It Lives(?)

Boy, it's been a while.

My last post over here was nearly a year ago... Ah, well. I'm going to try to keep it alive this time. Honest.

So there are several subjects I feel the need to address that have happened in the past year, which I obviously haven't talked about.

MMPR 2010

I did talk about this a bit... let's all pretend that it never happened, okay? It was the worst rehashing of an old show I've ever seen, and I watch Transformers and He-Man. I've had some experience here.

(A lot of the "re-version" nonsense was tolerable, but when they started scribbling all over the Green Ranger saga's "To Be Continued" bits, it completely ruined it. It takes a lot to make me say that.)

Goseiger (Super Sentai 2010)

Goseiger wasn't too bad. I think its greatest strength came from its huge and fractious villain cast. I also adored Gosei Blue and Gosei Yellow, and Gosei Black was extremely tolerable. (Forget those "Skyick" dweebs, though.) Gosei Knight was essentially Batman as a giant robot's transforming head, which was pretty cool too. While Warstar wasn't that interesting a faction except for their visual aspect (they were essentially like Toho monsters done up as sentai enemies), Makuin was creepy in a usually good way, "his" relationship with Kinggon was the kind of tight partnership that is refreshing after all the backstabbing you see elsewhere, and that "Matlintis" bunch was exactly what mechanized enemies should have been. "Bladerun's" final appearances were essentially a particularly satisfying icing on the cake.

I'm reasonably hopeful that it has the potential to make a good Power Rangers season.

Saban Reclaiming Power Rangers...

Oh, gosh. I don't even know what I want to say about this.

On the one hand, Disney had clearly had enough of working with the franchise. They wanted an out, and Saban gave them one.

On the other hand, they'd finally gotten a handle on the franchise with RPM, turning a nonsensical comedy sentai into a serious business yet still fun series which was (I'll admit I'm biased) the best Power Rangers ever. That's not knocking other Power Rangers series; if I thought they were all bad, I wouldn't watch Power Rangers. I'm just saying that RPM is better.

And it took at least a year for Saban to really get going last time, guys. I'm not looking forward to this.

...and moving it to Nickelodeon

Hey, guys? I don't have cable. And I'm not likely to get it in the near future. There's still various video sites (except YouTube, which is apparently well-policed at the moment), but this series is going to be a pain for me to keep up with.

Power Rangers Samurai

Having said that, I have managed to watch the first few episodes. That, coupled with various news item type stuff I've read, leads me to the following conclusion:

Power Rangers Samurai is pretty weak.

First off, the adaptation: This is seriously the closest, tightest adaptation of a Super Sentai I know of since Time Force (possibly closer, except for all that stuff about headaches and medicine). That's all well and good, except I already saw Shinkenger. If it can't bring something new to the table, I'm going to have a hard time being interested. This has nothing to do with being a "bad" adaptation, though I'll admit I'm choking on a few of the additions they have made. Time Force was one of the best seasons of the show ever, but its similarity to the sentai was merely a part of its strength; Time Force made positive additions that significantly added to the story. The strongest element in the Time Force story was Ransik, not that sentai stuff, and he had nothing to do with any of the rest of that guff.

My point is that you don't need to be so slavish, and if you think the story could be improved upon, by all means do so.

Second major point: This is the worst storm of puns ever to "grace" Power Rangers. Except maybe in Ninja Storm, but I admit I didn't watch that long enough. This was like an episode of a cartoon I used to watch where there was a guy who tried to work a pun on "bee" into every sentence, except worse because everybody was doing it all the time.

And this is Power Rangers, where bad puns are commonplace.

I'm not sure whether to tell them that's the worst thing ever, or to give them a medal for their effort.

Third major point: Bulk and Spike. What. The. Heck.

There's nothing wrong with bringing back an old character. What is wrong is doing it in a way that makes absolutely no sense.

I have yet to figure out what these sequences, which are the same kind of low humor of the original Bulk and Skull sequences, but with no connection whatsoever with the main characters, are supposed to accomplish.

Hey, wait, Spike is Skull's kid? How old is he supposed to be? 17-18? That means he'd have been born somewhere between season two and four, doesn't it?

Fourth major point: Somewhere, I read that Saban intended to have a light-hearted tone "lacking in its predecessors Jungle Fury and RPM." These were the same series where a fly did announcing on giant robot/monster battles and where one of the villains was essentially just a self-important teenage girl who actually acted something like one (Tenaya 7). Were you guys paying attention?

Fifth major point: The episode where a kid was missing his dad in the army... I don't know whether to be furious at the cheap handling of the subject (making the boy's wish into a momentary vision was awful, and I'm sorry if you disagree with me, but that's how I feel about it) or happy that they covered a real-world problem that children face today.

Sixth point: Joining the ranks of such enemy mooks as Putties, Tengas, Cogs, and, well, the contents of this list, we have... Moogers?

So you decided to call the tentacle-headed, blood-red foot soldiers Moogers?

This is the only portion of the Power Rangers lexicon so far that infuriates me nearly as much as that old Lost Galaxy standby, "Power Up Mode" (although to be fair, it's still a distant second).

Gokaiger (Super Sentai 2011)

So there was a strange bit of information going around that the next Super Sentai team would be based on pirates, of all things.

Then, it turned out the rumor was true. They're pirates.

Then, we learn that they're going to actually be pirates-intellectual property pirates.

And having watched the first few episodes, they are also hilariously literal fictionalized Age of Piracy pirates.

You guys, this is the best Super Sentai idea ever.

And the first few episodes don't disappoint, either.

Finally

So, my conclusion is: 2011 won't really be as good a year for Power Rangers as 2009, but it'll be much better than 2010 (though how it could fail to be better than 2010 ultimately was is pretty much unfathomable).

Hopefully, I'll be able to stay focused on keeping up on this, and maybe get some of my back content going.