rangerBlog - April 15th, 2007

Apr. 15th, 2007

06:34 am - I'm not reviewing things.

I've been meaning to review PROO since... the first episode, really.

The problem is- I'm very conflicted about this series. On the one hand- it's NOT just ripping off the sentai, at all. On an episode-by-episode basis, it's almost completely unrelated, and that is really awesome to get.

On the other hand- DESPITE not using Boukenranger's plots- it gave the rangers Bouken's status-quo. "We're adventurers who works for a millionaire searching out treasures." This is somewhat distressing, because:
1) the sentai status-quo existed only to justify the adventures, which you're now mostly not doing.
2) PROO doesn't have the budget to do the adventures Boukenger once did.

...crap, it looks like I'm reviewing things. Oh well, pressing on.

PROO, by all accounts, is cheap. I mean- really cheap. It does bottle shows. I was trying to figure out if they were jsut saving money ont he first few shows- but it's been 7 episodes and we havent' had a non-outdoor location shoot, even in episodes that NEEDED them. (Pirate in Pink.)

There's also some issues with Mack, the red ranger. I think he's had 3 personalities thus far, and his recurring character gag "I read adventure novels" seems to have been taken from Boukenger #7. that's very nice, take what was a minor quirk for the sentai character, expand on it. Except they just adapted #7 for At All Costs- and that entire plotline was removed. This often happens to PR, adding 3 ninjas in season 2 that turned otu to be unrelated to season 3's ninja powers, making Carlos a soccer player to take advantage of next year's black ranger who occasionally fightign mosnters with soccer-attacks... and then never USING such attacks... but this particular instance bugs me. Know why?
BECAUSE IT'S A REALLY ANNOYING CHARACTER TRAIT.
LIKE choosing to strand your team in the mansion, in a status-quo that basically means "we will never interact with human who are not a member of the cast, EVER," this NEEDLESSLY KNEECAPS the series, hurting it while IN THEORY 'makign it easier to fit with the Sentai,' when in reality- "Oh wait, we're not doing that, so we don't need to worry about fitting."

Kick into Overdrive
2 part premiere. Very 'closed,' but I felt the conflict between mack and his dad was real- his father was realistically reluctant to put his son in danger, beyond the point that plot convenience would normally have him give up- but not to the point of utter irrationality. It felt realer than most emotional issues PR has tried to deal with.
Problems:
Really, really obvious they only had 3 lava-lizard suits. Subsequent episode shot it less obviously, and Episode 7 had them doing some digital doubling- so why was the premiere so short-shifted?
The jet to get different places in the world is great- but you're also drawing attention to some SERIOUS PROBLEMS. The zords arrive anywhere instantaneously. The drive trains are TELEPORTED to you (apparently,) the jet takes hours to fly someplace one episode, it's instantaneous (literally, under 30 seconds to cross the world, an attack still just beginning) the next. If you're going to have problems that glaring- you either need to rationalize it away, or at least NOT DRAW ATTENTION TO IT. The jet is a neat piece of technology- but it draws attention to this problem- every single episode.

The Underwater World
Sentai-heavy adaption of the cool first episode. If this was a Will/Ronny episode, why does Mack save Will at the end? Oh, right, because he does that in the Sentai footage! But- this was all US footage. And UNLIKE the Sentai, which had a strong focus on Red taking new-recruits Black and Yellow in hand, Mack was otherwise a non-character in this episode.
Also- you jsut discovered fucking ATLANTIS. That is MORE INTERESTING THAN THE ROBOT FIGHT. But they buzz through the fallen city on fast-forward, all in Sentai footage. We see exactly one room of the ancient city. This is an episode that would have benefited ENORMOUSLY from inserting some SLOWER US meterial between the entrance and the final treasure room to drive home- ATLANTIS. Apparently an ANCIENT LOST CIVILIZATION WITH SUPERTECHNOLGOY isn't interesting enough, we have to skip that part and get to the robot fight that's in every episode.
This made sense in Japan, it was the pilot, it had other priorities, and it established the Boukenger's attitude towards historical sites. It DID NOT MAKE SENSE FOR THE US EPISODE.
Mack's second personality debuts.

