(SPOILER WARNING!!)
In the same vain with Super Sentai, I'm not the biggest fan of Power Rangers. I am more or less familiar with the story of the original Mighty Morphin' days and have sat through all of the Zordon era series (MMPR-In Space), but much of what I know about the franchise is through word of mouth and Internet Reviewers, specifically Linkara with "History of Power Rangers" and Des Shinta with his reviews of MMPR, Zeo, In Space and Dino Charge (as well as their Sentai counterparts). Thus, while I am certainly not the most qualified to talk about the subject of today's blog, I still feel that I know enough about the franchise and how it's been treated in recent years to, at the very least, comment on it and give my overall thoughts.
I think the best way to describe modern Power Rangers is; problematic. Not in the sense that it caused major, government conspiracy level controversy, but rather with how the franchise has been managed when Saban Brands got their hands on the series again. Much of the time, the series that have been created under Saban's watch (that being Samurai, Megaforce, Dino Charge and Ninja Steel) have been behind the scenes disasters, most notably when Jonathan Tzachor was show-runner from Samurai through Megaforce. The man is not solely responsible for much of Samurai and Megaforce's failings, but his inability to let go of his "Sentai Purist" attitude to his handling of those shows is still a large contributing factor to said failings. Specifically, his tendency to just transcribe Sentai episodes with an American format (despite Shinkenger being excessively rooted in Japanese lore and cultural trappings) and using the company funds to spend it on recreating sets that didn't need to be recreated. It's probably the main reason he was straight up fired after Super Megaforce proved to be disastrous in ratings, viewership and toy sales and replaced by Judd "Chip" Lynn for Dino Charge and Ninja Steel.
But even with Lynn coming back as show-runner and producer, that didn't stop Dino Charge and Ninja Steel tanking the franchise even further, with the writing for those shows being insipid and lazy and the toyline reaching unheard of lows, due to most of Dino Charge's toys being unnecessary repaints and Ninja Steel having far too many items that don't even appear in the show (or, in the case of Surfermaru, not even appearing the toyline at all). While the cast and acting were far more than the shows themselves deserved and Ninja Steel is still FAR superior to Ninninger in virtually every aspect, it wasn't enough to keep the franchise afloat or allow for a better sitting with the fans.
Oh, and Noam Kaniel's music. It's awful. The composition is lazy and repetitive (as, it's all the same no matter how you slice it) and it never fits the tone or scene where it is used. It really makes me wish that the co-composer for the series, Youssef "Joe" Guezoum, would handle the music and theme song instead of Kaniel, as even though it can be loud at points, the compositions are still less painful to listen to for those with sensitive hearing (such as myself). And I know this from experience, as his music is used for Hell's Kitchen and it has proven to be far more soothing to the ears than anything from Kaniel's entire body of work.
Which, of course, brings me to the next series; Power Rangers Beast Morphers, which will be adapted from Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters. This series was announced when the rights to Power Rangers was bought out from Saban and end up in the hands of the company responsible for Transformers; Hasbro. And just from the preview images of the toyline, I can already see that things have taken a massive step forward. No more of the superfluous repaints, overly muscular Rangers, Zord-only armour toys or underpainted gimmick figures; instead, just straight forward, screen accurate action figures with better articulation and more plastic being used for their accessories, along with coming with an item that would work to unlock a variety of lights and sounds used in the Beast-X Morpher. And the 5-inch action figures would cost the same price as those underpainted, overly muscular Ranger figures that Bandai would just toss out on a monthly basis.
That said, I'm still not sure how well this series would turn out. It's premiering next week as of writing this blog, and I'm not terribly excited for it. For one thing, while not in direct control, Haim Saban still has a say in how this series will go. And given much of what he has done is what has alienated even the die-hard fans of Power Rangers, I'm not sure whether or not Hasbro would learn from Saban's mistakes and try not to repeat them. And to the chagrin of anyone who hated Kaniel's music, he's back too. And the theme song is... well:
Will the nostalgia pandering EVER stop?
So, once again, speaking as someone who isn't the biggest Power Rangers fan, I'm still unsure as to whether or not Beast Morphers will work. Then again, this is just me speaking, so I'm unsure as to anyone else feels about Beast Morphers. If you have any thoughts, please let me know.
But until next time; this is Callum Lewis, the Media Hood, signing off!
P.S: STOP. GOING. TO. NICKELODEON!
No comments:
Post a Comment