Sonic Aftermath

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn7_PiOPNCw


The only real power rangers as far as my inner child is concerned! I remember getting off the bus, when I was in elementary school, and running up my driveway as fast as I could because the power rangers was starting just as our bus was getting to my house.

....Sorry I was feeling a bit nostalgic


Anyone have any shows you were fond of as a child?

Oh I was a huge Power Rangers fan myself. I was eight years old in 1993 when it came out, so I was the exact perfect age for this show. At the time there was absolutely nothing else like it. Never before had I seen a live action show aimed at kids with so much martial arts and explosions and whatnot. Just the right thing to entertain a little boy like I was back then.





...with that being said, I discovered something rather shocking about 15 years later. I never knew my beloved Power Rangers came from a Japanese TV series called Super Sentai. In particular, the show used was Kyoryuu Sentai Zyuranger. Someone had posted the entire run of that show on YouTube (sadly most of it has been taken down now), and I watched it from beginning to end.

It kind of makes me feel like I've been lied to my whole childhood, but now a lot of things make more sense when rewatching Power Rangers. Like why Rita was dubbed kung-fu movie style, or why a crowd of people would spontaneously become Japanese, or why the footage would change quality over and over throughout an episode.

I hate to say this, but as an adult I think Zyuranger is the better show. All of the footage was made specifically for Zyuranger, so you end up with a much more coherent story and better fight scenes. Some of the power ranger episodes just didn't make that much sense or looked really cobbled together, because of what the writers had to do with the pre-existing footage they were given.

Not to mention many things were censored from Zyuranger. The biggest example is the Green Ranger. In Zyuranger, the Green Ranger is the Red Ranger's brother, and he's out for revenge because he blames the Red Ranger for their father's death. So instead of being a brainwashed teen like Tommy, he joins the bad guys voluntarily for several episodes. And remember the green candle? In Power Rangers, if it burns out, Tommy loses his powers. Zyuranger? When the candle burns out, the Green Ranger DIES. That definitely raises the stakes a whole lot more and makes the Green Ranger's final battle a lot more intense.

Ya know with all the times Angel Grove got stomped half to death by giant robots and monsters...like every other day or so....you think people would move away. Getting insurance must be out of the question there. :/


I do remember learning at some point it was based off of a Japanese show but I don't remember when. I remember the green candle and the "MAGIC WAND, MAKE MY MONSTER GROW!"






I watched power rangers a little ways passed mighty morphin into ZEO and then I sorta lost interest. I felt cheated that the power rangers I knew had been left behind so I moved on to other things. Ya know I cant really remember why they ditched their old power armor for in the first place. I think their armor was damaged irreparably somehow or something like that..memory fuzzing out....too far back. -shot-


I still enjoy the music to this day :B





Ya know someone should make some power ranger 'like' characters here; that would rule! Could we get away with that? If we can I call dibs on the red 'like' ranger! X3

Quote:I watched power rangers a little ways passed mighty morphin into ZEO and then I sorta lost interest.

ZEO is when I lost interest too. By then I was eleven years old, and I thought I was too old and too cool to keep watching. My how ironic that is...now that I'm watching it all over again on Netflix.

Quote:I felt cheated that the power rangers I knew had been left behind so I moved on to other things. Ya know I cant really remember why they ditched their old power armor for in the first place. I think their armor was damaged irreparably somehow or something like that..memory fuzzing out....too far back. -shot-

The in-universe plot reason: Towards the end of season 3, the bad guys manage to destroy the Power Ranger's original power coins and blow up the Command Center. But then Zordon and Alpha reveal they had a totally different Command Center they were working on, and that's where they give them their new suits.

The real life reason: It is much, much more complicated. You know how in Power Rangers, the plot is continuous from season to season? Super Sentai doesn't do that. Every season is self-contained and introduces a new plot, a new cast, new weapons, new mecha and (most importantly) new ranger costumes. There are some crossover episodes where rangers from different seasons team up, but these are considered non-canon.

That made producing Power Rangers with Super Sentai footage pretty complicated after the first season:

1) The first season they just used Zyuranger footage. But then that ran out.

2) So Saban commissioned Toei to make footage specifically for Power Rangers to continue their plot, with the rangers still fighting in Zyuranger suits. But that was way too expensive for the show's budget.

3) So in Season 2 they film mostly original fight footage and used pretty much only mecha battle footage from the new Super Sentai season Dairanger. But now instead of Zyuranger costumes, the stock footage they had to work with featured the new Dairanger costumes. They can't use any shots with the Dairangers due to the costume change:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9znyG0xIMwA

Thus, most of the on-foot battles pretty much went like: Dairanger stock footage of monster, original footage of rangers in Zyuranger costumes, Dairanger stock footage of monster shooting projectile attack, original footage of rangers being blasted, rangers firing back projectile attack, Dairanger footage of monster falling down, monster growing, mecha battle. They couldn't show the monster and rangers in the same shot in on-foot scenes because they didn't change the Zyuranger costumes, so the on-foot battles were all pretty lame.

The only exception for not using on-foot fight footage is Tommy in White Ranger costume, since that's actually Kibaranger from the Dairanger footage.

3) And Season 3 was more of this (now utilizing Kakuranger footage). Midway through the season we are introduced to the Alien Rangers, which wear the Kakuranger suits. Thus, now they can use original fight scene footage from Kakuranger.

4) Season 4 is where Saban decided "Screw it, let's just change costumes every year like Super Sentai does." And thus the Zeo Rangers were born, and now they can use all the original Super Sentai fight footage they want. MUCH much easier and cheaper than trying to keep the rangers in Zyuranger costumes.

...did I go on for too long?

Quote:Ya know someone should make some power ranger 'like' characters here; that would rule! Could we get away with that? If we can I call dibs on the red 'like' ranger! X3

You ought to read Giichi's profile...because he's a fan of a Power Rangers-like show called Neko Sentai Kittehranger (a team of cat power rangers). I just made it up myself for his character. I thought about playing as Lionranger from Kittehranger a few times. I'd just use the dimensional merge to bring Lionranger from a dimension where the show is real. But sadly I am at my four-character limit