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hk6909
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
651 Posts |
 Posted - 12/14/2006 : 3:31:28 PM
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Section three of my analysis, again character guide is included in the first section.
Episode 24-Reality Bytes
Summary: Vin’s sensei comes to town, the MAYHEM officers get new powers, and Byte has a change of heart and dies to help his creator destroy the monster. Yeah, that’s a lot for one episode of a sentai show.
Monster: KuroSkeeter
URL: http://www.geocities.com/tetsuokurata/epi24.html
Mistakes, Mysteries, and Weird Stuff
-In this episode the Scanrangers begin using the attacks the Brigade stole from them again with no explanation for how the attacks were recovered (Personal Rant: I bet I know what the explanation is--when the Brigade died, the attacks they stole were returned--but it’s the author’s job to explain things like that, not mine as a reader to guess).
-The text described what the MAYHEM officers’ new outfits after getting new powers looked like, but never said what their old ones looked like.
-Blackorg didn’t tell his officers that the new powers he gave them suffered from limited usage until after they found out for themselves.
-The Scanrangers helped Tony out of a dumpster, but Vin had been the one thrown into a dumpster.
-Blackorg told the Scanrangers he would only kill them when the time was right, but if not for Byte’s interference the giant KuroSkeeter would have killed them.
Personal Rants: This episode lacks focus. It has several subplots going on at once, with Vin’s sensei showing up, the MAYHEM officers getting new powers, and Byte dying. In the end the Byte one wins out, but the story goes in a lot of directions that end up going nowhere before then.
Episode 25-To Ching Chow: Thanks for Everything-Catwoman
Summary: Vixen creates a monster that steals women’s voices, and the GuyScanners dress up in drag to set a trap.
Monster: KuroAlto
URL: http://www.geocities.com/tetsuokurata/epi25.html
Mistakes, Mysteries, and Weird Stuff
-It was treated as strange that all of the female members of the Project Paramount staff had had their voices stolen by KuroAlto, but it wasn’t explained why this was strange when every woman for fifty miles was affected as such.
-Why did Vixen come down and talk to the disguised Scanrangers if she was just going to shoot them with her voice-stealing weapon anyway? She didn’t investigate why they weren’t affected.
Personal Rants: This episode is a heck of a lot like one from Jetman, where there’s a monster that steals women’s voices and a guy on the team dresses up as a woman to set a trap for it. There, though, it made sense for them to try and trap it, since its attacks made a frontal assault a suicide mission and the monster was repulsed by men. In Scanranger, what they hoped to accomplish is debatable. It wasn’t as if they needed to lure Vixen out, they find her temporary base before even leaving headquarters. And honestly, do that many people think men dressing up in drag just for the sake of cheap laughs is funny?
-Nick bribed Kunio into going along with the cross dressing scheme with a Sailor Mercury doll, but did they need really three people for the decoy part of the plan? Were they afraid Vixen would look out the window and say, “There’s some women who still have their voices! Wait…there’s only two of them. Never mind”? Wouldn’t it have been handier to have another Scanranger sneak into Vixen’s hideout in case they got caught sneaking around the building crawling with MAYHEM warriors?
-When Vixen blasted the three “women,” Vin said, “What's wrong wid rapin'?” I hope the leader of this story’s upstanding defenders of humanity didn’t mean to say that.
Episode 26-Scream If You Know What Urban Nightmarish Legend I Did Last Summer on Friday the 13th Street!
Summary: Key transports the rangers to the land of dead teenager movies where they are stalked by his team of cyborg killers, but a stranger with mysterious powers enables them to fight back.
Monster: KuroSlasher
URL: http://www.geocities.com/tetsuokurata/epi26.html
Mistakes, Mysteries, and Weird Stuff
-After getting Blackorg’s approval to execute his plan, Key waited a month to trap the Scanrangers for some reason.
-When Toni was shocked unconscious, B.C. and Kunio came running in, saying they’d heard the distress signal and asking if Toni was alright, but no one had sent a distress signal.
-Key threatened the rangers after capturing Toni, telling them to do as they were told or they’d never see her again, but he never told them to do anything.
-After Nick saved Toni from Shriek he said, “This is why I despise teen slasher movies!” What he was talking about was unclear.
-During the fight with Team Nightmare PinkScanner distracted her opponent with a hologram of herself, which is GreenScanner’s power.
-It seems strange that Team Nightmare, created by a villain from England and in a story set in America, would say, “Nightmare Gattai!” (“gattai” being Japanese for “combine”) to combine.
