[Kamen Rider Die]

ZYUDEN SENTAI KYORYUGER VS. GO-BUSTERS: DINOSAUR GREAT BATTLE! FAREWELL, ETERNAL FRIENDS



Ha ha, oh man, could there be a movie less for me?

I don’t mean that as a knock on the movie’s quality – although, uh, we’ll get to that – but this thing was a nostalgic look at the great dinosaur Sentai teams of the past, with an emphasis on how unbelievable cool dinosaurs are and always will be. Meanwhile, the person watching this in 2024 is someone who’s only watched one (apparently strongly off-model) Sentai series, and pretty much doesn’t care about dinosaurs and never has.

(It’s incredibly funny to me that I came from watching two dozen bug-themed Rider shows, having not cared about bugs ever once in my life, and the last Sentai thing I’m going to watch for the year is a tribute to that franchise’s main aesthetic, which I also don’t care about.)

I got some of the references, for whatever that’s worth – I can catch a Zyuranger or an Abaranger or Japanese Goldar, I live in the world. But none of it means anything to me, and it made me feel guilty trying to watch this thing. It’d be like watching a Rider film where (and forgive me if these actors don’t one-to-one match with the Legend Sentai) Joe Odagiri and Shigeki Hosokawa both showed up for a major plotline, but you’ve only ever watched Gaim, so it’s just two old guys that you assume matter a lot to other people. That’s huge! That would make grown fans weep, and I’m here like Man You Gotta Stop Saying “Dino Hope” Like It Explains Anything.

Which, hey, “Dino Hope”. Hilarious to watch this movie a day after Doubutsu Sentai Go-Busters, because this weird plot of eternal dinosaurs imparting mystical Dino Charge – sorry, wrong version – Dino Hope to their teammates in order to defeat a space monster that really hates dinosaurs *motivation to be added later* is exactly the sort of heavily metaphorical magical-realism powered story that cracked me up yesterday in minute-long chunks. Don’t… don’t think that was the intended effect here, though. Pretty sure I was supposed to be moved by the power of dinosaur hope, and I definitely was more… not doing that. Was not feeling the Dino Hope, but I wish dino cheer on the other fans of this franchise for whom a whole mess of dino-themed heroes are a dream come true.

It’s nice that this film tried to loop in the Go-Busters whole “buddy” thing to the proceedings, though, for fans coming in from the other side of this team-up. Those themes of partnership and dedication are one of the core components of the Go-Busters, so that being the lesson they pass down to the Kyoryugers was great. It would’ve been even more great if the movie featuring that lesson include more than two lines of dialogue from Nick, or included Gorisaki and Usada at all, but we take what we can get when we deal with Legend Hero status. (I like that this movie was so keen on having Jin back that they wholesale swiped the Final Live bit about Jin having a one-time-only way to reappear and help out the team. Just bring Jin back! He’s already shown up in every post-show piece of content, and I’m pretty sure he’s back for a cameo in that Ex-Aid-era Taisen film in a few years!)

I honestly didn’t hate this thing, despite taking the piss out of it for the last few paragraphs. As team-up movies go, it seemed fairly coherent and at least paid lip-service to the returning characters’ vibe and story. But I was about 10% the intended audience for this thing, and I feel like my a) lack of knowledge about the history of Sentai, b) lack of interest in dinosaurs generally, c) lack of enjoyment in Samba Dinosaurs specifically, and d) lack of engagement with corny/emotional – you pick – storytelling that seems to treat cause and effect as two villain lieutenants it is sworn to defeat… all of that rendered me the anti-audience for this film. Not my thing, man.

The stuff with J in the forest was great, though. Highlight of the film.



EDITED TO ADD: Oh, ha ha, the other thing I laughed pretty hard at was Gabutyra showing up at the beginning to tell King that his best friend was in danger, and King not figuring out it meant Modern Day Gabutyra until after it died... which means Gabutyra definitely thinks of King as its best friend, while King definitely didn't until it died. That is the meanest thing in a movie about the power of friendship!!!