|
Community Links |
Members List |
Search Forums |
Advanced Search |
Go to Page... |
|
Thread Tools |
01-21-2022, 08:33 PM | #2871 |
Junior Member
Join Date: Oct 2020
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 184
|
It's like Sakamoto and Naoki Hayashi rewatched the finale of Tiga and tried to do the same thing here, but absolutely fumbled all of the catharsis and emotional beats that series had in their failed attempt to recreate it. It was all payoff for things the series never established, or established poorly.
I just couldn't bring myself to care about this crew because it never gave me a chance to. The show was so focused on telling its story of "light vs. darkness" without actually building up any of its characters outside the three leads and Ignis. So when Kengo got to say his "final" good-bye, it just rang totally hollow for me. And "Pull The Trigger" will never replicate "Take Me Higher". |
01-22-2022, 05:33 AM | #2872 |
Member
Join Date: Mar 2017
Posts: 613
|
Good bye Ultraman Trigger, I'm not going to miss you.
|
01-22-2022, 10:26 AM | #2873 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 1,098
|
Quote:
It's like Sakamoto and Naoki Hayashi rewatched the finale of Tiga and tried to do the same thing here, but absolutely fumbled all of the catharsis and emotional beats that series had in their failed attempt to recreate it. It was all payoff for things the series never established, or established poorly.
I just couldn't bring myself to care about this crew because it never gave me a chance to. The show was so focused on telling its story of "light vs. darkness" without actually building up any of its characters outside the three leads and Ignis. So when Kengo got to say his "final" good-bye, it just rang totally hollow for me. And "Pull The Trigger" will never replicate "Take Me Higher". |
01-22-2022, 01:41 PM | #2874 |
Kaiju or Hero?
Join Date: Jan 2021
Location: Even I Don't Know Anymore.
Posts: 1,398
|
So, I've got some final thoughts on Trigger as a whole, since I figured, I don't even need to have seen Tiga in its entirety to make this post. And much like a lot of people, this show was never going to be Tiga. It may have had a boost in technology, fantastic designs, and special effects, giving us some great action scenes and choreography, but failed in just about everything else. Honestly, I don't even believe it pulled a Saber, or at least nowhere near as well.
I do give points for its new takes on the Ultraman formula, such as Akito's role, but even then, the lack of spotlight and development for the other characters weighs it down, as much as I liked the dynamic of Akito or the character of Ignis. The problem being is that in every New Generation Ultraman season every character gets their time to shine, with and without character focused episodes, not only that but better pacing and themes overall, which in a sense means that Trigger actually could have been almost to the level of Tiga, but unfortunately misfired. But the wasted use of the Mars setting honestly takes the number one spot for Trigger's list of disappointments. The Tiga tributes themselves are probably the best parts of this show, while the rebooted Tiga approaches simply lacked the essence and power of its predecessor to really stick the landing. I don't think Trigger is a bad show, but neither is it great, much less a worthy successor to what it tried to be, but as I said many times, it still had its good points which I enjoyed. Moving forward, I really hope Tsuburaya tries a slightly different approach to Decker and the all-but-confirmed New Gen Gaia. The former, while I have pretty much no knowledge of Dyna having not seen it, I do know it was a spiritual sequel to Tiga, which means if anything this one will likely be the least interesting of the TDG New Gen Projects, but on the other hand, there is the possibility they'll bring in some of the GUTS Select crew for some much-needed development (I kinda doubt it, but I like to be optimistic). The latter, being that Gaia is disconnected from Tiga/Dyna to the point of being a standalone, and the potential for a great (or at least good) Ultraman Duo. Even if these anniversary projects fail, we do have whatever plans they have in store to give us at least something on the level of the New Generation shows. Until then, I'll give these a shot and we'll see if Tsuburaya can work its magic. |
01-22-2022, 02:44 PM | #2875 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
|
Back in July, probably a few days before Trigger's premiere, I was being kept up at night by an upset stomach, and I decided to watch the show's preview special thing just as something to try and take my mind off that. And you know, those things are the definition of filler – like watching clip shows of a show that hasn't even aired yet – but man, let me tell you, listening to Maxwell Powers narrating about Ultraman stuff in that smooth voice really hit the spot at that exact moment in time.