-The Scanrangers declared that KuroSlasher was too fast for BlockBuster as a result of being shot by the monster’s energy beam. Besides that mystery, it wasn’t clear how calling Thunder Dolby would remedy the problem.
Personal Rants: The teaser for the next story bills the Main Street Men as “the newest singing sensations of all time.” That’s quite a strange claim to fame.
Episode 27-Main Street Men
Summary: The Scanrangers learn they look just like the members of a boy band who are in desperate need of a vacation. Since being dedicated college students and on 24-hour call to save the world isn’t keeping them busy, they agree to stand in for them for a while. This is quite handy, as Vixen decides to kidnap the band.
Monster: KuroToad
URL: http://www.geocities.com/tetsuokurata/epi27.html
Mistakes, Mysteries, and Weird Stuff
-At the beginning of Power Upgrade, the others old Kunio that he’d be suspended from the team if he failed a class and had to make it up in summer school. He was in summer school making up a class in this episode, yet assisted the rest of the team as YellowScanner.
-When the team ran into the Main Street Men at the airport, Vin was able to identify them on sight, which made it somewhat strange that the “this band looks just like the five of us” issue didn’t seem to have come up before.
-During the dance practice scene, Toni yelled “NO TALKING!” but only she had talked in that scene.
-At the beginning of the episode the MSM’s manager gave the Scanrangers a hefty check for their services as impersonators (“CH-CHING!”) and they were never shown giving it back or donating it somewhere. Yet when the Main Street Men talked to each other just before being kidnapped by MAYHEM, they said the Scanrangers were impersonating them for free.
-During the concert the text constantly reminds the reader that the performers are actually the Scanrangers, despite the Scanrangers agreeing to impersonate the Main Street Men, going through rigorous training to be able to pull off the impersonation, and the Main Street Men being MAYHEM’s prisoners during the concert having already made that clear.
Personal Rants: The plot of the episode is that the male Scanrangers stand in for a boy band they happen to look exactly like, and at the end a newspaper headline “reveals” that the Main Street Men and the Scanrangers are one and the same. I wonder what kinds of headlines were hitting newsstands a few episodes later when a woman took Kunio’s place as YellowScanner.
-Seems strange that Scanranger would get the ability to combine their starter mecha only after getting a whole new generation of stronger mecha.
Episode 28-And Voodoo to You Too
Summary: Blackorg creates a voodoo monster that bedevils the Scanrangers until it is overcome by the power of Peter’s faith.
Monster: KuroHoungan
URL: http://www.geocities.com/tetsuokurata/epi28.html
Mistakes, Mysteries, and Weird Stuff
-Blackorg threatened to send Ug back to the Cro-Magnon era to be eaten by dinosaurs, which were extinct by then.
-From what movie did Peter conjure up his armor?
-BlockBuster transported itself and KuroHoungan into another dimension when the battle started, but they were in another dimension already (“the car were transported into another dimension”) and no mention was made of any inhabitants that would be endangered by a mecha fight.
-In the meeting at the end, Vin asked about Peter by name, but none of the Scanrangers had ever heard his name. Also odd is that they seemingly never mentioned him to their superiors before.
Personal Rants: KuroHoungan uses attacks based on tarot cards, which have what to do with voodoo?
Episode 29-If I Die, Let it Be With Honor!
Summary: Peter’s story is revealed just in time for him to be killed off.
Monster: None
URL: http://www.geocities.com/tetsuokurata/epi29.html
Mistakes, Mysteries, and Weird Stuff
-Vin said Blackorg was acting out of character by kidnapping Carmen, but with all of the things MAYHEM has done to people from mutating, mind-controlling and murdering them, how is kidnapping someone out of character? What about the Main Street Men? (Personal Rant: And despite kidnapping being “out of character” for MAYHEM, in the next story Kunio thinks killing a hostage, which happens waaay less often, is perfectly in line with how they work)
-After throwing a fit about Peter’s interference in their plans last episode and seeing him singlehandedly overpower KuroHoungan, “the ultimate CyberCreature,” Blackorg considered him to be a “mere human” in this story.
-Peter’s funeral happening only two days after his death is awfully quick.
Personal Rants: Peter seems like he was supposed to be one of those characters who comes into the story, helps a character and us in the audience see a side of themselves we usually don’t, and ultimately dies a tragic death to illustrate the horrors of war. Like Komutan from Megaranger, Degius from Gingaman, Garbage Jigen or the Dimensians from Jetman, Kujaku or Jin from Dairanger. The thing is, he wasn’t. He was a guy who helped them out a few times, formed no appreciable connections with any of the characters, and then died having had no impact on the story except for unlocking DolbyScreener and leaving behind a brother I’m sure will join MAYHEM. He wasn’t given any chances for us to form an attachment before he died. So when he appeared in the sky, I felt nothing.
