Power Rangers Samurai: What Happened?

[Music] ah [Music] you [Music] hello Internet I'm the Disney brain and despite what I may have implied in the past I actually do like Power Rangers Samurai but it just isn't a very good season of Power Rangers and while a fair amount of people agree with that notion the more interesting questions are how and why and as the video title suggests that's exactly what I'll be diving into today there's a lot of places we could start but first let's go broad then focus on the individual parts powering through Samurai is the first season under the NiO Saban era after Saban brands got the rights back from Disney the first move they made if the rights was giving us a team of Rangers born to be samurai an inherently awesome concept it expands upon an idea they already got right once before but problems reared their head almost immediately as the actual first two episodes origins part 1 & 2 were aired way after a team unites which seems like a first episode title but it's really just a mic focus episode we know nothing about any of these people yet they inexplicably felt the need to start with an episode focusing on one of the seasons least interesting characters but we'll get to him and the other Rangers later that misstep is easy to overlook but what's a little harder to buy is the fact that every single Ranger on this team was so quick to take up the role of a ranger as in nobody here despite living pretty decent lives prior to this seems at all fazed by having to give all of that up to save the world so suddenly I'm not saying they should be pissy about it since this job does run in the family for some reason they know about this well before black it would make a lot more sense for at least one character can be characterized as such Jack was not a great leader but he was an interesting character mainly because he made it clear that SPD was important to him but it was far from his only priority that added layers to his character in ways few other Ranger seasons have been able to do and he chose to be on SPD well he sort of chose it was either that or jail but for another time but none of these Rangers ever really reach a point where the pressure becomes too much or they admit that their real lives were so much better that's a wasted chance at easy characterization because they never take it far enough Jaden does struggle with being a leader at times but that's the only thing he gets development wise and his answer initially is all waise gotta do this alone there are at least two separate occasions where he literally goes through the same character art it resolves in exactly the same way but all those points are dropped in the bucket compared to our big bag of the season but before we talk about xandred it's worth mentioning that the Deckard Ayub backstory was extremely well done the idea of nighloks being basically devil's that grant people wishes and an extremely high price could have made the entire antagonist side worth it but they don't do enough for that concept outside of a handful of episodes at most I'm not saying that we need to pull as Android is actually somebody's father bit that would be too easy but more could have been done if the heavily under played themes of choices and consequences but neither theme could expect to the Ranger team much at all if anything their decisions are always fairly clear cuts especially when you have a character like Kevin around whose entire life is pre-planned now let's briefly mention is Android I say briefly because there's really not too much to say they created a villain meant for a sizeable chunk of the show is homesick do you honestly expect us to be afraid of this guy a great villain racist tension and the stakes but xandred is just a walking punch line and not in the somewhat amusing and intentional ways that Lothar and his crew were Decker is by far the best villain in this season but he's only ever around half the time and is almost never the real focus despite the first half of samurai ending on a damn good fight between him and Jayden although it did have a bit too much build-up to the inevitable but once Decker is beaten super samurai has almost nothing left in the chamber before as Android finally gets off his ass and that's it there's not a ton of interesting things to say about the nighlok because Decker and Daioh are the only interesting ones it got to a point where they had to forest deck her back into the fold to fight Jayden again just to hold us over until the grand finale if the villain side of things focused on Decker and die you exclusively we've probably got a much better season it would place their choices surrender their humanity on full display which might have worked even better here than it did with master org and if you then parallel that with the Ranger team having to make tough calls of their own alongside the consequences of those choices be them good or bad then there is your narrative but it speaks to the larger issue of the villain and the hero side of the story both being somatically underwhelming the best Ranger seasons have a clear reason for telling their specific story outside of monster-of-the-week and gotta sell toys lost galaxies was all about sacrifice and dealing with the pain of loss time force was all about changing your destiny even if it seems set and under the surface of SPD there's a ton of social subtext that goes into defining how the Rangers ie the police deal with things like aliens androids and other dimensional beings which might be even more relevant now than it ever was when it first aired but ultimately samurai somatically is a beat him up about five and then six