The Super Mega Dino Charged Weekend

What a double-whammy THAT was - the Dino Charge press release breaking the same day Nick.com uploaded the Super Megaforce premiere. My reaction to the news was similar to when word originally broke that Goseiger was being adapted, but this was heightened by the fact we had never had a new season announcement quite so early or that a sentai would be skipped over (though of course the Go-Buster suits could still get used).

I've never liked the suits on the core 5 Kyoryugers, the samba theme or goofy looking villains, so I hope Saban does put in some originality as is implied (but we all know how much Tzachor's prefers ripping the sentai). I do like the name and the logo is a welcome change after the bland (Super) Megaforce. Also I wonder if they'd consider adapting the teamup for MMPR nostalgia and since DinoThunder is specifically mentioned in the press release.


Now onto the premiere...

Knowing that we were gonna have "real" villains this year, I was excited when the episode started with Vekar and gang inside the ship. I miss the dragon symbol as a segue into the opening, otherwise it looks good with some sweet unmorphed fighting in the cast shots. I like that they spaced it out more and put the girls back-to-back. Nice touch having White Ranger start the helmet animation.

I hoped the Rangers would still be out there when we'd see them again, instead of just cutting to Emma in the mall. Noah finding Mr. Burley and then Burley thinking back to what Blue Ranger said to get inspiration to teach again at the end of the episode would've made more sense to me than how they did it. It left the callback to "MEGA MISSION" kinda empty without seeing Burley prior to it and so little of the school. I did like the Rangers coming in the command center after one another - I just wish we had seen more beforehand and helping civilians.

I loved the way they did the ADR for the weapons swapping, so it didn't come off as weird to me that they're suddenly gonna be switching all the time (plus the Gokai footage is always fun to watch). But it got outta hand with rushing through all the mode changes. They could've done more to show they were having trouble controlling the powers or had a quick line to setup how powerful using Super Mega Mode would be. Also I like that they say the morph call and I see why they might sometimes skip it mid-battle (or in the case of Ninja Storm not doing the Ninja Storm/Thunder Storm calls).

Despite the how much "Super Mega" will be thrown around I'm just glad we don't have to put up with the cards and sentai weapon/zord names being used anymore. Using Gokaiger will automatically make the episodes better so I'll probably lean more on the generous side this year, however it's still Megaforce so I doubt the Rangers have learned much or Gosei will stop leaving them on their own most of the time. But to start the season this gets a good 4/5.