-Takeshi distracting Peter when he was on the verge of finishing off Blackorg because Takeshi wanted to help might well be the most foolish thing a character has ever done in this whole series. Peter was doing just fine by himself and was about to finish off their archenemy for them, and because Takeshi felt a need to assist, he was distracted just long enough for Blackorg to turn the tables. I’m all for who heroes aren’t perfect (in fact, that’s the only way I like ’em), but I don’t like ones who do dumb things for no other reason than because the script says so.
Episode 30-Assault on Cape Paramount Base! part 1
Summary: Spontaneously knowing where the Scanranger base is, MAYHEM attacks it to finish them off while they’re weak from their battle with Blackorg. Mikey is gravely injured by Vixen and Ug, but Carmen just happens to learn she has anime powers too.
Monster: KuroSlasher again
URL: http://www.geocities.com/tetsuokurata/epi30.html
Mistakes, Mysteries, and Weird Stuff
-The MAYHEM lieutenants were all distraught by Blackorg’s apparent demise, even though back in “Joker is Riled,” Key had angrily proclaimed that someday Blackorg would push him too far.
-As well, they were acting as if Blackorg had just been killed at least two days after the battle, and the wounded rangers were only getting their injuries examined around the same time.
-This episode happened at least two days after the previous one, and so it seems strange that Carmen hadn’t come out of a simple faint until the middle of this episode even though she’s healthy and fit enough to be a Scanranger.
-The custodian who turned down Carmen’s room noticed her weight in the cart she was pushing and even heard Carmen screaming as she went down the laundry chute, but apparently didn’t think anything of it.
-The Kinks were powered up in this story, but they were said to be stronger in the previous episode as well, seeming a bit excessive.
-How did Kunio know that even though he couldn’t teleport or communicate with his friends, he could still become YellowScanner if he was still in normal form?
-Why would Ug say “thanks” to “Think of a war machine or something!”?; why would thinking about tanks cause his powers to produce a “mini cannon”?; what movie did that come from?
Personal Rants: Something was weird when, just before taking to their robots to battle KuroSlasher, B.C., Nick and Toni wondered where Kunio was. Not Vin or Takeshi, who were seriously injured already and would make easier targets for MAYHEM, and whose whereabouts they didn’t seem to know either.
Episode 31-Assault on Cape Paramount Base! part 2
Summary: Seeming to forget they attacked the Scanranger base intending to finish them off while they were weakened and short-handed, MAYHEM pulls back, allowing the Scanrangers to fully recover and have a new member and mecha when MAYHEM finally returns to finish the job.
Monster: KuroSlasher again, resurrected KuroOctopus
URL: http://www.geocities.com/tetsuokurata/epi31.html
Mistakes, Mysteries, and Weird Stuff
-Alex’s explanation for why StuntMaster was only designed to be used by the main team’s mecha, “WideScreener has enough firepower of its own to handle any attack, especially in your J and SuperScreener mode..” is definitely hyperbole. Also, J Mode is SilverScanner himself becoming a giant and has nothing to do with WideScreener.
-Why would Peter’s brother have the programs to make StuntMaster work?
-When Mark healed him and Takeshi, Vin remarked, “Another healing? This is beginning to be habit forming..” Since he hadn’t been magically healed of his injuries before, it’s unclear what he meant.
-Why wouldn’t the rangers ask Mark to heal Kunio, too?
-Carmen asked Alex how the professor expected her to use power like the Scanrangers’, but she had done so without even realizing it to fight off Vixen and Ug.
-Carmen was able to recognize YellowScanner in the previous episode, indicating some degree of familiarity with the team’s exploits, yet while talking to Alex, she had no idea what MAYHEM, clearly the enemy they were fighting, was.
-Likewise, although it was obvious that they were the other Scanrangers, Carmen wondered what Kunio’s five friends could do to stop an alien invasion when MAYHEM returned.
Part 2
URL: http://www.geocities.com/tetsuokurata/epi31a.html
-During the battle the SabreMagnum was called the MagnumLaser.
-When the battle broke out, Trilobyte noticed that something was different about YellowScanner, yet this was the first time he’d seen Scanranger. If he’d previously reviewed MAYHEM’s accumulated information on them, it’s strange he didn’t seem to notice the team suddenly had two women, as the Scanrangers transformed after facing down their enemies.
