Belated Happy New Year to everyone!
With about a week left before this page gets officially delisted, I just want to thank everyone who's auditioned so far. The amount of enthusiasm for MMPR '96 has genuinely blown me away, and for a guy who thought he'd be lucky to get even a handful of people interested...my expectations have been far exceeded.
Now, even after this page is delisted, I will keep maintaining it with adding any new roles and project updates, since I've treated this page as my master WIP sketch pad of sorts. I will be making a new project page strictly for E1 roles (no more incomplete profiles/missing lines like this page) to maintain visibility since there's still more work to be done with finishing developing the necessary Extended Audition materials for casting the principal roles. So if your already following, no need to worry about missing out on any new roles that may crop up in the future--because trust me, there's going to be a lot of them incoming still!
Unfortunately, I don't have any new content updates to share, but, as the update title suggest, that's because I've been trying to become fully versed in all the major relevant Power Rangers source material available--from the 1st 10 seasons of the show and the Boom comics. Because, you know, as I've stated before, I am NOT a Power Rangers fan so much as an Original 6+Kat fan (shoutouts to JYB and Nakia for Zeo). When they left, so did I, and never looked back until like a couple years ago.
My reasons for pausing to mass consuming now is due to the fact that the scope of this project, one that originally started out with more of a central focus on Pink Ronin/Drakkon dynamic--and was even titled Pink Ronin at that--has far outgrown my original more modest intentions. At this point--it's total YOLO "Let's aim for a full 50 episode Sentai season."
Which, absolutely requires genuine familiarity on my end with the source material to be able to weave in more in-between the main story arcs. Cold searching RangerWiki only gets you so far. And it would be insincere if the goal is the write the ultimate love letter to the series, MMPR centric as it is.
So, to catch up on some of my recent cast additions from my source material gorging...
--Zeo--
My rewatch of Zeo impressed a few things upon me. The Gold Ranger is an obvious one. While I have zero interest in "Trey of Triforia," the basic plotline behind the mystery of "who's the Gold Ranger," seems like a fun one to adapt with some serious reimaging. Not that I've completely fingered exactly what I'd like to do with him yet, but I'd say don't necessary expect the "Time for a Gold Rush," characterization.
A couple of other things that intrigued were, of course, Sam and David Trueheart (Tommy's brother)...which I totally didn't even remember being a thing (I thought it was an OC from the other Audio Drama, lol). Of course, the show doesn't really dive too deeply into either character outside the small arc of episodes it focuses on them before quickly brushing them aside, but I feel there's some cool possibilities with Sam Trueheart in the sense, to borrow the Transformer's catchphrase, "More than meets the eye."
Archerina is another character I want to bring into MMPR '96--but not as part of the Machina (Machine Empire). I want a different unrelated origin, because given the fact she's basically the android version of a Pink Ranger, it makes more sense for her to be more directly tied to Kat and Kim in some manner as a intentionally created thematic rival.
The last couple of Zeo items that stuck out to me were two particular episodes, "A Brief Mystery of Time," where the group get stuck into a Groundhog Day timeloop, and "A Mystery to Me," where the Rangers attend a "who dun it" party game hosted by Lieutenant Stone.
I've figured out a lot about the former, not so much the latter. For Mystery of Time, I want to adapt it for Episode 6, but instead of being an actual time loop, it's Kat living out a "perfect day," over and over again, with Tommy as her boyfriend, Kim as her best friend, complete with the iconic campy Ranger antics and shoutouts as they battle Kat's reject art purse turned monster by Rita, the "Impursonator."
So, we indulge in a full-on parody of the series, but of course, not everything is as it seems...
For Brief Mystery of Time, I don't want it to be an actual "who dun it," party the Rangers are doing for fun, but some kind of twisted reality bending force or such. Haven't quite figured out how to pull it off, but the aesthetics of the episode, with Tommy as a cowboy, Jason as a noir detective, Kat as a super-sleuth, just seems like a really fun thing to not try to work in somehow or another.
