2. Favorite Season

I actually have three favorite seasons, one from the post-Zordon and two from the Disney Era.  The runner up to these three would be Power Rangers Zeo with its tighter focus on characterization and its overall evolution  from the season 1-3 of MMPR.

1. Power Rangers Lost Galaxy - The first post-Zordon season blew me away with its two-part opener “Quasar Quest” which while not just showing off their new connections to 20th Century Fox theatrical, introduced us to a group off strangers that were united by a common destiny.  Leo, Kendrix, Kai, Damon and Maya and their battle against the forces of Scorpius broke new ground in storytelling, showing heroes finding their purpose in the universe, villains with varying codes of honor and the most epic space opera stories ever seen on children’s television.  And how many kids TV shows can say they had suicide bombers on them?!
2. If Lost Galaxy was Power Rangers at its most epic, Power Rangers Ninja Storm is PR at its most crazy awesome.  Crazy awesome is a type of awesome that is such by sheer craziness.  Craziness that PRNS supplies by the motherload.  Disney’s first outing in PR is balls to the wall fun as Shane, Dustin, Tori, Cam, Hunter and Blake battle evil forces and snark of Lothor.  It’s the one season that I am definitely looking forward to rewatching when I continue work on Power Rangers Network.
3. At number three comes Power Rangers RPM, a fan-favorite that is The Dark Knight to the Kalish anthology’s Batman and Robin.  After four years of varying disappointment, Eddie Guzelian’s ode to Mad Max takes us to a ruined world, its genocidal rulers and the fighting force defending humanity from extinction.  Power Rangers RPM sets the standard for the Modern Era of PR and turn the crew of Scott, Summer, Flynn, Ziggy, Dillion, Gem, Gemma and Dr. K into a memorable characters.  Let’s hope the reairing of PR on Nicktoons gets them a little bit more love.

Next time: Favorite Team

Past: How did you get into PR?

I know haven’t blogged here in a while, but I do want to hear your responses.  When installing this new theme that over the past couple days, I kept finding massive number of spam comments that my spam blocker plugin was suppose to block.  So I installed Disqus to moderate my comments from now on.

So what questions will be answered tomorrow on Thanksgiving Day?  Will Power Rangers Samurai go on for two years as Uncle Eli said it would?  Are the rumors of Paul Schrier and Ricardo Medina’s involvement true.  What are the extra three episodes for Power Rangers Samurai for?  And will Bandai please revise those butt ugly Power Rangers Saumrai toys.

Find out next time on Valencia Road!!

1. How did you get into PR? The first episode I saw was Food Fight.  I was eight at the time, surfing channels with my brother and mother in then-buffet-like offerings of broadcast Saturday Morning.   So turning to Power Rangers was a pleasant surprise.  The three of us watched the Rangers take on and beat the Pudgy Pig with PR’s signature mix of fun and violence and enjoyed the show.  However, I didn’t really keep an appointment with MMPR until when part 5 of Green With Evil aired.  Suddenly, here was the evil Green Ranger kicking the crap of other five and for a guy who had only had watched Thundercats, Bobby’s World, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, seeing a evil version of the heroes with his Dragonzord running roughshod over the city blew my mind.  After that I was hooked and began watching every Saturday Morning.

My friend and neighbor hooked me up with a copy of Day of the Dumpster.  I later got the High Five VHS and Power Morpher/Blade Blaster set for my ninth birthday.  That very day, MMPR was running on weekdays now and from there, I saw every episode in its correct order and from there, my Power Rangers fandom began.

I always I had a tendency to catch shows in the middle of their runs and PR was no different.  However, the show showcased enough to get me into the swing of things.  And by the time that “The Mutiny” aired tailed the Simpsons on Thursday night prime time, I knew everything.

Next time: Favorite Season

Also, the new site is showing all 145 episodes of the original broadcast versions of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers one by one until February 1st, with the newest episode as of this writing “A Different Drum”, featuring the battle with Gnarly Gnome with some temporarily renamed Power Weapons.

Also, there is some casting news as filming for season 18 got underway on Tuesday with the return of an old enemy as a new friend.  Rene Naufahu, who played the power-hungry Emperor Gruumm in Power Rangers S.P.D., is back in a mentor role playing a character named Takeru.  Its great to see Rene back in the saddle after a while, especially since did a great job as Gruumm in S.P.D.  Nafuahu, born in 1970, is known for his work in his native New Zealand in Shortland Street with appearances in The Matrix, The Beastmaster and Hercules: the Incredible Journeys.  This little piece of news came from the Facebook page of Ludus Magnus, a gym owned by Joe Nafuahu.

In fact, this is a very special day. A special day that would that probably would have been more tragic if not for the Saban purchase earlier this year. Of all the days that the Reversioned Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, with all its superfluous bell whistles and incorrect captions, chose to come to an end, it chose August 28th, 2010.

Seventeen years to the day (and for some lucky ABC affiliates, the time) that “Day of the Dumpster” aired on Fox Kids.

If it wasn’t for the sale, this day would have been the bookend for the Power Rangers.  It would have been our childhood’s end, the last vestiges of both Fox Kids and the pre-E/I Saturday morning lineup gone.  There would be no question that the celebration going down in Pasadena would be muted.  It would have been a wake for the 90′s icon, a funeral for franchise that was once the best-selling toy brand in North America.  The Power would be gone.

