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Post by tatsuranger on Dec 4, 2022 19:31:40 GMT -5
Let's take a break from the events surrounding the tragic passing of Jason David Frank for awhile and go back to talking about the future of this franchise.
Youtuber MintBari did a interesting video essay about the lack of quality for Power Rangers in the past decade. He argues the over-reliance on Mighty Morphin is what's holding the franchise back.
I agree wholeheartedly with this video essay. What do you think?
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Post by rileyxy1 on Dec 7, 2022 17:36:17 GMT -5
This is true. Nearly every season since Saban got the franchise back from Disney features a returning character from MMPR. Samurai brought back Bulk and Skull, Megaforce brought Tommy back, Ninja Steel brought back Tommy, Rocky, and Kat, Beast Morphers brought back Jason (while also featuring the other four core MMPR rangers, but they don't appear unmorphed) and Goldar, and Dino Fury brought back Lord Zedd, who is also set to be the main antagonist of the upcoming Dino Fury series. Only Dino Charge does not feature any characters from MMPR in it. Also, the themes for Samurai and Megaforce are just boring rehashes of the MMPR theme and most of the Megaforce main cast are just blander versions of the MMPR main cast.
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Post by crossranger on Dec 8, 2022 13:57:14 GMT -5
VERY TRUE.
It's the thing I been saying for months. Making a MMPR reboot (another) or keep focusing in dinosaurs as motif, or "teenage with attitudes", just keep dragging the show down.
Remember when the Power Ranger were (young) adults, and had works outside the "heroes" duty? Not just high school, playing videogames, or just doing something related to the plot of the episode.
I'm in disbelief how Donbrothers can juggle a married guy and a fugitive of the law stories with villian-of-the-week plot and personal conflicts between Don Momotaro and Sonoi....
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Post by tatsuranger on Dec 12, 2022 0:30:56 GMT -5
Also another thing I agree with MintBari was this quote from the video.
"Power Rangers fans have turned their expectations so low that they'll accept anything."
Never has this been true as the current format with the franchise. In terms of quality, it's the lowest I've ever seen.
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Post by mbozzo on Apr 20, 2023 20:50:35 GMT -5
I have just seen Mighty Morphing Power Rangers: Always And Forever. It's good to see some old friends from the original series.  |
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Post by Venusaur on Apr 22, 2023 11:47:12 GMT -5
And yeah I disagree. MMPR nostalgia isn't why the last decade has had a an obsession with fart jokes, a refusal for serialization, bad ADR, and bizarrre stipulations like "no evil Rangers" "ninja Rangers can't act like Ninjas"
MMPR nostalgia is a handy scapegoat for people who idealized the original Judd Lynn era or the Disney era but it's really not the problem with Samurai (4kids dub of Shinkenger thanks to Tzachor and Haim Saban having very different ideas of what the series should be), Megaforce (skewed priorities from Tzachor, low opinions on kids intelligence, disregard for franchise history), Dino Charge (a weak second season because of execs coming down on the first season being too serialized and not immature enough), or Ninja Steel (more of the same issues that plagued Dino Charge s2)
The Judd Lynn era worked because Haim Saban and Shuki Levy had taken a back seat to the franchise and Judd Lynn was much better at working around Tzachor's Sentai fanboyism than later story editors. The Disney era "worked" (not really a fan but whatever) because Disney pretty much let the showrunners do whatever with their biggest interference being stricter BS&P restrictions than the Saban years and a reduced budget.
TL:DR micromanagement has been the problem that and most of y'all were kids during the Disney years but adults during the Saban Brands/Hasbro years
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Post by crossranger on Apr 24, 2023 18:57:27 GMT -5
Yes but no. I think the problems with Ninja Steel, Samurai or Megaforce's "micromanagement" are the problems involving nostalgia....or believing what made succesful at the first time Power Rangers can be replicated again without too much thinking.
"Teenagers with attitude" for Megaforce, Samurai with Bulk and Skull (not involving really the main characters or plot in any meaningful way), Ninja Steel with teenagers in high school again....
Haim Saban probably believed the audience wanted the same cheesy dialogue of the '90s, with cringey plots, or fart jokes....but that's is a bad reading of how Power Rangers worked.
The show grew up.
I dunno about people idolizing too much Judd Lynn's old era or Disney's era. But Turbo (at least the second half), In Space and Dino Thunder, I watched some of the old episodes, and they hold better than some of the new ones IMHO. (Some of them not).
Still, I'm surprised how much people get defensive about Beast Morpher S2, how they loved so much that season, which I believed is is stalled and full of nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia and Dino Fury's defenders about the Morphing Masters being the best idea ever. It made my head hurts. But anybody has its opinion.
