Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

The new Power Rangers series, POWER RANGERS SUPER MEGAFORCE, premieres February 15th. SciFi Japan has info and high-res images from Saban.

http://www.scifijapan.com/articles/2014 ... ckelodeon/

I heard that the hook for this series is that the Super Megaforce Rangers can morph into *any* of the rangers from the previous 20 seasons of the show, is that correct? If so, I might tune in just to see if my favorite rangers make an appearance.

Is this in anyway related to the new Japanese movie that's being released?

I can't wait for it to go on TV, this February.

I really didn't like "Power Rangers Mega-Force"; it was a very bland attempt to recapture the feel of the original season, while dumb-ing it down to pre-school levels of simplicity, even by the often mocked standards of this franchise.

I'm also kind of annoyed (teed off) that they totally dropped the space pirate themes of "Gokaiger", minus the obvious usage of that show's effects footage.

I'll give it a chance for the superior monster designs taken from "Gokaiger". And hopefully the guest stars from past seasons will be handled well. But my expectations will be VERY low going in.

The first episode of Super Megaforce is up on Nick's site for viewing. My thoughts:

Did we really need there to be an artificial limit on the "Ultra Powers?"

What is up with all of the pointless exposition? I did not need to hear "I think I figured out how to form the Legendary Megazord."

The entire episode was paced completely wrong. The beginning just felt inconsistent. There was no explanation or anything as to why Ernie and the school are damaged. When were they attacked? How much time passed between episodes? Why did Vrak run away?

Not to mention they crammed two episodes worth of footage into one just for the sake of doing so. There was no plot or even breathing room, it was just one long big action sequence.

The voice acting for the villains is terrible. If there is one thing that was always great in PR, it was the villain voices. Here, the actors sound bored more than anything else.

Is that old dude the ONLY teacher in the entire school?

The footage for GokaiGreen does NOT fit the personality of Jake.

The changing into past teams is boring without the great voice over to state which team they are turning into.

Overall, the episode was pretty lackluster, even for a first episode. I know next to nothing about anything that is going on as there was no time given to let any semblance of a plot come through. Did Michael Bay direct this episode?

Oh, and I cannot comment on the opening theme because Nick decided to put the commercial break in the middle of it and then skip the remainder of it when it came back, so I have no idea what the song actually is.

The song is the same as the previous season.

Loved the action sequences, but I've also never watched the sentai counterpart, but the episode itself was pretty horrible.

One thing I'm getting really tired of with the new Saban Ranger series is the constant need to shoe in dialogue during the fight sequences. Gone are the days where the original six rangers had distinguished "Aiyaas" that fit each character and allowed the action sequences to breath. Now bad one liners have to be forced in to every scene to dumb down the violence and keep it friendly. It's a shame because it really takes me out of the action which would otherwise be really cool. I guess I could watch it on mute.

As a pretty big fan of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers I enjoyed the fuzzy little stuffing out of this clip:

OK, as a longtime PR fan I'm officially confused.

It's long been established that the Rangers don't lose their powers once their show is over, as past Rangers have shown up in later shows fairly regularly (Forever Red is a standout in this vein). But does someone like Tommy, who has held at least four different Ranger powers, get to pick and choose which he draws from? He started as green (my favorite PR story arc - the DragonZord whooped butt), then white, then red (which he showed up as in Forever Red), then black in Dino Thunder. I'd kinda assumed that when he got one color it replaced the previous one (except how the green was stripped from him). This would have allowed for Red replacing White, later to be replaced again as Black. Now here he is with the White Ranger's saber and his mask ghosting over his face.

I know there will (and probably cannot) be an official explanation, just looking for a little "No-Prize" type of explanation.

According to Zordon his Green and White Ranger powers were lost "forever" when each left, respectively. The Zeonizers / Zeo powers were never destroyed, however. They were just discarded in favor of the Turbo powers. So Tommy's probably held on to his Zeonizer since then. The power from the black Dino Gem was used up by the last episode of Dino Thunder.

All this being said, it was established in the two parter "Once a Ranger," from Operation Overdrive, that powers can be physically restored in the morphing grid. Tommy's spent a fortune on things like the Astro-Megaship II, dinosaur research...etc...etc... So it's not unfathomable that during this time he found the morphing grid and restored some of his old powers.

The Ranger keys in Super Megaforce also seem to channel all of the powers from the first 19 seasons. So it's possible the keys have something to do with re-energizing his powers.

The interesting thing about this clip is that even though Tommy seems to be channeling the White Ranger powers, it's confirmed he's actually going to morph into the Green Ranger later on:



So maybe he just restored the Green Ranger powers and kept Saba around out of sentiment. After all, the White Ranger suit and Saba were on display in the Power Chamber during Zeo. Maybe he just took it home. Just some guesses.