Power Rangers Wild Force: Bad season or the worst season?

JDF'd · 01-03-2009, 02:00 PM

Yes, the thread title is a bit harsh. But if made you click, didn't it?

I figured that if any season of Power Rangers deserved a fresh look it was Wild Force. It’s been six years since it aired and it’s infamous for being many fans’ least favorite season. Recently, I’ve been trying to get my girlfriend into Power Rangers and I let her choose which seasons we’d watch based on general descriptions. Inevitably, she picked Wild Force early on. This is the first season that I’ve rewatched which has compelled me to write.

First of all, I think I should give some background history on what I’ve typically thought of this season in the past. Bottom line? Before Mystic Force came around I easily considered Wild Force to be the worst season. It first aired in 2002 which was the year I graduated high school, started college and earned my rank of Eagle Scout. Needless to say I was fairly busy and thus didn’t watch many episodes as they aired.

On top of that, I was pretty burned out from Time Force. It did nothing for me and my faith in Power Rangers was dwindling. The follow up being a season full of CGI animals didn’t excite me from the get go. I was still about a dozen episodes behind when the finale aired. I heard it was titled, “The End of the Power Rangers.” With that, I assumed it truly was the last season. Ten years is a good run. But in my mind the show sucked for the last two years so cancellation was a distinct possibility. That only made me less excited to watch. Why rush the last few episodes of what was once a great show?

A few months later I just so happened to flip the channels and hear, “Power Rangers Ninja Storm premieres... NEXT!” Ninjas? Awesome. I watched it and I loved it. That was the PR that I remembered as a kid. From there I never looked back on Wild Force. Why go back to a bad memory? In the years that followed I would watch an old WF episode here and there but as soon as Cole would hold his hand out, pause and delivery his lines with a shout (which he did frequently) I’d roll my eyes in confirmation that the show did indeed suck.

That all being said you know what sort of expectations I had going into this. To spice things up I watched Gaoranger right along with Wild Force. Sometimes I’d watch the WF equivalent of a Gao episode first and sometimes vice versa. Even a few times I played them side by side to see what few seconds of sentai footage they’d clip out for time restraints (which is fascinating no matter what season you’re watching.) This method is especially good for episodes like “Sing Song” where the sentai can drown out the horrible noises that come out of Anne Marie’s mouth. The first time I watched Gaoranger was a few years after Wild Force and even then I barely paid attention thanks to bad WF memories. So this time it was almost like a new show to me. (This is going to be more stream of consciousness, throwing my thoughts down as well. It's not really a review of the show from start to finish.)

So what are my first thoughts on viewing these shows with fresh eyes?

Wild Force is Gaoranger.

Plain and simple, I’m getting that off my chest first. There is no other season of Power Rangers that is more of a carbon copy of it’s sentai counterpart than Wild Force. Yes, I’m including every Kalish-era season when I say that.

Before anyone jumps down my throat, that’s not always a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong with judiciously borrowing from the sentai version. In fact, some episodes are so good that I get slightly offended when PR does NOT copy it. Why waste a perfectly good story? However, this is not what Wild Force did. They basically just used American actors (not very good ones at that) in the Japanese roles. Energetic rookie Red Ranger? Check. Princess who isn’t familiar with our current world? Check. Creepy bromance between the Blue and Black Rangers? Check. Loser emo Silver Ranger? Check. It’s all there.

I took it upon myself to make a list of every WF episode that was a direct copy it’s Gaoranger counterpart. Now I tried to be generous. If there was even a decent amount of WF-only stuff I gave the episode a pass. Leaving out the three team-up episodes I counted 28 of 37 Wild Force episodes that were Gaoranger episodes and less than half of those remaining episodes felt truly original.

Despite these numbers, Wild Force still could have gotten away as a pretty good season. The problem was the same problem that most people point to when they discuss why they didn’t like Wild Force: the acting. I don’t think catering had to work very hard because the majority of the cast ate scene after scene.

Cole, Alyssa, Shayla and Max were the worst offenders. Danny and Master Org weren’t far behind. Taylor and Toxica were pretty darned good. Jindrax? Now there’s the star of Wild Force. If anyone could save an episode it was him. Every scene he was in he stole. The best example of this is fittingly enough in his final appearance when he puts over the rivalry between Taylor and himself in a way that isn’t over the top yet it manages to stick out in your mind. When the guy tried to be funny he genuinely was! What a rarity for Power Rangers.