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Post by Venusaur on Apr 25, 2023 9:32:31 GMT -5
Yes but no. I think the problems with Ninja Steel, Samurai or Megaforce's "micromanagement" are the problems involving nostalgia....or believing what made succesful at the first time Power Rangers can be replicated again without too much thinking. "Teenagers with attitude" for Megaforce, Samurai with Bulk and Skull (not involving really the main characters or plot in any meaningful way), Ninja Steel with teenagers in high school again.... Here's the thing, none of those things you mentioned were the actual issues with those respective seasons. At least not enough to destroy them alone. Bulk and Spike being around but also mostly divorced from the Samurai Rangers wasn't why Samurai was bad. Samurai was bad because it wanted to be so close to Shinkenger only with worse actors and also Saban's desire for the show to be preachy clashed with Tzachor's desire for American Shinkenger. You can't have Jayden talk about teamwork and then act like Takeru. The big problem with Megaforce was they WEREN'T teenagers with attitude or even "goody goods" they were action figures. Megaforce probably would have been better if it actually was Mighty Morphin 2013 but it wasn't. Tzachor nixed every idea to have the Rangers high school lives actually matter and we were lucky to see the Rangers unmorphed for more than 2 minutes. And again Ninja Steel being set in high school wasn't the problem (but at least there was more of an effort to make their high school lived relevant) it was the forced humor and imposing no serialization and requiring moral lessons every episode. Mighty Morphin may have had cheesy dialog but the action scenes weren't non stop quips like Samurai onward. There was almost no fart jokes in Mighty Morphin (just like one) and Mighty Morphin had no qualms with serialization from season 2 onwards or evil Rangers. These problems with the modern era weren't really a thing in Mighty Morphin. |
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Post by crossranger on Apr 25, 2023 16:55:33 GMT -5
Bulk and Spike. I stand corrected. The thing is the "divorce" between those two characters and the rest of the Samurai cast didn't add nothing else to the plot. It doesn't add anything, besides some jokes, but that's like padding time or to fill something, that could be used to add more characterization to the cast. Which is needed. Samurai s2 got better, not just to being actually good, but, it improved......
I get what you said: the translation of the plots and characterization of Shinkenger, against the desire of Saban being just a childish afterschool special made the series almost unwatchable. But that's what I sid about "nostalgia" and misreading about the MMPR success: Saban probably wanted the same"energy" as the original MMPR, but it clashed with the idea of how Shinkenger was being adapted. Takeru is an a-hole, but he has good reasons to being that, which is not translated in Samurai. They didn't have the writing to make the character act like that, which it lead to Jayden to being an almost psychotic behaviour against his teammates. No, it has to be, at least in some dialogue, a positive leader, with good phrases, and bad puns. Not a Samurai lord, who basically order his peasants how to fight, and is emotionally detached of the rest of the group. Because that requires effort. And gosh, imagine a character who acts stoic and being blunt or a-holey with the rest of his team. Children can't have that.
School lives don't matter a lot. In space made the Rangers graduates....off screen. The problem of making "high schoolers" again is basically people saying "what about their homework" or "it's not reallistic to being a superhero and not having falling grades". The Megaforce Rangers have an interesting lack of dynamic. Like Troy was the new kid, but they treated like a friend two episodes later. Why to write them like that? Skip the school BS, and move to, I dunno, an episode of being trying to figure it out about the visions, or having an episode about trusting Troy as a leader, and if another one can be, like Gia. Conflict.
I think I'm referring in replicating the same "energy" not just "MMPR had fart jokes". I just think Saban just imagine MMPR for being just for toddlers, but the writers of that era created, with cringe dialogue and simplicity, interesting characters. The evil Rangers, Zedd's Rangers, were, almost non-existant. Just some Putty patrol costumes and the characterization were generic. Serialization was great thanks to the Green Ranger losing power, but when the Jason, Zach and Trini departed, and Tommy got the White Rangers powers, and the show became the Tommy show (feat. other Rangers), the series was mediocre.