guys and gals running around punching otherworldly monsters because that's just what they were born to do their subtext reads that since the samurai stuff is hereditary they literally have no choice and while they could have cultivated a great narrative from that premise as I explained they simply didn't and now that we've peeled back a lot of the big picture points let's talk about the important characters first Mike Mike is your typical devil-may-care somewhat lazier than the others distraction he doesn't come with any depth isn't likely developed in any of his focus episodes which maybe two or three tops if that and the only trick he has that goes through any patient build-up are his feelings for Emily also known as the saving grace of this entire season but we'll get to her kevin is only ever defined by his work ethic and that's fine I have praised Rangers like ELISA before for practicing diligence and time management something that makes role models out of Heroes but unlike ELISA Kevin is never allowed to use that defining trait in any memorable or important way and is overbearing worship at the altar of Jayden is just there should have been an episode where he definitively challenges the oh so flawless Jayden without the body control gimmick but that never happens the best thing they did was have Michael learn from him a little bit but that was just a one-off idea that didn't really develop either character meaningfully in the long term in short Tiffani is a very good ranger very focused and hard-working all great traits but he's not a good character and when so many Rangers can be all of that plus more and make it look easy nothing about Kevin really stands out as a result next we have Mia she cooks poorly but doesn't realize it isn't that just hilarious well you better think so because beyond our really really wanting to be a bride and one in genuinely great moment that's pretty much all she's got she's pretty good as far as your deeply caring Rangers go but similar to Kevin there's plenty of Rangers that do it better now let's discuss Emily the fact that she's taking the place of her sister as the Yellow Ranger is already way more interesting than anything else going off the other characters there's actually a reason for her to be a bit more reserved than the others beyond just a troubled childhood because she actually shouldn't be here but has to be unfortunate and unplanned circumstances you don't even need to do too much beyond that other than give her the chance to overcome her self-doubt and Samurai does give her that chance she wants to make her sister proud she wants to be stronger than the helpless girl she once was that's what's driving her and that easily makes her the deepest hero in the show oh no I think Emily is a good character but there was a ton of potential there that samurai did not care to delve into and if she was placed in a season that had better storyboarding and better writing she could have at least been mentioned among the very best yellow Rangers Antonio has a character has a couple of Spanish and gold Ranger related catchphrases and that's pretty much it but they did do something interesting with his character by having him represent technology and innovation while the Rangers before him represented tradition the only problem is the morphers are technology powered by the morphing grid and nothing about the chosen weaponry especially their Zords are traditional by any means so even though there is some tradition that defines how the Rangers go about doing things simple logic undercuts what could have been a better point of contention since Antonio actually isn't as divergent as I'd have you initially believed adding to that early on Antonio proves to be highly skilled and at least as strong as Kevin so showing him the door when the earth is on the line even as an almost clever metaphor doesn't really make any sense and finally we have our Lord and Savior Jade and Sheba why is last name as Japanese I'll never know as I mentioned before he goes through only one real arc about finding a way to lead his team he isn't a very good leader early on but despite all of his character development focusing all his leadership he never becomes a better one compare that to one of the greatest leaders of all time who starts out as great realizes he's got more to learn along the way and ends as an even better leader someone who is a master of on-the-job chuckling in spite of having an annoying cowboys backup who can also connect to his team as people and never ever places himself above any of them holier-than-thou Jaden on the other hand constantly thinks he could win this nighlok war alone which he couldn't but even when he grows to accept his team he never really connects with them in a meaningful way Jaden of Nazareth over here is nothing but a samurai a plain as paint character that while very very cool at times fails to be anything more which leads into my biggest point / problem with the series Lauren Shiba no not Lauren as a character Lauren as a plot point if you haven't seen samurai yet this is really the only major spoiler there is even though it's kind of dumb so all throughout the second half of samurai Jayden is constantly prattling on about some secret turns out he actually isn't the true red ranger as in they still did the fighting trait that helped make Emily's character interesting and plastered it on Jaden the almighty because why the hell not which also makes it a terrible secret since Jayden already knows that Emily wasn't the first choice either but honestly that's debatable considering Jaden's lack of social skills so Lauren takes over the team for a bit as a