More Things I Would’ve Done With Power Rangers Megaforce

So, because it’s been a year since the end of Megaforce, and Linkara just posted a History of Power Rangers retrospective of it, I thought I’d go ahead and share some more ideas I had for things that could’ve been done differently for Power Rangers Megaforce/Super Megaforce. Bear in mind, not all of these ideas could all work as a whole, and some of them aren’t even my ideas to begin with. However, because I’ve heard many good ideas of what could’ve been done differently with the 20th Anniversary season(s), I felt I’d share them because…well, I think they’re really good. So, let’s start off with one that occurred to me while watching Mr. Lovhaug’s newest episodes of HOPR…

#1 – Play Up The Noah vs Argus Rivalry More

This was mostly skipped over in the retrospective, and I honestly don’t even blame Lewis for this, but there was a small rivalry that was hinted at between Noah and Argus. This is because Argus’ Sentai equivalent in Gokaiger was actually an old friend of GokaiBlue, but was rebuilt into a robot and had his memories wiped, save for his skill as a swordsman, and the two were forced into a rivalry. Here, though, when Noah is the one to destroy Argus, there’s no real weight to it, since they only came to blows once or twice. So, what would I have done differently? Well, in Goseiger, there was actually a GoseiGreen in the back-story who died saving GoseiBlue’s life. So, what if, prior to the enlisting of the team in Megaforce, there was a Green Ranger who was chosen a long time ago and had been acting as a lone operative, but then seemingly sacrifices himself to save Noah. However, it would then turn out he was found by Vrak, who rebuilt him as a robot, and had him sent back to the Armada to finish reprogramming, which would result in him joining Vekar’s elite guard. Suddenly, you could have this tragic rivalry between Noah and Argus, the latter of whom seemingly gave his life to save the former’s but now needs to be taken out. Then the episodes that highlight Noah’s self-confidence issues would make total sense. Hell, you could even bring Jake into that plot, by saying his Super Mega Mode Key was meant for Argus, and having him see himself as a weaker replacement for the Green Ranger. Sure, it lifts ideas from the two Sentai shows being adapted, but in ways that make sense, forward the story, and grants character development for multiple characters. And speaking of, no one needed more story added to them to explain and give us more reason to be invested in them than the next guy on this list…

#2 – Have Troy Be A Robot

…Hear me out. Yes, I’m aware that this has been done before. However, looking at everything in hindsight, it’d be the best explanation for everything that was going on, and would create some interesting development for Troy. Essentially, he’d be akin to the Blue Senturion, where he was sent back into the past to warn of a major threat to the world. However, in the process of being sent back, his memory was damaged, and he thinks he’s an actual teenager. This way, his dreams are explained as events he’d previously seen, his connection to Robo Knight is a bit more obvious since they’re both robots, and it would make Andrew Gray’s…well, let’s be perfectly honest, robotic acting a bit more bearable. Plus, it would be interesting to see how this would affect someone like Troy. Think about it: In the first episode, he makes the speech about how humans can do anything working together. Being human and his pride in being human is the most important thing to him. Now imagine him realizing that everything that was most important to him, the center of his character, was a lie. Suddenly, he’d need to find something new to believe in. Maybe his friendship with his fellow Rangers and humanity could be a new motivation for him? But what about the threat? Well, therein lies what could’ve been a much better ending…

#3 – Vrak Is Back Redone

Basically, make it so that Vrak doesn’t make his move until after the death of his father, and move Orion’s decision to leave Earth to after the ACTUAL defeat of the Armada, during which Vrak kidnaps him, and uses his connection to the Ranger Keys to cut the team off from Legendary Mode. In addition, he could create copies of the Legendary Rangers from their Keys, which would lead to the Megaforce team telling them not to get involved for fear of what could happen to them. After all, it’s been established that the Morphing Grid can’t handle more than one individual drawing from the exact same powers before one of them has to go. Suddenly, you’d have this situation where the team is left without most of their Zords (just say that all but the Mecha Zords were destroyed in the battle with the Armada), they can’t go Legendary, they’re having to fight copies of said Legendary Rangers, one of their sixth Rangers has been kidnapped while the other is fighting against them, and there’s the realization that everything they’d just been through, the massive Armada fleet that had come to destroy them…was all just a diversion to keep their eye off the real threat: Vrak. It’d be far more chilling to see his plan unfold in such a manner, and to see that Vrak was willing to sacrifice his own family to see their plans come to fruition, as well as to gain revenge against the Rangers. Plus…let’s be honest, his last stand had a bit more grandeur to it than his dad’s. That said, there IS one other possible final threat that’s been suggested by fans…