This was the start of me enjoying Trigger more than I enjoyed Z. These things aren't always rational. Because, you know, it's not like I'm going to come in here and tell you Trigger was unquestionably some underrated gem. The issues with it are pretty glaring and hard to argue against. What I more want to say in its favor is just... I don't really care? So Trigger didn't live up the standard of the show before it that won a Seiun Award, or the one it's based off of that *also* won a Seiun Award. Maybe it's okay not to live up to that pressure? Heck, I ain't even seen Tiga to compare it to, so while I don't doubt the iconic, revolutionary franchise reboot that catapulted Ultraman back into the spotlight was better than this, there's not much chance of that souring my own personal opinion on Trigger. I have put a bit of thought into what the fundamental differences are between it and Z though, and I came to what I think is a solid conclusion. When I (and maybe you!) think of Z, I think of like, coveralls and sweaty, crowded hangars. A lot of emphasis on the grounded mechanical nature of STORAGE's day-to-day operations. Details that breathed a realistic life into the fantastic adventures of the cast, along with a ton of very naturalistic dialogue. It's the kind of drama modern audiences have an easy time sliding into, and I think all that was a key part of the show's success. When I think of Trigger, it's pretty much the exact opposite. I think of extremely slick, clean rooms filled primarily by lens flares, and a small group of characters, only three of which are ever allowed to leave them. I think of a deliberate, conscious focus on extremely theatrical fantasy lines a person would only ever say if they were a main character in a television series. The kind of conversations most shows nowadays would feel the need to undercut with irony and jokes to avoid looking "cheesy" to audiences who prefer a more delicate touch. But I just can't bring myself to do anything other than love Trigger for exactly those reasons. Again, opinions aren't always about raw logic. I remember especially those first couple weeks, and just being really surprised by how thin a lot of the character writing felt, just like it seems most people were, but like, Kengo's cute, the action is awesome, the drama is still serviceable even at its worst... I was having fun! Trigger makes me smile for some reason, and as it went along, I think it found more of the strengths of its own writing, and those issues we all pegged it for immediately stopped bothering me in the slightest. I guess one thing that might explain my weird attraction to this show is that I feel like it's a huge oddball entry in the franchise because of that writing style? I feel like in its whole run, it only ever faintly cared about the typical anthology approach Ultraman takes, with episode plots almost exclusively grounding themselves entirely in the recurring players. There are only a handful of aliens or monsters who show up to drive smaller stories with their unique personalities, thanks to the dark giants having the antagonist role so firmly secured, and indeed, more often than not, the side-characters get downplayed in favor of a focus on that core trio of Kengo, Akito, and Yuna, with varying degrees of assistance from Ignis. And the show does some nice things with all those characters eventually, but it definitely seemed like Trigger was most interested in pushing the amount of action in a given episode to the absolute limit, and I feel like that's where it starts to become apparent the issues with this show aren't as black and white as it being "bad" or "average". When it came to having a sense of a threat that escalates throughout the episode, with events growing more and chaotic as the heroes scramble to pull together a victory in the end, I think Trigger was massively successful, especially in how it made so much room for the people filming that action to do what Ultraman does, and deliver a lot of insanely detailed and visually interesting fights. Some episodes just straight up open with fight scenes before even bothering to establish the context. Especially with Sakamoto as a main director, adrenaline was obviously a priority here, and I will readily commend Trigger for keeping me on the edge of my seat with that alone. But you know, not *totally* alone. For as awkward as a lot of it was, I did find myself enjoying the whole big arc with Trigger's backstory. The way stuff was gradually revealed was well-paced, broadly speaking (the biggest revelations coinciding with Glitter Trigger's debut is very smart placement, for example), and the show could get clever in the weirdest little places, which, again, was highly endearing to me. Like, come on, how I am not gonna love a throwaway gag about Kengo somehow being able to tell the facial expressions of characters who don't emote evolving into genuine dramatic payoffs with both Trigger Dark and Carmeara? (Also, the Z and Ribut guest spots were both handled utterly fantastically, and I want to make sure I mention that somewhere.) That's where I stand on Trigger, at the end of the day. When I look around, it seems like the people who didn't enjoy it are focused on what it didn't do, which is fair enough when it's literally calling itself a new Tiga, but I mostly look at what it did, and that was rarely if ever completely without merit. Trigger was a great time week after week for me, and while I won't exactly be rushing to recommend it to people the way I would Z, I definitely think it'll find its own audience, if it hasn't already. I've been saying for years that New Generation Ultraman shows simply ARE good, no exceptions, and I don't see a need to revise that statement just yet.
