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!!

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.

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.

Obviously, a lot has happened since my last post and my first brief chronicle with the reversioned Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. For one thing, Dan Evans turned a fun, cheesy, awesome show into a less fun, cheesier, not-so-awesome show with the added special effects, labels and transitions. Secondly, like Power Rangers RPM, half the country was unable to see it, due the E/I requirement which left the non-E/I PR out to dry. After finding the reversioning would end on Labor Day weekend, the Power Rangers fanbase was in mourning.

And then, a second wind came. From the company that started it all.

Haim Saban’s repurchase of the Power Rangers franchise was a shock to everyone. And with the new deals made with Nickelodeon to air the new 40 episode season based on Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, the (unedited) re-airings of seasons 1-17 on Nicktoons, as well the intentions of DVD releases, online content and a third movie, Power Rangers may be in for a  second coming, following the footsteps of Transformers and the Marvel Universe in the past couple of years.

Personally,  I’m looking forward to what will be going down later this year starting from the reruns premiering in the fall to the new season coming in 2011.  Already we gotten the casting sides for this year with one thread on Rangerboard featuring what could be our new Rangers.   Who will don the spandex as Reese, Ava, Perry,  Baron, Sadie and Wesley?   What other plans do the people at Saban Brands and SCG Power Rangers LLC. have planned for the future of the Power? Will we finally see that third movie?  Will your blogger here finally have a site that lasts more than to two weeks?   Find out in the coming months as Valencia Road covers everything about Power Rangers season 18!