Instead, we celebrate only the end of a era and turn the page to a new chapter in Power Rangers history.  The Disney Era of Power Rangers for all it hits and four-letter word-inciting misses is now over.  In a little under a month, the classic episodes we love and cherish, along which Disney’s contributions will air in October in Nicktoons.  The cast for the 18th season are now in New Zealand, training for their addition which will air on Nickelodeon in February.

Instead of mourning the end, we look to a new beginning.  And with that, I say Happy Birthday, you (Mighty Morphin) Power Rangers.

Cue the Zeo ending guitar riff.

The “bonus” question about the theme of the new season and toyline gives the date as “late 2010″ with the toys on shelves in conjunction with the new season’s premiere on Nickelodeon in 2011.

And now, the waiting game begins.  Bandai also announced itself as the main sponsor for Power Morphicon next weekend in Pasadena, CA.  Possible reveal on August 27?  August is a late 2010.

Another recent bit of production news involves where in Auckland will season 18 be filmed.  Correspondence from Rangerboard member RangerWisdom has revealed that this season will be filmed at Studio West, twenty minutes from downtown Auckland.  The studio was also the previous home for Disney-owned Ranger Productions from Power Rangers Ninja Storm until Operation Overdrive.

A second bit of production news has bigger effects on this season and others to come.  One of the cameramen in New Zealand has revealed that this season of Power Rangers will be shot with the famous RED digital cameras used for such TV shows and as TNT’s The Cleaner, Southland and Leverage, the later seasons NBC’s ER and movies such as Gamer, Angels and Demons, and the Academy Award nominated District 9.  This is important to know for two reasons.

1. The RED series of cameras are known capturing footage at resolutions of 4,096 x 2,304 pixels, four times the resolution of 1080p HDTV (1920 x 1080).   The raw footage produced by the cameras would then be scaled down to HD.   That’s right, you heard me correctly.  Power Rangers in HD. The Blu-ray disc buzz words used by Saban and Marvista in the past couple of months will soon be come reality.   After three years of the horrid cropping, squashing and other general neglect during the Disney years, Power Rangers will air on Nickelodeon’s HD feed in widescreen format.  And…

2. Super Sentai has also started using RED cameras, starting last year with Shinkenger.  For the first time, PR and Sentai will be using the same equipment to film.  The footage switch, barring directorial and special effects differences, will be a little bit more seamless thanks to the new technology.  Not to mention each of the RED cameras alone (without viewfinders, mounts or lenses) cost $17,500.  Kinda makes you shudder wondering what would have happened if Disney had continued with the SD video tape used for Dino Thunder through R.P.M.  And the old days back when Saban had to use retail VHS copies of Zyuranger for Mighty Morphin.

Next years’ PR is set to be a groundbreaking one with a new cast, a new network, a new resources and  a whole new look.  Now if we only had a name.

Rutter began her theatre career playing Iseult in “Tristan and Iseult” in 1980 and later began her television career with the sketch comedy show “Away Laughing”.  In 1998, she played a recurring role in the Fox Kids “Young Hercules”.  In 2006 Rutter played the role of Udonna, the White Mystic Ranger and mentor to the Mystic Force team.

Ms. Rutter, thank you for memories you gave us Power Rangers fans.  I send my deep condolences to your friends, peers and family.  Rest in piece and farewell.

To those that have been selected, we all wish you to break many legs. Especially those of the big bad. We’re looking forward to see you guys in action.

EDIT: According to Rangerboard user Rangerwisdom, the cast will heading out to New Zealand for training and filming on August 16.

And for one more piece of news I’ve learned at Henshin Justice, Tony Oliver aka. Rick Hunter of Robotech fame and writer of early Power Rangers episodes is back back for the new season. For those who want to check out Tony’s work, watch “Day of the Dumpster” from MMPR season 1, “The Power Stealer” from season 2, “Rock-A-Bye Power Rangers” from Zeo in season 4 and “Transmission Impossible” from Turbo in season 5.

He’ll be appearing this weekend at Anime Festival Orlando August 6-8 and will be at Power Morphicon on August 27-29.

And then I stumbled across another opportunity.

PRangerX is one of the best webmasters in PR fandom.  His Power Rangers Online is well known for the large amount of behind the scenes info.  He recently reopened Power Rangers Network with the files he inherited from its original owner. Now back in the day,  Power Rangers Network, which was I think was like the third PR site I encountered in the early days of my online PR fandom, was considered one of the best.  The original site closed some time before Mystic Force.  Mentioning that PRN was on the backburner to the main Power Rangers Online family of sites, he offered anyone to take over PRN.

As Son Goku in Ocean dub would say: “I saw an opening that seemed to scream ‘attack’.  So I did.”

I took the offer.  Right now, I’m preparing a temporary layout for the new PRN, so I can post news on there as well as here on Valencia Road, while making a bigger layout to unveil later this year.  In the meantime, I’ll put the older files in WordPress as well start sections on SPD through last year’s season, RPM.

As for Valencia Road, this blog is staying put.  Right now, there is a growing PR blog community with such newcomer cupofwater03′s Morphin Legacy and the venerable Henshin Justice Unlimited, ran by Keith Justice that also covers other toku such as Kamen Rider and American comics.  PR fandom is heading for Web 2.0 and I would like to be part of this new uprising.  The old sites such PRN, Power Rangers Gateway, Amit Bhautmik’s Power Ranger’s Online Archives and Joe Rovang’s The Writer Guide to Power Rangers as well Ranger Central have served as my inspirations for Valencia Road and I hope to build upon everything they did for VR and PRN.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank everyone for reading and stay tuned to both Valencia Road and Power Rangers Network for upcoming news and updates on Power Rangers and PR fandom.