Power Rider trademark abandoned?
 

So, it would appear that the trademark Saban had registered awhile ago that brought hope (and perhaps dread) into the hearts of some fans that they would see the revival of Kamen Rider american adaptations by Saban has been dropped yesterday.

Feel free to cheer and be merry or sob and wonder what might have been, since this appears to be true.

Meh. I was really hoping for Kamen Rider Fourze.

Yeah, it is a shame that we won't be seeing a Fourze adaptation any time soon, or even an OOO adaptation, which I would prefer first, but then Saban would have to play catch up and probably rush through it like Megaforce.

Oh well, it is what it is, I guess.

Maybe that was the problem. Toei telling him he cant skip seasons and since he already had Ryuki, next is Faiz. And good luck softening faiz for an American audiance.

Actually, I thought Ryuki was a CW production with no connection to Masked Rider. And really, they'd have to start by addressing some plot points left behind from Masked Rider with Decade.

So...They'd have to turn Decade, W, and OOO into mini seasons to catch up at this rate, since Fourze was still running when Go-Buster was. And even then, Saban is probably gonna rush through Go-Busters so they can hopefully flesh out the Kyoryuger adaptation and start doing 40 episode seasons again.

Meaning Saban would have to rush through not only two more seasons of Super Sentai, but four seasons of Kamen Rider as well.

I'm kind of glad Saban's not doing it, I'd like maybe another company get a chance at doing it.

Saban didn't have anything to do with Dragon Knight, so they probably could have started where they wanted to.

And eh. No huge loss I guess.

Sacrifice a Kamen for some "Power"
 

While it is unfortunate that there is no "Power Rider", there is another side to looking at this. To adapt a Kamen Rider would be uncomfortable as it would be so watered-down and in need of writers that it would be a stain on the original's legacy (the original being whichever Rider was used). Remember, the first Kamen Rider adaptation by Saban was Masked Rider which was mostly a re-hash of Kamen Rider Black RX, which I will add, has NOT been re-issued like VR Troopers and Power Rangers and Beetleborgs. The overall thinking is that Masked Rider was a blemish best left unmentioned save for the "A Friend in Need" three-parter. Now, while Kamen Rider Dragon Knight was NOT Saban's doing and while it did have a degree of critical popularity, it was apparently never that good in terms of ratings. The "Power Rider" rumors originated around the time of Samurai and the Rider during Shinkenger was Decade (remember that little team-up). Just say Saban uses Masked and gets the rights to Dragon Knight, that gives him some previous Riders to use, but still puts an absolutely severe strain on the Decade footage that can be used without revealing unused Riders. That leaves Double and all other modern riders. Toei may have restrictions on how this can all be done, but there may still be some wiggle room left to revive this idea, however I would say that given the generally pleased reception of Gaim, that some Riders are best left alone. However, say Saban does go ahead with a Go-Busters adaptation, while one could use Riders, there is always that brief Gavan revival...

Didn't we pretty much decide that this was a matter of name squatting? If Saban had the intent to do something with the trademark, they probably would have taken action with it a lot sooner than now. I lost all hope by the end of Samurai.

Yep. Plenty of companies do exactly this to remain the monopoly on their product. The patent of 3d printing stopped it becoming commercially avaliable for a while, and Sony are still monopolizing blu-ray.

Saban probably wanted to stop a follow up to Dragon Knight so that, if it did well, he could nab the shows fanbase with his own rider adaptions. Since it didn't do well enough, buh-bye trademark.

One of two things could happen:

- No more new rider adaps
- A follow up to Dragon Knight now there's absolutely no legal issue.

I just want them to give such a show a proper creative team.

Well Dragon Knight was fantastic, no matter what the haters and the purists say, so if Saban being out of the way means the franchise can continue (a pipe dream I realise) I'd happily celebrate this.

I really can't think of anything worse, than Neo Saban adapting a fresh franchise.

