Eiga Sentai Scanranger: Difference between revisions

Written by Vince Jones, who was outraged at how [[Tokusatsu]] programming was watered down into the ''[[Power Rangers]]'' before making it to American airwaves. Ran from 1997-2006, releasing 39 “episodes,” a Christmas special and a crossover “movie” with ''[[Choujin Sentai Jetman]]''. The last two episodes finished were basically revisiting the crossover movie.

 

 

 

It should be noted that while he continues to try to share his story with the internet, the author's hatred of ''[[Power Rangers]]'' has [[Old Shame|petered off a lot in the intervening years]].

 

=== Our heroes, such as they are, are: ===

* Lieutenant Commander Professor Daphne Alexandria: “Professor Alex” for short. The [[Big Good]]. [[Team Mom]], to the extent that the rangers really do sometimes seem to look on her as a surrogate mother. Widow of Roger.

 

* General Ug: [[The Brute]], [[Dumb Muscle]].

* Vixen: [[The Vamp]].

----

 

=== '''Recurring''' [[Super Sentai]] tropes: ===

* [[All Your Powers Combined]]: When they put their weapons together to make the Cinemasher weapon.

* [[Animal Mecha]]: The Hollywood Vehicles, which are based on movie studio mascots (specifically the Tristar Pegasus, MGM Lion, Hollywood Pictures Sphinx, Tatsunoko Seahorse, and NBC Peacock).

* [[Deus Exit Machina]]: Takeshi tends to show up to perform last minute saves for the rest of the team, although the story's not in the habit of explaining where he's been.

* [[Humongous Mecha]]: Named after a theater sound system (Thunder Dolby THX), a projection technique (Widescreener), and a video store (Blockbuster).

* [[Mecha Expansion Pack]]: Silverscanner (who can enlarge himself to giant size) gets a spaceship that turns into a robot, then his robot gets an upgrade so it can attach to his giant form, then his robot gets ''another'' upgrade so it can attach to the team's robot.

* [[Monster of the Week]]: Cybercreatures.

* [[Transformation Trinket]]: The rangers start out by using VHS-themed changer bracelets, then later get DVD-themed ones for some reason.

* [[Weapon of Choice]]

** [[Hand Cannon]]: Green and Yellow. Green's shoots DVD's, Yellow's is based on a ''[[Macross]]'' missile launcher.

** [[Simple Staff]]: Blue.

** [[Swiss Army Weapon]]: Silver's gun/sword jobber.

 

 

* [[Affectionate Parody]]: Well, if we can ''call'' it a parody, since the story takes itself ''WAY'' too seriously to be one.

** It might be worth noting the [[Big Bad]] is possessing a former member of the rangers’ support group and possibly could have done that at any time, since the [[Sixth Ranger]], also a founding member, knew where it was and let himself in when he decided to join the team.

* [[An Asskicking Christmas]]

* [[Artifact of Doom]] / [[Cosmic Keystone]]: The Lighkari amulet from whenever Jetman appears makes it owner crazed with power, but if anything happens to it the space-time continuum falls apart.

* [[Artistic License History]]: “And Ug, shall I send you back to what you call the Cro-Magnon period and have those dinosaurs rend you limb from limb?”

* [[Broken Aesop]]: The episode after Carmen joins is supposed to be about her learning the value of teamwork. Not only does she do almost everything herself (everybody but Takeshi has been captured and as usual he’s barely around himself), what help she does get is confusing and pointless (why are they pretending Carmen's betraying the team...to save the team?), and the main group has their [[Sixth Ranger]] and a [[Humongous Mecha]] that’s already there sit out the giant battle. Not to mention Vin [[You Just Had to Say It|just had to say they]] could’ve gotten out of their predicament without Carmen’s help.

* [[Captain Ersatz]]: [[Backstreet Boys|The Main Street Men]].

* [[Catch Phrase]]: "I can't tell you that..Ancient Japanese secret..”