As I was saying, most of the cast was pretty unbearable. To top it all off, a lot of them didn’t even have likable characters to work with. Take Alyssa for example. In her first focus episode weren’t treated a montage. She wakes up early and mothers the entire team. She goes to college and gets an A+. She wins awards. We also know that she’s a great martial artist. Then she makes time to be a Power Ranger. How am I supposed to like this character? She has no known flaws. I don’t want to cheer for her. Chances are that based on what you’ve already told me she doesn’t need my cheering.

Some of the minor changes from Gao to WF flat out befuddle me. What was wrong with GaoBlue helping a kid who threw a bottle into a lake find his dad? Instead I’m supposed to be led to believe that Max believes throwing a bottle into a lake will grant a wish. Wait, what? Okay, I get it. We’re driving home the point that Max is the youngest member of the team and doesn’t want to be treated like a kid. But even at his age if he’s buying into that story about the bottle then I don’t think he’s acting like a kid. I genuinely think he’s retarded. That’s not a joke. His brain must be broken.

There is one character I pity and that’s Danny and his receding hairline. Jack Guzman wasn’t a great actor but he was hardly the worst one there. I pity him because he never really got any focus. The few times he did it was usually a sidebar in a Max episode. When I look at my list of the Gaoranger episodes that Wild Force completely skipped, a couple of them are GaoBlack episodes. The one time he truly got to shine was in “There’s a Crowd.” I actually recommend this episode as classic Power Rangers and one of the best episodes of the season excluding team-ups. I had more fun watching this episode than most of the rest of the season combined. Guzman probably did too.

I don’t really need to talk about Ricardo, do I? It’s all been said before. I still think it was his idea every time he tore his shirt off. Someone tell Phillip Andrew that when you deliver all of your lines through clenched teeth it doesn’t make you a badass. It just makes you hard to hear.

Now, onto Wild Force’s good points. (Yes, there are some.) When you talk to people who liked the show what is one of the first things they mention? For my money it’s the Master Org/Cole story. Rightfully so. They have every reason to hang their hats on “The Master’s Last Stand.” It’s a very good and very original episode. Here’s the problem though. What else was great after that? Also, how important was that storyline to the season as a whole? They did a masterful job of making it seem bigger than it truly was which is a trick they also used with Ransik in Time Force but that’s another rant for another time.

Go back and rewatch Wild Force. Count how many episodes where Master Org doesn’t make an appearance or Cole doesn’t mention his parents. You can pretty much count all the Cole/Master Org stuff on one hand. Make no mistake, when it came up it was a big deal and very fascinating (until Cole talked.) It just didn’t come up very often. It was thrown in to have a villain other than the eye/nose/mouth guys. Mind you, we’ve had worse thrown in villains in the past but we’ve also had many that were much better. Master Org was a one trick pony that could have been ridden for much more.

In all honesty, Mandilok came off as far more threatening. The latter part of the season was all about him and he tested the rangers like no other. Even Nayzor was fairly badass. I’d have rather seen him as a rival to Master Org than a subordinate. But being a subordinate fit quite nicely with a show that aimed at little more than copying Gaoranger. The thing that confuses me is Retinax. Did his position in the finale seem odd to anyone else? In Gaoranger he may have been the weakest of the three highness orgs but at least he had a good 14 episodes. In Wild Force he was treated as a one and done monster. True, it took a little extra firepower but when compared to Nayzor and Mandilok there is no comparison.

I know that when I say all of this I’m coming off as a bit of a sentai snob. Fair enough. Like I said earlier though, I watched Wild Force first and I don’t think very highly of Gaoranger even now. Thought what saves Gaoranger is what hurts Wild Force and again it’s the characters. Gaoranger made them somewhat likable. Blue, Black and Silver are still annoying. But Red plays his role fairly low key. Tetomu is airheaded in a cute way unlike Shayla who is over the top like Disney princess singing her way through the forest. No one wants to see a real person act in that manner. White does a good job of just being a member of the team while Alyssa mothers the team in her oh so perfect ways. Again, Gaoranger is just serviceable. Not a ranger among them is one of my all time favorites but in turn none of them grate on me. A little acting goes a long way. (Again this is off track but I strongly believe that good acting is the only difference between the beloved Time Force and the hated Wild Force.)

