Continuing the 30 Days of PR Meme from here.  Now lets see if we can make this a little bit more consecutive.

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?

It has been over month since the reveal of Power Rangers season 18, Power Rangers Samurai, a season that wants to get back to basics on a brand new network. And we are just twenty-four hours from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in which the Power Rangers Samurai will be revealing themselves to the world.  Late this evening, this promo appeared on the Power Rangers Official Website.  Its just a little taste what’s to come in less than 75 days on the networks of Nickelodeon.  What do you guys think?

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!!

This little diddy is a meme I picked off Second Batgirl through Leaping Samurai.  Besides, I need something to do as I finish this long overdue Power Rangers Samurai post.

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

Last Wednesday, a new version of PowerRangers.com bowed on the web, now ran by Saban and I got to say, it is miles better than the flash site created by Disney a couple years. Not to mention, they have updated it to RPM now.  There are still a couple of mistakes that many fans have pointed out, like some of the Rangers are not mentioned, episode descriptions are awkwardly worded and most of the online games are imported from the old Disney sites. But, this is a step in the right direction to establish a web home for PR in the time of social networking, with an iTunes store and Twitter and Facebook links in the works. The site also teases Season 18.

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.

Bandai has posted a short blog post answering some questions about the current Mighty Morphin Reversioned toyline as well as when the theme and name of the new toyline will be revealed.  The fall line of the MMPR 2010 toys have been released to Walmart, Meijer and Toys ‘R’ Us locations across the US.  The post also goes into detail describing how the toyline gets planned, designed and produced.

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.

News concerning the production of season 18 has been revealed through Twitter messaging and contacts to New Zealand.  First, the Stunt Guild of New Zealand revealed through email to Rangerboard member RangerWisdom that filming will start next month.  Mark Harris Stunt Productions LTD will be doing the stunts for this season.

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.

When I started this site last year, I had wanted to turn Valencia Road into one of the premiere websites about Power Rangers.  I wanted to slowly but surely recap every season and have a wealth of info on this site.  That all changed after one look of the re-version.  But then the Saban reacquisition gave me a new fire inside to finish what I began.

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.

Even with no sign of name for this season, a lot has happened in the past few weeks and I’m sorry I haven’t been around for it all.  Now that the Comic-con over with, we now know a lot more information of what go down with PR on Nick.  First, after coming to the Comic-con with suit actors posing as the classic Mighty Morphin team, Nickelodeon passed out DVDs with Day of the Dumpster, non-reversioned, revealing it will be October that the classic episodes will arrive on Nicktoons. (more…)

Small update about the trademarks to PR since they are now owned by SCG Power Rangers, the new division of Saban Brands overseeing PR.

Also the grapevine’s telling us that casting may be soon in its final stages.

Originally Posted by RangerWisdom

To confirm even more what they said, here is what my source gave me yesterday:

A producer from New Zealand (I assume it might be the Executive Producer, Jonathon Tzachor) is in LA, and will be there for the next set of callbacks (which is confirmed to be final callbacks). After they decide who may go further, they’ll do screen tests and what not, and see which people look and work good together. It is said that Iris has a wall full of possible cast members (which is totally natural for most cast directors to do).

As for right now, it looks like only a few of the Power Rangers are being called in so far, so girls (including Princess Megan) and other cast members will probably be the following week. In other words, we’re coming to an end.

I was also contacted by an auditioner, and he was called back for final callbacks for Red, and another was called back for Green. And finally, someone I kind of know said that they know a couple of girls who got called back for Princess Megan and Pink, and one of them apparently showed sword presentation for the Megan role, and was blown away! So, that’s where things are as of right now.

Things have gotten interesting on the casting of the upcoming PR Season 18.  Two casting sides have appeared for two roles named Skinny Mack and Big Jack.  PR Historian Joe Rovang grabbed for all to see on Henshin Justice Unlimited.  Here are the sides as printed.  (more…)