characters get flung into the air by explosions behind them..yeeah unfortunately that's been a cliche in Tokusastu superhero shows since the original Kamen Rider back in 1971 so there's no way I can defend that part. Then again it could be worse, the characters could've gotten killed by explosions that happened half a mile away from them like in Final Fantasy 13.
platinum, I have only this to say: Thank you so much for putting that anonymous guy in his place. Seriously, when a guy admits that he's barely seen something and then goes on to rant about how much that thing sucks, his argument is immediately invalidated by his own admission of barely having seen it. I've actually had to be a mediator of sorts on various other websites, and it's NOT fun. I was actually going to say something to this guy myself, but you said everything I was going to say.
...Also, the episode where Scott says "Suck on this!" had Gem and Gemma in it. Yeah, I think you're right when you suggested that this guy had only seen random clips.
...Huh, kind of funny how I said "I only have this to say" and then proceeded to type several paragraphs.
Oh, one more thing: I, for one, never really noticed any particular differences in styles when RPM switched producers from Eddie Guzelian (whose last name I can never remember how to spell or pronounce) to Judd Lynn. Are there any particularly notable differences? It doesn't help that Judd was credited as executive producer alongside Eddie in some early episodes.
Hey, I've been watching your reviews and found the History of Power Rangers just a few months ago. I am so glad you are still continuing it and I patiently look forward to your review/analysis of Mystic Force. Thank You for the laughs.
I love this series. one of my biggest regrets as a kid was stopping watching power rangers after they got rid of the main power rangers i knew and loved (turbo). I did get back into it when it came back to toon disney (or is it XD?). Sadly I really cant find the time to go back and watch the series that I missed and without this series I Probbably would have forgotten about them all together. thanks again.
BTW Lewis, if you have any passing interest in Sentai, take a look at Hikounin Sentai Akibaranger, or Unnofical Sentai Akibaranger, which is basically a big parody/tribute to Sentai and its fans
It was a thrill to see a new installment of HOPR get posted! I really enjoy these the most out of all the videos you do for how informative and detailed they are. It's great how you really stay focused on the subject of the show, making it a very different project compared to the comic reviews. As someone who can't stand to watch the Power Ranger shows but finds the designs behind the franchise interesting, these videos are a real treat. Looking forward to more!
" BTW Lewis, if you have any passing interest in Sentai, take a look at Hikounin Sentai Akibaranger, or Unnofical Sentai Akibaranger, which is basically a big parody/tribute to Sentai and its fans"
...I'm pretty sure that Lewis has made it clear that he doesn't have any interest in the Sentai.
power rangers is getting it's first graphic novel since 1997! its coming out June 27th and its apparently the first volume of more. http://morphinlegacy.com/2012/05/new-super-samurai-graphic-novels.html
Is it just me of does Grumm sound like Batman? (Batman Begins did come out at around the same time as this season) And didn't Kat's Orange ranger uniform look like one of the rebel pilot uniforms from the original Star Wars trilogy with a different helmet?
"..I'm pretty sure that Lewis has made it clear that he doesn't have any interest in the Sentai."
Actually i dissagree because its a perfect parody of even the american power rangers since the tropes of power rangers are essentially also sentai tropes, not that i know if jesuotkau has any interest in sentai but i think a cross over review with Linkara and Jesuotaku would be the perfect way to attack this, with JO dissecting the japanese and akiba aspects of the series and linkara talking about an aproach as an american power rnagers fan. i know you say you read every comment so please give it some consideration, i think it could be a real fun review. but i think it should at least be given time to finish.
Let me begin by saying I really enjoyed your "season in an hour" review of SPD because, honestly, I never watched a single minute of it. Having said that, I am now tempted to go back and do just that because it seems like it was fairly decent season, even by Disney standards. Also, based on the rants about future seasons, it might very well be the best one of them all. I won't rehash some of the points made because I do agree with most of them, but I will say one thing with regards to A-Squad. I think they were actually used very well. Although, (and feel free to correct me if my lack of knowledge causes me to state that which is false) it might have been nice to have something, even one scene devoted to the moments leading up to their defection. From what I heard, there was no real reason given for it, other than something about they wanted to be on the winning side? Were they all suffering from low self-esteem? They were the best SPD had to offer and they weren't up to the task? Or was this a colossal failure of leadership? I don't mean just because the leader happened to be a female, either! The crossover(s) with Dino Thunder did not live up to hype... and I think it was a lot to do with not asking JDF to return for it. As one of the most popular Rangers, if not the most, of all time, his presence (in non-morphed form) might have brought in some of the "Tommy fans" and maybe carried the momentum a little longer. Anyway, loved it, can't wait for Mystic Force (despite having what I consider the lamest morph call in history) and until then... "Help control the Megazord population... have your Zord spayed or neutered." *prepares to dodge thrown vegetables for that one*
Well, here I am again, the guy who dared to post a 3 comment long criticism of some people's darling PR series, RPM. Linkara, spoiler alert.
My rebuttals to the rebuttals:
#0: Star Trek TOS came before Star Wars. If it's Star Trek TMP, the plots of TMP and Star Wars aren't even remotely similar. (I'm a Trekkie, I should know)
#1: Before I get to point 1, let me point out that I made clear just how much of RPM I had seen. Thus other people's claims that "judging by my text" with the implication that they read this from elsewhere in my text speaks volumes about the straw men they're willing to commit. Anyway: the rating. It would have been rated that, and quite frankly it's a lot more violent than any other PR season (Tenaya 7's kick to the head on that one episode at that formal dinner with that diamond necklace is but one example). It really doesn't fit in with any other season in this regard, in this case to its detriment.
#2: I don't have too much of a problem with shaking cameras most of the time. But RPM took this way too far. As I said previously, it gets to the point where it's physically impossible to tell if anything's going on, let alone what's going on. Watch the season finale if you don't believe me.
#3: I don't watch Sentai. And I'm sick of all the endlessly done McDarkStorys. RPM is just one more McDarkStory intended to cash in on the phenomenon. If what I heard about RPM having the lowest TV ratings in PR history is true, it failed miserably. Cliched stories can be good, but RPM isn't one of them. Quit confusing originality for quality (and RPM doesn't do well in the former department either).
#4: I said I had heard that it was schitzo, I didn't say it was. I'll take Mesogog's original motivation and his epic "Only if you think sucking the life out of a miserable human being is gruesome" or Grumm's epic rants, more intelligent and three dimensional personality, his tougher goal of galactic conquest, and willingness to blow up planets over a cardboard cut out villain whose motivation is old as dirt, whose origins have been overdone endlessly, whose intelligence I presume is less than what you're telling me, and who's only gotten where it is because of author fiat. (And it's surprising that Mesogog got anywhere as fast as he did because he had to moonlight as Mercer for much of the time) Speaking of Grumm, "Shadow" did a lot to show how much of a capable conqueror he was. That Venjix apparently didn't get this further shows up his cardboard cut out status.
#5: That's no excuse. Even by PR standards, the FX weren't the best. Also, MMPR is the second most overrated season in PR history, though this impression of mine came from watching Linkara's reviews for Seasons 1-3, and one of the remastered episodes (it involved pollution, I can't remember its name). There were times when it got unforgivably stupid. And the main cast. I'll take Dino Thunder's main cast of stereotyped but well played characters or SPD's more original and almost as well played characters over MMPR's Mary Sues/Gary Stus who have 48 hours in the day. (Tommy excepted for his faking out and clobbering Goldar.)
#6: Doesn't excuse the sheer obviousness of it. Then again, I could the same claim about many other shows.
#7: So what if they aren't the same character? That's not the point. Coming up with a new villain's name shouldn't be so hard for the writers that they drag up some C-list villain name. If a TV show rips off elements of other shows, and I see that it has actually done them better, I will be the first to applaud. I haven't seen that yet from RPM, and doubt I ever will. I haven't watched much PR prior to Wild Force, so I wouldn't know if there were rip offs of IS or TF. Way to score some imaginary points. I notice that no one criticized my pointing out of other rip offs, moving on...
#8: Way to miss my point. The FX for the RPM Zords, from what I've seen, did all the fighting and cluttered up the frame, instead of the Zords in their various formations having to physically do much. The trend started during Overdrive, and really caused the Zord formations to lose a lot of quality from their attacks and finishers. Samurai's done a little better here, but not much. To paraphrase Harry Plinkett, "Doesn't Kalish realize that cluttering up the frame with more shit doesn't make PR better?" In short, MMPR's Zord formations are more exciting to watch than the FX-fighting that came after Mystic Force, while the best Zord formations IMO are the ones that have enough physical action with simple but good FX. Of course, my gold standard is the Dino Drill, with one simple but moving background and some effects on the Zord formation itself.
#9: As much as I don't entirely like the demo version's singing, it is infinitely better than what was used.
#10: Blame the writers for that.
#11: See my original #11, as apparently no one could read past the first two sentences. If Gen and Gemma were actually there, it just makes it worse if you think about it, as they could have gotten worse if they had seen anything risque in that (and could have seen, these are androids, you would think they would be aware of alternative interpretations) and commented. For once, I'm glad for lazy writing.
In multiple cases, the RPM fans got defensive and ignored or missed the point of what I was saying, and instead went of on unrelated subjects in an effort to look like they were winning. Not to mention their straw men. The fact that I have not seen the entirety of RPM does not invalidate my criticisms, as ones like the villain, the Zord FX overuse, and the rip offs affect the season as a whole. Ignoring this fact while calling me a dick just makes you people look like tools to anyone who isn't a driveling fanboy. Power Rangers went downhill in a hurry with Overdrive. RPM didn't end the plunge, it nosed over further and firewalled the throttles. Even worse, it generated a legion of defensive fans who won't look at it objectively. In short, "YOU IGNORED THE POINTS! You instead went off on unrelated topics to make yourself look like you were winning, so you FAILED! YOU LOSE! GOOD DAY SIR!" I didn't post my comments to troll: given the lack of replies, it wouldn't have been a good effort. I was just sick of people not recognizing RPM's serious flaws, and worse endorsing it to others who didn't try to know better.
Another great HOPR. I wish you had mentioned the episode where the rangers became too dependent on the Shadow Ranger. I know it's not a major episode or anything but it's one of those things that stood out in my mind after not seeing/watching SPD in so many years. Sorry the explosions bugged you so much. I notice the same things about them that you do but I don't really mind it so much.
Why do people insist on comparing Power Rangers (an American show) to Sentai (a Japanese show)? It's supposed to be loosely based off the Japanese show. It's not supposed to be an exact replica. I get so tired of reading reviews about how "Oh, I hate how you don't talk about the Sentai" or how much cooler the Sentai is from the American version. Sentai has been done since the 70s. Ours has only been done since the early 90s. It's not fair to compare something with more history to our version. Zyuuranger is nothing like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers because it was made for a different audience. Our audience was not accustomed to shows like this so it had to be introduced differently. I don't understand why it's so hard for people to grasp that concept. It's like comparing Japanese versions of anime to the English dub. Yes, some English dubbed versions suck, but the English dub is meant for a western audience with entirely different cultures and concepts. Saying all English dubs suck is ludicrous. Most of the English dubs now days are right on par with the Japanese versions. I think some people need to get over themselves. This is a show meant for young children from the ages of 7 to around 10. It's not going to be some great Oscar winning performance. And about the explosions, while we don't like them, most kids really don't care. As far as a super hero show is concerned, it does really well. Is it the best? No... Is it good, yes.
But has anyone else realized that while they have civilian powers, they never use them while morphed, such as multiplyin to help with the whole outnumbered thing or walking through walls to confuse enemies or using force fields so they arent hit by laser blasts,
A friend of mine just linked your analyses to me, and I've enjoyed your breakdowns and opinions, as well as the fan theories. You've reached the seasons of Power Rangers that I have no familiarity with, but I may just need to add SPD to my video queue. Thanks for all the work.
I find it kinda funny you always get on Image comics for there delays on releasing comics and then you yourself take forever releasing these videos and bitch at people for pointing it out
"I find it kinda funny you always get on Image comics for there delays on releasing comics and then you yourself take forever releasing these videos and bitch at people for pointing it out"
I'm not a professional comics company attempting to follow industry standards for releases. I'm doing a side-project about a children's television series.
Oh, and if you really want to get on my back about releasing things regularly...
4 years of Atop the Fourth Wall. Released every week with only ONCE did I miss the date, and as an apology for missing it I released a double feature the following week.
Hey Linkara, Loving the series and loving this episode. You made me think about the show in a new light, I know its a ways off but I can't wait to hear your opinion on Jungle Fury which, in my opinion, is the only decent series from Mystic force - RPM, I especially can't wait for your opinion on the morphers but I won't spoil :P Something about SPD which you may be aware of is that they never explain the snout thing in the Sentai, he's just expected to have his snout pushed against his helmet similar to the american show. Can't wait for Mystic Force, should be a great episode.
Quick question, if they ever remade MMPR would you watch it?? with new actors and stuff hope you reply to this but I know you're a busy man :)
wait, linkara how do you know about shinkenger? super samurai wasnt finished yet, and I thought you didnt like sentai! has the universe collapsed on to itself?