Heart of Blue
Good episode. The treatment of the scrolls, insane as it was, actually made MORE sense than it did in Japan. Miratrix (whose name is startlingly close to meaning 'prostitute' in Latin) is an interesting character. Dax is clearly still smitten with her (though the episode would have been better if this was clear why he let her get away in the end, we wouldn't get confirmation until episode 6,) and I find the idea of her being mentored by a bad guy imprisoned in a crystal FACINATING. Disembodies mentor, who cannto act but must teach,it's really interesting! I excpect a facinating origin story for her.
Let me repeat that, with emphasis, I *EXPECT* a facinating origins tory for her. Her equivalent Sentai character never got one, but PROO is NOT ALLOWED to not give her one. I will call them No Good Shits if they do that, yes, even Jackie Marchand.
"Hey, Miratrix is a ninja, and she'll have to appear in all US footage. Think we should bust out the kelzak costumes to give her her own footsoldiers and put her on par with the other generals? ...oh, she didn't have footsoldiers in the Sentai? I guess not there, it might conflict with something we have to do later... even though we'll never be showing us footage of her."

Weather or Not
This episode marked the debut of Mack's 3rd personality- emo defeatist. This is used to justify... something that the episode doesn't bother explaining, or acknowledging in dialog. The new zord channels power directly through Mack, causing him excruciating pain. But ONCE does anyone SAY this, even when trying to reassure Mack he's not at fault?
Of course not.
The Rangers think St. Lucia is going to be a vacation, and thus it's hilariosu when their efforts to go there are constantly stymied! So will they think it's a vacation next episode when they actually get there? ...of course not, episode 6 has a different writer!
Dax gets a second personality! ...unfortunately it belongs to Bridge. Sadly, this appears to be a permanent change, and it will mar the series with it's 'whoo, false constant exuberance look at me, shiny shiny something's happening don't look away!' at least through the current episode. This, on top of the rec-room scene is causing unpleasant flashbacks to earth SPD.
energy Agency truck is driving through the country because... why? Oh the driver is in danger- is that important? ...guess not.
This episode was a mess. The good stuff came (rangers chilling in the zords) from the Sentai (it worked slightly better here, but still...) and Mack's emotional arc was an absolute shitpile, like he'd gone off his meds in order to justify whatever insane thing he had to do necxt to fit the sentai footage. (The Japanese red ranger plot was actually nothing like this, the red ranger went on a subdued guilt trip, remembering teammates he's lost in the past, then went to save his current, the American one went on a bratty tantrum and left his teammates to die until prompted to do otherwise.)
Also, the weather machine turning into a monster made (marginally) more sense in Japan. Could we get some lip-service to explain this please? it's not an ancient artifact over here, this doesn't make sense.
OTOH, the scene of the Lava Lizard explaining what was happening to Mack was apparently US drop-in, since in Japan he refuses to do so and self-destructs. It was one of the best bits of the episode- and one of the few isntances of personalizing a foot-soldier in 15 years PR has ever done. I LOVE it.
Overall- not a good episode though.

Pirate in Pink
Rose Rose Rose... shut up.
It's not the actress, though this was a particularly bad episode for her- it's the writing.
She's supposed to be an expert in alien mythology- in short, she has studied the history of the PRU. She knew about flurious and Moltor, et al. That was an AWESOME moment in the pilot, it warmed my heart.
So can we not make her look like an idiot EVERY TIME SHE OPENS HER MOUTH? Saying Neptune was a fictional god i can ALMOT swallow- maybe his encounter with Lightspeed was classified. But no NO SUCH THING AS GHOSTS? The vast number in the PRU already- YOU MET ONE IN THE FIRST EPISODE YOU DITSY BROAD. HE CONVINCED YOU TO BECOME A RANGER AND SAVE THE WORLD.
I miss when Doug Sloan would take every episode wand rewrite it for consistency. i miss when someone cared.
I would NEVER accuse someone of phoning this in- it's their JOB after all- I'm sure they take it seriously... the problem is that I find myself REMINDING myself I would never make this accusation EACH WEEK, which is starting to make me kinda think that yes, they ARE phoning it in.
Miratrix is awesome! Gee, its' a good thing neither of the other villains, who were hot ont he rangers heels last week, decided to attack the rangers when they were so close to the jewel!
She creates a cannon-monster- inspired by the pirate cannon (the ONLY real prop in this episode) and it's not made FROM the cannon. *sigh*
The saw-tank fight should have been cut and moved to another episode. The time it took NEEDED to be spent on St. Lucia.
Why are we back in the rangers hometown suddenly? Sure, it's to justify the Sentai fight, but rose seemed to go out of her way to say the SOUTHERN part of the island was a jungle last episode in order to justify a city fight On St. Lucia! Oh, right, this episode had a different writer, and no one edited the two for consistency.
The episode desperately needed another 3 minutes on St. Lucia, preferably SEEING some more piratey stuff- but that time was swallowed by the first half of the mecha fight.
Oh well, it could have been worse. The Japanese equivilant would have been a HORRIBLE choice for Rose.

