[Locke]

Hey everyone ��

Doing my occasional pop back in (if anyone is left that I used to be a regular with back when), I've been watching Geats quietly in my free time and now all caught up, so I thought I would share some overall thoughts like the old days.

I think Geats has so far told an an interesting story, and I do like the ensemble nature of the cast, with Geats being a pretty typical Rider protagonist, but used slightly differently (even if the acting isn’t always the best). However, I will say, even by Rider standards, this feels like they are absolutely making up almost everything on the fly, this makes a show of great *moments* but it all doesn't hold that well together when taking a step back.

Sure, there are some narrative threads woven through the show, but the majority of the developments feel like they come from nowhere and the DGP Organisation's ability to basically do anything means there isn’t a cohesive set of rules that govern this universe consistently all the way through.

This is exasperated by how awfully paced this show is, in general. There are so many episodes in this show you could skip with almost no consequence, and oftentimes the “threaded” beats feel more like things they raised early on, forgot about and then suddenly rushed to resolve when they remembered, whether it really makes much sense from an overall pacing perspective or not. I remember a long time ago when Kyoryuger finished and someone did an episode watch list and it dropped like almost 30 episodes from what I remember, I feel like you'll very much be able to do that with Geats when it is all over, too.

In terms of the Riders, I think it is a cool concept to have effectively three types of Riders with different purposes, but outside of the Vision Driver suits, I think almost all of the suits in this show are so damn ugly. Although I will say I liked Geat’s Boost Mark II suit, (although less when it was fused together with the Laser Riser). Those Sponsor forms where they turn into bad CG Zord like things… my word, just awful.

It is a shame, as I really like the concept of the contestant Riders as like a power set, and I dunno whether it is just cost saving or genuine restraint, but there was a real opportunity go form crazy here, but instead they created a limited pool of abilities the Riders could use, which we grew familiar with over the course of the show. I much prefer this to just spamming throwaway forms we see once or twice.

I just think the physical execution of the idea is just not very good. This might also just be a downside of the HD era, where you can see in crystal detail it's just a cheap body suit with bits of foam shit stuck on it, with no illusion to it being anything else. I dunno, I am watching Blade alongside this and its in like 240p or something but I dunno man... THOSE are suits. Why do I want to see so many black tights here in Geats?

I will say I do think I am somewhat spoiled by modern Rider action, because I think the action in this show is not great, but I do concede that compared to older Rider, they really don’t hold back on the special effects here. There are almost no regular punches or kicks to be found in this show, every fight has multiple Riders flying around the screen, firing off lasers, defying the laws of gravity and smashing into each other with these big special effects heavy super moves like straight up Dragonball Z shit, but I dunno, I just felt so cold during so much of the action here.

I really like the battles involving the Vision suits, and Ziin’s gravity defying feats were also cool (even if I don’t like that suit design), but both make up a very small portion of the overall action serving you are getting here.

I think if I was to pinpoint why I felt so cold, I’d say a lot of the action here just feels kinda mindless. Although there are proper antagonists, the majority of the enemies in this show who fight directly are just footsoldier enemies who are never presented as offering much threat. I love properly established villains in direct showdowns with my heroes, where we feel like we understand the side of both sides of the battle, where there are stakes and investment. No one remembers a battle against a crowd of Putties as their favourite fight scene, no matter how many lasers they add. I dunno.

Like I’m watching Blade alongside this, and a lot of the special effects in that show are rubbish with really clunky action scenes, but man the locations, the way those scenes are shot, edited and lit, every Undead feels like a huge threat, and every battle feels like a tense showdown to the death. I feel so much more invested in those action scenes, even though they have almost no lasers.

So yeah, reading this back, this all sounds kinda negative and that's a shame, as around I dunno now, maybe the best part of ten years ago I kinda fell off the toku hobby train and have never been able to get back on board again for reasons mostly unknown to me. I've tried to follow basically every Rider show post Gaim but for whatever reason I just didn't vibe with a bunch of those shows, or even if I was enjoying them I fell off somewhere and fell so far behind I just sorta gave up. In fact, when I think about how much I actually watched of shows like Drive, Ex-Aid and Zero One, I probably could have actually finished at least one of them. But either way, Geats is the first one that has held me right up until the point I am actually caught up.

That has to count for something.