I honestly don't care about that at all, considering the way Saban is he would probably ruin the series and well if these rumors of this started 3 years ago would you really think a KR adaptation would happen? I like not having a KR adaptation because I keeps KR unique from Sentai with the fact that with PR the reason it isn't as good as it once was most likely because we knew about Sentai and we knew what would come, in which case would happen to rider as well. But also keep in mind they would have to film quite a bit of original footage for this.

http://yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.com/yes.jpg
Sums up my feelings pretty well, actually! :lol

They probably wasn't going to use it anyway.

Here here! Thank goodness Saban won't be ruining anything else.

I'm really bummed about this. I still think it would have been awesome to have seen Power Rider Apollo or whatever come to fruition. It's lame that Super Sentai manages to adapt so well but we still haven't had much of any success bringing Kamen Rider stateside, especially since quite a few heisei, particularly the neo-heisei seasons would work out really well here.

I guess the difference, and problem is, that sentai is aimed at the youngest demographic so there is much greater emphasis on toys, colour and noise. That isn't to say sentai doesn't have great stories, or great characters, but they are rarely the focus.

It isn't the COMPLETE opposite for Kamen Rider but per episode, Kamen Rider has a lot less footage you can safely transplant, and a lot less you can wrap up as a thinly disguised toy commercial with a lot more involving Japanese actors talking about the plot, which probably makes it very difficult to adapt.

Like a lot of people say OOO would be a great show to adapt, for example, but the amount of character focus in that show leaves a very small proportion of genuinely usable footage for an American adaptation. And Saban doesn't wanna spend money shooting new shit.

I'm not really surprised nothing came of this. Kamen Rider would need a lot more custom footage, notably transformations since Riders don't cut away for transformations.

Disney would totally be willing to make TF scenes for each episode, but with how Saban works these days, not a chance in hell.

That's not getting into the tone Rider stories generally use.

Anyway, I'm still curious if another company would be willing to bring KR over again.

By the very link given, the application for the Power Rider trademark was filed two years after Dragon Knight ended, so that's not it. This was more likely a matter of Saban already having a working relationship with Toei and not wanting competition muscling in, while already having something in place should inspiration strike and it was decided to adapt a Rider series alongside Power Rangers. Dragon Knight probably had a lot to do with why Saban never did anything proactive on a Rider adaptation, though.

You've just confirmed exactly what I was saying though. Doesn't matter when the company files it's always about tying enough red tape around a concept to stall it.

Imagine if they did have to adapt the next something after Black RX.
Power Rider Shin! :p

Well, you specified Dragon Knight, so what I was getting at is that while you had the right idea, it wasn't because of the Rider series that failed as both a television series and a toyline two years prior. Potential competition, whatever it could be, wasn't going to be from Steve Wang or whoever else.

I'm kinda glad that this project is dead. Now I hope Saban will never touch Ultraman now.

I don't like Dragon Knight, granted I'm 15 episodes in but I just don't like it. So seeing this trademark be abandoned leaves me worried about potential good future adaptations.

I'm sad you didn't like it, I loved it.

I give up on Dragon Knight after the third episode. The acting was awful and I felt like no one in that show could act. DK could have been a big hit if they put on a better channel and had more marketing for it.

It would have been cool if Dragon Knight and RPM were on the same time slot together back in 2009. ABC Family could have their own Super Hero Time.

Most of the people in the show weren't actors, but martial artists, so it took them quite a while to find themselves and not all of them managed it. I guess sorta like MMPR in that regard.

It's really REALLY wobbly at the beginning, but I personally found it fun to watch them grow as characters as well as actors across the series. It's certainly a lot better than say...Megaforce, where Troy starts like a marble statue and ends like one.

I rather see English dubs of Kamen Rider instead. I think Kamen Rider can be big in America if it's market it right. If you go at cons and other anime web forums, there's a good amount of fans that like Kamen Rider. I seen Kamen Rider grow a lot in the past several years in the Otaku fandom.

If you look at shows like DBZ and Doctor Who, they start off small then they became mainstream over time.

I know that we all make jokes about cheap Neo-Saban and stuff but I think there is some good in them. I'd totally cool with them bringing it over.

Seriously, I'd be fine if SABAN did a Rider adaptation on the sheer fact alone that I'll at least be getting more then 1 season of it.