Feeling sick and grumpy! Power Rangers/Sentai Spoilers!
Well, it's been go! go! go! around here and it's finally taken it's toll on me. And Becky - we're both feeling really sick. Still, better to get it out of the way before we fly out to Korea - less than a week to go! w00t! My joints are all stiff and feel like they're full of fluid. Like my head. Urgh. So, rather than do anything productive, I've been sat on my ass, watching the last half of Power Rangers: Dino Thunder and various other Sentai/PR shows. And thought I'd share some of my responses and thoughts on some selected episodes.
Dino Thunder: Fighting Spirit
What an episode! An attempt to restore Tommy to his human form goes awry and leaves him in a coma. Where, for reasons not explained, he has to fight most of his previous incarnations. We get to see him battle Zeoranger V, White MM ranger and the Green MM ranger. It's good stuff. Whilst there were a lot of ways this episode could've been better (zord battles? vs. red/white/green at once? longer fight sequences?), it is absolutely awesome that they did this and this will go down as a favourite PR moment.
Dino Thunder: Thunder Storm
Not really being a fan of Ninja Storm, this team-up two-parter was never going to be a favourite of mine. The fight match ups were lackluster (it should've been colour on colour!) and the plot was not as strong as a lot of other team ups. And the ending for Lothor was completely unfair. I'm all up for swipes at other series (see below) but having him defeated by Mesogog undermines all the hard work that the Ninja Storm team put into their series. This is a double blow considering he was defeated by them, only temporarily, where as Mesogog just finished him off, forever, relatively easily. Not good.
Dino Thunder: Drawn into Danger
Wow - awesome! This has to go down as one of the best PR episodes, ever! In an obvious swipe at PR Ninja Storm, the rangers are sucked into a comic book where they have to battle evil at the whims of an unwitting artist. Their eventual escape brings the comic's monster with them, leading to the zord battle and the monster's defeat that makes for a standard power rangers episode ending. The thing that makes this episode rock is that the abaranger footage has been sketched over, leading the episode to actually looking like it is taking place in a comic! Awesome! This is a great episode and deserves the sort of recognition that the 'original' episodes of series, e.g. the musical episode, e.g. the puppet episode, e.g. the cartoon episode, get.
Dino Thunder: House of Cards
This episode deserves a mention because of the trading card game references and for the awesome fight/reveal sequence between Tommy and Elsa. The ending also leads to:
Dino Thunder: A Test of Trust
Another great episode, following directly on from the ending of House of Cards. Usually the 'clips' episodes bore the crap out of me. The Operation Overdrive clips episode being a particular offender. However, the clips are not the sole focus of the episode, and are limited largely to the action scenes. When this is combined with a great, non-clips, currently happening in the story, awesome zord finale, I can forgive a lot. During the final battle, the monster (simply called "Ugly Monster in the credits, unnamed in the episode) assumes a form identical to the ranger's megazord. But it's been resprayed (palette swapped?) into an unsightly purple/green colour. Loved it!
Power Rangers Turbo: Shadow Rangers
It's quite strange to see the classic 'evil ranger' episode so early in the series. It is a shame the episode isn't very good. I want to say crap, but Justin does get kicked twice by the evil foot soldiers, so it wasn't a total write off. Essentially, a prime example of everything that is wrong with Turbo.
Engine Sentai Go-onger: Grand Prix 17-19
Good stuff! I like the feel of the series, a sort of cross between Abaranger and Thomas the Tank Engine, bought up (abused by?) Captain Planet. It's not serious enough for me to be really sold on the series, but I'll watch it for a laugh. The plots/villains/mecha/angst etc. is all classic sentai. Grand Prix 19 features the capture of Go-onSilver (aka Go-onLegs), who seems to be enjoying being tied up a little too much. Cue lots of man-angst as Red/Gold battle to save her. I couldn't really work out what was going on in the episode besides that, although it looks suspiciously like Go-onSilver was trying to show the others the benefits of letting Go-onGold pimp them out. There was fine dining, expensive clothes shopping, they all seemed to be quite up for it once Silver had shown them what they could get. They did seem kinda defeated, going back to whoring themselves out of that little camper van. Hmm. In addition, I do have to ask what is the point of Go-onYellow? After a brief conversation with my good friend Girlshy about such things, who has confirmed she does nothing, ever, I am left wondering if that's the reason she got lumped as the "Sweet Angel" or if being the "Sweet Angel" means you don't get to do anything.
