[Virgil Vox]

Okay, people are probably getting sick of seeing Power Rangers in reviews, but I can't help it. I have a problem. I love the Titanium Saga, so I figured I'd take a shot at reviewing it before Gode beat me to it.

Lightspeed as a season didn't impress me. The Rangers weren't that interesing and neither were the Zords. For me, there are only 2 reasons to watch Lightspeed Rescue: The Titanium Ranger and the villains.

The villains in Lightspeed are probably some of the worst villains ever on PR(excluding Master Org, who was a human who killed his best friends and coworkers to obtain power and revenge). The demons were backstabbing little hellions. You just never knew which villains was suddenly going to turn on the other villain. Queen Bansheera was the worst.

That's besides the point, though. he Titanium Saga covered six epsiodes and ended the first "season" of Lightspeed. Titanium Ranger was unique in the fact that he was American made. There was no Titanium Ranger in the Sentai. It was also PR's second evil Ranger.

The Lightspeed operation had created the Titanium morpher, but no one was strong enough to handle its power. This is where Ryan comes in. An agent for the demons, he sneaks into the underwater base and steals it. The next day, Vypra attacks the city and the Rangers rush to fight her. What they find is the Titanium Ranger, who kicks their butts all over the place. They retreat. Of course, Ryan attacks again, but this time the Rangers are prepared. They arm themselves with the V-Lancers, powerful new weapons. With them they are able to hurt Ryan seriously. But he just keeps coming. The Rangers prepare to kill him when Capt. Mitchell(their mentor and creator of Lightspeed)tells them to stop. Turns out Ryan is his long lost sun, and older brother to Dana, Pink Ranger.

This is where the story gets really interesting. Turns out that years before, Mitchell and the kids were in a car wreck, and they ended up dangling over a cliff. Mitchell had Dana, but little Ryan was slipping. Diabolico(one of the demons)appears and offers to save Ryan if he can keep him. Mitchell refuses until Ryan begins to fall, and he gives in. Diabolico takes Ryan away to raise him with the demons. Of course, we have to suspend belief because Diabolico was supposed to be locked away in a tomb and so therefore shouldn't have been able to rescue Ryan, but hey. Forgive and forget.

Flash forward back to the present, and Ryan's been raised to believe that his father hated him and only cared for Dana. So of course he wants revenge. This leads to Dana going out on her own to confront her wayward brother in a great Ranger vs. Ranger fight. It looks as if Dana is about to get through to him when the other Rangers show up. Ryan takes off.

He ends up at the same spot where the crash happened all those years ago. Mitchell is also there, and tries to talk some sense into his son. Ryan gets angry and lunges after his dad, and they both go tumbling. Mitchell is able to grab a branch, and Ryan grabs ahold of his dad. Mitchell helps Ryan climb up and grab ahold of the branch. It starts to break, so Mitchell lets go to save his son. Ryan, realizing that his father had always loved him, morphs and jumps to save his father.

Of course, he does. But he leaves, giving his dad the morpher back. He goes to Diabolico and tells him that he quits.

The next 4 episodes are about Ryan becoming the Titanium Ranger again and helping save his friends. But at a price. Diabolico isn't one to let bygones be bygones. He places a cobra tattoo upon Ryan's back. Everytime Ryan morphs, the cobra will move along his back until it reaches his neck and kills him. There's also the threat from the Trio - three of Diabolico's most powerful demons. They are Demonite, Falkar, and Thunderon. More than a match for the Rangers.

Whew. I know that was long, but I really love this saga. It's classic PR. An evil Ranger turned good. A monster(in this case monsters)that are tougher than the usual and present a real challenge to the Rangers. They were good episodes.

I think the best moment though is when Mitchell sacrifices himself for his son. This moment, along with Kendrix's sacrifce in LG, is probably one of the greatest moments in PR. These don't come along everyday. Yes, he ends up being saved, but it's the tought that counts.

The cobra tattoo was also a splended idea. Other sixth Rangers have been limited in some way or another(the Green Candle, morphing limit, inner demons, etc.) but this was the first time the Ranger's life was actually in danger from morphing. That makes Ryan a great Ranger in my book because he did continue to morph to save his friends.

The action was very good, and even had a smaller sacrifce moment. Carter, the Red Ranger, unloads into Demonite upclose with two powerful guns to destroy him and his clone that's about to kill a powerless Ryan. Talk about a big explosion. Carter survives, of course, but it's another great sacrifce moment.

The saga ends with the tattoo destroyed, Diabolico destroyed, and with the Queen's son about to blossom into a beautiful butterfly. Oh, sorry. I mean blossom into a terrible, powerful demon. I tend to get the two confused. Unfortunately, since Titanium is American, it's hard to work him around the Setai footage and the budget. So Ryan is sent off on a quest and appears in only a handful of episodes the rest of the season. It's a shame too. He had such potential as a character. He's even treated bad in the teamup with TF the next year.

All in all, The Titanium Saga was, for me, the highpoint of a lackluster season. It had good action, some good dramatic moments, great villains, and the first American made Ranger. What's not to love?

