Saban Buys Back Power Rangers From Disney

[Kyle]

This great news for both the fans and haters alike.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/enterta ... odeon.html

Ranger Fans know Disney has been killing the franchise anyway, canceling the show last year after its 16 year long run. They are currently airing repeats of Mighty Morphin on ABC, but as a whole its obvious they don't care about it anymore.

Disney fans, at least the ones Ive seen here seem to really resent the franchise for being a black sheep to their magical brand. So bottom line, you guys are happy, and us Ranger fans should be happy to have PR back home with Saban where it belongs. Never in a million years did we expect Saban to buy the franchise back. I just hope Nickelodeon will not be as restrictive as Disney was in terms of violence and the characters having girlfriends / boyfriends.

They reportedly have videogames and even a movie in the works. I think It'll be cool to have both Ninja Turtles and PR under the same roof again. Nick is on track to becoming as good as Fox Kids once was in my eyes.

[pap64]

That's great news for the fans!

I was very disappointed with the HD version of Mighty Morphing. It was just the same episodes but with cheesy cutout effects during fighting scenes.

(Though I admit that one of my favorite Ranger incarnations was the SPD era, which was under Disney).

[Kyle]

Yeah, it wasn't HD, and the quality was far worse than even some youtube encodes. and of course the batman esk effects is very frustrating as well. I would say it made them unwatchable, but seeing as they are airing eps that haven't been aired since their days on Fox, Ive been DVRing each ep regardless.

I didn't hate everything under Disney, most fans agree, DT, SPD and RPM were good. but you also had crap fests like operation overdrive and mystic force.

What was really frustrating is that Disney had the resources to make the show great, but they screwed that up when they fired Eddie during RPM, which for those who don't watch, this season, the last one, was almost Terminator the Sarah Conner chronicles esk. it was like T:SCC but for kids for the first half of the season. the end was alright, but not quite as good as the first part of the season due to the director change.

[pap64]

I didn't watch much of Mystic Force, just a few episodes on DVD. But yeah, it was like a bad combination of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and the Rangers.

[Mickeyfan1990]

Glad to hear! And new episodes, too? That's great for the fans! Now a couple of questions:

-Does Disney still own rights to the PR properties they produced (Ninja Storm-RPM) or does Saban have rights to that too?
-Will Power Rangers stop airing on ABC?
-Since Saban brought back PR, will Fox have any say in this (Home Video distribution)?

[pap64]

If this deal works in the same way as the TMNT deal, I assume Saban owns ALL PR assets.

[Kyle]

Disney will retain some of the rights, but I believe its merchandising related.
most of them should go to Saban though. and they still have a bit they witheld from before when they made the sale to Disney.

Its believed that ABC will stop airing Mighty Morphin after labor day, thats all the episodes they have ordered at this point.

I think its still a bit unclear who who own what seasons, guess time till tell with that.

The only thing Fox owns is the rights for the movie done under them. so if there is ever to be a blu-ray release of the first movie it would need to be from them.

[Lazario]

Oh, really? That's nice...

Wake me up when Fox or/and Saban releases the original first 1-3 complete seasons on DVD. I'd actually buy them.

[azul017]

It's likely that Paramount/CBS Home Video will release PR on DVD since they're owned by Viacom (and that all of the PR BVHE DVDs will be OOP effective immediately).

Laz, it's likely that Paramount will release season/volume sets of PR once the reruns begin in earnest on Nick. In the unlikely case that they don't, you can ALWAYS import the R2 sets from Germany. They have the original English audio, are uncut, and have some decent extras.

[milojthatch]

I'm VERY happy to hear this. Disney never should have come any where near that!

[Lazario]

It's likely that Paramount/CBS Home Video will release PR on DVD since they're owned by Viacom (and that all of the PR BVHE DVDs will be OOP effective immediately).

Laz, it's likely that Paramount will release season/volume sets of PR once the reruns begin in earnest on Nick. In the unlikely case that they don't, you can ALWAYS import the R2 sets from Germany. They have the original English audio, are uncut, and have some decent extras.

I don't see that being a possibility unless they play in a region-1 player. If I could find a decent, frickin' all-regions player... But alas, I already had to scramble to find a player that would play Lady and the Tramp's 2nd disc without skipping or freezing every 2 seconds (I'll see you in hell: CyberHome!!). And my Sanyo player, the only one I've got, still sucks. It skipped at least twice in the 3 hours I was watching through that disc.

Got to wait for R1, I'm afraid.

[Duckburger]

Up to this day I don't understand Disney's purchase of Fox Family Worldwide and Saban Entertainment. They've done NOTHING with those assets. Literally nothing. ABC Family's ratings are about as low as they can get, most new shows that are successful don't make it past the season 3 mark - they can't even change the name to something without 'Family' in it, The Family Rerun Channel would be a better name. Then there's this, Saban Ent., they purchased it for Power Rangers and Digimon, with the rest locked up in the vaults until their licensing expires. Digimon's license will expire and revert to Toei and Power Rangers will now be sold back for probably no more than 100 million. Great deal! 5.3 billion down the drain. On top of that, Disney doesn't even bother to air any of the Saban shows on their basic cable networks. Talk about commitment. I hope he buys back more programming from Disney, might be the only way to see any of it back.

But anyway, back on topic, say what you want about the Power Rangers, but they are still very popular and with the right amount of exposure they can make a ton of money... for a company that actually cares, mind you. Now that Nickelodeon will get the rights to broadcast this on television, Disney will get some stiff competition in the boy-demographic (which they oh-so desire to win over).

I wonder if Viacom will also get distribution rights, MMPR (S1-2-3) are way overdue for a release.

[AladdinFan]

This is really good news for the PR fans. I seen every season of PR the ones that were boring were SPD and Operation Overdrive. But the best seasons were from Mighty Morphin to Wild Force. Disney really messed up Mighty Morphin on ABC. Hopefully Nickelodeon air the original episodes. It will be nice to release DVD season sets now that Saban owns the PR.

[The_Iceflash]

Oh, really? That's nice...

Wake me up when Fox or/and Saban releases the original first 1-3 complete seasons on DVD. I'd actually buy them.

As would I. I would love to own those.

[blackcauldron85]

Goodbye to the Power Rangers at Hollywood Studios
http://www.laughingplace.com/Latest-ID-75147.asp

And it says that Nickelodeon will be airing the show now.

[Kyle]

Yeah, check out their new promo for the series.

Their a day off with the premier date, but otherwise this is an awesome well put together video.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NolzFNRNXvU&hl ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NolzFNRNXvU&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

But yeah, reruns will start in October on NickToons, and the new season will begin next year on Nick's main channel.

The power rangers were also at Comic-con this year.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PCpnbpx9NkY&hl ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PCpnbpx9NkY&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>


They were giving out free dvd copies of the pilot episode.

[Margos]

Oh, I don't think my brother's going to be happy... He really, really likes the Power Rangers at the Disney Store. I guess they won't be there anymore.... But hey, at least he can console himself with Spider-Man and the X-Men (who he likes even better).