Modern Issues

I noted in the previous post that I found the handling of the subject of children with parents in the military rather offensive.

It was actually thoroughly okay until the point where the Red Ranger unleashed his wish fulfillment magic.

Why does this bother me so darned much?

Well, it took me a bit to suss out just why, but...

-It may have made the kid feel better, but it didn't actually change a darned thing. (If the kid's dad had somehow miraculously come back, that actually would have been better, if unrealistically rosy.)

-It's creepy wish fulfillment.

-It's creepy wish fulfillment that's being worked by a near-total stranger, and the visuals are eerily reminiscent of when an antagonist would stealthily hit a protagonist (such as is often seen in Power Rangers) with harmful magic spells.
-When my sister asked if I would be bothered by kids carrying around cardboard cutouts of their distant parents and taking photographs of themselves with the cutouts nearby while on trips, I thought about it, and then said, "No, because that would be the kid's choice." This was sent upon that kid with no warning or permission, and considering that he just had a bad encounter with a monster who tricked him into giving up reasonably valuable possessions over his dad, I'm more inclined to think that he would have freaked the heck out and started screaming.

-It's pandering. I can put up with a lot; you can annoy me, you can bore me (sadly, since this is pretty heavily retreading Shinkenger, that's what's happening here so far), but don't frikkin' pander to me. (Well, you can pander to me about nerdy things, but not emotions. Emotional pandering is worse... for some reason.)

Although I can't be all down on the episode. It was mostly a surprisingly accurate retelling of the appropriate episode of Shinkenger, but they handled a lot of it better than I expected. Also, the Nighlock remarking "Monsters can do anything" was easily the best line in all the episodes I've seen so far.

-Signing off.

Second Thoughts: Spoilery Hypothesis Time!

(Gark. This should have gone up last week, but apparently I never hit "publish." Darnit.)

(Er, it looks like that might have happened for some strange reason as a result of me editing the tags and forgetting to hit "publish" instead... Weird.)

I watched the latest episode of RPM. If you haven't yet for some reason, well, spoilers. Even if you have, well, my wild speculation may end up being spoilers anyway.

I call this "second thoughts" as a counterpoint to the "first impression" I had last week. It doesn't actually mean I'm completely reconsidering my view on RPM; it's still stupid awesome (although the proportion of stupid moments was a little higher, they were funny, so I'll allow it).

Anyway, I've got a few quick hypotheses about how this season is going to go, and I'll just throw them up here for posterity. (Note that these do come from discussing the episode in progress with my sister, fellow PR fan since the beginning, albeit considerably less nerdy about it.)

Hypothesis One: The person "Dillon" is trying to save is Tenaya 7; he has no clear memories because Venjix moidered his brain while trying to upgrade both of them into whatever Tenaya 7 is supposed to be. Sub-Hypothesis: They are siblings.
Probability: Fairly high.
Reasoning: It's nearly the exact same storyline as the Andros and Astronema storyline for a lot of the way.

Hypothesis Two: After Dr. K's big reveal (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you haven't watched the promo trailer, and probably shouldn't be reading this), we learn that the Zords look the way they do because she likes cutesy things.
Probability: Middling to low.
Reasoning: None. It's just funny.

Hypothesis Three: This is actually an alternate reality from MMPR through Jungle Fury.
Probability: Low.
Reasoning: It's gonna be hecka hard to explain how this fits in the timeline (although it can be done-in fact, I'm working on another fairly extensive essay which addresses this). However, I'm not betting on it for a few different reasons, the main one being simply the word "Venjix" being involved at all.

Hypothesis Four: There may be an actual reason for the choices of "Retrofire" Zords made by Bandai.
Probability: Uncertain.
Reasoning: Well, the Megazords from the Retrofire line are the "High Octane" (i.e. the RPM one) Megazord, the Wild Force Megazord, and the (Dino) Megazord. The lineup of animals for RPM are primarily modern animals, which is similar to Wild Force. However, the last set of Zords to show up, based on Go-Onger's "Ancient Enjins," are analogues to the (Dino) Megazord's components (particularly, Mastodon/Mammoth, Tyrannosaurus, and Triceratops). This could be mere coincidence of intent, or it could be that a connection will eventually be revealed between the Dinozords and the "PaleoMax Megazord" (name just obtained from an info site in the midst of typing).

Hypothesis Five: The midseason disconnect will be rough this year.
Probability: High.
Reasoning: Apparently they kicked out the executive producer credited with writing the first few episodes. I am sad. (Note: Every season has one of these midseason disconnects... Really. I may talk about it sometime.) This hypothesis is not directly linked, by the way, to watching this morning-I just added it while reading rumors about the season's production.

Hypothesis Six: Once "Dillon's" current character arc is over, they'll pretty much ignore how awesome he was during it.
Probability: Middling to high.
Reasoning: It's pretty unusual for a Ranger team to have an actively not nice character on the roster.

Hypothesis Seven: Corinth is small and crowded, so Dr. K made the Zords able to take on those tiny forms and teleport for purposes of avoiding city damage due to Zord stampedes.
Probability: Uncertain.
Reasoning: Even if this is never stated, it's a great explanation, at least in my opinion.

That's all for now.