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Thread
:
Has Power Rangers lost its edge?
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11-24-2016, 10:45 PM
#
14
Fish Sandwich
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
This might blow the mind of anyone familiar with my usual attitude but yeah, Power Rangers DEFINITELY isn't what it used to be. The past 6 years have been a parade of mediocrity and it's a real bummer. I've never posted in the PR forum till now (or at least not in years) so excuse me if I go on for a while here.
While I think the shows have overall been getting better (though Megaforce and Dino Charge both dipped in their second seasons), there's fewer and fewer excuses for why they haven't gotten their act together yet.
With (Super) Samurai you could easily say "well it's their first time doing the show in a while, they just have to get back into the swing of things", and all things considered, Samurai wasn't exactly a
horrible
show, improving throughout its run even, and general opinion seems to have finally cooled down a bit in retrospect. The awkward mix of copy-paste Shinkenger scripts with a pinch of added in MMPR nostalgia (the theme song, Bulk and not-Skull) wasn't the best, and the characterization and acting were REALLY sketchy, but at the end of the day it wasn't
offensively
bad or anything.
Then we got Megaforce. Immediately things got off on a bad foot when it became apparent Saban blew the nostalgia load a bit early and what should have been the triumphant return of the classic theme song had its impact severely lessened by the fact we'd just gotten 2 years straight of it already, making it instead come off as lazy. So already going in, there were problems. But stuff like that is minor, really. Honestly, I think there were some promising signs early on. The atmosphere of the show captured the basic feel of MMPR, and while that could be said to be lazy, I think it was an appropriate, full-circle sort of way to celebrate the anniversary even though they weren't using the anniversary show (yet). More importantly, it also meant they weren't just copy-pasting the exact premise and plot of the Sentai this time around. The actors, at least in my opinion, were also allowed to act a lot more naturally than the Samurai crew, and, with the exception of everyone's least favorite off-brand Jason, Troy, had a certain charisma to them, at least by Power Rangers' standards. The problem is that it immediately became apparent there was
nothing else going on
. The characters were totally flat and static nobodies the whole show, and the MMPR throwback nature of the show fell flat because Megaforce had basically nothing to ADD to it, leaving us with a show that felt like it came straight out of 1993, but with none of the charm or the consolation that standards of storytelling for merchandise-driven kids' shows weren't really that high at the time. It's the distilled essence of PR in the worst way possible, being totally bland in every respect.
And then there's
Super
Megaforce, the show so rightfully insecure about its own quality it needed two adjectives in its title saying how awesome it was. Unfortunately, it just Super Mega sucked. Like, it's a little baffling just how much of a mess it turned out to be, and since it would take so long to get into it I'm not even going to bother describing it when I highly doubt anyone who's seen it doesn't know what I mean. Megaforce Vanilla was merely blandsville but Super Megaforce totally botched basically every single element at play to some degree. Unlike with Samurai and Dino Charge, I think you actually can pin this a bit on Nickelodeon's scheduling. I think the knowledge it was technically going to be two seasons anyway encouraged Saban to go ahead and use a different Sentai each season and that's responsible for a lot of the pacing issues, making everything feel really cramped. But you can't pin it ALL on that. None of the options here negate the ability to simply write the dang show better. You could've just done an MMPR-throwback Goseiger adaptation, you could've just done Gokaiger but with Power Rangers, and you did do both. Regardless of the choice, you could've done a good job. Unlike Samurai, Megaforce had some real ambition, but that only makes it that much sadder it failed to live up to those ambitions.
Oh, and Dino Charge. A massive improvement over the previous few seasons in every respect, but of course it was when the bar was set so low. Pretty much everything that was missing seemed to be here this time, with solid characters, plots and villains that were totally original, and an overall feeling that things were finally looking up for Power Rangers. Unfortunately, instead of getting better and better, Dino Charge's writing seemed to get more and more sloppy as it went into Supercharge (again, highly ironic title), leaving everybody with a very lukewarm reception. I wasn't as into it as a lot but even just
watching
how thoroughly disappointed people became by the end was
depressing
. Fans were pretty much hailing it as the return of Power Rangers for the first half and then... *poof*, all that goodwill it had earned just
evaporated
.
There's this sense of incompetence behind planning out and executing the newer PR shows that I don't think was there even at the franchise's worst. A lack of solid direction that brings everything down despite promising enough foundations. Things are getting better bit by bit, but I'd really like it if a show came along that just suddenly elevated things all at once instead of gradually elevating them through
exhaustive
trial-and-error. I haven't been legitimately enthusiastic about Power Rangers in over half a decade now and it's freakin'
lame
. I really don't think there's anything actually STOPPING them from making a good show at this point besides lack of talent and/or passion.
Also, full disclosure: I actually have a pretty big soft spot for both Megaforce and even Super Megafarce (not a spelling error), despite my extremely unflattering assessment of their quality. I'd call it a guilty pleasure, but I don't even feel that guilty about it.
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