-It wasn’t clear how KuroOctopus had come back to life.
-It’s strange that Alex would have to personally activate StuntMaster, or that she’d wait until the last possible minute when they’d had the software they needed all the time.
-After grabbing DolbyScreener, KuroSlasher administered a “sucker punch.” A sucker punch is when a person distracts someone else and then punches them while they’re distracted (E.g.. Guy #1 “Hey, what’s that??” Guy #2: “Huh??” Guy #1: WHAM) . If KuroSlasher had caught DolbyScreener in its grip, this would seem both difficult and unnecessary.
-At the end, Alex made a speech about the significance of the destruction of the old base (“Cape Paramount shall carry on within our hearts forever!”), making her dismissive attitude toward its destruction when she brought Vin and Takeshi to the new base confusing.
Personal Rants: When StuntMaster was used against the CyberCreatures, KuroSlasher left “poor KuroOctopus” to his fate. Even if he was abandoned by his teammate, that’s a weird way to describe a remorseless monster that wanted to enslave/destroy the human race.
Episode 32-Comes the Time of Testing-Carmen’s Baptism of Fire!
Summary: Carmen doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the team, so obviously the survival of the entire group is quickly placed on her shoulders.
Monster: KuroLobo
URL: http://www.geocities.com/tetsuokurata/epi32.html
Mistakes, Mysteries, and Weird Stuff
-KuroLobo retreated back to headquarters “in spite of its injury.” It fled back to base because of its injury.
-When Carmen said they would get the monster next time, Toni snapped, “There might not be a next time!” It was unclear what she meant by that.
-TriloByte told Key that Vixen and Ug had faced Carmen’s full power (in episode 30), but she would presumably be more powerful as YellowScanner.
-Carmen wondered how she could get away from her Team Nightmare escorts without breaking the law, but what law was she worried about breaking? And how did she intend to find her friends without them as guides?
-Key gloated about reprogramming StuntMaster once Carmen had turned it over to him, but he had sent her to get the plans for StuntMaster--and that was what she (supposedly) got for him--not the robot itself.
-Carmen and Takeshi pretended that she was betraying Project Paramount, though for what purpose was never made clear.
-Carmen put a tracer on one of the tapes she had gotten for Key, but why was also never explained.
-It’s quite unlikely that a giant robot like StuntMaster could have snuck up on Key and his henchmen.
-Carmen seemed surprised and alarmed that her Super Saiyajin powers had suddenly faded, but (again) never told any of the others.
-Although the point of this episode is evidently about the value of teamwork, the climax strangely has Carmen handling most of the fighting with Key and Team Nightmare by herself, and the Scanrangers turn down SilverScanner’s offer to help fight the giant KuroLobo. Making the latter even odder is that when RedScanner heard BlockBuster had been repaired, he said, “We could use all the power we can get!” Having another mecha would significantly add to their power, one would think, not to mention StuntMaster was right there already.
-Key seemed surprised that TriloByte had somehow gotten money. With MAYHEM’s technological ability to create sentient life, why would it be surprising that they could mint money as well? Or with their fighting capabilities, steal it?
Personal Rants: Carmen’s first battle occurred in the previous episode. Wouldn’t that be her “baptism of fire”?
-Key isn’t shown to have a lot of imagination for a psychological terrorist. He has one of his worst enemies in a position where she’ll do whatever he tells her, and what does he have her do? Buy movies for him. Mind that Key is a human from Earth, and could just waltz into the stores and buy them himself, or steal them with all of the super-strong cyborg flunkies at his disposal and two thirds of the resident superheroes captive, with the rest in a position wherever they’d do whatever he’d say. Like, “Stay out of our way, or we’ll send you some RedScanner-flavored shaved ice.”
-As noted above, Carmen pretended that she was selling out Project Paramount to trade StuntMaster for the lives of her friends. This was copied from an episode of Jetman where Ryu pretended to betray his team and wanted to trade Tetra Boy for Maria. There, the false betrayal was a ruse to enable Ryu (and ultimately all of Jetman) to sneak into their enemies’ base. In Scanranger, there was no visible reason for them to put on the act.
-At the end Vin said that the rangers probably could’ve found some way to escape from MAYHEM without Carmen’s help, which ruins a lot of the feeling that Carmen has become a valuable part of the team through the day’s ordeals.
No, as a matter of fact, there has never been one single time where I've been mellow. |
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Request, section 3
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