"so are you gonna answer back? I really wanna know how you know about karou!"
I never said I DISLIKED sentai, I just don't CARE about it. I hear enough about it on Rangerboard or about 500 people messaging me with info or clips about it that I pick up a few things here or there.
I love HOPR, but the wait to see you do an overview of the mediocre mystic force so I can wait for you to review the even worse operation over drive so I can finally wait for you to finally get to the last two interesting seasons to air is killing me. I'm not demanding anything, just want you to know your killing me, slowly and painfully as if your taking a sick sick pleasure from my daily page visits to my HOPR bookmark ;(
Theres a tine flaw becayse if the omega ranger waa sent back to stop devaatation morgana and shorty wouldnt the omega ranger cease to exist after they r defeated?
Ok I did my best to read every comment and I can 95% sure no one brought this up, but there is a reason that the Dino rangers and SPD rangers have there memory wiped out during the crossover. This is because One of rules of time travel laid out in Time Force that anyone that time travels is that they have to get there memory when they get back(or before they even leave)^-^.
I just rewatched this Session of HOPR. I still find it very interesting, but I am more than ready for the Mystic Force one to come out, cause it definitely had it's ups and downs. Including the Darth Vader of the Power Rangers Universe.
I've been rewatching HOPR and enjoying them all immensely. Each time I do I pick up something I missed the previous time or work out a connection you made between seasons be they intentional or accidental. As with all your work, you are doing a great job. Analyzing this much content while still bringing out a weekly show is amazing and no matter how long it take the end result is always worth watching.
One quick thing you may not have thought about with the time scale here. As you said the year is very rarely said in power rangers which means while we can assume it is set in present times it can be much for different in universe. While there is a somewhat stated year here and I do see the merits of your extended year theory how about a combined/universal calender theory?
In SPD you are dealing with a society that has integrated space travel and aliens into itself. With the many other species and planets now available to be travelled to would using the calender system of a single planet really work? What I think happened after SPD was formed along with what ever interplanetary governing bodies there are they decided to make a single amalgamated calender system to be used. You know kinda like the star date system but easier to understand. So while they may say the year is 2025 that may be the year in the new calender that incorporates parts from calenders of other species. Instead of starting the calender at year 0 though they made it out as an average of all the species that are in SPD so they averaged out a number close to what year it may be on earth but give or take some years.
It is by no means a perfect theory but it is another possibility to use as to why certain things seem to work differently in Power Rangers.
Anyways thanks again for the awesome work I can not wait to see what you think about Mystic Force and also keep up the great work with the rest of your shows and endeavours (like the plush cybermats)
i loved all of the HOPR abd ive seen everyone of them believe it or not i just became a fan of yours resently id say maybe a year ago i saw my first HOPR video i think it was the wild force video and i started watching them all but i avoided your comic reviews at fist util i started watching them ive seen all of your reviews all your videos and everything else so thanks for making all of your videos
I like this series and have been watching it for a while. while i am an advocate of waiting to get a good product out... can we at least get an indication of how long it will take.. like i said, i am ok waiting for a good product, i would just like to know a time frame
hey linkara, random question. If you were forced to watch a sentai season, which one would you watch (like the season that based in space or something like that)?
I actually still like them, it's a guilty pleasure but still like them, mostly just the earlier seasons cos they focus more on the marital arts and not the special effects and explosions.
Also it's quite evident that the people at fripen Disney don't know the first thing about Martial arts. Not only because f there lack of marital arts but because of the the fact that they think a person doing a Kai up is swearing.
Anybody who has ever taken any form of marital arts does this, and that includes all five of the original cast. Not just Tommy. Also there is a reason for the Kai, pronounced key by the way.
Anyway enough on that, while I do Strongly dislike Disney now, it has less to do with power rangers and more to do with the shovel load of crap they produce now. Still I thought I'd point out why there making Tommy stop doing the Kai up was stupid.
Anyway, ending on a good note. I can't wait for the next part and yet I'm gonna have to because these are awesome and you can't rush awesome
Re watch the episode idol. Dustin and Blake from ninja storm are in it. Its in the same way when masked rider was seen in time force. Its just cool that they did that.
Also, seance Wes will be in the legend war, that shows that he is not Sky's father. If you look up officer Tate on ranger wiki, it says his home was earth from 2009 to 2011. Meaning that well Sky's dad is an alien, and he is at most half human.
From what I seen seance Saban has gotten back power rangers, they handled samurai better then mega force.
Watched it all, and enjoyed it immensely. While I don't feel much reason to comment on the series itself, I do have something of note that I kind of wish you would have commented on:
ReplyDeleteIf you notice the design of the SPD command room, it is mostly empty space, just a few panels lining walls, with a center console in the middle. A center console with a very "particular" shape. Now, call me crazy, but I noticed that if one was to paint the entire room in flat white, and paint the console in flat white, the command room would look almost EXACTLY like the inside of the TARDIS in Classic Doctor Who. This was made even more obvious to me when the time came for SPD to send the dino rangers back in time, at which point a large clear plastic cylinder came out from the center of the console, making it look even more like the console in the TARDIS.
Now, all of that is almost guaranteed to be unintentional, but I seriously could not help but think it as I watched the review of this series. Knowing you to be quite the Whovian, I hope you can see where I'm coming from when I make the comparison, lol.
Once again, thanks a bunch for the HOPR. I eagerly await the next installment. ^_^
Lovely review. If you go back to the DinoThunder preview to SPD, you could LOL that the voices sound nothing like the current actors.
ReplyDeleteI do find Unfortunate Implications that the only major people of color were criminals and that the second black red ranger also eventually got replaced by a white guy. Not intentional, most likely, but these things rarely are. :/
I think it was said that they couldn't afford another out of suit actor for Sam, and that pissed off the production team enough to use him as little as possible, though they regretted it.
Also, I read SPD was basically someone's "Baby." I can't recall who, but I think it's Greg Aronowitz. I read an interview where someone, probably him, watched one episode of Mystic Force and wasn't much impressed by it.
I know you're not interested in the Super Sentai, but you should look at the Japanese counterpart of Doggie and lol at how he looks like a life-sized plastic action figure.
Fandom-wise, Bridge/Sky is the most popular slash pairing...which is strange, since I thought Jack and Sky had more chemistry. Also, Doggie is a Bara icon, and apparently fanart always puts him in the sub position.
Ever thought "Man, this season has a big cast?" Wait till you finish Mystic Force. ;)
Loved the video as usual. My thoughts...
ReplyDelete-Based off of your comments about the laziness of the Disney seasons' fight scenes, I think you'll really love the pirate season when it comes out. Gokaiger had some absolutely breathtaking fight choreography with an emphasis on swordplay, and not really any places where Kalisplosions could crop up. I actually debated cutting together a video of some of Gokai's better fight scenes to give you an idea.
-On the "Kalisplosion" vs. "Koichiplosion" debate, I'd point the blame more towards Kalish. Koichi Sakamoto has been doing a lot of work in Japan lately, directing Kamen Rider Fourze as well as Kamen Rider Double's movie and a few episodes of Gokaiger; while they show some of his other trademarks (like lots of wire work and motorcycle fighting), the ludicrous explosions were nowhere to be found.
-Yeah, I'm sure you'll get a million posts about it, but the Omega Ranger was indeed supposed to be #6. The Nova Ranger was even odder, since her logo seems to be #7 but is arranged as IVI, making some think it's supposed to be #1000. The Gold Ranger (who only appeared in Dekaranger's movie and didn't make it over here) has a large X on her suit, obviously making her #10.
-Kind of surprised you didn't discuss the apparent reason for Omega being a ball of light, namely that Disney supposedly blew the budget on the final battle and didn't have enough to cast an actual actor for him.
-It's strange, I'd always heard people saying Silverback was a riff on R. Lee Eremy (the most famous fictional drill sergeant of all time), but I really didn't get that impression in the clips you showed. Of course, it'd be kind of hard to translate his dialog from "Full Metal Jacket" into a Power Rangers series...
-Also, I'm a little surprised you didn't discuss the animatronic costume used for Kruger, especially considering there are plenty of fans who hate it and say that the cheaper-looking Dekaranger version is must more appropriate for this kind of show.
-As for where Kruger's muzzle goes when he morphs...I honestly don't know. With Kamen Rider, at least you have the excuse that it's an actual transformation of the person's body into an entirely different form. Sentai and Power Rangers, OTOH, just seem to have them summon up the costumes from "storage space" and don them, as evidenced by all the scenes where they take off their helmets.
-I hate to bring up the subject so far in advance, but in the Mystic Force review will you make mention of the two theme songs Ron Wasserman made that were ultimately rejected in favor of...what we got?
-Finally, I'm actually a little surprised you didn't give a disclaimer saying "I've already heard about Go-Busters and how much it references Power Rangers, please stop telling me." Have people not been flooding you, or did you just not want to bother?
Yeah, Omega (Dekabreak) is numbered 6.
ReplyDeleteCatranger (Dekaswan) Was only used in two episodes of Dekaranger, so if they wanted to use the morphed form more, they would have needed to shoot it themselves. Nova (Dekabright)likewise, only appeared in Dekaranger episode 40-Though they didn't use any of her footage for SPD. Even the fanbase doesn't know whether she's numbered seven or one-thousand, as the roman numerals for hers are well, odd. With The Disney era being stingy on budget for new footage, it's probably best that they rationed what they had for the two.
The quarry thing? Well, when they do include sentai footage for those, guess where the Japanese production team sets up in the later years? YEah...Sorry. Despite using very little footage from those, and you not caring about sentai, clearly the production crew decided to take the initiative from there.
I know you don't care about the sentai side, but sometimes your gripes can have answers rooted in the Japanese sides of the stories. Especially as starting with Mystic Force, you are going to be coming across the problem that the power ranger series will become more and more just a rehashing of the plots of their Sentai Counterparts, with superficial changes that really don't work well and detract from the overall narrative.
"-Finally, I'm actually a little surprised you didn't give a disclaimer saying "I've already heard about Go-Busters and how much it references Power Rangers, please stop telling me." Have people not been flooding you, or did you just not want to bother?"
ReplyDeleteEh, people have waited eight months for the SPD review, I figured I should probably just jump right into it. XD
"I know you don't care about the sentai side, but sometimes your gripes can have answers rooted in the Japanese sides of the stories. Especially as starting with Mystic Force, you are going to be coming across the problem that the power ranger series will become more and more just a rehashing of the plots of their Sentai Counterparts, with superficial changes that really don't work well and detract from the overall narrative."
ReplyDeleteSee, stuff like the Omega Ranger's number? That's not a GRIPE for me, that's just a "Huh, that's weird" kind of thing. A gripe is "there's very little character development in these team-ups" and "they use the same explosion effect so many times that if they spliced in the same explosion from a previous episode I wouldn't notice."
Hoo boy... SPD... SPD. I said in my comment for the Dino Thunder review that that particular series brought me back into the entire franchise. SPD quickly lost my interest. I'm guessing it was the mainly the Kalishplosions the made me lose my interest, but part of my nature told me that SPD was exactly like Lightspeed Rescue except in the future so that might've been a factor as well.
ReplyDeleteI think I may have to agree with you on a certain point. Now that I've actually watched the entirety of SPD and let it sit my brain for bit, if you ignore certain nitpicks and flaws the season had, it was pretty solid and the team-ups were okay at best.
Trivia note about Kalish seasons: for every season he's been a part of Power Rangers, the season has to have the same number of words for how many seasons he's done thus far, barring multi-parters. The idea is stupid, but I will admit I actually thought the single word episode titles made sense and were pretty clever; they were basically like a police report that had to be summed up in one word, even if there were plenty of two-parters. We'll see a similar kind of cleverness for, IMHO, the So Bad, It's Good Mystic Force.
You have just made my day. Been looking forward to watching this for ages.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it is three in the morning, and I must sleep. Likely more comments to follow.
Glad to finally see that another video has finally come out, but I'm just a little surprised that you didn't mention that Grumm was another American Only villain as Brood Wing was the original main villain for the sentai version.
ReplyDeleteHmm... Haven't really bothered with Power Rangers outside of the current season since your last review, but this one seemed alright from what I recall of the few episodes I took the time to watch. I was a bit surprised that they did 2 team ups with Dino Thunder, but I didn't mind that fact at all since I could probably say I liked Dino Thunder just based off of how many episodes I saw both while it aired, admittedly just bits and pieces at the time, and after you started this show, full eps.
ReplyDeleteDesign wise... I liked this season pretty much from the start, except for Gruumm himself. I think it was the horns more than anything else.
I was interested to see that I had already seen one of the cast outside of Power Rangers, not terribly surprised since they moved to New Zealand by this point so it was bound to happen, Morgana's actress. Hercules, Xena and a few other short lived shows produced by the folks behind those shows.
Anyway, I look forward to the next one and, as always, take your time.
Fiery Little One.
