Category: Power Rangers

All posts relating to the ever-present Power Rangers franchise and all incarnations within.

A REALLY OLD Comment On A Forgotten MMPR "Fan" Film

Digging up the now-defunct MMPR Fan Film project, I came across a comment that was posted on my commentary video for one of their trailer from around 2014-ish. I seem to have recalled touching on this one of the prior DTM-Cast audio programs (Episode 24, for those curious), but I decided to turn the comment into a post for the sake of content and historical context from a voice not my own.

I don’t recall the name or handle of the person who posted this, as the comments on Dailymotion videos have been excised for some reason, so the transcript is from one of the old DTM-Cast posts. Somewhere along the way, I want to do one final write-up on this thing, but that’s a long way to go.
In any event, the MMPR Fan Film comment on an old video, with some minor notes on my end.

“From what I know/have heard, [the producers of this thing] apparently thought [Power Rangers] wasn’t still running and in the beginning had only seen Season 3 of MMPR and Time Force, thought they could make something off this from old fans [or at least those riding the nostalgia train] and when realizing the show is still going strong, decided that the fandom needed a ‘Dark & Gritty’ reboot.
[Because that’s all mature and stuff… the problem with that line of thinking is that when one usually tries to make some light-hearted into something mature, it’s done in the most immature way that when you see the final product, you’re wondering if the whole thing was done by three year olds wanting to be all grown-up and completely missed the point of maturity. Case in point; DC and Marvel comics. But I digress.]
Main reason discussing this will get you banned from forums [mainly Rangerboard – Rangercrew did have a thread up, but I don’t think there’s an out-and-out rule banning all discussion of the thing] is because they refused to answer questions straight, were pretty damn rude to more then a few ‘critiques’, and were just unpleasant. [I followed the threads on Rangerboard and Rangercrew and you’re spot on about all that. To my own recollection, it got REAL UGLY, REAL FAST.] That, and apparently some of the people working of this didn’t know what ‘Sentai’ was. [I honestly would be surprised if they did knew anything about Sentai.] 
One of the actors [the guy who’s playing the Red Ranger in that thing, I think] joined at a later date and tried to explain some things, but just caused even more confusion. Combine this with information changing every so often on their kickstarter and changing their minds on what this is gonna be several times…yeah. Not gonna make anyone happy.
[Yeah, if I remember, they did a Kickstarter with the intent of making it a movie with some mini-trailers or something, then it became a webseries, then it’s a movie, then it became a pitch for a SyFy Original Series, and it’s a webseries again, and they were gonna get Jason Frank to reprise the role of Tommy cause the guy’s a big ol’ publicity whore riding the nostalgia train along with the rest of them, but then he said he wasn’t gonna do it, they got Robert Axelrod to do the voice of Zedd again, but doesn’t quite have the same umph as before unless they were to enhance the voice somehow… by the way, it’s a webseries and we’re gonna have trailers for the trailers of the upcoming episodes because that’s hip and cool and… I might have missed the announcement where they were turning it into a high school musical based on a script by the same genius who brought infamous fanfic Agony In Pink or something, but I digress.]
by the way, if you don’t know what Agony in Pink is, you’re very fortunate and I’ll leave it at that.
I can agree with the comments you made here though. At no point when watching that trailer did I think this felt like any kind of PR. [For those wondering about said comments, look up the video and you’ll see my rambling thoughts there. But to sum up my thoughts on the trailer, it looked like a generic military trailer that is about as much of a Power Rangers thing as pro wrestling is a real sport. It’s just something that could’ve been its own original thing that would probably blend in with the rest of the souless, dark, dreary, unimaginative crap that’s floating around these days, but because they word drop some familiar names and terminology, it’s supposedly a more adult Power Rangers thing or something… whatever.]
Thankfully, there are some other fan films in the works which actually look to be quite interesting. You heard of anything for a fanfilm called ‘Zordon of Eltar’?” [As a matter of fact, I’ve seen their trailer and their pitch video for the kickstarter campaign and it looks like a worthwhile project. Wouldn’t mind checking that out if they can get it going. There was also that other short film that I saw called Red Rising, which I thought was a fun little thing and I even liked the leather jacket idea for the morphed Ranger. I don’t know if that was before or after GoBuster, which were Rangers in leather jackets.]

And then in 2019, we’re getting Go-Busters in the form of Beast Morphers.

The New Shattered Grid Trailer Is Shit

So, JDF just put out a new trailer video for Boom Studios’ upcoming Shattered Grid comic event; essentially a thrown-together, cheaply produced two minute diddy where JDF, playing the Lord Drakkon hybrid Ranger character a.k.a. another “evil Tommy” character that’s about as unoriginal as anything out of poorly-written fanfiction, is looking over a bunch of stock footage while we get occasional shots of some old Ranger relics as well as two of the Sentries… whose costumes are embarrassingly cheap looking and looking to be on the verge of falling apart.

Naturally, the fandom is praising this like hot stuff and already hoping we get more garbage like this. Because God knows that’s precisely what this franchise needs is more poorly-realized shit. And I am just amazed by how everyone thinks this is all kinds of bad ass and they wish the current run of seasons would be more like this. Meanwhile, I’m watching this and laughing my ass off at how lame this whole thing is. The edge is adorable and this whole thing seems to emphasize on how silly and lame this whole Shattered Grid thing is going to turn out.

You know, it’s amazing that five years after the fact, the lessons of the Legendary Farce have already been forgotten. Remember all the hype and hooplah over what was going to be the Ranger battle to end all Ranger battles? And then what happened? We got an underwhelmingly underwhelming pay off to an underwhelmingly poor couple seasons of Power Rangers. Even the extended cut did little to make the episode seem like less of a farce than it already was.

