Everyone talks about Saban being in the past and trying to bring back the MMPR feeling into Power Rangers since he got it back in 2010. I'm ok with that. What it really annoys me is the fact that everyone seems to forget about Dino Thunder. Why is that? Why is DT the angel, the series which doesn't have any nostalgia feelings? It actually has that feeling too. Let's analyze the points.
1) The setting is in a school, much like mmpr. Truth be told, the numbers of the core members of the group differs. MMPR starting with 5 rangers while DT started with 3 rangers.
2) The characters have some similarities. Both Blue Rangers are genius with technology (though Billy is the one who has the techno babble). The Red Rangers are sportmen (Conner liking soccer while Jason is into martial arts). The Yellow Ranger seems to be a mixture of Kimberly and Trini (Kira shares the ranger color with Trini while her passion goes to Kimberly as a singer). And the White Ranger comes in later in the series first as the evil ranger. Then he switches sides and almost at the same time, he's cloned (Tommy was cloned way later *near the end of the second season* but still counts because there was a clone in both series). And let's not forget about Cassidy & Devin. They're the comic relief just like Bulk & Skull were. The DT duo even went into the quest of finding who the rangers were!
3) The Zords. Truth be told, that comes from Super Sentai...but still. The fact that the Red and Blue Zords were Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops is unquestionable. Another thing is Pteranodon being the only girl in the series' Zord (I know in mmpr the Yellow Ranger was a girl too but in Zyuranger the Yellow Ranger was a boy, that's why I said it). *I was surprised a Godzilla-like Zord wasn't given to the White Ranger imo*. And in both series, the Zords don't talk, another coincidence.
4) The episodes' plot. Most of the episodes in Dino Thunder felt like they were reused from MMPR. Let's see. The new kid in town (Trent) gets brainwashed and serves the forces of evil for a couple of episodes. Doesn't it sound like it's the story of Tommy again? The Pteranodon girl (Kimberly) falls in love with this new kid (Tommy). That's what the tv show hinted us with Kira and Trent. The core team had a member who didn't want the Power and only accepted his/her destiny after being attacked/kidnapped. This is what happened in the premiere episode of each series with Kira (DT) escaping from her kidnappers and the original rangers (MMPR) being attacked moments later leaving the Command Center after refusing (minus Jason) to believe what Zordon told them. The rangers get attacked in their dreams. 2 Rangers gets sucked into something one of the rangers' possession and meet a strange creature related to it (Kimberly and the Bookala and Ethan and the video game *episode 07 of DT*). *There are others too! You only need the summaries --if you don't want to watch the series-- of both series and your memory to find them*
5) Some of the episodes' plot happened at the same number. In the premiere episode, they get their powers and reject them. In episode 21, the evil ranger switches sides. Within the first couple of episodes after the new kid is introduced (while he's still evil), the future girlfriend finds out his civilian identity.*I can't think of anything else right now, but I'm sure there are other coincidences*.
I'm sure Megaforce has a lot more of these coincidences but let's not act as Megaforce is the only one resembling MMPR. Only because both series are Saban's, it doesn't make DT to be out of the field. The evidence is out there and it's outstanding....I can't remember others (Not counting JDF as part of the coincidences) but if you go back to watch both shows (especially MMPR season 1) and then compare both, you'll see the truth too.
This post is meant to actually make everyone to understand and finally shut up about their whining in the "Saban is the only one relying on nostalgia" argument. I don't know why they refuse to see the similarities between DT and MMPR. Do they think DT is out of the field because it was produced by Disney? Is that the reason? Or is it because they don't remember the similarities between those 2 series?
Super Sentai writers didn't think the overall plot and the episodes' plot for DT. That was Disney's hired writers. Those same writers thought of a way to give a twist to the already dinosaurs theme in existence to make it fresh and not looking as mmpr. The same happened with the writers in charge of Abaranger. They made a twist to the overall plot to don't look as Zyuranger. But the big difference between Abaranger and Zyuranger is that their plots don't share any similarities. In fact, both Sentai Series only share the theme, the 3 main mecha and its ability to talk. Something that for the most part (and only counting a couple of characteristics), Dino Thunder didn't achieve. Those characteristics are: 1) The villain being the alter-ego of a human being (Mesogog/Anton) 2) having especial episodes (number 4 with the video diary telling the "history" of the franchise up to that point, episode 19 "Lost & Found in Translation" and number 27 with Tommy facing almost all of his past powers while in coma--though this episode could be *depending on the viewer's opinion* another similarity with the episode "Return of an Old Friend" from mmpr season 1.) 3) maybe some episodes where the focus was on one of the core team (more notably episode 8 "Golden Boy, episode 18 "Bully for Ethan", episode 20 "It's a Mad Mad Mackerel", episode 26 "Disappearing Act", episode 29 "Isn't it Lava-ly", the team up two parter episodes with the Ninja Storm team, episode 35 "House of Cards" and some parts of episode 23 "A Star is Torn" and episode 38 "Thunder Struck Pt 2" *Maybe I'm forgetting others but that's mainly because it's been ages since I watched both series*). 4) Having a human knowing who the rangers really were since day 1.
I really hope that now everyone can see where I'm going and would recognize it. I apologize if someone was offended by this post. My only intention was to educate on the things I've noticed since 2006.
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