part of the Shiba plan to hide her away to perfect the sealing symbol to defeat master xandred and mike immediately responds to the change in leadership by creepily referencing his mm sword despite already liking Emily and let's just not talk about Mike anymore we finally have a female Ranger in the main cast and the first thing samurai wants to do is either sexualize her or have the others praying that Big Daddy Jaden would come back as Stan's it's actually given wait when she fails to do the one job she trained her entire life for and the only way to save the day is yep of course and the power backed up brother dearest because God forbid a woman works hard for all of her life in secret and actually succeeds not that clearly isn't realistic instead she'll get disrespected as soon as she arrives well everyone pines for her younger brother despite the fact that she could literally save the world and after all of that she'll come up short anyways because obviously all we really need in our lives was the one true God great work samurai real classy the subtext is slimy sexist and contrived as all hell the it gets even worse when you consider how flat-out brilliant it could have been had the roles been reversed I know you explained if Lauren had led the team from the start while Jaden was the one hidden away we've got the unforgettable tale of our first main female Red Ranger and the first female Ranger since Jen to actually lead the team with one important difference because everyone on Jen's team already respected her before time for started she never really had to deal with any issues regarding her gender but Lauren would have to go through those hurdles since the team only meets when they're called upon in origins she could be like the big sister substitute for Emily and help her develop she could teach Mike a thing or two early on and have him reconsider his own stance on machismo and gender roles and he could have challenged Kevin to be more than just as hard-working beta always chasing somebody else once all that development happens and everyone is firmly on board with a female leader then have the secret be Jaden coming in the story would then be we could only come so far as a team with Lauren but maybe Jaden can carry us a little bit further but surprise he actually doesn't in fact he fails to do so like easy because he can't connect the team in the way that this new version of Lauren can wouldn't even have to change him this would serve as a subversion of the male leader tradition by introducing a more prototypical red ranger late in the game only to realize that Lauren was always the best choice to lead the team to be clear the surface reason she succeeds should not have anything to do with gender that would be attributed to simply being a good leader but the subtext should be we don't need a male red ranger to come in and save the world every single damn time and if this was done right all the way through Lauren might have even ended up comparable to the great one herself Samurai as a whole has several problem areas a lot of the writing and acting is flat especially compared to what preceded it the swords aren't particularly great the only good antagonists are wasted the only interesting protagonist was underutilized bulk and mini skull have their moments but are obvious attempts at discount fanservice without the development and they couldn't even do a crossover episode quite right but to be fair that last point is not completely on samurai it's a season so much as it is a behind the scenes legal complications but despite all of that making a complete and total first out of Lauren's involvement is by far the biggest opportunity Power Rangers as a franchise I repeat as a franchise has ever wasted as is there's no point to any of it and because they handle it so poorly on top of that it becomes an even bigger problem but to end on a positive note there are some things to like about this season the general aesthetic is well captured and very fitting as a cross between modern and traditional samurai culture even though the team is heavily underdeveloped pretty much all of them have at least one or two moments where you can really see who they are even without dialogue at times and I appreciate that most things Decker related work very well in this season except maybe he's constantly to spectate Jaden's fights which only adds to the whole jaidynn warship complex i have such a big problem with but the payoff was definitely worth it and despite xandred being a terrible and forgettable villain the final fight was very entertaining and the finale in general did leave me feeling like the team and the season actually did grow on me and for me that's what being a true fan is all about being both critical and loving even when I'm hard on Power Rangers even though I have legitimate issues of the things they do I still love this franchise at the end of the day some major major mistakes are made in this season but I still enjoyed watching most of it and despite Megaforce being even worse in my opinion I still tuned in every week to watch that as well and so on and so forth till today and next time we do one of these topic-based Ranger videos I promise it'll be something much more positive and uplifting perhaps even so uplifting that it'll take us far far away deep in space to a galaxy we'll go but until then thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: The Disney Brain

Views: 368,563

Rating: 4.6077104 out of 5

Keywords: power rangers, andi mack, review, disney channel, full episode, samurai

Id: ZiHjQThI4jQ

Length: 15min 45sec (945 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 20 2017