[cylkoth]

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Lightspeed as a season didn't impress me. The Rangers weren't that interesing and neither were the Zords. For me, there are only 2 reasons to watch Lightspeed Rescue: The Titanium Ranger and the villains.

C'mon. You telling me you never once chuckled over the lovesick SkyCowboy mooning over the brainy Professor?

[Christopher]

Virgil Vox, on May 4 2006, 05:05 PM, said:

Lightspeed as a season didn't impress me. The Rangers weren't that interesing and neither were the Zords. For me, there are only 2 reasons to watch Lightspeed Rescue: The Titanium Ranger and the villains.

There were a number of things I liked about it. I loved the fact that it abandoned the secret-identity bit (which NEVER made any sense before, because if the villains always knew the Rangers' true identities anyway, what was the point of keeping them secret?) and had the Rangers be part of an official organization. Ironically, that was something that the Sentai shows had done once or twice before, but not in this season (Rescue Task Force Gogo V).

And it made more sense in this context, given those huge undersea launch platforms, massive train tracks, and other enormous construction projects that existed to launch the Zords/Robos -- something that's a bit more plausible if there's government money backing it up.

And that's another thing I liked about LR -- the Zord-launching sequences. There was a lot of ingenuity to the designs and deployments, and I really liked the stately music that accompanied them. I also liked how the Zords were more down-to-earth than usual, at least initially -- instead of soaring through the air and self-assembling, they did it in a much more believable way, with the green flying Zord needing to airlift the "torso" into position on top of the "legs." I loved that.

I also thought Sean Cw Johnson was a strong, effective lead as Carter (though I wish I knew how "Cw" was pronounced). Overall this wasn't one of the greatest PR casts, but it was far from the worst, and Ron Rogge and Monica Louwerens were both memorable -- Keith Robinson too, I suppose, though I never liked Joel and his crush on Miss F much.

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This is where the story gets really interesting. Turns out that years before, Mitchell and the kids were in a car wreck, and they ended up dangling over a cliff. Mitchell had Dana, but little Ryan was slipping. Diabolico(one of the demons)appears and offers to save Ryan if he can keep him. Mitchell refuses until Ryan begins to fall, and he gives in. Diabolico takes Ryan away to raise him with the demons. Of course, we have to suspend belief because Diabolico was supposed to be locked away in a tomb and so therefore shouldn't have been able to rescue Ryan, but hey. Forgive and forget.

Flash forward back to the present, and Ryan's been raised to believe that his father hated him and only cared for Dana. So of course he wants revenge. This leads to Dana going out on her own to confront her wayward brother in a great Ranger vs. Ranger fight. It looks as if Dana is about to get through to him when the other Rangers show up. Ryan takes off.

He ends up at the same spot where the crash happened all those years ago. Mitchell is also there, and tries to talk some sense into his son. Ryan gets angry and lunges after his dad, and they both go tumbling. Mitchell is able to grab a branch, and Ryan grabs ahold of his dad. Mitchell helps Ryan climb up and grab ahold of the branch. It starts to break, so Mitchell lets go to save his son. Ryan, realizing that his father had always loved him, morphs and jumps to save his father.

Yeah -- those two episodes were the high point of LR, and one of the high points of PR overall.

[Avalon]

cylkoth, on May 4 2006, 05:29 PM, said:

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Lightspeed as a season didn't impress me. The Rangers weren't that interesing and neither were the Zords. For me, there are only 2 reasons to watch Lightspeed Rescue: The Titanium Ranger and the villains.

C'mon. You telling me you never once chuckled over the lovesick SkyCowboy mooning over the brainy Professor?

Ha! That led to the only moment I'm really fond of from LR -- the other Rangers miming "crash-and-burn" (their fingers spiraling down like his plane nosediving, then making explode-y noises...) when she turns him down. The kids and I still use that hand gesture as an in-joke from time to time.

[Virgil Vox]

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And that's another thing I liked about LR -- the Zord-launching sequences. There was a lot of ingenuity to the designs and deployments, and I really liked the stately music that accompanied them. I also liked how the Zords were more down-to-earth than usual, at least initially -- instead of soaring through the air and self-assembling, they did it in a much more believable way, with the green flying Zord needing to airlift the "torso" into position on top of the "legs." I loved that.

I liked that, too, but not enough to save the season for me. I just couldn't get into the Rangers. They were just there to occupy the suits. Yes, the acting was okay, but the material wasn't the best.

I'm not much of a Zord fan. The only Zords I've ever really liked were the Wild Force ones. Otherwise, I don't care. To me, having the Rangers beat the monster normal size only to have it grow for what usually amounts to a minute or so of ho hum Zord action isn't worth it. And this isnt's aimed solely at LR, it's all of PR. I'd like to save the Zord battles for a time when they're truly spectacular and not a repeat of what just happened on the ground. They could easily take that minute plus and use it for a nice character moment or to add to the usually much better ground fight.