I've been waiting for SPD ever since you started doing the history of power rangers. I've not watched the reviews yet. I'm someone who only remembered the original series and the film. I was never a big power rangers fan so when I stumbled upon this show, I was surprised how good the first few episodes were.
ReplyDeleteI liked the look of the show. I remember the dog being a great effect. Most films would have had some terrible CG thing, but the dog looked like he was really there. The themes and ideas, such as super heroes as cops and following the stories of the B team, really appealed to me. After missing a bunch of episodes I never got back into it.
Thanks for doing these shows.
So, I dug the review as usual. The detailed summaries and analyses do a swell job at letting me see what came after I stopped watching PR without having to actually watch it :p
ReplyDeleteBut, I do have some suggestions in regards to pacing. Obviously, the reviews have gotten pretty long because the seasons have become more complex and require more explanation than previous seasons. You even stated yourself that SPD seemed like it had more "important" episodes than usual. However, I do feel there were a few things that could have been trimmed in order to cut down on the runtime.
The first thing to come to mind is your criticism of the explosions. Mind you, I think its a valid criticism and belongs in the review. However, you spent five minutes (I checked the timestamps) just discussing the explosions. You went into what was probably a little too much detail, and then repeated yourself going into too much detail a few times. I actually thought for a second that you were maybe making a joke. One of your comments was in regards to the repetition of the explosions and how "we get it already!" Probably a minute and a half into your speech I understood what the "Khalishsplosions" were, why they were a bad thing, and in particular how much you hate them. And I still had 3.5 minutes to go until you were done talking about it. Again, I'm not saying its not a valid criticism or doesn't belong in the review. I'm just suggesting that you could have trimmed that a bit and cut down on some of the already length runtime without losing any actual content.
Additionally, I didn't feel your bit on the PR timeline or suggestion that PR years were different than "our" years was really necessary or added anything to this review. I guess its kind of interesting, but, again, the runtime is already pretty long. Someone such as myself, who hasn't really watched PR since I was a kid, isn't really going to notice any timelines discrepancies just by watching your reviews. Someone who does watch the series will probably already have discussed it on some board or another. It just doesn't really add anything to the review itself and could probably be nixed for time.
Just to reiterate, I enjoyed the review and look forward to seeing your Mystic Force review in 2013 ;). I just think that, as length as just the summaries of the seasons themselves are, there could be a few snips here and there to cut back on the runtime.
In my opinion, Kalishplosions are what happens when a Japanese director tries to do "American style" action scenes, despite not really understanding what they are about (hence why his work in Japan is better than his work in PR).
ReplyDeleteI'd say it's the same problem that some games in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise had: Sonic games have always been more popular in the West than in Japan, but their quality began to decline when the team (a Japanese team) started to taylor them to cater to what they thought were Western tastes.
My point is: if you want to please a certain culture, then don't try to copy what they do, because you can't get all the intricacies unless you're very familiar with it. What you can do, however, is doing things in your own style while drawing inspiration from other cultures (which is basically what Sakamoto does in Japan).
Good retrospective. I liked SPD. Bridge was probably my favorite actually. I personally kind of like the fun-guys, plus his powers were very useful to the plot as well. What do you think of Bruce Kalish's era? Well, I know that you are not fond of the Kalish-splosions, but what about his other works in Power Rangers? Personally, I like how the A-Squad Red Ranger was a girl as a sort of call back to the beginning to secretly one-up Sky.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Boom's speech was one of the best speeches in Ranger's History.
ReplyDeleteJust when I thought you'd abandoned this series, bam a new instalment. And it only took you 9 months upload it.
ReplyDeleteAs is said in my post on your In Space review SPD feels very much a season of 2 half, it's slow at first however it does build up and, in my opinion, once you get to SWAT things just seem to escalate.
The idea that the 5 presented are not the best and the brightest that SPD has to offer is an interesting notion, makes me wonder what other shows like Lightspeed Rescue or Time Force might have been like if they had gone a similar route. Like in other shows such as Star Trek the Rangers are presented as being the best choices to fend off whatever the villains of of season are, however instead Jack and the others are, as you said, are the back up crew, the guys who clean up after the A squad, It allows for bit more of a group dynamic as well as growth even if it isn't handles as well as it possibly could be.
Whilst its not perfect, the things you pointed out never really bugged my until you pointed them out, on the whole SPD is a pretty good show and one of the better ones of the Disney era.
From this point however on though the shows are gonna get a lot more hit or miss.
Huzzah! I'd been waiting for this!
ReplyDeleteI liked SPD; the civilian fights were pretty well choreographed and it used some nice ideas in the characterisation and plot that differentiated it from Dekaranger. I'm personally a fan of PR series that don't try to follow the sentai too closely; Samurai to me feels like a dumbed-down retelling of Shinkenger, while by comparison RPM takes the goofy Go-Onger and makes something dark, clever and tongue-in-cheek out of it.
I'm hoping that they decide to take Goseiger and make a PR series of it that's...well, not incredibly bland like Goseiger.
I hope to see more HOPR soon! I really enjoy these videos.
As someone who's just finished watching Dekaranger, I have to make a few comments : Yes, Omega's number is 6, because his counterpart is considered the true 6th ranger. That's the thing that bothered me most with SPD: that since they didn't want to hire another main actor, they just reduced his character to the minimum. Otherwise, I quite enjoy the season and the Sakamoto fight scenes, even if the explosions are boring.
ReplyDeleteOne theme that I found is that the Zords from this season are a call back to Lightspeed : A main Megazord composed of 5 individual vehicle Zords, a huge Megazord which can contain the individual ones, a 6th ranger piloted Zord which transforms into a Megazord and can combine with the main Megazord, and a Megazord composed of flying machines.
Also, trivia: SPD was dubbed in Japanese by the original Sentai actors.
AT4W and HOPR on the same day?! Linkara you're spoiling us!
ReplyDeleteI actually like the SPD helmets a lot, they're probably the most aerodynamic helmets of the franchise. I think the wide visors are meant to evoke an alien oval shaped eye, so that (with the siren lights) it reads to the viewer as "Space Police!"
ReplyDeleteYou are correct about Sam. An interview with director Greg Aronwitz said Omega Ranger did not have a corresponding actor because the higher ups were looking to save money. However the money they saved allowed them enough cash to film the new zord fight with the Magnificence.
As for Syd, I thought she was wealthy and that being a Ranger was something she couldn't buy her way into, she had to earn it though hard work and pressure, much like the diamonds she frequently admired.
Thats just my two cents. Take that for what its worth... if anything. May the power protect you!
"Eh, people have waited eight months for the SPD review, I figured I should probably just jump right into it. XD"
ReplyDeleteFair enough. XD
Also, I don't want to sound confrontational, but I think the way you kind of dismissed the Sentai when discussing the Battlizer is just going to cause problems. There are already people who don't understand that you're reviewing PR and not SS, but that remark seems to have made some of them think you outright hate the Sentai version, and those guys really don't need the encouragement to be even bigger jerks.
But as you've said, this is completely voluntary on your part and done using your own free time, and MOST of us appreciate it. There's always going to be a few complainers, but let's face it, some of these people wouldn't be happy no matter what you did, so to heck with 'em.
Damn, the wait was worth it, this episode is TITANIC.
ReplyDelete...But I just can't get over how silly Krueger's huge rubber dog mask looks.
Well, after watching this that's another season I wouldn't mind checking out (and this time not just because of the villains, though I'd say the same is true of Dino Thunder).
ReplyDeleteThis season looked a lot better than I thought it would be. Darker, more hard hitting, and not afraid to go a more "adult"Z route with some of the things.
ReplyDeleteEvil power rangers that joined by their own personal choice. Best part of the season.
Firstly, good things come to those who wait. Always enjoy another HOPR installment. Secondly, blowing your budget on over the top morphing sequences (Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force, Ninja Storm-Samurai) and also the equally over the top Kalish-splosions doesn't make budgetary sense IMO, though to the credit of the producers, Kruger's been more streamlined than his Sentai counterpart, looking less like a Muppet on steroids. Thirdly, this might have been answered in an earlier post, but out of curiosity, what equipment and software do you use to record and edit the sound and vids for these?
ReplyDeleteA few things on my mind to note:
ReplyDeleteThe Kalishsplosions...well, they're not exactly unique. You don't see them often in the Sentai side of things, but there have been a few tokusatsu series which are grievous offenders. (Kamen Rider Decade, I'm looking at you.)
Also, another, somewhat more subtle bit of meddling by Disney is how they word things. Since it's a children's show, certain things can't be said. The hemotech stuff? The full line is technobabble for "Synthetic Blood." That kind of thing isn't exactly atypical of Disney's Standards and Practices department. After all, Disney is family friendly at all times.
Otherwise, a good review.
I'm so glad a new episode of HOPR came out!!
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what happens post-Dino Thunder, so it's great to get a review/summary of those series!
I'm actually thinking of doing a HOPR-esque review series of the Power Rangers spin-off series. What do you guys think?
An interesting season indeed, especially seeing how it merges story elements of Abaranger (Dino Thunder) and Dekaranger (SPD)
ReplyDeleteTo further clarify, Dekaranger did not have a big bad of it's own.
The closest thing was Abrella (Broodwing's counterpart), who was however just a mere weapons dealer, who appeared selling equipment to the various criminals.
Each episode would feature a different criminal, ranging from jewel-thieves to inter-planetary terrorists, each of whom had their own individual agendas.
The only exception would be the trio of serial-killers - Bon-Goblin, Succubus Hell, and Blitz (the counterparts of Shorty, Morgana, and Devastation), who are fought in a three part episode, and make a comeback for Dekaranger vs. Abaranger.
Most of Dekaranger is generally focused on the character-arcs of the individual rangers, rather then fighting a universal threat.
Seeing how Dinothunder used none of the Abaranger story, they essentially lifted allot of the plot from that series.
Kruge's been given allot of the back-story of Abare Black, who lost both his original team and family to the villain Dezumozorlya (Magnificence).
The difference is that Dezumozorlya brainwashed Mahoro (Abare Black's wife) into becoming his minion (serving a role similar to Emperor Gruumm), but also forcefully impregnated her (and yes, Dezumozorlya is a tentacle monster as well, this IS Japan after all), to bear his "apostle" - Lije (Mora/Morgana)
Lije spent most of the series as a little girl, but afterfalling in love with Abare Killer (White Abaranger, who was pure evil in this series, only joining the other Abarangers at the very end in an act of vengeance against Dezumozorlya, his "heroic" sacrifice being the only good deed he ever did - "feels good"), she artificially ages her self up, so that he'll find her attractive (while she still keeps a childish personality)
Through the series run, Mahoro manages to brake free from Dezumozorlya's control, and after his defeat, Lije reverts to a mere baby, to be cared for by her mother and Abare black (who accepts her as his daughter, despite her origin)
In a way, Morgana is the mix of the two most disturbing female characters in Sentai history
Lije, who was essentially the Anti-Christ, born from rape, with some disturbing undertones (a little girl in an adult body, hitting on a cold-blooded murderer)
And Succubus Hell, a cannibalistic serial killer, who wanted to make Deka Yellow her sex-slave.
(ah, those Japanese)
Sweet dreams
And on another note, why didn't they use a replica of Anubian Kruger's original mask?
So far the Power Rangers crew didn't seem to have a problem with getting the replicas from Japan
Doggie, what did they do to you?
ReplyDeleteWhy do you look like you have snake skin? You're a dog, you're supposed to be furry, not scaly.
Your comment on the Kalisplosions just seemed to remind of the robot chicken "Michael Bay Presents: Explosions" also it's neat that they had not one but two crossover episodes something no other season has done before. Though as others had said it would have been goof if you had talked about the sentai a bit as you said we'd been waiting long enough
ReplyDelete"And on another note, why didn't they use a replica of Anubian Kruger's original mask?
ReplyDeleteSo far the Power Rangers crew didn't seem to have a problem with getting the replicas from Japan"
They chose to make an entirely new costume for Kruger so that he could actually emote, is the gist of it.
Get used to seeing John Tui and Kelson Henderson, they're sticking around for a while. Disney liked to reuse their second-string actors during their run of the show.
I remember being in a mixed relationship with this show when it was on. I was getting older (I was 13 when it started) and starting to learn about Sentai. I could never decide if I liked it or not, it was a really mixed bag. It was the last show I saw in full. I skimmed Mystic Force and haven't seen anything but snippets after that. Looking back at SPD, I have to agree it was pretty okay, but I can definitely see why I started losing interest. It IS cool that they subtly built up towards their final gambit throughout the entire season, instead of just getting to the end of the season and saying "Okay we're out of resources, THROW EVERYTHING WE'VE GOT AT THEM."
