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Saturday, April 6, 2013

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY HENSHIN GRID

The 5th anniversary of my blog Henshin Grid was April 6th. This blog started out from my other blog Spanengrish Ramblings, which I started in 2006. I've been part of the online fandom with Supersentai.com in 1999. Spanengrish Ramblings is just random things and I just happen to do Power Ranger and toku posts. In 2008, I decided to make a separate blog about that stuff and that is how Henshin Grid started.

RELIVING THE PAST
Check out a couple of the first posts I ever did:
http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2008/04/presenting-bouken-silver.html
 http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2008/04/future-of-power-rangers-part-2.html
http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2008/04/welcome-to-henshin-grid-blog.html
http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2008/04/power-rangerssuper-sentai-character.html
http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2008/04/power-rangerssuper-sentai-character_11.html
http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2008/04/power-rangerssuper-sentai-character_4806.html
http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2008/04/power-rangerssuper-sentai-villain.html
http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2008/04/power-rangers-jungle-fury-auxiliary.html
http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2008/04/sixth-go-onger.html
http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2008/05/two-new-go-onger.html

PLEASE DONATE
I am accepting donations to make the blog more fabulous. To get a new program to make the blog better. Give any amount, as low as $1. Click donate on the right.

To Check out the "Make Your Own Ranger" Contest:
http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2013/04/contest-design-your-own-power-ranger.html
Don't forget to 'Like' the one you want on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/#%21/pages/Henshin-Grid/121559917928258?fref=ts
 

Power Rangers Megaforce - Prince Takes Knight - Episode Review


Summary:
At the Juice Bar, Noah talks about Gosei Knight. Emma wonders why Gosei never mentioned him before. Jake says that Gosei was probably embarrassed about Robo Knight. Gia thinks he will make a great edition to the team and asks Troy. Troy finally confesses to them about the dreams but says there is a battle and that they are fuzzy. Jake asks if RK is fighting on their side. The long answer with an IF and the short answer with a "But." (Simpsons reference) Vrak wants to convert RK into an ally, Malkor is for it. Vrak changes to his other form and leaves the space ship. Vrak calls Psycho Tick from the water to capture RK.

Psycho Tick attacks a carnival, the Rangers are called and morph. They blast him but get blasted back at. Robo Knight arrives, he says he will handle it alone. He battles the tick but takes him down. RK avoids an attack and puts a family in danger, the Rangers save the family. The Rangers save more people that RK don't help and only focuses on his target. An energy tick teleports Robo Knight away. Vrak says RK is his and the baddies disappear. The Rangers worry.

At the command center, Troy wants to find Gosei Knight. Gosei tells Tensou to find his signature, they know he's still on Earth. Jake is mad at RK for not saving humans and saying to forget his. Troy says he is one of them, someone to protects the Earth. They run out. Robo Knight wakes up in a prison cell, that sucks his energy in a quarry. Vrak tells him that the Rangers won't come from him because he doesn't care for humans. Vrak sends the tick to distract the Rangers. The Rangers look all over the city, Troy is worried. Tick sucks energy out of phones, cars, computers, appliances, etc. This also effects Mr. Furley and Ernie.

Robo Knight continues surging out energy and it gets sucked out. Troy arrives and wants him out. He says "Never abandon friends" which RK repeats. Troy says he is never really alone. 4 Rangers confront the tick. Loogies fight the four unmorphed. Tick leaves, Gia follows but is confronted by more Loogies. Jack and Gia fight them together, Gia figures it has to be to distract.


 The duo 'double-team' the Loogies. Emma and Noah are also creative in having one bunch blast another bunch of Loogies. Red and Vrak fight and Tick arrives, he wants to fight Red. The four arrived morphed and the five fight the two monsters. Robo wonders why the others came to help. Jake says even though he might not like things he's done but Troy believes in him. Robo says saving him is illogical. Yellow tells him that they are a team.


Vrax blasts down Jake and Gia while Noah, Troy, and Emma are at the mercy of the monster. They all say hopeful things. The words resonate with RK and he stands up. He traces the power drain and re-routes it and breaks the cell. RK bum-rushes the two baddies and grabs his morpher, his power back to full capacity. The five reunite. Tick attacks but is blasted down. Vrak rolls but is attacked by RK. RK slashes Vrak down. RK summons his Vulcan Cannon and uses the Knight Dyanmic at the two. The Tick is defeated, Vrak rolls out of the explosion and makes it grow big. Troy is about to call their megazord but RK says he will take care of it and receives the Knight Brothers, the Sea Lion and Sky Lion Mechazords.


Emma says they can use both Megazords, RK says his are just fine. He morphs into Lion Mechazord and forms the Gosei Grand Megazord to fight Psycho Tick. Tick says he'll take him apart zord by zord (which Ivan Ooze said to the Rangers in the first movie). He tries to lift the Megazord but it fights him. Gosei Grand Megazord kicks butt and destroys the tick. Malkor is mad at Vrak. On a building roof, RK activates Sentry mode.


The five rangers go up to him, Troy tries a lead to work together. RK says working together is good for humans, inefficient for him, he must work alone, that he must defeat the bad guys. Jake says he quoted Gia, that RK likes her. Gia says he is kinda studly. Jake says he still doesn't understand how to work together. Noah thinks he's learning. They say they should celebrate at Ernie's. Gia says Jake is buying. Jake is shocked and complains.