I feel sorry for JDF. It’s true that I’ve given him shit in the past – some of it well deserved – but I truly feel bad for him and wonder for his mental state. This is a man who wanted nothing to do with the failed MMPR Fan Film project or that other spoof that I’ve sinced dubbed “Power Rangers For Retards” because they’re not official Saban productions. And yet here he is participating in an official Saban production and it comes off almost as bad as those other productions. It’s almost as though he so wanted a spin-off series for his one and only noteworthy character that he was willing to do a shittier manchild version for the sake of getting the fans to eat up whatever snake oil Boom Studios has cooked up this time.

And it’s funny; a year or so ago, I whipped up a quick image of the Green Ranger taking a dump in the toilet and postulated that JDF was so desperate and pathetic that he would’ve done a movie of said Green Ranger taking a shit for two hours and the fans would eat it up. Considering the response the trailer’s been getting, that statement is coming off more and more likely these days.

Anyway, those are my two cents.

Beast Morphers

So, if you haven’t heard the news lately, here’s a brief summation.

After 25 years of a long, fruitful partnership that is Power Rangers, Saban Brands and Bandai have parted ways and the license has been acquired by Hasbro Toys. Apparently, this new partnership is so special that it has presented the franchise with a fresh new logo. And it looks okay; more “modern” or something and much more straightforward. Clearly, a new era indeed.

Not only that, but 2019’s iteration of Power Rangers will be entitled Beast Morphers and will adapted the 2012 series Sentai Go-Busters… the one that was skipped over a few years back in favor or whatever series Dino Charge was adapting. This intrigues me somewhat; not because I was desperately wanting Go-Busters or something, but because Saban is now tasked with crafting a new series that is several years old and trying to make it seem hip and fresh.

Because the series is several years old, there are no surprises to be had here. Producers will know precisely what to expect and how to use the series to tell their new vision, which has something of an interesting premise; a computer virus striking at the Morphing Grid itself is something that feels interesting.

As for the Hasbro thing? I don’t know what to expect since I’m not a toy collector, but it’s Hasbro; they know toys, so I’m sure they’ll do some cool stuff with the franchise.

So, yeah. Color me somewhat intrigued by what’s coming… even if I’m just setting myself up for disappointment.

Random Thoughts On… The Upcoming Shattered Grid (MMPR Comic)

The above image sums up my thoughts on this whole thing in a nutshell.

Look, for longtime fans, seeing other Ranger teams in comic book form should be a ball… but wouldn’t it be better if they had their OWN comic books to partake in rather than having to share space with the Mighty Morphin reboot series that seems to have such a massive hard-on for the Tommy Oliver character that their big idea for a new evil Ranger was the same old tired “Evil Tommy” trope that has permeated many lazy fanfics written over the years.

I know. I’ve been there… but at least, in my defense, I used his clone, made him immortal, and ended up turning him into a bit of a puppet master before eventually killing him off in brutal fashion.

I want to get excited for this big event. The new Boom! Studios comic is actually pretty good when it isn’t doing the Tommy Wankfest thing and is giving the property the right kind of maturity. But when all there is to look forward is “Evil Tommy” being the big bad for a major event when you have many more enticing options, it’s hard to give this thing anything less than the above image.

Is Seth Rollins A “Real-Life Power Rangers?” (No, he isn’t.)

(You know what? I might consider making this into a video… just to gauge some kind of reaction to this reaction.)

WWE sometimes comes up with the stupidest shit. Not just in terms of their on-screen feuds and storylines, but also their website content. Not a major media event goes where WWE isn’t doing some stupid thing like photoshopping lightsabers into action shots or having wrestlers fight dinosaurs in poor mock-ups. Sometimes, stuff like this is cute, but then there are times when you just roll your eyes.

Case in point, WWE.com’s most recent article in which they try to sell readers on the idea that WWE Superstar, current RAW tag-team champion, former WWE World Champion, and Wrestlemania 31 savior Seth Rollins is a real-life, honest-to-goodness Power Ranger.

No… really.

Continue reading “Is Seth Rollins A “Real-Life Power Rangers?” (No, he isn’t.)”

The Abridged Book Of Ninja Fighting

In Season 3 of Mighty Morphin, the Power Rangers get new power coins that draw the power of NINJA! This means they get cool ninja suits and cool ninja powers. Yeah, that’s awesome, right?

But isn’t the ninja supposed to be a stealthy figure?

In the old days, ninjas were spies and assassins who would use stealth to get in, do their thing, and get out without anyone noticing. The art of invincibility, as it were. It was a thing with the Ninja Turtles whenever they needed to do something stealthy; they went in, did their thing, and got out without anyone noticing. Not just because of their appearance differing from the humans, but because they were NINJA. That’s what they’re supposed to do; it’s what they were trained to do. Sometimes, they make noise, but for the most part, they’re supposed to stay in the shadows and they usually do that.

So why is it that whenever we have Ninja Rangers, they’re out in the open and not doing anything that is remotely ninja-y? They make loud noises, they taunt, they don’t do anything remotely stealthy, they have ninja magic… but they don’t use stealth or anything. What kind of ninjas are they?

The ones that apparently study from the Abridged Book Of Ninja Fighting.

Yes, I Have Seen It…

Due to it being a short work day last night, I was able to catch a screening of the new Power Rangers movie before heading off home. And while I will reserve my full thoughts on the film for a later time, I will say that the movie far exceeded my admittedly low expectations.

I really liked the film. While there were some bits that I found odd or questionable, it was a really smooth, easy going film that hit that fine balance between a grounded mature approach and just upfront silly fun that seems to be lacking in a lot of these “uber-serious” reboots. The action bits were well done, the characters were decent, and the whole thing was an easy watch with very few dull moments.
All in all, perfectly fine film. I enjoyed it a lot.