Lightspeed, outside of Titanium and the villains, just didn't impress me as a season. Individual episodes here and there, yes. Entire season? No. I must say that I found their finale to be really good. It was different, at least. I loved the Batlings invading the Aquabase and taking control of one of the Megazords and demolishing the base. Just the idea of the Rangers inside being totally helpless as their own Zord is turned against them was awesome. It was an ingenious way to have them use the submarine to escape.

And has anyone else noticed that PR was much more violent back then than it is now? Yes, it's not horribly violent, but compare TF or LR to DT or SPD. In the earlier shows, the Rangers were punched in the head, stomped on, gut punched, thrown aroubd, etc. Just a lot more physical violence and hitting. Now, the action is more flipping and blocking and never really making contact. MF has been a little more violent. The Rangers getting their butts handed to them in the premiere, Nick's fight against Koragg in Whispering Voices, etc. I'm not saying I want to see blood and guts and all that, but it would be nice to see a couple of punches actually connect now and then.

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C'mon. You telling me you never once chuckled over the lovesick SkyCowboy mooning over the brainy Professor?

Okay, I did like that. It would have been better if they had dated sooner, but I loved that they were married in the teamup. They were a cute couple.

[Godeskian]

I have a sort of love/hate relationship with Lightspeed rescue. One the one hand it got a lot of things right (more realistic zord interaction, public identities, a really nifty if improbable aquabase) and on the other hand, I agree with Virgil that the scripting left something to be desired.

One of the things that still bothers me about the titanium suit was that it was essentially a mod of the old Turbo suits. If they were going to go to the effort to create a new Ranger for the series, they could have put in more effort than just to spray-paint one of the Turbo suits.

Oh, and for the record.

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Okay, people are probably getting sick of seeing Power Rangers in reviews,

I enjoy them far too much to worry about things like that

This post has been edited by Godeskian: 05 May 2006 - 01:56 AM

[Christopher]

Virgil Vox, on May 5 2006, 02:11 AM, said:

I'm not much of a Zord fan. The only Zords I've ever really liked were the Wild Force ones. Otherwise, I don't care. To me, having the Rangers beat the monster normal size only to have it grow for what usually amounts to a minute or so of ho hum Zord action isn't worth it. And this isnt's aimed solely at LR, it's all of PR. I'd like to save the Zord battles for a time when they're truly spectacular and not a repeat of what just happened on the ground. They could easily take that minute plus and use it for a nice character moment or to add to the usually much better ground fight.

The Megazord battles do little for me. I mainly just like a good Zord summoning/assembling sequence. Oh boy, toys! Although I like the ones done with physical miniatures much better than the CGI ones. That was one of the few things I liked about SPD -- the return to a greater ratio of miniature shots to CG shots in the Zord sequences.

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And has anyone else noticed that PR was much more violent back then than it is now? Yes, it's not horribly violent, but compare TF or LR to DT or SPD. In the earlier shows, the Rangers were punched in the head, stomped on, gut punched, thrown aroubd, etc. Just a lot more physical violence and hitting. Now, the action is more flipping and blocking and never really making contact.

Still, that level of violence was nothing next to what I gather the original Sentai shows have. I think that's one of the main reason that season 2 of MMPR used so little Dairanger footage -- not just because for some reason they wanted to keep the Zyuranger costumes, but because the Dairanger footage was so violent (at least by the standards of an American kids' show).

[Virgil Vox]

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The Megazord battles do little for me. I mainly just like a good Zord summoning/assembling sequence. Oh boy, toys! Although I like the ones done with physical miniatures much better than the CGI ones. That was one of the few things I liked about SPD -- the return to a greater ratio of miniature shots to CG shots in the Zord sequences.

See, I can do without Zords all together. Seriously, if next season had no Zords I wouldn't mind. They're a great idea, and make great toys, but, IMO, their execution in the show is lackluster at best. There's only a handful of Zord battles I truly liked. I think the show would be better off using the Zords sparingly and only when they can do something truly amazing and original.

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Still, that level of violence was nothing next to what I gather the original Sentai shows have. I think that's one of the main reason that season 2 of MMPR used so little Dairanger footage -- not just because for some reason they wanted to keep the Zyuranger costumes, but because the Dairanger footage was so violent (at least by the standards of an American kids' show).

It does seem as if Sentai goes pretty far. I can't remember which season, but one of them ended with an unmorphed Ranger stabbing the villain to death. And one episode of Carranger had a villain peeing on the Rangers. Kinda glad that stuff wasn't used in PR.

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One of the things that still bothers me about the titanium suit was that it was essentially a mod of the old Turbo suits. If they were going to go to the effort to create a new Ranger for the series, they could have put in more effort than just to spray-paint one of the Turbo suits.

It's grown on me quite a bit. I was just happy that they made the effort at all, and that it didn't look like Zedd's horrible Dark Ranger costumes from Green No More. I was equally excited about the A Squad Rangers in SPD. It doesn't bother me that their helmets are modified Space helmets. They have a tight budget, and they use whatever they can.

And I must say, it's nice having these discussions about old PR seasons and arcs.