Power Rangers Wild Force Discussion

[Fury Diamond]

Power Rangers Wild Force


(February 9, 2002 - November 16, 2002, 40 Episodes)



Staff Picks
Overdrive.92 - The Master's Last Stand
Erik10101 - Forever Red
Mr. Silver - Reinforcements From The Future
Mr. Pink - A Father's Footsteps
Garrus Vakarian - The Wings Of Animaria

Cast:
Cole / Red Ranger - Ricardo Mendina Jr.
Danny / Black Ranger - Jack Guzman
Max / Blue Ranger - Phillip Jeanmarie
Taylor / Yellow Ranger - Alyson Kiperman
Alyssa / White Ranger - Jessica Rey
Merrick / Lunar Wolf Ranger - Philip Andrew

Questions:
What did you think of the season premiere?
What did you think of the first PRWF Teaser?
What did you think of the Wild Force cast (the rangers that is)?
What did you think of the villains for Wild Force?
What were your thoughts on the Zen-Aku/Lunar Wolf Ranger storyline?
What did you think of the Time Force/Wild Force team up and also the anniversary team up "ForeverRed"?
What did you think of the storyline involving Viktor Adler and Cole's parents?
What are your favorite Wild Force episodes?
What did you think of "The End Of The Power Rangers"?
Any finals thoughts on Power Rangers Wild Force?
What do you think of the season being a story within a story?

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In order to celebrate 17 years of Power Rangers, RangerCrew will be hosting monthly, seasonal discussions. A new month means a new season. Throughout the month, we'll post questions to the fans to get their input on various topics regarding the particular season. Feel free to share your favorite episodes and moments, as well as your personal critics about the season.

We ask that the monthly, seasonal discussions stay on topic.

Each month, a mod will create a thread like this and sticky it.

[Fury Diamond]

What did you think of the season premiere?

[ForeverBlue]

Your the only one that makes these anyways lol


Anyways.....the premiere for Wild Force was a really good started. Wild Force started to be my favorite after the first 10 episodes or by the time Zen-Aku came.

[Cmdr Crayfish]

Ah, Wild Force. You were most likely unwatchable without ready access to members of the writing staff to answer all of your questions and/or complain about production nightmares plaguing the season.

My bias to PRWF really does stem from the fact that Amit was hindered every step of the way from doing the show he wanted to, but even then... The season didn't fight Jonathan hard enough in the places it needed to, because we now had a staff who genuinely did love Sentai and wanted to preserve it "just cause." The thing Chip quit over was the thing they now supported. I remember railing at Amit about the fact we had Zen-Aku's Wildzords debut in one episode and THEN the Predazord got an ep afterwards. Classic PR would have condensed those into one slam-bang fight. The hellacious pacing of Gaoranger just got imported over, and only the deft weaving of the Master Org storyline gave us any real sense of MOVEMENT in that first half. Everything else just kind of floated around in these elliptical storytelling orbits, subject to the gravitational field of the source footage.

Weirdly, despite the fact a THIRD of the season was wasted on the Zen-Aku and Kite sagas (SERIOUSLY! ONE THIRD! THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN EIGHT TIMES AS GOOD AT HALF THEIR RESPECTIVE LENGTHS!), the things the season did right were surprisingly weighty. Secrets and Lies truly is one of my favorite episodes of the season, because it displays an odd earnestness with just how dark and horrid the lives these seemingly peppy and emotionally stunted people are. Taylor is allowed the chance to let Cole lead a Disneyfied fairy tale, or let him return to the harsh reality of the Grimm fairy tale the season actually is. And that, at its heart, is the problem with Wild Force. Half of the cast think they're doing a safe and Disneyfied fairy tale even as the writing is getting more and more somber in odd places. Worse, Katie Torpey and Bergen Williams clearly think this show is a Disneyfied fairy tale and are writing it themselves as such. The fact Gaoranger, which they were stealing from liberally and often without any sort of critical thought involved, was some bizarre hybrid of a fairy tale and Pokemon certainly didn't help matters. So we get this show staggering, punch-drunk, from one extreme of storytelling to another with no internal consistency or narrative compass guiding it.

I like Cole's story. I think there's something inherently powerful in a man who is willing to simply walk away from vengeance without consequence (indeed, his friends would have CELEBRATED his murdering Adler after his nearly killing them as well). Indeed, he still wants to believe Adler can be saved even after Master Org has control of his corpse. I like Taylor in the abstract, because she had a valid point -- screw destiny, she led that team for a YEAR. This was her unit and she had a right to expect respect from everyone, including Cole, after her demotion. Max was infinitely better conceptually than he was in terms of the writing they gave him. Philip's intense charisma only carries the thin writing so far, since they never did follow up the "high school dropout" angle which defined Max's personality. The idea Alyssa was meant to be a Mary Sue whose manic, type-a personality had her RIGHT on the cusp of a complete mental collapse was never conveyed by Jes, really. A Father's Footsteps didn't even address this when it had the perfect opportunity to since, of course, that didn't happen in Gaoranger.

The ultimate weakness of Wild Force is that it's Gaoranger with original bits shoved in around the edges (and sometimes bent horribly to suit episodes they knew they were going to adapt anyway to appease Jonathan), all slaved to an excellent US overplot which... gets resolved by mid-season so ABC censors won't get any the wiser, leaving the last half of the show absolutely floundering with no particular direction. Like if they'd had the time to do the Ten Terrors arc PROPERLY, frankly. I don't see any particularly organic component to the Mandilok storyline. It fleshes out a bit more of the backstory, to be sure, but is mostly "our anime got picked up for a second season, let's keep the thing going despite killing the big bad and leaving no room for any organic growth, until we can resurrect the big bad and kill him AGAIN in the next finale."

[Mr. Green]

Two words: Forever. Red.

[Digifiend]

Well, "The End of the Power Rangers" didn't live up to it's name.

[President Ranger]

This is just about the biggest piece of crap season their is in Power rangers.

[SirStack]

This is just about the biggest piece of crap season their is in Power rangers.

There. And "Operation Overdrive" disagrees with you.

[TimeKaiser]

I actually liked Wild Force, despite still never having seen all of the episodes. The number of power animals was one of the things that appealed to me, and it also had a bit of a treasure hunt feel to it at times when they had to find certain ones. I must say though, due to the question asked, that one of my favorite aspects of the series is how two of the villians are shown having been waiting for years disguised as humans until now.

[Mr. Black]

What did you think of the season premiere?

I thought it was a unique start, though somehow similar to its counterpart's first episode.