Can anyone explain the Jungle Blaster to me? I believe that’s the only time they ever threw in a whole new set of extra, American-only weapons. They almost exclusively only pulled them out to combine them. Very strange. Now I do give much love to the Animarium Armor. If Cole has one thing going in his favor it’s that he had what was easily the coolest looking battlizer in history. Just flipping the belt buckle around and using it as a morpher? Genius. If we have another battlizer this year let’s bring that back instead of repainting the sixth ranger’s morpher.

This is more a Gaoranger thing but I still wish they had an extra mecha to be a set of legs. That’s all they needed to create a bunch of robos with no leftover parts.

Much props to Wild Force for how they handled Jindrax and Toxica as a duo. While they did basically just copy their sentai counterparts (including casting an Asian woman ala Lightspeed Rescue so it'd be easy to dub her scenes) they also managed to reach a better conclusion for the two. Yes, PR is known for trying to reform any villain who looks remotely human. At least here it felt right. Gaoranger left me very unsatisfied the duo's ending. While I would have liked to see Toxica and Jindrax bust in at the last second to help the rangers I was fine with them leaving early. If anything, they're the reason why I would have liked to see a WF/NS team-up.

So what are my overall impressions? Ugh. It’s so hard to say. I don’t necessarily like Wild Force anymore but I do feel like I understand it better. My mind felt clouded on the whole thing and no matter what I’m glad I rewatched it. Wild Force is largely a victim of bad acting and not fulfilling potential that it had. When I see episodes like “The Master’s Last Stand” which shows off PR when it truly wants to be original or “There’s A Crowd” when the show embodies true PR by taking sentai footage and making it something different yet similar I get bummed out. Bad acting aside, with more episodes like that I’m sure that people would boost the season up on their all time list. It wouldn’t be a big boost but it’d definitely make it in the top ten seasons which isn’t so bad among a field of sixteen.

Wild Force simply didn’t try. It’s hard to succeed when you don’t try. With a lackluster season like Gaoranger they didn’t have much to work with but when you don’t even try then you’ve already set the bar pretty low. Heck, even the two-part finale was almost a direct scene for scene copy. (By the way, I’m still wondering when Tetomu/Shayla wanted the rangers’ jackets. The phones make sense. But the jackets? Are those super special awesome monster-fighting jackets? It wouldn’t have killed you to let the rangers keep them as momentos, princess.)

I’m still wondering about Danny and Max traveling the world. Really? How much more can we drive home the theory that they’d gay? Cole had a nice ending where he made peace with Dr. Adler which was very cool. Talyor has regular meetings with her eagle. Alyssa is a teacher. Merrick is still brooding with Zen-Aku (let’s not even try to explain that one.) All very good. So why not have Max got back to a career in bowling and Danny finally get some with Kendall since the only reason they didn’t become a couple in the first place was because Danny had ranger business?

There’s probably more to say and if I remember it I’ll post again. I figure everyone’s always willing to praise DinoThunder, ZEO, Space and Time Force. Why not get people talking about one of the seasons that doesn’t get much love? I’m going to watch more seasons again (I think Lost Galaxy might be coming up soon) and then make my list ranking the seasons again. I won’t lie. Wild Force is still going to be near the bottom. At least it’s going to leapfrog Overdrive for the coveted 14th spot.

Knight Rider · 01-03-2009, 02:05 PM

I consider it to be in the middle. not to bad and not the best but its far from the worst. that goes to either PRNS or PRMF.

TheFireMan23 · 01-03-2009, 02:22 PM

WF was shit. The borrowing from Sentai was something Jonathan Tzachor was obsessed with. He was the Bruce Kalish of the Saban era. WF's only good thing was the story.

Sunfire Ranger · 01-03-2009, 02:29 PM

I honestly enjoyed WF. It's not my top favorite season ever, but I still enjoyed it nevertheless. To me, it's not a bad season or the worst season. My vote for "worst season" would go to MF.

DarkStarShadow · 01-03-2009, 02:33 PM

I actually loved the storyline of WF, but let's not kid ourselves, the acting was like, OMG NO. It doesn't deserve the scorn it gets, at least not for the storyline.

And yeah, after Jindrax and Toxica left, that should have been it. That should have been our finale. It felt very finale-esque, and it left the show feeling like a Sentai-ridden shell afterwards. At least the eps before it didn't feel (to me, at least) like just clones, but yeah, "End of the Power Rangers" felt...empty.