#4 – Gosei Is The True Villain

Here’s how I’d pull it off: Basically, Gosei had secretly been a student of Dark Spectre, manipulating events to where all of the previous Rangers were in the same place at the same time. Once done, he could drain their powers into the Keys to create his own massive army of evil Rangers. It would be his ultimate revenge against Zordon, all Power Rangers throughout history, and their entire lineage. However, before he could take the power from the Megaforce team, Tensou could cut them off from the Ranger Keys, leaving them as the last hope to stop Gosei. As such, it would be one last valiant struggle against Gosei and his army of Ranger copies, with Tommy and a few others, even the side characters for this season, fighting without their powers to try and give the team as much of a chance as they possibly can. It would be one grand, final stand against evil’s most sinister plot to destroy Earth and conquer the universe. But hey, enough of the big changes, here’s some of the smaller stuff they could’ve done…

#5 – Proper Music During The Legendary Ranger Battles

Yeah, I’m with Linkara on this one: Having the proper music play over the battles where the team goes Legendary Mode would be an impressive improvement all on its own. Y’know how I know that? Because I’ve seen the fight scenes with the proper music playing, thanks to YouTubers like PRUnreleased and hunterkiller1440. I refuse to believe it’s a budget issue, because Go Go Power Rangers has been reused for the past five years, and there were TINY hints of previous themes in the background music produced for Super Megaforce. And honestly, given how little Disney seemed to care about Power Rangers, I have doubts that they’d wanna hold onto the rights to the music. So yeah, would’ve been nice to see…erm, hear more of the old music used where appropriate. And lastly, there’s one more thing I wanna talk about…again.

#6 – Megaforce and Samurai Team-Up

…No, really, I have no idea why the hell they didn’t do this. In a season that is clearly out to burn through as much Sentai footage as possible, there is no excuse for why they didn’t do this team-up. After all this time, there is no possible explanation I can think of for why they didn’t do this team-up. So, because Saban didn’t do it, here’s a look at what could’ve been. Big thanks to the aforementioned PRUnreleased and hunterkiller1440 for making these two videos.

Anyway, that’s all I got for now. Once again, lemme know in the comments section below if there are any you’d add that I didn’t think of. Ja né!

History of Power Rangers Jungle Fury – Unofficial Companion Piece

Merry Christmas, one and all!…Okay, I don’t normally do this. I feel as though doing companion pieces to reviews is kinda stepping on the toes of the reviewer. However, something odd happened after watching today’s History of Power Rangers. For those uninitiated, History of Power Rangers is a show done by Atop The Fourth Wall host, Linkara, that talks about…well, the history of Power Rangers, season by season. It’s generally a broad overview of each season, keeping only the important details in. And, in that sense, today’s HOPR, which focused on Jungle Fury, did exactly that, and I really enjoyed it…With that said, for some weird reason, a lot of details to the show that I felt were overlooked kept popping up in my head. It was made worse when, after I was done watching, I brought up Netflix and decided to watch some episodes, and these details seemingly increased in number. Now, admittedly, a lot of this could be seen as pointless trivia, but I really like it. So, I thought I’d get it all out by compiling a list of details that either weren’t covered for whatever reason, or just helped explain them when they were. Obviously, though, you’ll wanna watch HOPR FIRST before reading this, in case you haven’t done so already. And I figure we might as well start off with the first thing we saw in the review…

#1 – The Strike Rider

While the Strike Rider IS shown in the beginning of the video, primarily so Lewis could make a snarky comment, there was one thing about it that I wish he’d talked about. See, up until now, every season since In Space had a Battlizer, an American-made powered-up form for the Red Ranger, usually in the form of some advanced armour. However, Jungle Fury doesn’t really have a traditional Battlizer. Instead, the Strike Rider, and the armour that comes with it, are often considered by many to be the Jungle Fury Battlizer. Now, not everybody is in agreement over that point, and anyone reading this is free to make their own call, but personally…yeah, in my opinion, it kinda is. It gives Casey an advanced form, it’s unique to him, and he’s even seen using it at times after the team gains access to Jungle Master Mode. It’s not really anything vital to go over, but I thought it still could’ve been brought up.

