Welcome to the second week of Sentai Month and for this day I will do my first rant. I have reviewed some of the Sentai movies before. Mostly with Gokaiger recently, but this still lives on. I mean the Sentai movies that shouldn't even count as movies. This is a big personal thing I got with the franchise and I am surprised they are still doing this. Now to be exact I am talking about the movie that usually comes out in the Spring now these days. Now what I like are the Versus movies since most of them are an actual film. So let's begin with my first rant.
As I said before the Sentai movies shouldn't even count as films. I mean they are only like half an hour! I know they play this along with the Kamen Rider movie in a double feature, but I would at least think both films would be an hour at best. I remember seeing the Shinkenger movie as it has a run time of twenty minutes, that's shorter than an actual episode! Even if there is a rider movie coming up next that is unacceptable and is a slap to the face for the fans. If the Versus movies can be around an hour why can't these films? Is it really that hard to add an extra half an hour or to be exact forty more minutes! This is another flaw with the franchise because if the rider movie is longer, which film will people remember more? Probably the film that actually has the longer run time since the rider movies usually have a plot and do some exploration with the elements. With these short Sentai movies it just feels like a rejected episode with no character focus what so ever.
Go-busters the Movie had a run time of thirty minutes so this trend is still recent.
Now unlike the Buster's movie the other movies don't really have a difference in the quality. Going back to the Shinkenger movie nothing looks that different. Whenever a series gets a movie there is usually a big change in how things look. Remember in PR Samurai they used both of the movies for the Clash of the Red Ranger special and the Go-onger vs Shinkenger footage looked different, but the Shinkenger movie footage looks just like the series. The older movies have done this as well as it just kills the feeling of a movie as it still feels like a rejected episode for the series.
One thing that the rider and Sentai movies have in common is that they show new things in the movies. Again this is for the toy sales, but the Sentai movies do it so wrong. I mean really in the Buster movie the Frog mech was only used once and it came back for a short moment in the series. The same for Shinkenger and Goseiger. So many other movies do this as well as it just seems forced. At least rider movies use these movie forms a little more in the series or in the other movies. Look at Fourze's Rocket States it was used for three episodes in the series when it was near the end. Heck it was used in the final battle. Double Golden Extreme was used in the movies and even OOO's Burakawani form is used in the Wizard and Fourze movie. Now not everything in the rider movies is used twice, but at least most of them are used again. This will then lead to my next point about the movies, how important they are to the series.
Boukenger used this mech for the movie and two episodes.
The biggest gripe I have with the Sentai movies is then how unimportant they are to the overall canon of the series. As I said the movies feel like rejected episodes and don't add any character development at all. I mean the characters do learn something, but do we see this in the series, not really. Heck even the main villains aren't even involved in the movies. The overall movie just feels ignored then and just bringing it back up in one episode doesn't count. Kamen Rider Double movies had some big connections to the series and other movies. The NEVER group and how they are zombies actually come up in the series and then the group as a prologue movie. Kamen Rider Skull is a really big character in the overall plot when you learn about him, he was even connected to Shroud. Heck most of the time when the movie mech or weapon comes into the series they just use it in a Sentai movie at times.
So that is my view on the rejected episodes of Sentai that somehow count as movies. They are so short and have nothing important in them. I usually tend to ignore these since they just feel like a waste of time so I am saying I haven't seen them all. They just make me mad since the Versus movies are ten times better! This is why I love Gokaiger, they did have the short useless movie, but they had the awesome 199 movie, the team up with Gavan, and the recent Go-buster versus movie. Gokaiger actually has 3 movies that I can call movies as they bring something new and feel like something. I really hope this trend will die and the franchise starts to make actual movies for the so called double feature as this could help with the popularity issues the franchise is having right now. So that's done and I need to go to something positive so next time it will be about the robots that fight the giant monsters! One more thing please be say your thoughts, but don't come swearing at me just saying you love them. Please tell me why.