I know you care naught for Sentai but just a note about their use of the battlizer: they only brought it in during the crossover with the next team, and I think they handled it better by virtue of not showcasing the Battle Thong, just going straight to the full-armored version. The first stage would have been immensely better if it didn't include the briefs.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that caught the uncomfortably sexist undertones that kept cropping up on the topic of female red rangers. Considering the target audience is little boys, you'd think they'd want to ENCOURAGE gender equality, not have the role models scoffing at female reds. Kind of scary that Disney was against the idea, too. I mean, yes, show for little boys, boys like male role models, so I understand why the core red will probably never be a woman, but a character set to appear in only 2 episodes? At least it shows that "HEY BOYS, GIRLS CAN BE LEADERS TOO. DON'T DISRESPECT"
And lastly, here's an interesting little aside, the voice of Dr. Oliver in the crossovers was provided by Trent's actor. And that second crossover (where they went to the past and everybody's memories were erased) was originally a DVD-exclusive. I think you had to buy it at McDonald's or something. It was like a little bonus episode that they originally weren't going to show on TV, which is why they had the characters forget about it.
So. Here's to not waiting quite as long for the next installment! Let's shoot for just 7 months this time! :P
"Doggie, what did they do to you?
ReplyDeleteWhy do you look like you have snake skin? You're a dog, you're supposed to be furry, not scaly."
He's an alien dog. They can make him look however they want. :P
Dave, dude, that's not the worst thing they did to him. Doggie Kruger (yes, with a K. That's the Dekaranger version) is one of the most bad-ass characters sentai OR power rangers EVER had.
ReplyDeleteHis motivation for not engaging in active field duty, next to being the earth branch's chief, reflects that. "If I have to out to catch this criminal, I would not have any need for you.". Not his exact words, bust close enough.
We are talking about a man who has earned the nickname Jigoku no Banken (Guard Dog from Hell). The number on his chest symbolizes the amount of enimies he can defeat under two minutes. Sporting teh D-Sword Vega, the Master License and his "Galaxy Sword" fighting style, this man has earned the title and rank of Deka Master.
The power rangers equivalent has some bigger hurdles to take. He was apparently married (whereas Kruger was romantically interested in Miss Swan), who disappeared during a tragic incident. He then chose the path of passivism. He later takes on the suit of Shadow Ranger in the exact same scene as in Dekaranger. It takes away of the awesomeness of this scene. In that very scene, in Dekaranger, Doggie Kruger showed he was NOT a man to be messed with. In PRSPD he regains his resolve to fight.
Doggie Cruger is an interesting character, maybe that's why the also changed his appearance and gave him a less gruff voice. But to my opinion he is a shadow of what Doggie Kruger is.
I last saw Doggie Kruger in the Dekaranger tribute episode of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. He's still bad-ass...
Alright, commentary.
ReplyDeleteAbout the Kalishplosions, I honestly never had a problem with them. A bit part of Power Rangers, and tokusatsu as a whole for that matter, is the sheer over the top-ness of it all. People do dramatic poses, shout the names of their attacks, and kick monsters in the face until they explode. It is part of the charm. An excess of explosions, even if they are not edited as quite as well as they could have been, isn't really a bad thing in my view.
That said, I can completely understand your complaint about the drop in fight scene quality. But then again, it is often difficult to find quality actors who also happen to be skilled martial artists, so oftentimes a tradeoff has to be made somewhere.
Now with that said, I would like to point out that Koichi Sakamoto is honestly a spectacular fight choreographer, who often does an absolutely splendid job of lending a sort of fluid grace to actors in big clunky outfits. This is especially noticeable of you watch some of his Japanese work, notably the Kamen Rider Double movie, and the more recent Ultraman movies.
Video 2/ 20:06 - It's the Face of Boe!!!
ReplyDeleteAs for the timeline issues, I was always under the impression that Earth in the rangers-verse had been trading and in communications with various alien species since the end of In Space. This would give over two decades for alien immigration to become commonplace, as well as explain how we suddenly got the technology to create an interstellar space station in Lost Galaxy, and our own set of government funded ranger gear in Lightspeed Rescue.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry but I HATE devices that can supposedly tell guilt or innocence. There's a reason why lie detectors are not considered strong evidence in courts. It's because they aren't strong in any way*.
ReplyDeleteIt's entirely possible for someone to panic because they're worried that the device will malfunction and so give the device a false positive. Or what about someone who casually lies about everything? Or what about someone who is a guilty of a crime, just not the one that they're being accused of? Then there's the question of how the heck the devices can tell the difference between someone stressed out because they just saw their friend shot and someone stressed out because they just shot their friend.
For that matter, why were they equipped with the devices? Earth is facing alien invasion, not a massive crime wave.
In the explosions' defense, the shockwave actually would throw you around if it's close enough...but it also would probably kill anyone that close anyway.
As for the female Red Ranger, nice to make a woman the leader of the team but points get taken off for then making this character a traitor. I know they were limited by what had been done originally but it doesn't help when women's rights in the show take a step forward and then two steps back.
*Although someone really needs to tell Hollywood that.
First, let me say, that I love watching your videos. I find your analysis and interpretation of the Power Rangers series very fun and interesting to listen to.
ReplyDeleteNow that I have gotten the nice comment out of the way, I can say this. It does make me a little sad that you don't really compare Power Rangers to Super Sentai however I can completely understand why you don't. It did make me really happy when you commented on the scene where Sky meets the villain who killed his father and how you liked that they covered all the mirrors. This scene is literally cut and pasted from Super Sentai. While it is a really good scene, nothing about it is original b/c it is simply a copy. Even down to the camera angles, in some cases.
Keep up the good work and I look forward to your next video.
Well HOPR finally returns. you did a good job Linkara and I'm happy you enjoyed SPD. To me it was the last really good Power rangers show for awhile. Personally for the next episodes I didn't have that much of a problem with Mystic force at first. At best it's the equivalent of Wild force & Ninja Storm with the mixed reaction. The way I saw it, it started out strong but then started to decline by the middle espically when a certain villain comes into play and he has the most hairbrain 3 parter scheme I've ever seen. Still I think you'll be fine during that season. Operation Overdrive on the other hand.......good luck with that. Still good job can't wait for Mystic force.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit after this series I barely watched Mystic Force, only watching the episodes they pretty much shoved in your face in the morning, basically the first episode, the sixth ranger episode, the battilizer episode, the super armor for all the rangers episode, and then the finale, I caught all of those and I didn't think I missed much of it. Really from here on out besides Samurai I'm going in blind and these will be interesting to watch.
ReplyDeleteMind you: I watched this last night and had 24 hours to think about it so I doubt it completely is going to be comprehensive...then again I also read too many of the RangerBoard reviews of your review:
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am a PR fan, weirdly the series SPD is adapted from, Dekaranger, is the first Sentai I actually have completely watched. And as I watched your review of SPD, all I could do is sort of see how the concepts were adapted in America and sort of saw what worked and what didn't. I know you will never watch any Sentai since that isn't nostalgia, understood. However this review actually makes me see that some of what SPD did was take some of the better aspects of Deka and made it their own, in some ways even better.
-First of all, I like the idea of Jack and the story arc he went through this season, even though I'm a huge Ban fan being the hot-blooded cop of the Sentai team. Ban is Ban, but Jack actually is someone who just found himself thrown into the Ranger business, did it to make sure he did his obligations, then just wanted to leave it behind once it was all over. In some ways I actually relate to Jack because I went through some similar situations: I took up a massive responsibility, did my best even though things really got screwed over, and then chose to leave it behind when realizing my true path. His quest is different from someone truly dedicated to their job (such as a Carter) or someone thrown into a situation and rising to the occasion (the Dino Thunder lead or even the original MMPR), in that he is changed through it even if it isn't his calling.
-Likewise I think Sky was way better than Hoji, more or less because of his legacy and the tragedy. Hoji had great episodes, but more or less was an obsessive perfectionist and rather one-note at time. Sky wanted to prove he could be a Ranger like his father and overcome the problems in his life such as the tragedy of losing him. (even if that part was more taken from Tetsu's plot)
-Cruger is a weird one because Deka's Kruger was just awesome, being a leader who respected his team and knew when to kick it. Cruger, though, had more of an overarching story and the connection with Grumm that made him surprisingly stand out just as much as the Sentai version.
-The stuff that SPD did that Deka didn't do were just really nice touches, including splitting Swan into Kat and Boom (though I wished Kat kept her morphing powers more than one ep...at least in Deka Swan joked about it but still had morphing capabilities) and the choice of A-Squad to betray Earth for Grumm. The whole A-Squad/B-Squad comparison was just really fascinating and interesting and really did show off the interesting aspects of the season and what it did right.
-Sadly there were things I found somewhat better in Deka compared to SPD: obviously Tetsu is way more interesting than a ball of light (even though some of his story was taken by Sky) and Umeko was a way more comedic Pink making Syd feel rather just "there" even from how you made her. Also, Abrella seemed to make more sense as a villain than trying to make an overarching evil empire even if Grumm and the A-Squad made it work. (yeah Broodwing did similar but Abrella more or less was the overarching villain of an anthology story and his development was just interesting seeing him get more and more involved); while Mora was just probably an excuse to use the Lije/Lijewel concept from Abaranger with a one-shot Deka villain. And...what was the point of the brain in a jar?
Overall, a great review for a duo of seasons that were ultimately good on both sides of the Pacific. And take your time considering how much shorter seasons are going to get...
Hey Linkara, awesome HOPR review definitely worth the wait, especially liked how you linked the civillian powers to the rangers distinct personalties, I was however just wondering why you didn't add it to your page on TGWTG with all your other HOPR videos.
ReplyDeleteOne thing you left out was the episode where Syd was brainwashed. Bridge canceled out her brainwashing by convincing her to morph - that is, in SPD, morphing cancels brainwashing.
ReplyDeleteAnd "expanded universe" notwithstanding, this is the way that we know the A-squad wasn't brainwashed: we see them in morph.
Great review. Aside from some serious flaws (too many explosions, Omega Ranger being reduced to a ball of light), this looks like a great series. This has been definitely worth the wait.
ReplyDeleteHere's to the next feature on Mystic Force . . . and the beginning of the decline of the Power Rangers.
Incidentally, have you checked out EZ Rider's reviews on the SPD/Dino Thunder crossovers?
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers debuted a couple of weeks after my eleventh birthday, which put me right in the demographic, and I fell in love with the show, or maybe it was just Amy Jo Johnson, not really sure. I only watched the initial MMPR series, all three seasons, but after that, I just stopped. Never even bothered to check out any of the other series. It wasn't until I found your HOPR on TGWTG that I discovered that Power Rangers even continued past Zeo.
ReplyDeleteHaving watched every episode of HOPR, I've come to see what I was missing, maybe it's just your descriptions and your passion for the series, but I really feel I should try to track down the series I missed.
Great installment of HOPR, as always.
ReplyDeleteSo, Fun Science Fact - Iridium is a Thing That Exists, and it looks like the show is even using it a real fashion, based on what Linkara passed along in the video.
Iridium (according to Wikipedia), is a transitional element in the platinum family that is hard, corrosive resistant, but brittle and very rare. Generally it's used in alloys with other metals - particularly when those metals might need to be made harder or more corrosion resistant.
Also, because it is so incredibly rare, and potentially incredibly useful (particularly if you're building mechanical stuff) it makes perfect sense for Gruumm to steal every gram of the stuff he can find.
The only thing it's not really useful for is structural supports and armor because of how brittle the metal is.
And with all the metallurgical-science-info-dumping out of the way. I really liked the animatronic for Kruger's head. It was expressive and emotive and - since this was apparently built specifically for the US production, money well spent. I think that just might be the most expressive animatronic used for a show like this. (Okay, the Ninja Turtles Live Action Series That Does Not Exist might have similar, but I still Kruger's head more.)
You know i'm glad you finnaly got the review up, though i'm really lookingo forward to some of the later reviews.
ReplyDeleteLike Andrew Hartford of OO, this man was not only their mentor but was going to be the red ranger until he was basicly out voted in favor of his team, that gets a lot of respect from me. I also didn't rewally see the OO rangers as quiters durring OaR like others do.
when they were ouright Replaced (as per SK) they hung around trying to be useful. But it was clear they had no use. So they fell back on their old lives, and were CLEARLY not happy with that, in fact they JUMPED at the chance to do something wirthwhile when Mac spoke to Rose only (she contacted the others), not to mention they fight the badguys Unmorphed (even if they di get their asses kicked) sure they lost faith a couple times but it never lasted long, and that makes sense if you were litterly brushed out for a new team of rangers and were utterly powerless you'd feel a little lost from time to time.
Also since i'm writing a MF fic i'm very curious to se your MF thoughts.
Great review man.
ReplyDeleteThe Kalish Era, Power Ranger's Dork Age, in later seasons of this era, it's not pretty.
Honestly,
I like the Sentai Kruger a lot better, total badass. Not to mention being voiced by Tetsu Inada the huge amounts of fanart (and yes it's THAT kind of art) he gets. It's a sort of "I'd go gay/furry for him" thing Inada's furry roles have.
Yeah the Battlizer is treated better in the Sentai.
Can't wait for the Mystic Force review (wish the morph call was different, and the spell for it).
A few thoughts:
ReplyDeleteFirst, I sort of had a moment of glee when I saw the Swat uniforms, because I actually know that sentai series! The toys and books are at the preschool where I work. I pay no attention to these shows and stopped watching PR after the second season.
