Monday, February 28, 2011

Pros and Cons: If Saban Adapts Gokaiger

Yes, I know it is too earl to be speculating on this since Samurai (2011) is currently airing and it is based on Shinkenger (2009)--said to last two seasons, but it is fun to speculate. Some fans would prefer Saban not to adapt Gokaiger. But it will most likely will be adapted. Remember when people thought that Shinkenger was not going to be adapted because it was quote-end-quote 'too Japanese.'

There are three avenues they can go....
1. Don't Adapt
2. Adapt, skip all the old team Rangers and/or replace with others (Difficult task)
3. Adapt, introduce old teams as 'new' teams of PR

CONS
But let's go over the factors to why fans think Saban won't adapt it.
The Gokaiger transform into past teams, but not only one that were adapted into Power Rangers but all 34 past teams, many (15) that were not adapted. And many of the costume designs are sort of ugly or not appealing to modern audiences. But look at Gingaman, those suits were adapted for Lost Galaxy and many fans complained those suits were ugly and looked like Charlie Brown T-shirts, also that the Lightspeed costumes looked like pinwheels/peppermints. Another factor is that Saban is planning to use the Samurai theme in 2012 and Goseiger will most likely be adapted in 2013 and Saban Brands have confirmed that 2013 will be the anniversary year for Power Rangers. Since Gokaiger celebrates 35 anniversary and there will be a lot of nostalgia for a season if Gokaiger is indeed adapted into Power Rangers, it would be strange if it was airing in 2014 after the 20th anniversary and with so much nostalgia.

If Saban Brands chose to skip over footage of past Sentai, it would be a bit difficult, as the Gokaiger sometimes become past warriors, mixed with those that were adapted into Power Rangers. For example in the above photo, Yellow becomes Gao White, who PR fans know as White Wild Force Ranger (2002). But the other two--Big One and White Swan, were not ever Power Rangers. One can think Saban is having Samurai for 2 seasons and Goseiger adaption for 2013 a.k.a. the 20th anniversary in order to skip Gokaiger for 2014 and adapt the 2012 Sentai for 2014. But Disney and Saban, both who have run Power Rangers, have never skipped a season.

Another factor is the 'Legend War,' which we see briefly in the first episode and is said to be full blown in one of the Gokaiger movies coming soon. Many PR fans comment that it is hard to explain how it is possible for one team to be present if many of the Rangers shared powers. Since we have seen Adam use the Black Ranger powers twice after MMPR was over, one would think he would be MMPR Black but he could easily gave his powers to Zack and he took either Zeo or Turbo. Since we don't see their faces, we can assume Trini is MM Yellow and the original five are the MMPR. But if Tommy, Kat, Tanya, Adam and Rocky took the Zeo powers and TJ, Cassie, Ashley and Carlos took the Space powers for this war, it would leave Justin lonely with the Turbo powers. Now, if the Saban producers choose to not use the 15 teams that were not PR, then they would have to re-shoot the 'war' with only 18 teams and they could just have Blue Turbo Ranger with no one else and Black Dino Ranger absent. Or maybe they can say they recruited some help, Aisha for Turbo and some other three (or those Robot Rangers in Turbo that writers forgotten). Another thing one fan brought up is that maybe Tommy can switch from his five past powers (Green to White to Zeo to Turbo to Dino Thunder), meaning they would have to reshoot the war. Or they could just choose to use the Gokaiger footage of the Rangers in suit and make fans debate even more than in "Forever Red."

Disregard! Update 9/29/11! RPM and Samurai teamup has been announced.
Another thing I forgot about as a con is the RPM continuation. There is a lot of contest between fans if RPM is canon because it takes place in a post-apocalyptic world and the only connection to past seasons it had was the presence of "Jungle Karma Pizza," the work place of Jungle Fury. But it can be argued that there is a year between RPM and Samurai, and some towns rebuilt rather quickly. But anyway, Samurai hasn't said what year it was and neither did RPM. So they can just have the suits in the war and not explain it. As for the show itself in having past rangers come in, that is up to the writers.

PROS
Advantages to adapting the series would be that since Bandai America likes repackaging toys and re-painting toys to save money, they can release a lot of old toys (more than before) for the Gokaiger-adapted season. And if they do use 'Rangers' of past Sentai, they can release more toys.

Another Pro is that in Power Rangers, we can finally see females in colors we haven't seen before like Navy, Black and more Reds. And some different twists to past Rangers we have not seen before.

In the past three episodes that have aired of Gokaiger, I see plenty of footage that can be used and little snippets they can cut. For example, in the first episode they become Magiranger, Shinkenger and Goranger. Mystic Force and Samurai can be used. The Goranger part can be supplemented for the original MMPR. Look at Samurai, they re-shot a lot of fighting footage where the Kuruko of Shinkenger were and also where the Japanese actors were at and matching looked effortless. In Episode 2 of Gokaiger, they become Hurricanger, Dekaranger and past reds, those can easily be Ninja Storm, SPD, and the reds were Power Rangers once before (more on that later).

As mentioned before, in Ep 3, Blue becomes Big One and Pink becomes White Swan, if they chose to skip over teams that were not PR, they can skip that part of the footage and definately can use when the three become Black Rangers. They become AbareBlack/Black Dino Ranger, Ninja Black/Black Aquitar Ranger and Go-On Black/Ranger Black. Also another factor is that most PR seasons are shorter than the Sentai series, so they can skip and mesh episodes together, so they don't need to show every Gokaiger transformation.

Now if they do choose to use past teams that were not Power Rangers, it would be a bit difficult to explain who is who or from what team. For example, if they do choose to show Big One and White Swan in PR, it would seem out of nowhere if used out of context. PR fans would be like 'who are these two from?' I do hope they use some past teams, but hopefully use footage when the new team all become the whole team, and not when the old powers are used individually. If they do re-shoot and replace Big One and White Swan with two other white Power Rangers, that would be interesting to see as well. White Swan could be swapped for White Aquitar Ranger and Big One could be swapped for Rhino Ranger.

In Conclusion, I think it could easily be adaptable and there is no reason (money-wise) not to do it. But fans will speculate all they want and I will speculate all I want, we can cry till the cows come home but we will never know until 3 years from now or a little sooner than that. It will definitely be interesting to see how they do it too.

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