** ”Got caught in rush hour traffic..."

* [[Clueless Aesop]]: The [[Christmas Episode]] had a guest hero praise the Scanrangers for not destroying a [[Monster of the Week]] created from a Christmas tree. Because apparently, “Trees are an important part of the world’s energy source! It was reasonable the Scanrangers didn’t want it destroyed. That villain-created tree, however, is not real!” Even if it were real we’d still be talking about an evil, heavily-armed monster tree. Just how important to the ecosystem is a tree that’s already been cut down and in the process of dying, anyway?

** Another such aesop, regarding a girl named Sarin who's mocked for being differently-abled, also crops up in the Christmas ep. It starts out looking like the message is going to be your standard "Respect others' differences" Aesop but the thing is none of Sarin's classmates learn the lesson, and indeed it's completely forgotten about halfway through the episode. When her predicament's lightly mentioned again just before the end it seems to have mutated into "You're special, so ignore anyone who treats you like you're weird."

* [[Comically Missing the Point]]: In one episode Toni meets an interesting guy and her friends immediately start acting all overprotective of her. Toni compares her friends' attitude to Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston's relationship in, um....''[[The Bodyguard]]''.

* [[Defrosting Ice Queen]]: Carmen. Despite this Kunio’s affection seems to dissolve along with it, and by the time she starts reciprocating his feelings he’s said to be interested in another girl.

* [[Did Not Do the Research]]: To name just one, Playstation games didn't come on cassette.

** The author seems to be one of the people who thought the Toon Makers version of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' was perpetrated by Saban.

** At one point Yellowscanner makes up a new attack based on the Kaioken attack from ''[[Dragonball Z]]''. The problem is, rather than something that briefly multiplies his strength, what he creates is a basic chi fireball attack.

** According to this story crocodiles and alligators are only differentiated by where they're found in the wild.

** The end of one of the early episodes refers the reader to the eighth episode of ''Jetman''. However, since it also refers to Raita being lucky it probably meant the ''ninth'' episode (the one where Raita's visited by a female childhood friend {{spoiler|who he ends up marrying}}).

* [[Fake Defector]]: In the episode after Carmen joins, she pretends to sell out the team.

* [[Fat Bastard]]: Nick uses his powers to imitate him in the episode where the rangers impesonate spies for the purposes of going sumo on a monster's ass.

* [[Follow the Leader]]: The villains’ first evil act of the series is to blow up a manned space station. In one episode a monster goes around stealing women’s voices prompting the guys to set a trap by dressing in drag. Near the midpoint of the story the rangers get an unpiloted robot that turns into a giant gun, which Carmen steals while pretending to betray the team to trade it for MAYHEM captives. Something about these situations makes one think of [[Choujin Sentai Jetman|jets]].

** In the first episode the soon-to-be rangers are snatched up by their future mentor, who tells them about the imminent arrival of evil aliens on Earth, that they've been chosen to wield superpowers to repel the aliens, and who lets the disbelieving youths go when they don't quite buy it. The youths are then forced to fight the aliens' soldiers and take a chance on their supposed powers when they find themselves outmatched. That sounds more like "Day of the Dumpster" than most Sentai pilots (where they either see evidence of the villains' invasion first, or already belong to the organization), which is really weird considering the original point of this story.

** The writer had sections of his site devoted to ''[[Kamen Rider Black]]'' and its sequel ''[[Kamen Rider Black RX]]''. And his villains have an insect-like space fortress.

* [[Genre Blindness]]: The Scanrangers show very little awareness of the conventions of Sentai. Surprising, what with the [[Ascended Fanboy]] thing. This line from "Scanranger vs. Jetman" says it all:

* [[Gratuitous Japanese]]: The Japanese Scanrangers sometimes slip back into their native tongue, and more noticeable that Team Nightmare (created by a British villain in a story set in America) say “Nightmare Gattai!” to combine. Taken to an extreme in "Scanranger vs. Jetman" where a character will often say something in Japanese, [[You Are the Translated Foreign Word|then say the same thing in English]] after a friendly alien uses her powers to tear down the language barrier.

** There’s also how when he needed to come up with an “alien” sort of name, Vince would often pick a word tenuously related to what he had in mind, then splice the English and Japanese versions of the word together (e.g. Kagamirron = "Kagami"/"Mirror" for a parallel Earth, Lighkari = "Light"/"Hikari" for a race of “good” aliens, Futurai presumably = "Future"/"Mirai" for an alien race that gives Nick the secrets of higher technology).

