The Sad Part of Super Megaforce

[DN91]

Kinda sad in hindsight that the one Super Sentai series that everyone wanted to be adapted for a Power Rangers season gets turned into one of the most universally reviled seasons in over 20+ years of PR.

[Charles RB]

It's horrific. I've been watching ToQger and it pees all over Megaforce from a great height - but worse, I watched the Power Of Six episode and that peed all over Megaforce from a great height and it was Megaforce! There was characterisation and a human plot that made sense & fitted the action and there were jokes that were actually funny and the acting seemed less flat somehow, but this was the outlier. (Were all Jason Smith's eps like this?) This means Megaforce not only could have been better, it actually was at least once. Why wasn't it always like that?

People disliked Overdrive but I like most of the Overdrive cast & they all felt like distinct characters. Much of the Megaforce Ranger dialogue feels interchangeable (except in Power Of Six).

Then there's the odd thing of having so few returning cast members in an anniversary series, which IIRC from RangerCats podcast is down to Tzachor not being interested in doing it. Most of the Kiwi and Aussie actors could come back for an episode, you could strategically fly out US actors who are willing from time to time... even on the cheap, it seems doable. Eleven actors flew to NZ for the final episode, is there anything that stopped half of them being flown in for earlier episodes and just having less veterans for the final ep? (But if you film an extra scene of them fighting an X-Borg when they are down, voila! Suddenly they ARE all in the final ep!) Would it be that much more expensive?

Then there's the odd thing of having so few returning cast members in an anniversary series, which IIRC from RangerCats podcast is down to Tzachor not being interested in doing it. Most of the Kiwi and Aussie actors could come back for an episode, you could strategically fly out US actors who are willing from time to time... even on the cheap, it seems doable. Eleven actors flew to NZ for the final episode, is there anything that stopped half of them being flown in for earlier episodes and just having less veterans for the final ep? (But if you film an extra scene of them fighting an X-Borg when they are down, voila! Suddenly they ARE all in the final ep!) Would it be that much more expensive?

[Red5]

Originally Posted by Charles RB

Then there's the odd thing of having so few returning cast members in an anniversary series, which IIRC from RangerCats podcast is down to Tzachor not being interested in doing it. Most of the Kiwi and Aussie actors could come back for an episode, you could strategically fly out US actors who are willing from time to time... even on the cheap, it seems doable. Eleven actors flew to NZ for the final episode, is there anything that stopped half of them being flown in for earlier episodes and just having less veterans for the final ep? (But if you film an extra scene of them fighting an X-Borg when they are down, voila! Suddenly they ARE all in the final ep!) Would it be that much more expensive?

The only thing keeping them from coming in for earlier episodes was the production team not wanting them. There were three past season focus episodes and one didn't feature any past cast members, words, or anything from that season, the one that came back for another is on the writing staff, and the last featured the most recent veteran red ranger and the mentor from that season. Kids loved Samurai (still do), so bringing back Jayden and Jii was a no brainer. Bringing back any other rangers would have just been a waste of time/money for the actors and the show. The only returning actors that got lines (from what I have seen; I have not seen the extended finale) Casey got lines because he wrote them in, Jayden got lines because the kids recognized him, and Tommy got lines because he is our PR-themed savior.

How this season went (the lack of returning cast members, lack of legendary changes, use of pre-zyu suits, etc.) all falls squarely on the shoulders of the production team. They hyped up the fandom for this season by saying that the kids and older audiences would be happy with it, but seemed to limp in with a half-cocked, un-fleshed out idea. Why was the Finster head shown before filming started? Why did the cast talk about a huge storage room of past weapons? Why were different people told that only Power Ranger suits would be used this season? No one knows....not even JT and he supposedly had a grand plan for this anniversary season. And we all see what we got for our excitement, time, and money (cause nothing says more about a season of Power Rangers than speaking with your wallet).

[Charles RB]

And that's just... bizarre. "We're doing the anniversary season, an anniversary season that Bandai are selling on the back of the series legacy, but we're not goin to bring anyone back."* It's the complete opposite of how these things normally go. It's doing The Five Doctors where the other four Doctors and their companions just show up to wave for the last two minutes and there's no Master or Cybermen.

* IIRC from RangerCast podcasts, Bandai was rumoured to be pissed about this.

[AlwaysARanger]

It just sucks how bad the series turned out. Just having a few changes here and there it could have turned out so much better. At least we got lynn to look forward to with dc.