The Quality of Sentai/PR Weapons Suits, and Effects?

[jwk94]

Hey guys, so as most of us, I watched PR as a kid and I loved how the suits and weapons looked so real, hell i still think they look pretty close to being real in the older episodes. So now i'm watching Gokaiger and I love it except for one thing, the quality of the weapons and suits of every ranger past and present went to hell. What happened? Even the simple things like the D-Sword Vega look fake now. Are they using different weapons and suits than the ones from back in the day?

While we're on this subject, why did sentai go to mostly using CG for the explosions and sparks? I hate that so much, it really takes away from the "reality" of sentai and pr. When joe and barrizorg fought that fight was made so much better by the fact that they used real effects, hell Fourze's fights are amazing because of the sparks used, especially in the night scenes.

 

[masorick]

On the weapon thing: Yes, they are basically not using the original props (except for recent series, so I'm not sure about the D-Sword Vega), and the new props don't look as good as the original (the Flashman props must be the worst in that regard).

 

[Forever Knight]

The CGI sparks ruin everything.

 

[RyuSensei]

As a loyal Jim Henson fan I will say that practical effects are almost always better than CGI.

However, I will make an exception with the CGI sparks for one reason: Safety. Remember that the old style bang packs were essentially bombs strapped to the actors chest. I can completely understand wanting to get away from that as fast as possible (At least if you are a suit actor).

As for the remade weapons looking different, I am reminded of a behind the scenes interview I read on the Star Trek DS9/TOS "Trials and Tribble-ations" crossover ep. The set builders were doing their damnedest to accurately recreate the original enterprise but ran into the problem of some of the materials (lighting fixtures, etc) simply not being made anymore. I suspect that the Gokaiger team are running into similar problems.

 

[masorick]

Well, maybe it's true, but there is a part of them that clearly do not care: regarding the weapons from Flashman, for example, how hard is it to find a material that is translucent?

 

[Forever Knight]

As a loyal Jim Henson fan I will say that practical effects are almost always better than CGI.

Traditional mecha, weapons, sparks will always > CGI. CGI looks ridiculous. I'll even take the toy models used in early Toku over CGI.

As for that safety thing you said, pro Stunt men are used to work with that ****. There is no excuse for CGI sparks other than Toei being cheap as hell. At least Kamen Rider still keeps the traditional sparks going.

 

[Bigdog]

As a loyal Jim Henson fan I will say that practical effects are almost always better than CGI.

However, I will make an exception with the CGI sparks for one reason: Safety. Remember that the old style bang packs were essentially bombs strapped to the actors chest. I can completely understand wanting to get away from that as fast as possible (At least if you are a suit actor).

As for the remade weapons looking different, I am reminded of a behind the scenes interview I read on the Star Trek DS9/TOS "Trials and Tribble-ations" crossover ep. The set builders were doing their damnedest to accurately recreate the original enterprise but ran into the problem of some of the materials (lighting fixtures, etc) simply not being made anymore. I suspect that the Gokaiger team are running into similar problems.

While I love practical effects to death in many regards such as smaller scale suits like monsters , rangers and the props, the suits for the larger scale scenes such as in the megazord battles, Ultraman and Godzilla are awkward looking if not convincing unless they put care and effort into giving the scenes gravity and consequences.

Well, maybe it's true, but there is a part of them that clearly do not care: regarding the weapons from Flashman, for example, how hard is it to find a material that is translucent?

Maybe it was too expensive or maybe they just didn't think anything of it as a major detail anyone would notice or care about. Just think of how many teams are in this series 35 in comparison to 20. Far more than circa Decade.

Having 35 teams with their armory, mecha ,suits and effects work completely unique effects for each is very hard. Plus they had to recreate every single suit because of x fire so the budget's already high with the mech's and the new ones.