__________________
|
01-22-2022, 05:39 PM | #2876 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
|
I enjoyed Ignis and the crossover episodes, but overall this one for me was just a really big mess. Probably the closest I've come to disliking an Ultraman show? It just failed so utterly at setting itself up for its hits to land -- and I'll admit there's some pretty good scenes, especially the final scene of the show being beautifully executed with a lot of emotional acting; but it rings hollow because Trigger to me never put in any of the actual effort to establish its own identity, develop its characters or untangle the mess of themes it's juggling. It's at once trying to do its own thing but at every moment going "hey, remember Tiga? Tiga was cool, right? Tiga was so cool" and relying on that in a way that's simply not earned. I need to stress as well as a Tiga fan and a Z fan, while it sucks it's not living up to those (and I would argue that if you are calling yourself "New Generation Tiga", being a 25th anniversary project for it and grabbing every single aesthetic and plot beat you can for it, you should maybe try and live up to that), it's not very good on its own either. I can't think of a single good character outside of Ignis, all of them felt extremely undeveloped and more like Shonen writing tropes than actual people and I don't know them any better than I did at the start of the show. This is often said about the minor characters of the GUTS-SELECT crew, but I would argue the same for our main trio of Kengo, Akito and especially Yuna.
I... I don't know. I straight up think this is a really badly written show that has no idea how to do what it wants to do, and while I can sometimes find a diamond in a rough like that; I just couldn't do it here. Even my favourite character of Ignis, whose arc I felt was solid enough in its own right; did not do enough to fit into Trigger and parallel anything else that was happening which was really to its detriment. I'm not gonna miss this one, and if it's any indication of what Ultraman is according to leaks apparently going to be doing the next couple of years; I'm really not looking forward to those.
__________________
|
01-22-2022, 08:19 PM | #2877 |
Chou Henshin!
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 519
|
I think the show actually suffered whenever it tried to reenact Tiga instead of developing it's own story. I wonder if the pacing and characterization issues (which did improve) would have been less if the crew was making an entirely original show. I will say that the action was good and I came to enjoy the main characters, though.
|
01-23-2022, 06:01 AM | #2878 |
Dai Shogun
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 7,536
|
|
01-23-2022, 05:42 PM | #2879 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,433
|
You know, Elon Musk can keep his electric motors, what I really want is a car that runs on the smiles, dreams, and/or wishes of Japanese children. That is clearly the most powerful renewable energy source in the world.
So yeah, Ultraman Trigger is over and I am going to miss it. Not, like, a lot, but I am going to miss it. It is a show that, by design, forces you to compare it to other Ultra shows and it definitely comes away lacking on that front. Does that make it bad, though? No. It doesn't help, certainly, but I think Trigger is perfectly fine when judged on its own merits. Definitely not great, but I'd never call it a bad show. I don't think Trigger did anything wrong (well maybe one thing, see below) so much as it just didn't go into as much depth as it could have on most of its elements. The characters who aren't Kengo, Yuna, Akito, and Ignis are incredibly shallow. There was, I think, one episode that actually tried to do anything with the GUTS Select crew beyond giving them each a line or two in the background, but it was too close to the end of the series to really make a difference in how I perceived any of them. The villains were a similar story; there were some decent ideas with Carmeara and Darggon that mostly worked, but Hudrum was just kind of there. Same story with the show's lore: decent ideas that weren't explained in as much depth as they could have been (so we're just going to briefly mention that Kengo was a fucking magic space baby and never really go into that?) The only thing that I came close to actively disliking on the show is Kengo. I've mentioned this once or twice, but he reminds me of a Sentai Red Ranger. Specifically, he reminds me of one of Sentai's Catchphrase Reds, the kind who use their personal mantra as a replacement for a personality. I ultimately came away generally liking Kengo, but I think he often got boiled down too much to "Smile, Smile" when there were options for doing something more complex with the character. Anyway, tl:dr: Trigger was a perfectly fine show that didn't explore its concepts as much as it could have. |
01-23-2022, 10:32 PM | #2880 |
Kaiju or Hero?
Join Date: Jan 2021
Location: Even I Don't Know Anymore.
Posts: 1,398
|
I'm actually glad that Trigger has its fans, since again, I don't think it's a bad show, so it's nice to know there are folks out there that did enjoy it.
Aso, the crossover episodes, while the Z one had almost nothing to do with Trigger, it was some of the best episodes in the show, even bringing out the best of Kengo. And the Ribut ones worked so well with the Glitter Trigger Eternity arc, since the idea of having the form so powerful the hero can't handle it was brilliant, and this gave us a look at Ribut's human form, which is a plus. |
|
TokuNation News & Rumors |
Ultraman X Avengers |
Memorial Edition GoPhone Announced |
Kakuranger: 30 Years After |
ToyRise RyuKenDo |
Alternative Cut of "Day Of The Dumpster" Released |
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 08:56 AM.
|