** There's also the fact that monsters' names all start with the Japanese word for "black".

* [[Green Lantern Ring]]: Not only do Greenscanner’s powers derive from special effects, letting him do theoretically anything, but the way Film Energy works is compared to [[Green Lantern]]’s powers.

* [[Hollywood Voodoo]]: Personified in a [[Monster of the Week]]. Bonus points for the monster also having [[Tarot Motifs|Tarot]] powers.

* [[Infinite Supplies]]: The people who supply the rangers also repair the property damage resulting from their battles.

* [[Insult Backfire]]: In a meta sense. ''Scanranger'' was written as a [[Take That]] to ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' (when it started), but borrows enough elements from it you'd almost think it was an [[Affectionate Parody]].

* [[Intercontinuity Crossover]]: Maybe. Two with ''[[Choujin Sentai Jetman]]''. Maybe, because the story wavers back and forth between ''Jetman'' really happening, and just being a TV show, with the "real" Jetman characters living in an alternate dimension.

* [[Left Hanging]]: Work stopped just a little before they were due to hit the home stretch.

* [[Limited Social Circle]]: Toni's friend Monisha is the only friend outside the team we see when the friend didn't [[Victim of the Week|show up for the sole purpose]] of getting mixed up in that episode's [[Evil Plan]], and even she stops appearing after the tenth episode. The rangers go to their secret base or Alex's office to hang out, and Toni and Alex went away on summer break together.

* [[Magic Meteor]]: Film Energy (and Blackorg) came to Earth in meteors.

* [[Missing Episode]]: Abduction of the college president.

* [[Mood Whiplash]]: "There's Something About Toni" goes from the rangers fighting hate with love (hugging the monster's victims to break the spell over them) to the villains attempting to mass-murder the attendees of the school's Valentine's Day dance.

* [[Moral Dissonance]]: In the arc where the [[Sixth Ranger]] joins the Scanrangers repeatedly ream the arc’s guest villains for attacking from behind and otherwise fighting dirty. Despite Nick attacking a villain from behind while invisible and using the Film Energy equivalent of steroids during the same arc.

** It's debatable that Nick continues this behavior the next time they fight the same guest villains. The narration points out he’s sticking to his code not to take life when he kills one of their cyborg members. The thing is, he chased the villains who were already reeling from being defeated by the Scanrangers all the way to the moon, so he’s kicking them while they’re down. It doesn’t help that Nick breaks as many body parts as possible when he fights the one that put him in a coma earlier in the arc, what with the team’s mentor saying there will be no fighting for revenge on her watch.

* [[Never Trust a Trailer]] : More than once a recap or preview mentioned something that hadn't happened yet or never happened at all.

* [[No OSHA Compliance]]: In one episode B.C. and a supporting character are walking through the base when suddenly B.C. gets tackled. Turns out B.C. accidentally walked into the path of a laser cannon just as it was being test fired. And we're asked to believe these guys are the ones trying to SAVE people?

* [[Offscreen Villain Dark Matter]]: MAYHEM is here because they want to steal our natural resources. In spite of the strain presumably put on their stockpiles by failed scheme after failed scheme, the idea is never broached of leaving and raiding another planet where the natives aren't as technologically advanced as they are.

* [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist]]: Helper Dr. Markby is both a "physician and inventor."

** Likewise Alex isn't just a film professor, she's got a military background, she's a former ballet dancer, she was a lanaguage teacher with Jetman's support team, she knows martial arts, and can pilot mecha if necessary. If she needs to be good at something or the writer thinks it would make her cooler, she's good at it.

* [[One Steve Limit]]: Averted, though one doubts it was deliberate. B.C. and scientist helper Dr. Markby have the same first name (Ben), a [[Red Shirt]] astronaut '''in the first episode''' is named Nick, and Vin’s martial arts teacher from back in the 'hood is named Tony (in all fairness the story almost exclusively uses his full first name). There's also a throwaway character in "The Good, The Bad and General Ug" named Mike.