At all Costs
It's been 7 episodes, and Norb has yet to do anything. hell, he has yet to even provide someone for Flurious to exposit to, which I suspect was his ostensive purpose.
What? They're not int his episode? I know. But it's been seven episodes, and I'm laying money, right now, that Norb will DO NOTHING until the last episode when he betrays Flurious. Because this is how PR has been plotted for the last 3 years. I saw the last episode of Mystic Force recently and I actuallg GAGGED when i saw them trot out 'civilians fear the forest' AND 'there are magical creatures there', NEITHER of which had been seen since the pilot. THAT MADE ME VIOLENTLY ANGRY. What, you think this is good writing? This isn't even WRITING. For WRITING something has to HAPPEN. You don't have Briarwood residents (of which we've seen maybe 2 with speaking roles over the entire course of the series) come forth, remind you of what they're afraid of, and overcome it. Bad fanfic doesn't even do that. You know how I respond when I see that? I shout at the television. Know what I shout? "FUCK YOU TOO!"
Writing like this is an expression of contempt for the audience, plain and simple. Contempt regardless of the audience's age range, bad writing is ALWAYS bad, it doesnt' suddenly get better if it's 'just for kids.'
There's a cure bit of inter-series continuity here. I don't hate it.
There's lots of little messies with the plot- Dragon-lizard-guy is part dragon- but that's TOTALLY UNRELATED to all the other dragon stuff in the episode? (It wasn't in japan, whups.) and the faux-flashback of the finale is slightly more awkward here than it was in Boukenger.
I do forgive this episode a lot, however, for the scene of Mack and Ronny practicing with their new weapon- and beign thrown back into the wall. It's 95% US, and the original Japanese version was mack-only, and deadly-serious. It was GREAT.
I wish dragon-dude would stick around/be revived to ask as a general for Moltor's lava-lizards., since 3/4 of their fights are US footage. But Pr hasn't done THAT in years. "It's easier to just do what the Sentai does all the time than to work around it when we're doing something different."

In conclusion, what do I think of PROO so far?
Well, I applaud it for doing so much RIGHT that PR hasn't done for years... but frankly it stinks.
The characters are overboroad, the writing is inconsistent, the setting isolates the cast (which makes them uninteresting) the acting is definitely in the bottom third of PR casts, Norb is pointless, and they're actually making the Sentai footage mesh WORSE by the addition of the jet and the globe-trotting locations. Just giving them teleportation would have been easier.
Spencer is pretty okay.

I applaud them for doing almost entirely US plots, a TOTALLY REFRESHING change from previous years- but the isolating status quo they chose "we are rangers living in a mansion estate with no personal lives" makes them EXTREMELY BORING an hard to write about- seriously diluting the impact of the US plots.

So, um, I'm looking forward to Miratrix's origin story. Knock it out of the park guys!
And if you don't do it you're No Good Shits.

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11:00 am - Head in the Clouds

Does anyone else see a face to the left of the statue in the columbia logo?

It's a little elongated here, as the clouds swirl, it reaches its best aspect just before it's obscured- but I couldn't get a decent snap of this.

This would be the 1993 logo unless there's a more recent one in circulation- this one came before the recent film Ghost Rider.

That may be coloring my mind's eye, since the heavy brow makes me think of Nickolaus Cage. Would I be seeing a face if this wasnt' a Nick Cage movie? Is it all in my mind?

Tell me what you think.

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