[Locke]

Checked out Surprise Future, because production qualities on Rider shows (and Toku in general, really) are largely static (unless you literally compare like a 70s show side by side to today), it is easy to forget how old some of the shows are.

I bring this up, because this created some unintended strangeness while watching 'Surprise Future'. As the title implies, this is a Drive story about Tomari trying to stop a dark timeline, and when they date the key disaster events in this dark future, I realise now I am closer in time to those events than I am to when this actually came out.

Still, this movie is actually pretty damn good, but I will say it’s brisk runtime is a double edged sword. On the one hand, needing to wrap within 60 odd minutes and to still leave time for new forms and fight scenes, doesn’t leave much room for the story to breathe. But on the other hand, it also means the movie is forced to break out of the formula shackles of the main series to make sure they can cram everything in.

And man, it is crazy how much better Drive is, when it isn’t this awkward smooshing of case of the week and goofy comedy jostling for screentime and undermining one another in the process.

One of the best things about Drive for me were the Rider suit designs, and this movie is no slouch in this regard once again. Drive Type Next looks like a 90s Power Rangers villain in the best possible way. Type Special is a nice way of reusing this into a more heroic form. Super Dead Heat is a great reuse of the Machine Chaser suit, my beloved oh how I miss you. It is funny that once again the worst suit here is the evolved Roidmude one.

Oh and Ghost is here, we don’t need to talk about that.

So yeah, overall, I had a good time with this. It probably helped a lot that I watched this out of order by watching it after I had finished the main show. This means these movies are the final times I will see anything new happen with these characters or this world.

As the theme song blared over the climactic battle and I realised it would be one of the final times I would be experiencing this, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness. I may have never loved these characters exactly, but I do feel like I am probably going to miss these idiots.