Power Rangers as a whole

Pity he seems to have largely ran out of good ideas for adaptations, and half-assing the original japanese plot with US characters gives us shitty shows like megaforce.

No, his mistake was hiring Jonathan Tzachor back. It's him who made Time Force and Wild Force so slavishly in the image of Timeranger and Gaoranger, and he's the reason Samurai and Megaforce have been so awful. Thankfully, Saban has learned from that; Judd Lynn's showrunning Dino Charge.

But here's the thing: Yes Time Force WAS 90% of Timeranger's plot, but it actually was better than Timeranger by fixing some of plot oddities, and having a way better villain and thematic element. There's a reason Time Force ranks as one of the most beloved, well written seasons. Adapting from the Sentai isn't necessarily bad. If anything, Megaforce would've been improved by being more Gokaiger (And Gokaiger barely has a meta plot running through its entire season to begin with - which honestly says how terrible Megaforce is being).

edited 8th Oct '14 9:03:40 AM by Ghilz

That's because Tzachor had other writers on Time Force who knew what they were doing. Look at what happened with Wild Force to see what he'd do without their influence.

Meh. I don't credit Wildforce's failure all that much to the writing. I mean, yeah, it's no Time Force and yes it hammers in the environmental message heavily (But then again, so did MMPR with the issue du jour), but the acting sure as hell wasn't there either.

Dawson Casting has always been a thing on Power Rangers, but there, the black and blue rangers, who were clearly intended to be the younger, more kid-like team member, are played by older actors in a way that I was convinced they were special need for most of the show.

Add the Sentai footage switching to full (Terrible) CGI rather than well made models, and yeah, you have a shitty season.

edited 8th Oct '14 9:17:27 AM by Ghilz

At least the Wild Force toys were some of the best toys >.>

Yeah, sometimes it's a matter of the quality of the original Sentai and other production issues. My understanding is that the Megaforce source series Goseiger wasn't very well liked in Japan, and being combined with Gokaiger while trying to juggle all the expectations of a Milestone Celebration made it a nightmare. Similarly, Gaoranger was not very well liked and all its flaws were faithfully translated into Wild Force.

I understand Megaranger was considered just an okay Sentai series, nothing special but In Space is considered one of the best seasons. Timeranger was very well liked but Time Force improved on the structure in almost every way.

It's just evidence that being faithful to the source material isn't inherently a good or bad thing.

The one I like to talk about is Lost Galaxy. The adaptation process changed almost everything, the setting, the lead villain*, the genre, the source of the powers, even the order the villains and monsters appear in**, even the minions are completely different. And yet, despite that, it follows the plot of Gingaman beat-for-beat. Watching both seasons, it's kind of a trip, more so than seasons that have less in common (Mighty Morphin') or more faithful (Time Force), kind of a weird hybrid.

(*)Gingaman's villains were space pirates, Captain Mutiny and Barbarax are all that's left of that in Lost Galaxy. Lost Galaxy, if it had any unifying theme for the villains, it was that the lead villain was always a giant insect.

(**)The guy we know as Villamax is actually the FIRST villain in Gingaman, he serves Furio's role of starter baddie. As such, many of the monsters of the week are thrown in at random.

edited 8th Oct '14 9:27:39 PM by maxwellelvis

I actually think Gaoranger must've been fairly well liked, considering it got more focus than most Sentai did in Gokaiger (With Gaolion making a return no less as a zord).

That said I do agree following or not the Sentai isn't inherently good or bad.

And I didn't want Super Megaforce to turn into Gokaiger either, what worked for Gokaiger most likely wouldn't work for Power Rangers, but I'd have wished they'd have done.... something at least. Instead we get them following the Sentai (Several episodes are Gokaiger Episodes almost to the plot point), while removing most of its major aspects (The Rival, the treasure chase, the whole pirate theme).

Power Rangers tends to work the best when playing the material seriously, but with a wink and nudge that they know it can be silly. The Alternate Continuity nature of Super Sentai allows them to swing all over the spectrum. That's the main difficulty with Gokaiger, the suits themselves are quite removed from normal Sentai/Ranger designs and the overall tone is more parody than serious, but the action scenes so fantastic and fanservicey no one cared. Power Rangers typically has some difficulty with the lighter-toned Sentai, excepting RPM.

I took the Gokaigers seriously when it was warranted and I think it pulled off that side well. The thing I really did like about them is they could adapt to more serious side well on top of more comedic.

Sic. Carranger episode.

The Super Mega adaptation of the Carranger episode actually wasn't that bad, as discussed earlier in the thread. It just needed Justin and/or T.J. in it to react with nostalgia and weird out the SM Rangers even more.