Review:
It is interesting that Jake is opposed to Robo Knight and the slight flirtation between Gia and RK, even if not blatant. It puts a kink in Jake's plan. It is just gunny. I couldn't see the episode when it aired like I usually do but read the live tweeting from my friends on Twitter. They pretty much seemed to like it. I personally believe that the speech the Rangers did was cheesey and could have done a little better with Disney writers. Well, doesn't matter. It was a bit rushed and did reiterated stuff from last week (Gosei saying their mission to get RK on their side and Vrak continually trying to get RK to think the Rangers won't save him). The Robo Knight's voice actor sounds like a child saying his lines like "Team? Friends?" Like RK is a child who is learning this stuff new. Anyway, it was entertaining episode. The five Ranger actors did a pretty good job, especially Jake and Gia. The episode is called "Prince Takes Knight" but they didn't reference that Vrak is a Prince.

Pictures from:
http://www.megaforcecast.com/
http://www.megaforcecast.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=393

Friday, April 5, 2013

Speculation: Saban Brands saving budget for Super Megaforce?

In 2011, I did a post on thinking that Toei cut their budget in order to supply the awesome Gokaiger with such terrific things like new uniforms (over 30 gender change outfits and modernization of old Sentai suits before Bioman), special effects (the 199 heroes movie and Gokaiger vs Gavan), special guest star former rangers (over 40 of them), and much more. So I am thinking Saban Brands is doing a similar thing with Megaforce. Here is my list.

Wardrobe
I mentioned this in the last post that the Megaforce Rangers are clearly wearing the same outfits episode in and episode out. The Samurai Rangers had much more wardrobe changes than Megaforce. So I think this is to save money.

Using Goseiger Footage for Cards
Another thing (other than the wardrobe) that fans have been belly aching about is using card footage from Goseiger (which has Kanji and sometimes doesn't match with the American name of the item). Also when the Rangers morph and you see them pose, you see "Gosei Red" for example on the card. Also they used a scene of Alata changing and they changed his red jacket to black. They could had reshoot the cards. One can say they didn't get the actual cards in time but they could had created their own. So I am thinking they are reducing the amount of re-shoots in order to reshoot stuff for Super Megaforce.

Villains
This might not be major but SB has definitely saved a lot of money from having costumed villains in the Sentai footage. ALL of the villain footage used in Samurai was from Shinkenger and there was no reshooting. Disney usually reshot villain headquarters and recreated sets, SB hasn't. While the main villains (Xandred, Dayu, Octoroo and Deker) appeared along with PR actors in New Zealand, they didn't appear in a new set or anything. Same thing with Megaforce and presumably in Super Megaforce as well as the Gokaiger villains are also costumed.

So I am thinking they are saving budget for guest stars in Power Rangers Super Megaforce.

Related Posts: http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2011/01/toeis-super-cutting-budget.htmlhttp://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-issue-of-megaforce-teens-wardrobe.html

The Issue of Megaforce Teens' Wardrobe

Before Megaforce started and Saban Brands sent us in Power Force the picture of the Megaforce teens below. I feared that they would wear the same clothes all the time and my fears were confirmed by the previews of the second episode. I am thinking that they are probably doing this because of the budget, to save money for Super Megaforce and I will do a new post on that next.

Above is the Power Rangers Megaforce teens (Jake, Gia, Troy, Emma, and Noah)

 Troy has changed his clothes only twice, we have seen this outfit in two different episodes, it is his workout outfit.

 We see Emma and Gia in new outfits in "United We Stand." Now they only have 20 episodes, makes me think it would be 20 different outfits. 5 Rangers times 20 is 100 different outfits. Samurai had different outfits but they did repeat them from time to time, they were in 40 episodes.

Many teams don't change clothes but because they had uniforms. But teams that didn't technically have uniforms and didn't change clothes were Lost Galaxy (even though 4 of them wore uniforms) and Lightspeed (even though they had jackets) and sometimes Time Force (they did have TF uniforms which they didn't use much since they were hiding) and Wild Force (they wore their vests over it). But Megaforce are teens and go to school and MMPR, Zeo, Turbo, In Space, Dino Thunder and Ninja Storm had different clothing.

Megaranger teens (Shun, Miku, Chisato, Kenta, and Koichiro)
 It had me thinking of Megaranger, which was the source footage of Power Rangers in Space, they wore the same wordrobe because they went to private school. I think this wardrobe issue would had been easier solved with Private School uniforms. If SB worried that kids wouldn't relate to Private school kids, many public schools use uniforms. Now some people said that the teens couldn't use their individual colors if they wore uniforms but that is not so. The Red and Blue wore their individual colots under their jackets and the girls wore scrunchies or bows of their colors.

Above are the Goseiger (Moune, Eri, Hyde, Alata and Agri) dressed as the Megaranger. Megaforce is based on Goseiger footage. 

 If the Megaforce Rangers wore private school uniforms, they could wear ranger colored shirts underneath or bows. The above image is clearly photshopped, I know the heights are off, especially the girls but that is the only pic I could find, actually I only found one with 4 teens, so I had to fix it up a bit.