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Post by Venusaur on Apr 26, 2023 8:47:28 GMT -5
School lives don't matter a lot. In space made the Rangers graduates....off screen. The difference between Megaforce and In Space though is In Space had a valid reason to to downplay the high school aspect, the focus was on searching for Zordon. In a lot of ways the In Space-Wild Force era was a precursor to Samurai and Megaforce. Tzachor really has no interest in the Rangers having lives outside of being Rangers. It worked for In Space because they had a mission it also helped that the Turbo Rangers got their characters fleshed out in Turbo and Andros had his storyline with Karone. Similarly, being a Ranger was the Lightspeed, Time Force and Samurai Rangers job (well duty in the case of Samurai). But the Megaforce Rangers aren't a military. You can't force their lives to revolve around being Rangers so they ended up feeling empty. [Quote[ The problem of making "high schoolers" again is basically people saying "what about their homework" or "it's not reallistic to being a superhero and not having falling grades"[/quote] But that's not really a problem. Nobody sane is expecting realism from Power Rangers. Again, the problem is being high schoolers does not matter in Megaforce. In Mighty Morphin-Turbo, Dino Thunder, and even Ninja Steel being high schoolers is relevant to their lives. . The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers also have no real conflict (which Megaforce is allegedly trying to copy) the lack of conflict isn't necessarily Megaforce's problem. James Bates had plenty ideas to flesh out the Megaforce Rangers lives more like making Emma a protestor or having Jake try to capitalize from being a Ranger and they got shot down by Tzachor who didn't care about the Rangers having lives. My point was these rules put in place for the Saban Brands era didn't exist in Mighty Morphin. Yes, the Dark Rangers were lame but it was still clear there was no silly rule against evil Rangers. But you're right (if I'm understanding you correctly) from Samurai onwards there was definitely a push to make Power Rangers pre-school again, something that was largely abandoned after Mighty Morphin in favor of a more 6-11 demographic |
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Post by Venusaur on Apr 26, 2023 8:48:09 GMT -5
School lives don't matter a lot. In space made the Rangers graduates....off screen. The difference between Megaforce and In Space though is In Space had a valid reason to to downplay the high school aspect, the focus was on searching for Zordon. In a lot of ways the In Space-Wild Force era was a precursor to Samurai and Megaforce. Tzachor really has no interest in the Rangers having lives outside of being Rangers. It worked for In Space because they had a mission it also helped that the Turbo Rangers got their characters fleshed out in Turbo and Andros had his storyline with Karone. Similarly, being a Ranger was the Lightspeed, Time Force and Samurai Rangers job (well duty in the case of Samurai). But the Megaforce Rangers aren't a military. You can't force their lives to revolve around being Rangers so they ended up feeling empty. But that's not really a problem. Nobody sane is expecting realism from Power Rangers. Again, the problem is being high schoolers does not matter in Megaforce. In Mighty Morphin-Turbo, Dino Thunder, and even Ninja Steel being high schoolers is relevant to their lives. . The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers also have no real conflict (which Megaforce is allegedly trying to copy) the lack of conflict isn't necessarily Megaforce's problem. James Bates had plenty ideas to flesh out the Megaforce Rangers lives more like making Emma a protestor or having Jake try to capitalize from being a Ranger and they got shot down by Tzachor who didn't care about the Rangers having lives. My point was these rules put in place for the Saban Brands era didn't exist in Mighty Morphin. Yes, the Dark Rangers were lame but it was still clear there was no silly rule against evil Rangers. But you're right (if I'm understanding you correctly) from Samurai onwards there was definitely a push to make Power Rangers pre-school again, something that was largely abandoned after Mighty Morphin in favor of a more 6-11 demographic |
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Post by crossranger on Apr 26, 2023 12:38:17 GMT -5
But that's what I was talking about. you can downplay the school aspect. In Space doesn't have to revolve about school life, like in Megaforce they should involve more about Troy's visions, or creating a better dynamic (or tension, besides Jake trying to get a date with Gia). It's not an obligation to have the rangers being high schoolers and being five minutes about plots about school projects, or if they are falling in school subjects, even if there is Zordon's kinda plot or not. Megaforce to Ninja Steel commit the same mistakes: the Rangers wait to the monster to attack while doing their regular lifes. Rinse and repeat. It's something boring after a time, instead of doing something proactive. The search of Zordon is something the Rangers has to do and it's way more interesting than "plot about school life". I like Dino Fury when they has to look for Zayto's planet and people.
I remember an episode of Ninja Steel where it's basically Parent's Trap but with Power Rangers. Ninja Steel has intresting ideas, but some of them executed badly.
The problem of Megaforce, and you said it too, it's not the Rangers not being "involved" with school life, but with "action!" and not having the time to create those bonds between the Rangers. And I don't denying Bates has ideas, and Tzachor shooting down those ideas.
The original MMPR had conflicts, little, and somewhat cheesy, but it had conflicts. I remember Tommy and Jason competing during a preparation for a martial arts tournament. Even later during being Rangers searching for Titanus. Or Zack feeling down because nobody remember his birthday, and therefore, he wasnted to take down the Nasty Knight alone. It's kinda silly, but it worked.
I dunno, if there is a "rule" for making Evil Rangers or not. I think it's something involving creativity. I dunno how they didn't use the Deathryuger suit in Dino Charge, if you can do some new footage. Because they can do new footage. Heck, in SPD they used old suits of In Space repainted to make the A-Squad. I dunno the restrictions, but it's a matter more of being creative with the budget.
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