--The Return--
After reading Amy Jo's The Return comic, it took me like 0.2 seconds to decide to add Selena, Rita and Zedd's daughter, to the mix. Of course, while I don't really get how exactly in the story Rita could have a kid with a piece of burnt toast, the concept of the character itself was intriguing enough for me to add to '96 after figuring out a different origin that doesn't involve her parents actually eloping.
I was already planning on exploring this notion of a daughter with Rita as far as her relationship to Scorpina, so Selena only adds even more spice to that mix and the complications of Rita and her family tree.
--Boom--
I've only just finished up to Beyond the Grid...I could say a lot here (especially about Drakkon), but that might be asking for trouble, lol, so I'll just highlight the fact the Black Dragon will be pulling an appearance--though I'm planning on combining it with something from the atrocious Hamiltion comics (Yes, I actually read those for my research). But the main difference is I'm turning it into a full-on X-Men Nimrod/Terminator, not something being manually remote controlled by Drakkon himself (Such a thing should be beneath him, really).
Also the whole pocket dimension thing seems like a bit of fun to use as a concept. Add a non-Ranger Psycho Green as a possiblity as well.
I'm hoping to find a lot more Boom-centric stuff to pull from as I continue--especially in regards to any established Eltarian mythos and this so-called "Death Ranger," whatever that is...
--Lost Galaxy--
My main two takeaways from this series are Starship Troopers and Demolition Man. It will take an almost complete reimagining to adapt since even by PR standards, the idea the Earth had the tech to build a self-sustaining space ship colony with multiple self-sufficient environmental biodomes is totally prepostures...but there are some kernels there worth exploring in the potential space odysssy arc for '96.
--The Audio Drama--
I relistened to the entirely of Karl Dutton's audio drama--mainly to double check on avoiding any accidental similarities in regards to plot or characters.
But for the official record, the two ideas I have directly "borrowed" are Zordon cheating death as an AI (unless that came from the 2017 reboot) in place of the convoluted space-time warp, and the idea of the coins becoming linked to their user until their death (because none of my Rangers would willingly give up their coins/morphers for some stupid world peace conference, pan global gymnastics, or any other philanthropic, goody-toe shoes community service nonsense. You might as well ask Bruce Wayne to hang up the cape and cowl while you're at it.
--Time Force--
I'm only like 12 episodes into Time Force, but wow it really is the best Power Rangers series, and not just by Power Rangers normally low-hanging fruit standards. Jen Scotts, Eric (Vergil), Wes (John Travolta's rich cousin), Ransik, Nadira, and Frax--now these are some really fun characters. Zero chance I can resist adding them to '96. However, there is one small issue as far as Time Force canon is concerned, with Frax being dead, and Ransik and Nadira being reformed villains...but you know, it's fiction--I'm sure there's a workaround, even if its the obvious retweaking of the established canon.
I already have the beginning general basis for the arc in my head, with Jen (and Eric maybe) showing up to save the Rangers from an untimely demise from the seemingly invincible Black Dragon, then having Kat/Trini/Billy accompany Jen back to her future's "Ranger Academy" where they find MMPR has been completely evangelized (like say the United States and the Founding Fathers).
I see lots of fun for some good ole' fashioned meta-commentary here in regards the MMPR teams unyielding popularity (to some people's great annoyance), but also possibly how no one really recognizes/appreciates Kat except for some super nerdy fangirl who freaks out and gets all awkward about how Kat's her favorite of all the Pink Rangers ever because XYZ (basically mirroring what some of the actors have probably experience in terms of a "cringe" experience).
But yes, if there's one non-MMPR series I'll be pulling the most from in '96, it's definitely going to be Time Force.
--Original??--
I want to leave this update on the notion that--while it's fun to play with everyone's else's toys and everything--an true steward should add a couple of his own to the toybox. One could say Pink Ronin is one of those, but I want to take it a step further.
Because in all of the established PR lore that I'm aware of, it's kinda stood out to me now that for all the thousands of years Zordon was alive--are you asking me to seriously believe he never fucked?
Yeah--highly unlikely...
Ciao!
