Saturday morning, the Widget and I sat down to watch the first episode of the latest incarnation of Power Rangers, the hilariously named ‘Power Rangers: Megaforce.’ While I was wondering if we’d get a cameo from Barry Bostwick, the child was pretty entertained by it all, and it was not a bad episode at all. It featured some old-school call-backs to the first season of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, some things that seemed to be flash-forwards, and some attractive leads, albeit limited in their acting skill. After 20 seasons, the show has outlasted dozens of imitators and has a pretty impressive track record even after jumping from network to network and production company to production company. All told, they’ve more than quadrupled the X-Men’s Saturday morning run, yet still get no respect.
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) expects the usual self-defeating nerd-on-nerd hate about the Rangers, but is braced for impact, asking: If you saw it, how’d you feel about Megaforce Episode One? If you didn’t see it, why not?
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Didn’t know it existed. I dug the first few seasons when I was in high school but I stopped watching when the first movie came out.
I love the rangers. Always have since 3rd grade. I stopped watching around SPD, which I thought was surprisingly excellent. I don’t watch it regularly anymore (but occasionally I’ll stream whatever the most recent “new ranger intro” episode on Netflix) mainly because I’m older, married, full time job, lots of personal commitments, but mainly because I don’t have kids. However, I’m intrigued by the idea of throw backs to the original series. I may have to find it online somewhere. Also, Tommy Olive was the only White Ranger and Red Zeo Ranger, i.e. both cannot exist in a single photo. Come on people!
SPD is probably my favorite season of PR, but I’m almost certain it has to do with Dekaranger being my favorite Sentai series (well, tied for fave with Jetman and Gokaiger). They did an amazing job using a lot of the same aspects yet changing it just enough to be something new when they translated it to PR. A few things were way off, but for the most part they kept more of the source material than they usually do when they turn it into PR.
Only missed it because Saturday I was asleep and Sunday the cable guide listed the wrong time (when I went to watch, it was just ending rather than just starting, everything was 1/2 hour off for most of the day).
From what I know of it via Ranger Wiki (formerly known as The Morphin Grid), I’m intrigued how they are already using the Legend war as an aspect, and I’m curious how certain things will be resolved (such as the appearance of rangers that are the same people because they played multiple rangers like Tommy). And it sounds like even though new footage was shot for them to use that didn’t have the pre-Zyuranger teams, they may still use some of the original footage (and pre-Zyu teams might be acknowledged somehow, which has already been teased at back in Dino Thunder when Tommy had more files than the then existing ranger teams, including some with the symbols of pre-Zyu teams on the files).
Also, I already have a crush on the new pink ranger. She’s absolutely adorable!
Just watched it (it is up officially on Hulu if anyone else wanted to check it out). I already like it better than Samurai, but that really isn’t saying much as I really disliked Samurai (yet I liked Shinkenger, but I usually do prefer the Sentai over the PR version).
I was both grinning and groaning at some of the obvious throwbacks to MMPR, such as the indirect saying of “teenagers with attitude”, the mystical head and his robot assistant (although that was from Goseiger as well), a hangout named Ernie’s and a few of the lines.
It wasn’t super exceptional or anything (do you really expect it from Power Rangers?) but it was fun to watch.
And did I mention the new pink ranger is adorable?
I hope she keeps those tiny pink shorts on … especially doing high kicks
Emma Pinkshorts, yeah! but Gia isn’t bad either. Both have killer smiles. http://cdn02.cdn.justjaredjr.com/wp-content/uploads/pictures/2013/01/rangers-megaforce/power-rangers-megaforce-cast-pics-11.jpg
Didn’t watch it because I heard from some friends that it was kind of awful, especially in comparison to its Super Sentai counterparts.
Well, having never seen Goseiger (save for the Vs. movie with Gokaiger) I couldn’t tell you, but it wasn’t bad. I preferred it to Samurai in many aspects…
Didn’t watch it. Why not?
Well, because I’ve always detested anything having to do with the Power Rangers. Probably because I’m not the intended audience, and because I was too old at the time it came out to enjoy something that makes Gilligan’s Island seem intellectual in comparison.
Also because, with all the interesting and actually GOOD stuff that’s available coming out of Japan (any movie by Kirasawa, any anime by Studio Ghibli, or most of the stuff you can see on Crunchyroll) it’s rather annoying to me that they’d waste airtime on something as idiotic as the Power Rangers.
Imagine if, with Masterpiece Theater, Mystery, Sherlock, Dr. Who, The Avengers, The Prisoner etc., available the only British thing that ever got shown in the US EVER were reruns of Benny Hill. It’s the same sort of thing. Ugh.
If your munchkin likes the Power Rangers, more power to you and the sprat, but there’s much better fare out there for somebody like me, who isn’t the target audience.