Otherwise, yeah, not so great acting, but awesome storyline; the exact opposite of SPD. If only we had Matt Austin playing Max, maybe then Max wouldn't have been so annoying...XD.

Knight Rider · 01-03-2009, 02:34 PM

How did EOTPR feel empty. It was pretty damn epic to me.

JDF'd · 01-03-2009, 02:45 PM

Empty is a good way to describe the last two episodes. Prior to that the rangers defeated the generals for a second time, Master Org "died" and Jindrax/Toxica rescued the princess. It was a nice ending. "The End of the Power Rangers" was absolutely just the sentai finale tacked on.

Big Master Org, Animus/Merrick's animals destroyed, Master Org on the Animarium destroying the rest of the animals, quick unmorphed fight in the rain, animals return to blast Master Org, Shayla takes the morphers and leaves... that's all what happened in the sentai and it just didn't seem necessary. I cheered for the rangers more with the previous episodes If anything it'd have been cooler to chop that down to one episode and get Toxica/Jindrax involved more so that we could have a better look at the rangers once the fight was over.

WF definitely felt like it had two seperate finales and the first one was much better.

Me>>>>You · 01-03-2009, 02:48 PM

wild force was trash dookie

Judge Joker · 01-03-2009, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunfire Ranger

I honestly enjoyed WF. It's not my top favorite season ever, but I still enjoyed it nevertheless. To me, it's not a bad season or the worst season. My vote for "worst season" would go to MF.

Totally 100% completely oh so truly whole heartily absolutely agreed.

Jericho · 01-03-2009, 03:03 PM

Wow i actualy read all of the first post!

I actualy really liked WF. Wether its a coinsidence that it was the season i was returning to from a PR hiatus i dont know. But when i watch the episodes i actualy really get into them. Sure theres some OMFG SHUT UP acting but i can see past it. But i like the suits, the zords, some of the heroic BGM and the premise of the show. And i actualy like Cole.

MegaRed · 01-03-2009, 03:25 PM

It's the worst series. Period. I'd rather watch an Operation Overdrive marathon than one episode of WF.

HMR · 01-03-2009, 03:27 PM

Before I start, I would like to say I haven't seen the entire season (I got to about the point where Toxica was revived with about 5 or so episodes i missed in between and haven't really watched it since original run) so this is by no means a full critique of the season. This is just my opinion on how i perceived things. So, please don't rip on me if I say something that's a bit off or

Oh, without a doubt, the acting in Wild Force was atrocious, but also the way all the bad acting was done with over acting. Actors should understand that saying lines in an overly-ridiculous voice does not mean you're acting good.

I seriously cringed every time Cole opened his mouth. If he wasn't yelling with his jaw clenched, he was yelling with the dumbest look on his face and at times he looked like he should of been riding the Short Bus with Max. Not to mention, I really think they were trying to go for a Maya/Leo crossbreed with Cole, in which they fail miserably (or suceeded beyond all belief, depending on how you feel about Lost Galaxy); all that talking with animals stuff and my memory of him being shirtless quite a few times.

Then, there's the Ambiguously Gay Duo. Seriously, I think the thing about Max and Danny that irked me the most were there personalities. Like you said, Max should of been sporting a safety hat when he was smaller because he was rather dropped on the head or else he thought the paint chips tasted good when he was a kid. As for Danny, dear god, his voice was the worst thing about him. He sounded like he was some sexually-confused Hispanic power-bottom that had the the mental capacity of a 10 year old. Oh, wait...

Alysa, well... well... somewhat Mary Sue-ish to me. About the only time she wasn't perfect was when the Sentai footage called for it. She was cute... but... god...

As for Taylor: her actress was a nice breath of fresh air to the rather stagnate and rotting rest of the cast, though I liked her more when she was a total bitch to everyone. Too bad she warmed up to Cole, that kinda made me not like her as much.

Then there was Master Org. Truth be told, I actually really like him. Hell, I really liked all the main villains in the series. At times, I almost wished they would of beaten the Wild Force rangers for good... I would of enjoyed it a lot more. But, back to my current point: Master Org was a villain with a past that wasn't just "insert vague past and generic evil reasons here". It was nice to see the writers had that brief lapse in bad judgment to come up with his past and his connections to Cole, with the extra brownie points for killing Cole's parents so they could never produce another offspring again. It's only a small consolation though... we're still stuck with Cole. But, just like you said, the writers should of rode that one trick pony more.