I have one adult student who can't quite believe that sentai shows come over to America; would you be against me showing her a little of one of your reviews as proof?
Finally, I loved this review. Your passion for the series really shown through. I only planned on watching the first part of this last night, but the way you narrated it, you perfectly captured the sense of continuing story and I couldn't leave the review unfinished.
I do have to agree with another poster that the extended fan theory on years lasting longer etc. probably wasn't necessary. Fan theories are most interesting to hard core fans, and outsider viewers like myself frequently just don't care. If you had simply raised the "Will in the show in 2015 actually have aliens?" issue, that would have been sufficient.
That said, would it not be awesome if the show in 2015 actually did start introducing alien characters into the world so that the timeline matched up?
I look forward to your next review whenever you finish it. A Google search reveals Power Rangers with capes? This will be interesting...
"I have one adult student who can't quite believe that sentai shows come over to America; would you be against me showing her a little of one of your reviews as proof?"
ReplyDeleteGo right ahead! ^_^
Dekaranger was better
ReplyDeleteThe reason Omega has a different way of writing numbers is because his Sentai equivalent is from a different, elite unit of SPD.
ReplyDeleteAlso let's be fair Omega is from the future, 15 years to be exact, that's 15 iteration of the SPD uniform (going by normal conventions) so maybe he was the 6th Ranger of SPD 2040
ReplyDeleteHoly $#^# that's the Sky Tower! In the second vid at 22:08. It's the famous landmark in Auckland, New Zealand. The palce where I live.
ReplyDeleteI know it's not much, but I find it hilarious to think that 'the future' is set in NZ. It sticks out so much to a Kiwi every time they shoot something in NZ, cos I can reconginze it straight away.
And yes I know Power Rangers is shot in NZ, which is why I find it funny to see actors who I recongize from various TV shows over here (and how it's meant to be a stand in for America).
Man I love this series, if nothing more then seeing NZ masking as somewhere else lol.
FINALLY for the past two days I've actually been thinking about this series; I was wondering if you decided not to do it any more, good to know you still are. I know you do this series as more of a hobby and you don't really owe us anything. But Lewis please don't make us wait so long for the rest. Not asking you to rush them or anything... just remember that some of us really want to see your opinion on specific moments in specific seasons. So waiting months at a time can be a real downer. It would be nice if maybe you could drop a hint in your other videos every now again or something, so we at least know it's coming. Or maybe, seeing as how you've gone through most of the series you could incorporate it into your general video line up and put it on your list for things your dong in a specific month. You don't have to do anything I say and again you don't owe us anything, but it would just be nice to have an idea of when to expect these.
ReplyDeleteI like SPD. It has a certain amount of significants for me because it was the last ranger series I actually watched in it's entirety. I watched most of mystic force and liked it, but around that time I lost interest in TV all together and stop watching; causing me to miss out on the last few episodes. After that I watched an episode of overdrive and couldn't take it, then got sick one day and watched a marathon of jungle fury on Jetix... thought it was ok. After that I watched the first two episodes of RPM and haven't seen anything power rangers since.
Now while I liked SPD I also view it as sort of being kind of a generic power rangers (if that makes sense). It has the same basic formula but it feels different. I agree with you about Sam not really being a character. But I think that even if they had made him appear in his true form, they still wouldn't have done anything with him. I would have liked it if they did an episode where we saw him interact with his younger self, just to see how much he has or hasn't changed since then. I also wouldn't have minded if they developed Kat a bit more. Mainly in regard to her friendship with Cruger, just so we see where they were coming from. It would have been cool if they made her katranger morpher permanent. Given what her workload must be like at the base it would have been understandable is she was hardly involved in any fights, but it would have been useful in times of emergency.
Speaking of Cruger, I also wondered what happened to his snout. I mean I suppose if we can except that when Justin would morph it would alter his physical form to something closer to an adult. We should also be able except that it could do something similar for Cruger. However it seems so unnecessary from the stand point of him being a ranger and engaging in combat. With Justin it made sense because he was a child. Without his body being altered even in ranger form, he would have been more limited than his fellow rangers, thus he would have been a liability in a fight. But with Cruger his snout doesn't seem to make that much of difference. I also have to question what happens when he takes off the helmet in ranger form. I mean if it alters his facial features to accommodate it then what would he look like, what would we be seeing? If it doesn't then obviously he wouldn't be able to speak nor fight, seeing as how it would probably limit his oxygen intake causing him to get winded faster. The only other way it could make any sense would be if his helmet is a TARDIS and is bigger on the inside.
I also never found Gruumm to be very threatening. I agree with you that in comparison to his predecessors his general plans always seemed to work out it one way shape or form. But I just did not find him threatening, I get why he's suppose to be but it never hit me. I also agree with you on Mora/Morgana. They really should have expanded more in terms of her character and back story. I would have loved it if they had an episode that figuratively went into her head so we could find out why she doesn't want to be an adult. It really could have been groundbreaking moment for the series if really really explored the psychology of one of their villains.
ReplyDeleteIn regard to the zords, I hated that they made the base a zord. I saw it as stupid. Suppose anything ever happened and it got destroyed. Not only would they loose a zord, but they would also loose their base of operations and possible half or more of their staff/troops in the process. I mean I understand them giving it weapons and it's tank form. But only in the sense of it having them to use during emergency situations, like if the city becomes overrun and they need to get away, regroup and form a new strategy. Or if the rangers are in a bind they could have a weapon on the sidelines to help them. But making it a zord and including it directly into a fight seems stupid because of how much they stand to loose if things go wrong.
Either way I really liked this season and liked your review. Keep it up.
the "sentai" excuse is kinda bullshit regarding fem red rangers. If you have notice some of the yellow rangers in sentai were male and they became female here in the states
ReplyDeleteMy god, so much talk about the Sentai in the comments. Makes me feel like I'm the only Power Rangers fan that doesn't watch Sentai(except for Linkara I guess xP).
ReplyDeleteYou have a habbit of speaking in dangling or misplaced modifiers. It's very distracting.
ReplyDeleteClearly Cruger's muzzle (as well as his and Sky's considerable height) go inside Optimus Prime's trailer when they morph.
ReplyDeleteALTERNATIVE, MORE TECHNICAL EXPLANATION
Just a thought, since Cruger's shapeshifting as Shadow Ranger has everybody's panties in a twist. It's called "morphing" for a reason. Cruger is the most glaring example, because you're always wondering where his nose goes, but I'd like to point out that he also loses about a head of height when he morphs. Then there's the relative heights of the other rangers. Sky towers over everybody else on the team, including Jack, but when they morph, Jack is the tallest, with Sky a close second. Now, obviously the Real Life™ reason for these anomalies is just the difference in height between the actors and the stock stunt team, but in fiction there is clearly some growth/shrinkage going on with ALL the cast in their morphed and unmorphed states, so they are literally morphing into new body shapes during transformation.
" My god, so much talk about the Sentai in the comments. Makes me feel like I'm the only Power Rangers fan that doesn't watch Sentai(except for Linkara I guess xP)."
ReplyDeleteNo, you're not. I've seen exactly ONE episode of Gokaiger (the 35th anniversary season) and exactly ONE episode of Kakuranger (the one where the Ninja and Shogun Megazords came from), but that's pretty much it. Also, in both cases, it was the first episode. I WANT to see more of Gokaiger, but I haven't really had the opportunity.
Linkara, when you do your Mystic Force review... Well, I won't sugar coat this. Please for the love of all John Williams has composed, /PLEASE/ point out how that theme they play at times (not the Mystic Force theme itself mind you) sounds like a direct ripoff of the Harry Potter theme.
ReplyDeleteI mean it's bad enough at times that it felt like they weren't trying to 'ride the Harry Potter popularity wave' at the time, but that little music bit... Gah. It just felt like Disney had scooped down so low that it was just ripping of HP music wise.
Hey Linkara!
ReplyDeleteI totally watched this the day it came out, but being the last week of college classes, I had to put my comment on the back burner. Guh. XP
Anyways I loved the review! I know for sure that I was watching SPD when it was coming out on TV, though for the life of me I can't remember actually sitting down and watching it. Huh. Weird. I will say that I think you went on a little too long about the Kalishsplosions. It's insanely annoying, I'll agree to that any day, but I think maybe chopping that down would've helped. (Also, having watched Sakamoto's work on Kamen Rider Fourze and noticing that there aren't any crazy ass explosions like there are here, it's pretty much all on Kalish.)
I also completely agree with you on the whole B-Squad vs. A-Squad comparison. I loved it and it fit into the story so well. It's interesting how they make the first Female Red Ranger evil. It's original and a great twist, I'll give them that. But what the hell Disney? XD
I personally like the uniforms for SPD a lot (ignoring the mighty BATTLE THONG), including the helmets. They always looked so neat to me, like super space police!~ I also have to say that I saw the original Doggie from SS and he looks like a scary Muppet. I like the PR design much better (I'm not saying anything character wise, since I've never watched Dekaranger, but I still like PR!Doggie a lot). I also always just figured his snout just went into some weird negative space in his helmet, sorta like the same thing with Justin and growing taller when he morphed into the Blue Turbo Ranger.
Can't wait for the next HOPR! And I really can't wait till you get to RPM! Thanks so much for doing these Linkara! <3
P.S. While I completely agree with you on the premise of this series not making comparisons to the Sentai (since your videos would take years to come out then XD), I would like to say that just totally writing off everything that's weird or making it sound like "sigh...I should mention this" regarding Sentai itself isn't the greatest idea. While I myself have never watched SS until Gokaiger came out (and I have no plans on backtracking through 35 years worth of shows), I do have to say that just totally disregarding it is just a tad bit unfair. Again, I wholly agree with you on HOPR being all about PR and I myself would easily pick PR over SS any day, I do think mentioning the original series at least in the intro parts of the video are a good idea (and might make the SS fanboys shut the hell up. Ugh. So annoying. Believe me Linkara. I feel your pain). Though that isn't an excuse for SS fans to get mad at you for not saying anything at all about SS when it's clearly about PR, since I think that's just as unfair, since PR has a lot of original and freaking awesome ideas. It's just a small thing I figured I'd mention.
I also agree with Des Shinta waaay at the top of the comments page that you might wanna start doing a little research into the Sentai side, since some of the weirder shit in later seasons (at least MM, OO, JF, small parts in RPM, and a whole crap-ton in Samurai) comes directly from SS and will confuse people if it's not mentioned (they're pretty much carbon copy plots up till the awesome that is RPM, or include some stuff that's just...weird). I actually had to look into the Sentai to explain some things that just popped right the fuck out of nowhere in PR, so that helps. But I'm not your mother, so ignore me all you want. XD
I've been a fan of HOPR for a little while now, and I'm just going to comment on the upcoming seasons:
ReplyDeleteMystic Force: 95% of all the hate I've seen aimed at Mystic Force comes from the theme song. Once you get past that, it's a decent series, with a good story, and at least one good villain.
Operation Overdrive: Hoo boy. Zords, Zord combos, and weapons that are useless after 3 episodes, Megazords that can be knocked over if you throw a soda can at them...
Jungle Fury: Started good, but got bad. I stopped watching after the game show episode. I saw the finale later, and it was good.
RPM: Don't believe what the sheep have been telling you: RPM is pure shit. I had to come up with a short version, a medium version, and a long version of how bad it is:
Short version: What can be said about RPM that hasn't already been said about dirty tampons, The Land Before Time XIII, or Batman and Robin? The fact that its fans blindly defend this toxic rip off of Sonic SatAM just makes it all the more infuriating.
Medium version is a song to be sung to the tune of the IGN Modern Warfare 3 Flame War song:
The fact is RPM is just a load of spam,
There's a typo in the title: the "RPM" should be "SatAM".
Unoriginal crap, new year, nothing new here,
They literally didn't come up with one original idea.
What a load of rehash, can we get our time back,
I never want to see this series again.
Borg come to Power Rangers, unoriginality crushes danger.
Kalish is to blame, just a load of the same.
Overrated season is overrated,
Have its fans even watched it?
There is nothing positive to say about this season.
One word: UNORIGINAL.
What a load of rip offs.
Fail season is fail,
This should be run out on a rail.
Worthless PoS, villain's from Star Trek TOS, darkness is a cheap ploy,
The Zords look like F****** TOYS,
The camerawork blows, what a spew,
Schitzo writers and characters too,
FX sucks, acting fucks, don't watch this, it's nothing new.
I'd ban all of its cast and crew from conventions,
It's a toxic pile of sewage,
It's a copy paste of Sonic SatAM.
It's so sad, actually,
The letdown of the new century,
Just another load of Kalish BS.
Wheel Zord rips off Zeo twice,
Vote with your middle finger,
The season finale ripped off GoldenEye twice.
Robot army is a blunder, the theme song is anal thunder,
If you want a good series, watch Dino Thunder.
No Battlelizer, I can see,
The worst ratings in PR history,
This season is actually worse than Turbo.
Radio tower smash, worthless rehash,
I've never seen a worse season in my life.