#2 – The Wolf Ranger Costume

Okay, I’m not gonna debate costume fashion sense here, but I think there’s a theme present in RJ’s morphed form that I think Linkara may have overlooked: He’s supposed to look like a Muay Thai kick-boxer. Even the Wolf Morpher itself has a little ring bell switch to it. Why? Because in his morphed fights, he’s constantly employing that style of martial art. Granted, I would’ve preferred if he used that style a bit more unmorphed, so it was more clear when the time came that the suit was made with that combat style in mind (having kick-pads and whatnot), so I suppose I can see where Lewis didn’t recognize that.

#3 – The Shark Sabers

Alright, admittedly, this is probably one of the lesser points to bring up, but I just find it kinda neat. If you watch the show (and if you don’t, I don’t know why you’re reading this), you probably noticed that the Shark Sabers look kinda…flimsy. In that, they’re VERY flimsy, resembling HORRIBLE props. However, and I admittedly only know this because I watched Gekiranger, where this point was actually specifically covered, that’s actually part of the design. Think of the blades like if the edges of rubber were sharp. They can bend and flop around, but they’ll still cut. This way, while swinging them around, anything that gets close to them is getting sliced, and they’re also harder to get around, making them every bit as good as defensive weapons as they are offensive. Again, kinda pointless trivia that only the most geeky of people would care about, but…well, what can I say? I excel at being a geek. lol

#4 – The Wolf Zord

Getting back to RJ for a sec, I thought I should bring up how his Wolf Zord works with the others. Basically, it replaces the Cheetah Zord as a new right leg for the Jungle Pride Megazord, and uses its bladed tail to improve kicking power. Again, RJ mostly uses kick-boxing in the field. However, the Wolf can’t combine with the Zords that form the Jungle Master Megazord (or, if it can, it was never shown to be able to in either Jungle Fury OR Gekiranger). Instead, when the others are piloting the Jungle Master Megazord, RJ can project copies of the Tiger and Jaguar Zords to form the Wolf Pride Megazord, which functions exactly like the Jungle Pride Megazord with Wolf Power, only usually piloted by RJ on his own. Although, one cool thing about having the two Megazords usually working together that they never fully took advantage of was the fact that the Elephant, Bat, or Shark Zords could each combine with one of the two, so they could power up even further, although that could require them splitting up between the Megazords, so not sure if that would work or not. Whatever, still cool to think about…at least more-so than the last thing I need to talk about…

#5 – The Pai Zhua Masters’ Spirit Forms

Okay, this one is actually more about confirming a suspicion Lewis had. Yeah, the spirit forms of the Pai Zhua Masters were from Gekiranger. In fact, it’s what their Sentai counterparts each looked like. I’d say that it makes more sense in the Sentai, and it does, but rather, I’ll instead just say that, after a while of watching, you kinda got used to them. HERE, however, I have NO idea why they used them. It’s not even a thing where they were used so that certain shots from the Sentai could be adapted either, since their appearance in Jungle Fury was ALL original footage. So…Yeah, I don’t know. lol

Anyway, that’s all I really wanna talk about. I hope that Lewis Lovhaug understands that I don’t necessarily want to step in on his show. It’s just…I dunno, I guess Jungle Fury, and Gekiranger for that matter, left a pretty big impact on me. As such, I’m gonna NEED to reel this in, because as anyone who knows me personally can tell you, I LOVE Power Rangers RPM and Engine Sentai Go-onger, which are next. Hopefully, I’ll keep a better thumb over my need to exposit more needless details and trivia. In the meantime, though, here’s one Ranger fanatic who can’t wait til March. Ja né, and Merry Christmas. 🙂