Well, all and all, I really didn't like Wild Force, but, it isn't the bane of PR existence. It has a lot going against it for me, but it does have a few spots of redemption now that makes me appreciate that it's not OO or MF or Turbo.

Sadsmileyface · 01-03-2009, 03:30 PM

At least it was better than Operation Overdrive.

And also: Rubbish poll layout. Option 1 is usually the worst.

Tristanism · 01-03-2009, 03:36 PM

I liked the story and themes Wild Force presented, but the cast and scene-for-scene writing was horrendous at times.

I agree that Wild Force is Gaoranger with different actors. I mean, it's pretty bad when you can actually sense the copied dialogue before you've even seen the original episode. Even certain common japanese phrasing was retained in some of the scenes.

"You mean OLDER SISTER, don't you?" Oh fuck off...

Jonathan Tzachor pretty much admitted in an interview that he loved converting sentai directly, and that he would have done more of it if he had the chance. That's just how he liked to do it, straight up. And the show clearly suffered for it. It constantly felt like WF was stuck in this box and not allowed to be any bigger or better than the source material permitted it to. Unless you had someone like Amit Baumik, who actually pushed for something more.

Which is why we got "Reinforcements from the Future." I've said it before and I'll say it again- that is my favorite episode of Power Rangers ever, and it's NOT just because it's a team-up. It's because it embodies so much of what I think of as being the best qualities of PR as a whole. It finds the time to let nearly every major character (of which there are, like, 19) shine for a moment. It has a cohesive story that is smart and (for PR) logical, without shoehorning in some sentai crap that doesn't belong. Plus it's just kickass and fun.

It's just ironic that episodes like that are also located in what is overall such a shoddy season. I mean, even the production values seemed subpar compared to surrounding seasons. Everything just felt so forcefully "pushed down."

And yet I'll still champion the basic themes (and I mean story themes, not the boring animal gimmick) and ideas of the show as being something that could have been shaped into an amazing season.

And I actually think the final episode is damn good in terms of presentation. They defeat the main villain in the second act. Which gives us a full third and fourth act to spend JUST with the characters and wrapping up their individual stories. And when it was happening, I genuinely felt an emotional release. Unlike today, where the "ending" for each character is reduced to like one line and we fade to black.

SF_Junkie · 01-03-2009, 03:45 PM

I personally loved Wild Force. For me, the story is what did it. The whole Cole/Master Org backstory dealt with some heavy stuff for a show aimed at kids.

Yeah, the acting wasn't the best, but I did enjoy the characters. Merrick, Alyssa, and Taylor were my favorites, but Cole (at least in my mind) wasn't as bad as most people here are making him out to be. Danny and Max had some funny moments, but some of the stuff with them was kinda...yeah >_>

Plus, WF gave us the two of the best PR team-ups ever: "Forever Red" (plotholes be damned) and "Reinforcements from the Future".
It also gave us one of single greatest scenes in PR history: Jindrax busting out his Org Express card - "Never leave the cave without it." CLASSIC.

One thing I can't stand to see people bitch about is WF being a Sentai-clone, yet all at the same time praising Time Force (don't get me wrong, TF is one of my top 5 seasons) which was the EXACT SAME THING. Holy crap, people.

But yeah, I like WF, it doesn't deserve most of the crap it gets.

Tristanism · 01-03-2009, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SF_Junkie

One thing I can't stand to see people bitch about is WF being a Sentai-clone, yet all at the same time praising Time Force (don't get me wrong, TF is one of my top 5 seasons) which was the EXACT SAME THING. Holy crap, people.

The difference is: Timeranger was a fantastic series, whereas Gaoranger didn't even compare.

You didn't need to change that much from Timeranger to make TF good (at least to TF fans). Gaoranger was a show that was fairly boring and CGI-tastic. Which means that WF had to be as well.

If you're going to do the copy-and-paste job, then you should do it on a show that is actually good enough to be remade to begin with.

EDIT: And I also think TF still found a way to be its own show in many ways. It actually bothered to do what PR often does, which is expand into a larger universe. The TF future was a lot more lavish and ambitious of a fictional society than the 30th century implied by Timeranger. The whole mutant angle was TF. The prejudicial aspects were TF. The characters' motivations for certain things were often completely different.