FX does all the fighting, hasn't improved as of this writing,
Zords suffer in result, this series is an insult.
Dillion and Tenaya 7 ripped off In Space,
How unoriginal and lame,
The writers all failed what a shame.
"Cardboard cut out villains suck,"
Say that to a RPM fan, then duck.
Do not buy, failure of a season die,
Enjoy your McDarkStory, culture should be in purgatory.
Just the same as Sonic SatAM, but much worse,
This season could have crashed the franchise.
The explosion explanation is BS, just a lazy writing fest.
Sturgeon's Law kicks in, we take it on the chin.
To be continued...
Here's the long version, going into full detail about how awful RPM is:
ReplyDeletePeople keep gushing over this, calling it "realistic" and "dark"; these are the only reasons they like it, because "dark" is in vogue right now. Being "dark" doesn't make any work of fiction automatically good, as anyone who's watched RedLetterMedia's review of Star Wars Episode III should know. They also gush about how under appreciated it is, when the lovers of the season outweigh the haters by far. I've managed to watch the intro, the first 2 minutes of episode 3, the Ultrazord finisher, the first use of the Street Saber, the scene where Gen and Gemma are introduced, and 4 minutes of the season finale, and from these and the "Does Power Rangers RPM Suck?" thread on Ranger Board, I've come up with this list. Some of my list is opinion, the rest is undeniable:
1: Excessive violence. It would have been rated PG-13 if it wasn't for…
2: Shitty, shaky camera work for the fight scenes. The camera shakes so much that it's not just impossible to tell what going on half the time: it's almost impossible at times to tell if anything is going on at all. And I thought the shaky camera from the fight scenes in Batman Begins was confusing.
3: Pessimistic, overused plot. Pessimistic (overused plot element) story about a last group of humans (overused plot element) fighting a last battle on earth (overused plot element) against a computer virus (overused plot element) spawning armies of robots (overused plot element) which adapt after every battle (ripoff the Borg, will you!?). Which brings me to:
4: Generic, cardboard cut-out villain that could have come straight from Star Trek TOS. No personality, no frightening presence like Mesogog, just a cardboard cut-out computer virus that wants to conquer the world just for the sake of conquering it. If this hasn't already happened in Star Trek, it could have. RPM also violates the rule "show, don't tell" with regard to Venjix, as we don't see how they got to conquer most of earth or how tough they are. Dino Thunder showed us the frightening awesomeness of Mesogog, gave us some hints of his power before he owned Lothor in "Thunder Storm, Part II", then had him really get powerful after he split from Anton Mercer. Plus the writers gave him an original motivation for wanting to take over the world. I've also heard that RPM's writing is schitzo, and I know for a fact that it's lazy, but we'll get to that.
5: Bad special effects for anything other than the Zord attacks and finishers-we'll get to that soon. This was from watching the radio dish in the season finale.
To be continued...
Continuing...
ReplyDelete6: ZORDS THAT LOOK LIKE F****** TOYS. Blame this on reuse of Super Sentai footage all you want-the marketing ploy is obvious and desperate.
7: The ripoffs. I found 7 ripoffs in what I saw, and found a 8th elsewhere. The entire plot is a copy paste of Sonic SatAM, Venjix is just a reuse of General Venjix from the Red Ranger special "Forever Red", the Dillon/Tenaya 7 story is a ripoff of the Andros/Karone story from In Space, the Ultrazord finisher's firing sequence rips off SPD Blaster Confinement Mode, the zord consoles are obvious reuses of the OO consoles, the Street Saber rips off both In Space and Batman and Robin (rips off In Space's sword vehicle, and the motion of it rips off that scene in Batman and Robin where the title characters surf on the air on those metal plates), the season finale fight on central element of radio dish+said dish falling on and killing Venjix are both direct ripoffs of GoldenEye. And all of this while the driveling fanboys say that Dr. K explaining the explosions behind the Rangers was respectful to continuity. If the morphing energy wants a way out, it will go out through the weakest point in the field. So why are the explosions always behind the Rangers? Because Dr. K's line is the result of lazy writing intended to get the fans off the producer's backs before the series ended. And don't say that if I want to see ripoffs I'll see ripoffs, as that's both affirmation of the consequent and argumentum ad consequentiam fallacies and doesn't change the validity of what I'm saying.
8: Bad Megazord attacks and finishers. The Megazords are far too dependent on flashy CG in their attacks: the end result is that the original MMPR Megazord, which has less mobility than Darth Vader, has more thrilling attacks and finishers.
9: THE THEME SONG. It rapes the ears. Enough said.
10: Gen and Gemma. I've only seen the scene where they're introduced, and I can't stand their exaggerated personalities. Not to mention they look suspiciously like OO's Mercury Ranger. If half of what I've heard about them is true…
11: Offensive content. "Suck on this!" when faced with a vacuum monster (rip off of Wild Force)?! I'll accept such attempts to hide risque content if the effort is Animaniacs caliber, but not this. To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling and the AVGN, "It's not clever and nor is it art, it's offensive!"
In conclusion, RPM is hands down the worst season of Power Rangers ever made.
Yeah, Anonymous, just FYI, I didn't delete your post since people are free to post what they wish...
ReplyDelete...But I didn't read any of it. The only reason I didn't do so is because I don't want spoilers. No matter what you think about the seasons, I will see for myself if I hate or enjoy them, but I want to walk into them with as little foreknowledge and information as I can, so sorry, but I won't be reading what you have to say about the season until I go back and read comments at a later time.
I'm not sure if anyone else has pointed it out yet, but the guy who played Trent also provided the voice for Tommy in the crossover.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the review as usual, but one thing I really have to disagree on is the A-Squad Rangers. While they were an interesting concept, I felt the series woefully underused them.
My biggest problem comes from the fact we never really see how awesome everyone claims them to be. We get one giant monster battle using Sentai footage, and then we don't really hear from them again.
Instead we just get everyone telling us how great they are, but nothing is really done to prove it. It's just "The A-Squad is the best of the best" over and over again.
It was an interesting idea having them be a challenge for the B-Squad to overcome, but that's all they were. We didn't know the A-Squad Rangers, we didn't care about them, so there was no emotional impact for when they were revealed to be evil.
Now I know what they could do with the A-Squad was limited by the Sentai footage. They didn't exist in DekaRanger, so there wasn't any fight scene footage with them to use. Still, it wouldn't have been that hard to work around.
What they could have done was show us some flashbacks of the A-Squad Rangers training the Sky, Syd and Bridge, similar to how the B-Squad was training the D-Squad.
It would have shown the B-Squad had some attachment to the A-Squad, and they could have shown them fighting as civilians to show the A-Squad were more capable and stronger than the B-Squad.
The key word here is show, which is something SPD never did with the A-Squad. They were, in the end, just generic bad guys for the B-Squad to overcome.
Still and enjoyable series despite its problems. It had enough different from DekaRanger to keep me interesting (one of the things I hate in Power Rangers is when its just a carbon copy of the Sentai series).
Thanks Lewis, for letting me post what I wanted to post. I just can't tolerate RPM, and the urge to get my rebuttal to it out of my system was getting really bad. I hope my comments prove useful to you after you've watched the seasons. I didn't get into PR until my mid teens, around 2005-2006. Dino Thunder and SPD are both really good in my view. I prefer Dino Thunder (liked the villains better, and the main cast has a special place in my heart now), but SPD was great too. If this is something of a double post, please let this version be posted only.
ReplyDeleteI hope Linkara understands but I just want to make a reply to the previous anonymous. So... DON'T READ THIS LINKARA, IT CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM RPM!
ReplyDeleteTo Previous Anonymous: Judging from the text in your post, you have not watched all of RPM. I will not be afraid to spoil you if you hate on the show so much as you are most likely not ever going to watch it anyway. I will post my responses to each item you have on your list in order.
1. How does the rating determine a show being bad? It just makes no sense.
2. Shaky camera work is commonly used in Japanese media (especially in anime) and you shouldn't be phased if any of the Japanese crew decide to do this. This though is a small reason to complain.
3. RPM is cliche then? Yes. But can cliche stories be good? Yes. How about your beloved SPD? I see a lot of your ripoffs and overused plot elements in seasons like Time Force and in Space yet they are both good seasons. :P
4. The writing wasn't schizo, Eddie Guzelian who was the writer for RPM got layed off halfway through the season and Judd Lynn had to take over from where he left off. And Venjix is a computer generated virus, why would it have emotions? Emotions aren't exactly needed to establish a character.
5. RPM is not a Hollywood production. Mind you that this was made by Disney who barely advertised and funded this particular season (as it was the final one for them) and could not afford the budget on flashy effects. Like Linkara said in his in Space review; "You don't need great special effects..." or whatever it was that I won't quote word for word.
6. Yes, that was because they were limited by the Sentai footage. And your only partially right about the toy thing. While most of the funding is from toys, the writers at least put some reasoning into the "cutesy zords" that I doubt you have noticed. I can't remember where exactly it shown or hinted but Dr. K had an affinity for cute things and thus designed the zords as such.
7. See #3
8. You cannot blame the show for the effects that it could not afford. It's like saying everybody owns a Wii to a kid who can't afford one.
9. I actually agree with you on this. The first demo theme was pretty cool. :P
10. They were locked in a facility for their entire lives, it's obvious that they are mental. Btw, if you haven't seen the original MMPR, they aren't as goofy as some of the things you find in that.
11. I really don't get it. I get that offensive content is bad. It still does not make a bad show. There will always be people who will be offended with such little to very controversial things. Lots of these have happened in PR over the years like the obvious violence, death of characters like Kendrix or Cole's parents, blood like when Zen-Aku was found to be bleeding by Princess Shayla, burning buildings in several episodes of Lightspeed Rescue or the exploding buildings that you see every now and then in the stock footage from Japan.
For some interesting SPD Behind the Scenes by Producer/Director/Artist Greg Aronowitz Check out - http://barnyardfx.blogspot.com/2009/08/spd-part-1.html
ReplyDeleteFor anyone wondering bout kaizoku sentai gokaiger whos never watched a sentai series. You might actually like this one. The fact that the cast are both aliens and anti heroic pirates gives the writers an excuse to free the cast from Japanese tradition and culture. IMO this makes the gokaigers much more similar to power rangers than probably any other sentai series. Also something about the series gives off a vibe of power rangers in space including the sixth rangers suit and their megazord. While their is no comedic side kicks like bulk and skull gokaiger green has a very similar fighting style too a certain pair. The character development is also executed in completely different way so much so that it would be a complete spoiler if I even elaborated on it. Finally its nice to see the sentai using guns more often than even carter grayson.
ReplyDeleteThese videos are great and I can't wait for you to get to rpm which imo is the best at least as far as the first 16 episodes and then you start to wonder what the heck were they trying to do. However, even its still fun. Its sad you have to go through power rangers harry potter and power rangers indiana jones at least they finally return to martial arts.
Also if they do decided to use gokaiger for power rangers then prepare for tons of lost galaxy and gaoranger footage. Gokaiger could end up being a nightmare for editing. Makes me wonder if thats why samurai rangers is 2 seasons.
Ok, Lewis, I am and will never be a huge PR fan but I do enjoy watching your critiques because I enjoy your POV. I got to say Cruger's lips didn't move very well. Also, why did everybody have punny names like Cat and Dog. E. and so forth? As Lindsay said, nobody likes puns. Also, I thought Mora would have been an interesting and creepy addition but the show completely wastes her. Other than that, not much to say. I am glad that FINALLY diehard fans will get off your back about this for a while.
ReplyDelete"Fandom-wise, Bridge/Sky is the most popular slash pairing...which is strange, since I thought Jack and Sky had more chemistry. Also, Doggie is a Bara icon, and apparently fanart always puts him in the sub position."
ReplyDeleteSentai Doggie, at least; there's very little Ranger Doggie stuff out there, from what I can find, and I'm a huge fan of the character who follows the above "fetish".
As for the explanation for why Sam was a ball of light, that was basically it; the budget was pretty much wasted on the epic finale, and they thought it was more cost-effective to make him a ball of light.
Honestly, I hated SPD, even the theme song; it made me think the Rangers should be killing demons on Mars or something. I hate the reason behind Sam as ball of light, I hate the explanation for the SWAT two-parter (seriously, compare it to how they handled it in the sentai; it's like the difference between going to martial arts class after an assault because you want to protect yourself, and doing so as a punishment because you instigated the assault and blamed someone else for it). And I especially hate Doggie's wife surviving; what is the point of it? I can put aside the illogic of Sirius suffering from Krypton syndrome (ie. the entire populace of a space-faring society dying because their home planet gets blown up) on the logic that as a conquering empire Grumm's forces could've sniped at Sirian colonies along the way, but why in the hell would they leave Doggie's wife alive, and ONLY his wife? Wouldn't it be better to capture and sell a dozen hundred Sirians as slaves? And why didn't Grumm use the fact that he DID have Doggie's wife with him as leverage against Doggie? It would've been better had Doggie been the last of his kind; sure, he would've likely doomed his entire species to extinction with his eventual death, but at least his defeat of Grumm and the Empire would have more gravitas to it. Plus the costume designer for Doggie practically begged the producers to let him make his wife to show off his skills... and she looks like crap.