Honestly I don't think tone is the issue, so much as goal.

Gokaiger had one goal in mind, to be a celebration of Super Sentai, all of it. The meta plot is weak, and we have a cast who are more... resistant to the call because it allows for them to meet the previous Sentais and be motivated into becoming heroes worthy of the legacy. It's pretty clear from the start that Gokaiger's intended to be almost ALL ABOUT the anniversary. Episodes move to match the tone of the series they are homaging. Hence the carranger episode being insane because Carranger was insane. Almost half the episode are dedicated to a specific series or another.

Megaforce has no such goal. It doesn't aim to have an epic story at the price of the anniversary stuff, and its celebration of Power Rangers is incidental at best so you can't say it's ditching the story in favor of celebrating its history. And I think it's why it sucks. You came for the anniversary? There's barely any of that going on. Came for the story? Well there's also barely any of that. Megaforce is just there to fill in some air and move some toys on shelves.

edited 10th Oct '14 2:15:04 PM by Ghilz

I agree. The story is just poorly done.

I mean, entertainment wise, I love it(but things as simple as the awesome music playing when the kick the monster's ass is great on its own). But it definitely is not the best it could be.

So on a scale from Space to Turbo, where would everybody personally rate Megaforce?

I honestly might rate Megaforce one of the lowest ever. To note, I rate Turbo higher than Operation Overdrive, but I'm not sure between Megaforce & Operation Overdrive.

Easily above Turbo for me. Mostly because the jokes are not nearly as horrible. Turbo has some decent characterization, but making everyone fairly dumb so Justin can look good really hurts it for me. I only found the music a strong point for Turbo. The rest? Not good.

Operation Overdrive is... interesting. The characterization is way better than Turbo's. The music is catchy, but the fact none plays during battles/etc. hurts it a bit to me. The story was really strange as well. I find it about the same level as Turbo, slightly better. Megaforce and Super are definitely above both of them to me. Just the fact it has music during the Zord fights heavily ups my liking. Plus, as I said, the jokes are way better. Even if they're facepalm worthy at times. I did not like the overuse of the "protect nature" bit, though. Wild Force made sense due to the story itself a bit, but Megaforce hammered it in in a much poorer way. Since it had very inconsistent characterization or a lot of it came out of left field, Wild Force's was much more tolerable.

Super is a little better, but as noted, the storyline was just randomly ported over, so it's too inconsistent to make sense. All of it is action at best.

edited 12th Oct '14 6:40:35 AM by Irene

This comment from Alison MacInnis proves exactly what we figured out about the Legend War.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=134009117&postcount=5613

It was last-minute and rushed. God damn.

edited 12th Oct '14 12:16:59 PM by BatDan

I'd rate it low. Somewhere between Overdrive and Jungle Fury (So somewhere between "Pain" and "I forgot this existed")

-I'd rate it low. Somewhere between Overdrive and Jungle Fury (So somewhere between "Pain" and "I forgot this existed")-

-Overdrive and Jungle Fury-

-Jungle Fury-

So that clearly shows you have not actually seen it then.

@Rushed Reunion

The Overdrive teamup felt more planned. Fuckin' Overdrive.

I haven't seen a (mostly) complete Ranger series since Dino Thunder, and I can't remember Turbo all that much.

All things considered, though... Megaforce is just So Okay, It's Average. I can't even really get upset about it being below what I expect out of a Ranger series.

I have. Jungle fury is that season I always have to force myself to remember it existed by how little of an impact, good or bad, it left.

I've seen every series. Jungle Fury is one of my favorites since it had amazing characterization, its Zord style and "Order of the Claw" was a nice combination of Wild Force and Ninja Storm, just done slightly better than Wild Force. I'd say it did the whole secret order bit better, but Ninja Storm had a severely better villain. But it's hard to beat Lothor out to a degree. A good chunk of Disney's main villains were pretty good. Jungle Fury's was... admittedly meh. I'd say Operation Overdrive(who had a bunch of them, and very few minion characters of the set of villains, besides one-offs who don't count) had way more interesting main ones, honestly.

Although to be fair, having 5 or so major villains over 1 does kind of help. Mystic Force also had some pretty nice villains, but being forced to follow the storyline from Magiranger(due to the budget being overdrawn during S.P.D.) slightly hurt. The actual character acting was still good. Koragg was still great, regardless; "Centaurus! Wolf! Megazorrdddddd!" Bad. Ass.

Rewatching Mystic Force, I agree with what the He Really Can Act page says, Firass Dirani (Nick) was really doing his best even with the subpar scripts he was given in that.