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]].

* Nick Simonds/'''{{color|green|Greenscanner}}''': SPFX Soldier. [[The Smart Guy]] (relatively speaking) and a [[Casanova Wannabe]]. Empowered by special effects. No, that isn’t a movie genre.

* B.C. Shimamura/'''{{color|blue|Bluescanner}}''': King of Comedy. Meant to be the [[Plucky Comic Relief]] and [[The Heart]], but often ends up being [[The Load]] and [[The Scrappy]]. Empowered by clean comedy. Only clean comedy.

* Toni Montanez/'''{{color|pink|Pinkscanner}}''': Musical Mistress. [[The Chick]]. Empowered by musicals.

* Takeshi Hayata/'''{{color|silver|Silverscanner}}''': Gin Hikari no Senshi. [[The Sixth Ranger]]. Adjunct professor of Asian Studies. Empowered by [[Department of Redundancy Department|Tokusatsu]].

* 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.

 

* Blackorg: [[Card-Carrying Villain]], [[Dark Lord]], [[Large Ham]]. [[The Big Bad]] as well as the [[Bad Boss]]. An evil alien [[Powers Via Possession|usurping the body]] of a former member of the rangers' support group. Killer of Alex's husband.

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

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=== '''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]]

** [[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..."

* [[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 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).

* [[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.

* [[Mid-Season Upgrade]]: The “Power Upgrade” arc, naturally. Pretty standard, except Thunder Dolby, the Scanrangers’ original robot, is completely destroyed, and then not only do they get a brand new never-before-seen robot, Blockbuster, but {{spoiler|a new and improved Thunder Dolby is rebuilt an episode and a half after its destruction}}.

* [[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?

* [[The Not-Secret]]: The Scanrangers say their true identities must be kept a secret and are likewise defensive about revealing them, even though MAYHEM's been exploiting the knowledge of their secret identities since at least the third episode.

* [[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.

* [[Paper-Thin Disguise]]: Vixen gets a job teaching at the Scanrangers’ school as Professor Vivian Fox. During the interview the story basically comes out and says it’s a disguise the audience would see through automatically.

** 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.

* [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]]: Vin can see Earth with the naked eye from a planetoid on the other side of the universe.

* [[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.

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

* [[Super Not-Drowning Skills]]: During the [[Mid-Season Upgrade]] Takeshi spends at least three weeks buried alive, and survives.

* [[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.

 

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[[Category:Fanfic]]