** The time Anark Key masquerades as TV pitchman Eric [[Sdrawkcab Name|Meyham]].

** It doesn't help that the writer's idea of parody is having Not-Bond take off his tuxedo to reveal a wetsuit instead of the other way around and Not-Lara toting .44s instead of .45s.

* [[Personality Powers]]: The area covered by a character’s Film Energy tends to echo whatever trait makes them unique. Vin’s a man of action, Nick’s super smart, B.C.’s the class clown, Kunio’s an artist, Toni’s a girl, Peter’s a devout Christian, and so on.

* [[Psychic Link]]: Kunio and Takeshi inexplicably develop one, although it's forgotten after a few episodes.

* [[Punny Name]]: Byte bites monsters, Arno Benedict’s a power hungry snake in the grass, Ug’s as dumb as his name, and Cyrus Borg's a... never mind.

* [[Refusal of the Call]]: Subverted. The kids think their soon-to-be mentor is playing a joke on them when she explains their powers, but immediately rush to defend their school when robots beam down and attack.

* [[Senseless Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Mortally injured by Blackorg, Peter uses his [[Wave Motion Gun|ultimate attack]] to finish the villain off once and for all. He goes to his grave thinking he succeeded. As revealed by the ''first scene of the following episode,'' he didn't. In fact if anything his death just makes MAYHEM more of a threat, as Blackorg survives and adds a new member to keep an eye on things while he's recovering}}

* [[Shame If Something Happened]]: MAYHEM threatening to break Christmas ornaments.

* [[She Fu]]: Toni's a gymnast and sometimes incorporates it into evading her enemies.

* [[Smurfette Principle]]: There’s only one woman on either side for better than thirty episodes. There’s also the Scanrangers’ commanding officer, but one wonders if that’s more on account of feminism or Vince Jones’s idolization of ''[[Choujin Sentai Jetman]]''.

* [[Spoof Aesop]]: In one Toni asks what they learned at the end and no one’s sure. The humor is short-circuited by the facts that the author can’t do comedy and that the situation is immediately dropped so they can date a busload of Miss America contestants.

* [[The Starscream]]: Guest villain Arno Benedict.

* [[Sue Donym]]: When going undercover as girls, Vin becomes Victoria, Nick becomes Nicole, and Kunio becomes (wait for it) Annie May.

* [[Swiss Cheese Security]]: After disappearing for three years, Silverscanner's able to enter the rangers' secret base without alerting anyone until he wants to, meaning they didn't change their security codes or who the retinal scanners recognize in all that time. More to the point in the [[All Your Base Are Belong to Us]] story the villains magically discover where the base is and are able to infiltrate it with tiny spy/suicide bomber robots. Literally, the plot just says they know where it is so they do. In "Carmen's Baptism of Fire" Key's able to hack their communication channel because that makes things easier on the writer.

* [[Tomboyish Name]]: Until Carmen joined the only major female figures in the heroes’ camp were named Toni and Alex.

** As has been noted, one episode is about the rangers impersonating a group of singers. During the concert put on toward the end the narration constantly reminds the reader that (X band member whose name and likeness they probably don't remember) is really (Y Scanranger). Despite reading about the Scanrangers agreeing to impersonate the band, training to impersonate the band, and then coming up with a plan to go on stage and impersonate the band to smoke out MAYHEM.

* [[Weaksauce Weakness]]: B.C.’s Film Energy is shorted out by the presence of swear words. This includes impressions of the [[Looney Tunes|Tasmanian Devil]].

* [[The Worf Effect]]: When the Scanrangers get their new robot, Blockbuster, it fights the villains' own [[Humongous Mecha]] which up until that point had been invincible, and completely owns it. In the next episode it's getting thrown around by a [[Monster of the Week]] so Silverscanner can show off ''his'' awesome new robot powerup.

* [[Worst News Judgment Ever]]: In an early episode a years-old murder is front page news, for no other reason than because the plot’s contriving to the have killer (the [[Monster of the Week]]) face the Scanrangers. It doesn’t even go into why the death is considered a murder rather than an accident (the victim fell off a catwalk), or for that matter how and why a MAYHEM monster would’ve been terrorizing the Scanrangers’ school three years before the villains arrived from deep space.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Fanfic]]