The question about Doggie's nose in the helmet was brought up in the Sentai, but it was brushed off as Doggie not knowing himself. I know there's a cute little comic out there that explains that his muzzle is actually detachable, but sadly I can't find it online. There is, however, a concept sketch out there that shows a different outfit with helmet designed for a muzzle for Doggie.
I may give the show another looking-at for my own comparison review of it vs. Dekarangers, but I'll likely not enjoy it.
Another fine showing, Linkara.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Evil A-Squad Red Ranger is HAWT. I mean, she would be even if she wasn't evil; but the evil helps.
That is pretty much all I had to say that wasn't already discussed to death.
And after looking through the comments, the HOPR for RPM (and the reaction to it) is going to be veeeeeeery interesting.
ReplyDeleteJust putting this out there before the flame wars go down: you folks do realize that this is all Linkara's opinion, and that it does not reflect badly on you or your tastes. Positive or negative, you can like or hate the show without his say-so.
Just sayin'.
Two things I think you missed mentioning Linkara.
ReplyDeleteOne: While the A Squad had the first female Red Ranger she is not the first Female leader. Way back in season 3 of Power Rangers the Aquitians where led by their white ranger like ours and there white ranger was a woman.
Two: Bridge is the first Jewish ranger. In fact he blantantly says that during the series.
I loved the review though. This is my third favorite series. Space is my second and you haven't gotten to my first yet but once you do I'll talk about that.
Ceno
Hey anonymous, way to be a dick to a season you DIDN'T EVEN FULLY WATCH.
ReplyDeleteWhile Mudkip pretty had very good points, let me add in my two cents (note that this doesn't include any spoilers, so Linkara, if you want, you can read this):
#0. From what you claim to have said, you basically watched maybe 15-20 minutes from the whole season. ....and you can claim that this is the worst season how, by that logic? That's like me watching 3 minutes of Star Trek and calling it 'the worst sequel to Star Wars' or something.
#1. This show has always had violence in small doses. Hell, in Wild Force, we see two people murdered in cold blood with tentacles! And there's no more 'excessive violence' than the rest of the seasons.
#2. The shaking camera is used to cover up when the actors shake while holding poses. It's in pretty much every toku show now to make everything more fluid.
#3. So you pretty much hate almost 50% of sci-fi plots then? By that extension, you must hate Gobusters, the current Sentai series, which has the same type of plot?
#4. Venjix was a very competent and frightening villain, which you would know if you watched the show (huh, that popped up again. I WONDER WHY?). He was very frightening in his simplicity and how he came to be, his motivation is actually told in series, and, since I'm not going into spoilers out of respect to Lewis's rules, he does more than sit in his hideout the whole season. And I never found the writing schizo, as you say. It was solid all the way through.
#5. Since when did having great SFX determine if a series was good? This is still Power Rangers. Great SFX were never a big thing in this franchise. MMPR had the worst out of all of them, but it’s the most fondly remembered for the characters and stories it told.
#6. This is a silly complaint and you really have to know it. Pretty much every single Zord/Mecha in PR and SS has looked like a toy. There is a saying we have for this: "it's just a show, I should really just relax".
#7. Venjix from Forever Red and RPM aren't the same character. The name is the same, but they are completely different. RPM also had to use footage from Go-Onger, which was much more comedic than RPM was, hence all the 'silliness' in the designs. And God forbid there's some meta humor thrown in. Those dirty bastards! Hang them now!
#8. See #3
#9. The intro they used fit the series better. While the demo was good and could've been used as an ending song, I can't imagine it as the opening.
#10. If you just watched their intro to the series and then missed all their character development, then you really can't complain about them then, can you?
#11. Offensive content? Where? Cause one of them said 'Suck on this!' to a monster? I'm pretty sure it's been used in other seasons. Is it the 'violence' you speak of? Cause it's just as violent as the rest of the seasons, only maybe seen in a more tragic light, possibly. I really don't get this complaint at all.
To me, it seems like you basically are hating on this based off of clips that really amount to nothing in the grand scheme of the show and a forum thread, which doesn't make any sense as a reason to condemn this season. If anything, you're basically trying to tell Linkara what to think based off the minority. I think you need to chill out and actually watch the season before you make any more judgments. You'll also note that people respect Linkara's request to not post whole season/ending spoilers, which you did repeatedly, and tell him, in fanboy rage mode no less, how much a season sucks before he can even watch it. I'm not his watchdog, but that's kinda rude.
P.S. I'm sorry for making comments to him Lewis and making you post up another rant to someone else in the comment section. I'm so sorry! > _ <
I'm sorry Linkara! One more thing! DX
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean to sound like a total ass on the 'You should talk about the Sentai' thing. I really didn't. I actually really agree with you (like I said before) that they're two different shows and shouldn't be compared. I love PR way more anyways. XD
It was meant more in a 'keep the rabid SS fans off your back cause their bitching is annoying too' kinda way. I love HOPR and I can't wait for the next one! :)
Incoming rant:
ReplyDeleteLinkara I love your videos and I apologise in advance if I come off as a jerk (i'm not very good at criticism) but that rant on the "Kalishplosions" was one of the most unnecessarily angry rants I've ever heard.
I understood and agree with what you were trying to say; over-use of poorly done and poorly presented special effects over martial arts fight scenes, but the way you conveyed that message with such forced anger and passion that went on for 3-4 minutes too long for something that could've been summed up in under a minute annoyed me somewhat and it makes you look like someone who gets angry (at Nic Cage levels) at the pointless things.
Don't get me wrong, I love it when you get angry and passionate in your reviews but save that passionate anger for things that justify it like morally repugnant characters, character derailments, pointless deaths, gigantic plot holes, exploitation and continuity errors not for mediocre special effects.
P.S. That bit about why characters get flung into the air by explosions behind them..yeeah unfortunately that's been a cliche in Tokusastu superhero shows since the original Kamen Rider back in 1971 so there's no way I can defend that part. Then again it could be worse, the characters could've gotten killed by explosions that happened half a mile away from them like in Final Fantasy 13.
LOL there you go saying those carter grayson jokes again XD i love those jokes :D
ReplyDeleteplatinum, I have only this to say: Thank you so much for putting that anonymous guy in his place. Seriously, when a guy admits that he's barely seen something and then goes on to rant about how much that thing sucks, his argument is immediately invalidated by his own admission of barely having seen it. I've actually had to be a mediator of sorts on various other websites, and it's NOT fun. I was actually going to say something to this guy myself, but you said everything I was going to say.
ReplyDelete...Also, the episode where Scott says "Suck on this!" had Gem and Gemma in it. Yeah, I think you're right when you suggested that this guy had only seen random clips.
...Huh, kind of funny how I said "I only have this to say" and then proceeded to type several paragraphs.
Oh, one more thing: I, for one, never really noticed any particular differences in styles when RPM switched producers from Eddie Guzelian (whose last name I can never remember how to spell or pronounce) to Judd Lynn. Are there any particularly notable differences? It doesn't help that Judd was credited as executive producer alongside Eddie in some early episodes.
ReplyDeleteHey, I've been watching your reviews and found the History of Power Rangers just a few months ago. I am so glad you are still continuing it and I patiently look forward to your review/analysis of Mystic Force.
ReplyDeleteThank You for the laughs.
I love this series. one of my biggest regrets as a kid was stopping watching power rangers after they got rid of the main power rangers i knew and loved (turbo). I did get back into it when it came back to toon disney (or is it XD?). Sadly I really cant find the time to go back and watch the series that I missed and without this series I Probbably would have forgotten about them all together. thanks again.
ReplyDeleteBTW Lewis, if you have any passing interest in Sentai, take a look at Hikounin Sentai Akibaranger, or Unnofical Sentai Akibaranger, which is basically a big parody/tribute to Sentai and its fans
ReplyDeleteIt was a thrill to see a new installment of HOPR get posted! I really enjoy these the most out of all the videos you do for how informative and detailed they are. It's great how you really stay focused on the subject of the show, making it a very different project compared to the comic reviews. As someone who can't stand to watch the Power Ranger shows but finds the designs behind the franchise interesting, these videos are a real treat. Looking forward to more!
ReplyDeleteThe only dissapointment I kinda had was you didn't mention that Z was possibly related to a previous ranger.
ReplyDeleteZ's last name was Delgato.
And in Wild Force, we had Danny Delgato.
Yeah it could have just been a coincidence, but still.
" BTW Lewis, if you have any passing interest in Sentai, take a look at Hikounin Sentai Akibaranger, or Unnofical Sentai Akibaranger, which is basically a big parody/tribute to Sentai and its fans"
ReplyDelete...I'm pretty sure that Lewis has made it clear that he doesn't have any interest in the Sentai.
power rangers is getting it's first graphic novel since 1997! its coming out June 27th and its apparently the first volume of more.
ReplyDeletehttp://morphinlegacy.com/2012/05/new-super-samurai-graphic-novels.html
fun fact: this season is currently being dubbed and aired in japan with the dekaranger actors voice acting the power rangers. how meta.
ReplyDeleteIs it just me of does Grumm sound like Batman? (Batman Begins did come out at around the same time as this season) And didn't Kat's Orange ranger uniform look like one of the rebel pilot uniforms from the original Star Wars trilogy with a different helmet?
ReplyDelete"..I'm pretty sure that Lewis has made it clear that he doesn't have any interest in the Sentai."
ReplyDeleteActually i dissagree because its a perfect parody of even the american power rangers since the tropes of power rangers are essentially also sentai tropes, not that i know if jesuotkau has any interest in sentai but i think a cross over review with Linkara and Jesuotaku would be the perfect way to attack this, with JO dissecting the japanese and akiba aspects of the series and linkara talking about an aproach as an american power rnagers fan. i know you say you read every comment so please give it some consideration, i think it could be a real fun review. but i think it should at least be given time to finish.
Let me begin by saying I really enjoyed your "season in an hour" review of SPD because, honestly, I never watched a single minute of it. Having said that, I am now tempted to go back and do just that because it seems like it was fairly decent season, even by Disney standards. Also, based on the rants about future seasons, it might very well be the best one of them all.
ReplyDeleteI won't rehash some of the points made because I do agree with most of them, but I will say one thing with regards to A-Squad. I think they were actually used very well. Although, (and feel free to correct me if my lack of knowledge causes me to state that which is false) it might have been nice to have something, even one scene devoted to the moments leading up to their defection. From what I heard, there was no real reason given for it, other than something about they wanted to be on the winning side? Were they all suffering from low self-esteem? They were the best SPD had to offer and they weren't up to the task? Or was this a colossal failure of leadership? I don't mean just because the leader happened to be a female, either! The crossover(s) with Dino Thunder did not live up to hype... and I think it was a lot to do with not asking JDF to return for it. As one of the most popular Rangers, if not the most, of all time, his presence (in non-morphed form) might have brought in some of the "Tommy fans" and maybe carried the momentum a little longer. Anyway, loved it, can't wait for Mystic Force (despite having what I consider the lamest morph call in history) and until then... "Help control the Megazord population... have your Zord spayed or neutered."
*prepares to dodge thrown vegetables for that one*
When can we expect to see or mystic force and in forever red I can't view from my phone
ReplyDeleteWell, here I am again, the guy who dared to post a 3 comment long criticism of some people's darling PR series, RPM. Linkara, spoiler alert.
ReplyDeleteMy rebuttals to the rebuttals:
#0: Star Trek TOS came before Star Wars. If it's Star Trek TMP, the plots of TMP and Star Wars aren't even remotely similar. (I'm a Trekkie, I should know)
#1: Before I get to point 1, let me point out that I made clear just how much of RPM I had seen. Thus other people's claims that "judging by my text" with the implication that they read this from elsewhere in my text speaks volumes about the straw men they're willing to commit. Anyway: the rating. It would have been rated that, and quite frankly it's a lot more violent than any other PR season (Tenaya 7's kick to the head on that one episode at that formal dinner with that diamond necklace is but one example). It really doesn't fit in with any other season in this regard, in this case to its detriment.
#2: I don't have too much of a problem with shaking cameras most of the time. But RPM took this way too far. As I said previously, it gets to the point where it's physically impossible to tell if anything's going on, let alone what's going on. Watch the season finale if you don't believe me.
#3: I don't watch Sentai. And I'm sick of all the endlessly done McDarkStorys. RPM is just one more McDarkStory intended to cash in on the phenomenon. If what I heard about RPM having the lowest TV ratings in PR history is true, it failed miserably. Cliched stories can be good, but RPM isn't one of them. Quit confusing originality for quality (and RPM doesn't do well in the former department either).