If she gets to be the Sweet Angel, then Justin gets to be "Cat's Jailbait", methinks....
Well that's enough Sentai for now, got to save my strength for the million and one things that need doing. Who knew that moving to another country would be so much effort?
Dino Thunder: Fighting Spirit
What an episode! An attempt to restore Tommy to his human form goes awry and leaves him in a coma. Where, for reasons not explained, he has to fight most of his previous incarnations. We get to see him battle Zeoranger V, White MM ranger and the Green MM ranger. It's good stuff. Whilst there were a lot of ways this episode could've been better (zord battles? vs. red/white/green at once? longer fight sequences?), it is absolutely awesome that they did this and this will go down as a favourite PR moment.
Dino Thunder: Thunder Storm
Not really being a fan of Ninja Storm, this team-up two-parter was never going to be a favourite of mine. The fight match ups were lackluster (it should've been colour on colour!) and the plot was not as strong as a lot of other team ups. And the ending for Lothor was completely unfair. I'm all up for swipes at other series (see below) but having him defeated by Mesogog undermines all the hard work that the Ninja Storm team put into their series. This is a double blow considering he was defeated by them, only temporarily, where as Mesogog just finished him off, forever, relatively easily. Not good.
Dino Thunder: Drawn into Danger
Wow - awesome! This has to go down as one of the best PR episodes, ever! In an obvious swipe at PR Ninja Storm, the rangers are sucked into a comic book where they have to battle evil at the whims of an unwitting artist. Their eventual escape brings the comic's monster with them, leading to the zord battle and the monster's defeat that makes for a standard power rangers episode ending. The thing that makes this episode rock is that the abaranger footage has been sketched over, leading the episode to actually looking like it is taking place in a comic! Awesome! This is a great episode and deserves the sort of recognition that the 'original' episodes of series, e.g. the musical episode, e.g. the puppet episode, e.g. the cartoon episode, get.
Dino Thunder: House of Cards
This episode deserves a mention because of the trading card game references and for the awesome fight/reveal sequence between Tommy and Elsa. The ending also leads to:
Dino Thunder: A Test of Trust
Another great episode, following directly on from the ending of House of Cards. Usually the 'clips' episodes bore the crap out of me. The Operation Overdrive clips episode being a particular offender. However, the clips are not the sole focus of the episode, and are limited largely to the action scenes. When this is combined with a great, non-clips, currently happening in the story, awesome zord finale, I can forgive a lot. During the final battle, the monster (simply called "Ugly Monster in the credits, unnamed in the episode) assumes a form identical to the ranger's megazord. But it's been resprayed (palette swapped?) into an unsightly purple/green colour. Loved it!
Power Rangers Turbo: Shadow Rangers
It's quite strange to see the classic 'evil ranger' episode so early in the series. It is a shame the episode isn't very good. I want to say crap, but Justin does get kicked twice by the evil foot soldiers, so it wasn't a total write off. Essentially, a prime example of everything that is wrong with Turbo.
Engine Sentai Go-onger: Grand Prix 17-19
Good stuff! I like the feel of the series, a sort of cross between Abaranger and Thomas the Tank Engine, bought up (abused by?) Captain Planet. It's not serious enough for me to be really sold on the series, but I'll watch it for a laugh. The plots/villains/mecha/angst etc. is all classic sentai. Grand Prix 19 features the capture of Go-onSilver (aka Go-onLegs), who seems to be enjoying being tied up a little too much. Cue lots of man-angst as Red/Gold battle to save her. I couldn't really work out what was going on in the episode besides that, although it looks suspiciously like Go-onSilver was trying to show the others the benefits of letting Go-onGold pimp them out. There was fine dining, expensive clothes shopping, they all seemed to be quite up for it once Silver had shown them what they could get. They did seem kinda defeated, going back to whoring themselves out of that little camper van. Hmm. In addition, I do have to ask what is the point of Go-onYellow? After a brief conversation with my good friend Girlshy about such things, who has confirmed she does nothing, ever, I am left wondering if that's the reason she got lumped as the "Sweet Angel" or if being the "Sweet Angel" means you don't get to do anything.
If she gets to be the Sweet Angel, then Justin gets to be "Cat's Jailbait", methinks....
Well that's enough Sentai for now, got to save my strength for the million and one things that need doing. Who knew that moving to another country would be so much effort?