#4: I said I had heard that it was schitzo, I didn't say it was. I'll take Mesogog's original motivation and his epic "Only if you think sucking the life out of a miserable human being is gruesome" or Grumm's epic rants, more intelligent and three dimensional personality, his tougher goal of galactic conquest, and willingness to blow up planets over a cardboard cut out villain whose motivation is old as dirt, whose origins have been overdone endlessly, whose intelligence I presume is less than what you're telling me, and who's only gotten where it is because of author fiat. (And it's surprising that Mesogog got anywhere as fast as he did because he had to moonlight as Mercer for much of the time) Speaking of Grumm, "Shadow" did a lot to show how much of a capable conqueror he was. That Venjix apparently didn't get this further shows up his cardboard cut out status.
#5: That's no excuse. Even by PR standards, the FX weren't the best. Also, MMPR is the second most overrated season in PR history, though this impression of mine came from watching Linkara's reviews for Seasons 1-3, and one of the remastered episodes (it involved pollution, I can't remember its name). There were times when it got unforgivably stupid. And the main cast. I'll take Dino Thunder's main cast of stereotyped but well played characters or SPD's more original and almost as well played characters over MMPR's Mary Sues/Gary Stus who have 48 hours in the day. (Tommy excepted for his faking out and clobbering Goldar.)
#6: Doesn't excuse the sheer obviousness of it. Then again, I could the same claim about many other shows.
To be continued...
Continued...
ReplyDelete#7: So what if they aren't the same character? That's not the point. Coming up with a new villain's name shouldn't be so hard for the writers that they drag up some C-list villain name. If a TV show rips off elements of other shows, and I see that it has actually done them better, I will be the first to applaud. I haven't seen that yet from RPM, and doubt I ever will. I haven't watched much PR prior to Wild Force, so I wouldn't know if there were rip offs of IS or TF. Way to score some imaginary points. I notice that no one criticized my pointing out of other rip offs, moving on...
#8: Way to miss my point. The FX for the RPM Zords, from what I've seen, did all the fighting and cluttered up the frame, instead of the Zords in their various formations having to physically do much. The trend started during Overdrive, and really caused the Zord formations to lose a lot of quality from their attacks and finishers. Samurai's done a little better here, but not much. To paraphrase Harry Plinkett, "Doesn't Kalish realize that cluttering up the frame with more shit doesn't make PR better?" In short, MMPR's Zord formations are more exciting to watch than the FX-fighting that came after Mystic Force, while the best Zord formations IMO are the ones that have enough physical action with simple but good FX. Of course, my gold standard is the Dino Drill, with one simple but moving background and some effects on the Zord formation itself.
#9: As much as I don't entirely like the demo version's singing, it is infinitely better than what was used.
#10: Blame the writers for that.
#11: See my original #11, as apparently no one could read past the first two sentences. If Gen and Gemma were actually there, it just makes it worse if you think about it, as they could have gotten worse if they had seen anything risque in that (and could have seen, these are androids, you would think they would be aware of alternative interpretations) and commented. For once, I'm glad for lazy writing.
In multiple cases, the RPM fans got defensive and ignored or missed the point of what I was saying, and instead went of on unrelated subjects in an effort to look like they were winning. Not to mention their straw men. The fact that I have not seen the entirety of RPM does not invalidate my criticisms, as ones like the villain, the Zord FX overuse, and the rip offs affect the season as a whole. Ignoring this fact while calling me a dick just makes you people look like tools to anyone who isn't a driveling fanboy. Power Rangers went downhill in a hurry with Overdrive. RPM didn't end the plunge, it nosed over further and firewalled the throttles. Even worse, it generated a legion of defensive fans who won't look at it objectively. In short, "YOU IGNORED THE POINTS! You instead went off on unrelated topics to make yourself look like you were winning, so you FAILED! YOU LOSE! GOOD DAY SIR!" I didn't post my comments to troll: given the lack of replies, it wouldn't have been a good effort. I was just sick of people not recognizing RPM's serious flaws, and worse endorsing it to others who didn't try to know better.
Kruger scares me so much, and I'm not quite sure why. I suspect it's the eyes.
ReplyDeleteAnother great HOPR. I wish you had mentioned the episode where the rangers became too dependent on the Shadow Ranger. I know it's not a major episode or anything but it's one of those things that stood out in my mind after not seeing/watching SPD in so many years. Sorry the explosions bugged you so much. I notice the same things about them that you do but I don't really mind it so much.
ReplyDeleteWhy do people insist on comparing Power Rangers (an American show) to Sentai (a Japanese show)? It's supposed to be loosely based off the Japanese show. It's not supposed to be an exact replica. I get so tired of reading reviews about how "Oh, I hate how you don't talk about the Sentai" or how much cooler the Sentai is from the American version. Sentai has been done since the 70s. Ours has only been done since the early 90s. It's not fair to compare something with more history to our version. Zyuuranger is nothing like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers because it was made for a different audience. Our audience was not accustomed to shows like this so it had to be introduced differently. I don't understand why it's so hard for people to grasp that concept. It's like comparing Japanese versions of anime to the English dub. Yes, some English dubbed versions suck, but the English dub is meant for a western audience with entirely different cultures and concepts. Saying all English dubs suck is ludicrous. Most of the English dubs now days are right on par with the Japanese versions. I think some people need to get over themselves. This is a show meant for young children from the ages of 7 to around 10. It's not going to be some great Oscar winning performance. And about the explosions, while we don't like them, most kids really don't care. As far as a super hero show is concerned, it does really well. Is it the best? No... Is it good, yes.
ReplyDeletefirst: love your videos, they bring me back :)
ReplyDeleteBut has anyone else realized that while they have civilian powers, they never use them while morphed, such as multiplyin to help with the whole outnumbered thing or walking through walls to confuse enemies or using force fields so they arent hit by laser blasts,
just my opinion though
Nice review as always sir . . .
ReplyDeleteBridge just cracks me up because of his flakiness (as noted by other reviewers).
Ahh . . the Bruce Kalish era, (in)famous for it's explosions.
Good luck for whenever you review Mystic Force & Operation Overdrive, as a lot of people rank those as the worst PR series . . .
FINALLY. It's been a long long wait for this one but I'm happy it arrived.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to the next one but please don't make us wait up to 3/4 of a year for it. Painful wait is painful.
A friend of mine just linked your analyses to me, and I've enjoyed your breakdowns and opinions, as well as the fan theories. You've reached the seasons of Power Rangers that I have no familiarity with, but I may just need to add SPD to my video queue. Thanks for all the work.
ReplyDeleteCool!
ReplyDeletethe next one is mistic force right i love atop the 4th wall
ReplyDeleteyou know that jungle force is on nicktoons network
ReplyDeleteI find it kinda funny you always get on Image comics for there delays on releasing comics and then you yourself take forever releasing these videos and bitch at people for pointing it out
ReplyDelete"I find it kinda funny you always get on Image comics for there delays on releasing comics and then you yourself take forever releasing these videos and bitch at people for pointing it out"
ReplyDeleteI'm not a professional comics company attempting to follow industry standards for releases. I'm doing a side-project about a children's television series.
Oh, and if you really want to get on my back about releasing things regularly...
4 years of Atop the Fourth Wall. Released every week with only ONCE did I miss the date, and as an apology for missing it I released a double feature the following week.
Hey Linkara, Loving the series and loving this episode. You made me think about the show in a new light, I know its a ways off but I can't wait to hear your opinion on Jungle Fury which, in my opinion, is the only decent series from Mystic force - RPM, I especially can't wait for your opinion on the morphers but I won't spoil :P Something about SPD which you may be aware of is that they never explain the snout thing in the Sentai, he's just expected to have his snout pushed against his helmet similar to the american show. Can't wait for Mystic Force, should be a great episode.
ReplyDeleteQuick question, if they ever remade MMPR would you watch it?? with new actors and stuff
hope you reply to this but I know you're a busy man :)
wait, linkara how do you know about shinkenger? super samurai wasnt finished yet, and I thought you didnt like sentai! has the universe collapsed on to itself?
ReplyDeleteso are you gonna answer back? I really wanna know how you know about karou!
ReplyDelete"so are you gonna answer back? I really wanna know how you know about karou!"
ReplyDeleteI never said I DISLIKED sentai, I just don't CARE about it. I hear enough about it on Rangerboard or about 500 people messaging me with info or clips about it that I pick up a few things here or there.
oh well okay then.....
ReplyDeletecatch you later for mystic force. eventually..........
well glad to know anyway!
ReplyDeleteI love HOPR, but the wait to see you do an overview of the mediocre mystic force so I can wait for you to review the even worse operation over drive so I can finally wait for you to finally get to the last two interesting seasons to air is killing me. I'm not demanding anything, just want you to know your killing me, slowly and painfully as if your taking a sick sick pleasure from my daily page visits to my HOPR bookmark ;(
ReplyDeleteTheres a tine flaw becayse if the omega ranger waa sent back to stop devaatation morgana and shorty wouldnt the omega ranger cease to exist after they r defeated?
ReplyDeleteOk I did my best to read every comment and I can 95% sure no one brought this up, but there is a reason that the Dino rangers and SPD rangers have there memory wiped out during the crossover. This is because One of rules of time travel laid out in Time Force that anyone that time travels is that they have to get there memory when they get back(or before they even leave)^-^.
ReplyDeleteI just rewatched this Session of HOPR. I still find it very interesting, but I am more than ready for the Mystic Force one to come out, cause it definitely had it's ups and downs. Including the Darth Vader of the Power Rangers Universe.
ReplyDeleteI've been rewatching HOPR and enjoying them all immensely. Each time I do I pick up something I missed the previous time or work out a connection you made between seasons be they intentional or accidental. As with all your work, you are doing a great job. Analyzing this much content while still bringing out a weekly show is amazing and no matter how long it take the end result is always worth watching.
ReplyDeleteOne quick thing you may not have thought about with the time scale here. As you said the year is very rarely said in power rangers which means while we can assume it is set in present times it can be much for different in universe. While there is a somewhat stated year here and I do see the merits of your extended year theory how about a combined/universal calender theory?
In SPD you are dealing with a society that has integrated space travel and aliens into itself. With the many other species and planets now available to be travelled to would using the calender system of a single planet really work? What I think happened after SPD was formed along with what ever interplanetary governing bodies there are they decided to make a single amalgamated calender system to be used. You know kinda like the star date system but easier to understand. So while they may say the year is 2025 that may be the year in the new calender that incorporates parts from calenders of other species. Instead of starting the calender at year 0 though they made it out as an average of all the species that are in SPD so they averaged out a number close to what year it may be on earth but give or take some years.
It is by no means a perfect theory but it is another possibility to use as to why certain things seem to work differently in Power Rangers.
Anyways thanks again for the awesome work I can not wait to see what you think about Mystic Force and also keep up the great work with the rest of your shows and endeavours (like the plush cybermats)
so it looks like rob liefeld designed the new super sentai outfits http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1eVzfjf-gg
ReplyDeletei loved all of the HOPR abd ive seen everyone of them believe it or not i just became a fan of yours resently id say maybe a year ago i saw my first HOPR video i think it was the wild force video and i started watching them all but i avoided your comic reviews at fist util i started watching them ive seen all of your reviews all your videos and everything else so thanks for making all of your videos
ReplyDeletenot trying to make you mad or rush you but do you know when your next one is going to come out
ReplyDeleteI like this series and have been watching it for a while. while i am an advocate of waiting to get a good product out... can we at least get an indication of how long it will take.. like i said, i am ok waiting for a good product, i would just like to know a time frame
ReplyDeletehey linkara, random question. If you were forced to watch a sentai season, which one would you watch (like the season that based in space or something like that)?
ReplyDeletea new challenger has appeared http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYjtsxL1ObI
ReplyDeleteFor the record, those orange Krybots were named... ahem... "Orangeheads". Yeah, quite original.
ReplyDeleteI actually still like them, it's a guilty pleasure but still like them, mostly just the earlier seasons cos they focus more on the marital arts and not the special effects and explosions.
ReplyDeleteAlso it's quite evident that the people at fripen Disney don't know the first thing about Martial arts. Not only because f there lack of marital arts but because of the the fact that they think a person doing a Kai up is swearing.
Anybody who has ever taken any form of marital arts does this, and that includes all five of the original cast. Not just Tommy. Also there is a reason for the Kai, pronounced key by the way.
Anyway enough on that, while I do Strongly dislike Disney now, it has less to do with power rangers and more to do with the shovel load of crap they produce now. Still I thought I'd point out why there making Tommy stop doing the Kai up was stupid.
Anyway, ending on a good note. I can't wait for the next part and yet I'm gonna have to because these are awesome and you can't rush awesome
Soooo in 2015, we'll have neither alien buddies NOR flying skateboards?!
ReplyDelete2015's looking like a bigger and bigger letdown...
Re watch the episode idol. Dustin and Blake from ninja storm are in it. Its in the same way when masked rider was seen in time force. Its just cool that they did that.
ReplyDeleteAlso, seance Wes will be in the legend war, that shows that he is not Sky's father. If you look up officer Tate on ranger wiki, it says his home was earth from 2009 to 2011. Meaning that well Sky's dad is an alien, and he is at most half human.
From what I seen seance Saban has gotten back power rangers, they handled samurai better then mega force.