The place. Northtown Toys R Us; Blaine, Minnesota.
The event. The Time Force 4D Motion Simulator.
The players. Chris Funaro, and his beleaguered aunt, who probably should have
been packing for her trip tomorrow, but instead got talked into accompanying
me after my date backed out, weeks ago.
I always loved Northtown. It's one of those malls that has a unique character
to it. The sort of place the Simon Corporation hasn't yet swallowed up. Most
people hate malls- and surrounding areas- like these. Me, I like the fact
that they're so off the beaten path. Were it that I had my way, my family
would probably go to St. Cloud every other weekend just to hang out there.
So anything that involves making us go to Northtown is a real plus in my book.
I expected massive lines of kids. The local Fox affiliate had done a good job
advertising the event dates and locations. I got- eight kids ahead of me,
accompanied by their dads. And a couple mothers watching over the little ones
nearby. They gave us our glasses, and basically ushered us in two minutes
later.
The ride itself is pretty decently sized. Walking in, you really get a sense
of how much empty space it has. Only two rows of seats. This thing could not
have come cheap, to Saban or Bandai. It's amazingly well maintained. Or it
might just be that we were one of the first places in the country to get the
vehicle.
Adorned with the bad US artwork of the male Time Force Rangers, and the
wholly inaccurate Quantum Ranger design, the top of the ride is studded with
flags, bearing the helmet symbols of the various PRTF. It looks very nice,
from the outside. Ignore that there's a giant two-story inflatable Quantum
Ranger ten feet away, flapping back and forth in the breeze, like Eric's
Stretch Armstrong in the middle of a seizure. Seriously. His LEGS, man...
The ride really has no possible continuity placement for the series; not that
I expected there to be one. This is a *motion simulator ride*, after all.
Captain Logan kicks us off, ordering us on a mission to seek out and destroy
Ransik's mutant brain. Yes, you heard that one right.
The Time Blaster vehicle seems to be a modified form of Timeship (given the
launch footage of Transwarp Megazord used), capable of timejumping from one
era to another on its own. There is a tunnel effect, implying timeholes are
used, but that's probably thinking harder than I should about this. What
interests me is that the Time Blaster has a countdown clock in the lower
right-hand corner. I wasn't paying attention when the ride began, but since
it becomes plot specific towards the end (Circuit mentions their only having
so much time left before they're recalled), I think there's only a two-minute
window on the vehicle. If anyone else would like to clarify the exact length
of time, from the moment the ride begins, I'd appreciate it.
The entire cast of the series provides their own voices, including Roy Werner
as Logan. Vernon Wells appears in brand new Ransik footage at the very end,
promising the Rangers that he will be back.
The Time Blaster has five separate "cockpits," each taken from Time Flyer
footage. The effect works surprisingly well, all things considered.
Working in roughly chronological order- my brain is a bit muddled on the
specifics, this thing goes FAST- we begin in Ancient Egypt, watching the
construction of the Sphinx. Next is the voyage of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa
Maria. Water is actually sprayed on you from above as you fly between the
ships; which is a nice touch. Then it's off to a World War One dogfight.
Folks, this is the first canonical acknowledgment that there WERE World Wars
in the PRU. (ignoring the existence of the Volkswagen Bug, designed by
Hitler. That just proves Nazis existed.)
Lucas vomits from the sudden dips and turns. At least, I think it was Lucas.
Sounded way more like him than it did any of the other guys. ("I think I just
lost my lunch!")
The late Cretaceous Period allows us to reenact "Clash for Control pt. 1," as
we're accosted by an irate Tyrannosaurus Rex. Circuit happily informs us that
he's one of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs in history. Somehow this
doesn't seem to reassure Trip, who notes they're made of meat. Then the
ground erupts in an earthquake, and the Time Blaster and dinosaur are flung
towards the molten depths below... I'd actually consider this little bit here
to be BETTER than the similar sequence on the Back to the Future ride.
Circuit goes extravehicular in the "time of Arabian Nights," and though Katie
warns him about a dragon statue in the middle of some amphitheater, Circuit
pays it little mind- and is nearly consumed. Brand new Circuit CGI, and man
does it look nice. The computer graphics on the entire ride are GORGEOUS. I'd
love to find out who it was that did the effects for this. Editing is good
too, considering its all a composite of US footage, Japanese footage, and
computer graphics.
Lets face facts, the entire reason anyone ever went on Star Tours was so they
could live out the Death Star trench run themselves. And Saban Entertainment
does you one better, by bringing Star Tours to you. While I don't recall
anyone specifically mentioning a jump to a future era, you're on a futuristic
Earth landscape, racing away from laser towers. It's all original CGI, don't
get me wrong; but... The influence is inescapable. It's the Death Star battle
from New Hope. (and if that is an era of Earth history prior to Time Force's
ascendance... Man, I wanna see more of that period.)
There were gigantic ice slides during the ice age. This was a fact our
history books make little reference to. I guess those woolly mammoths were
just hoarding all the wacky fun to themselves. Damn Mastodon Dinozord... The
ice age is, incidentally, my favorite period on the entire ride. It really
conveys the feeling of being inside a giant matchbox set. Not one of those
sucky ones like "Gator Park," but a good one. The loop-the-loop is very
nicely done, considering this is a ride that can't pose a problem for young
children, or old farts with back problems (like me).
Atlantis exists in the PRU. An advanced ancient civilization, it sank to the
ocean floor, and currently resides in the South China Sea. It amazes me
Circuit HAD information that specific on a supposedly "lost" empire, but
folks... This is stuff that has never been mentioned on the series. We have
canonical placement for where Atlantis is on PR (and from the phrasing of
Circuit's description of the place, the possibility that it has moved more
than once). Wonder if there's a connection to Marina's mer-people? Or Titan
City?
Then it's on to the final battle; a full-on assault against Ransik's mutant
brain. The connotations of this act do not escape me. Logan wants the Time
Force Rangers to perform a lobotomy against the figurehead of the mutant
rights movement, rather than just bring him to justice, as on the series?
Time Force is crooked. Believed that since "Ransik Lives," and "Trip Takes a
Stand" and the Time Blaster back me up on it.
Somehow, the Time Blaster performs the Time Force Megazord (Mode Red)
finisher. Yeah, don't think about it too hard, kids, it's a ride that shows
up at TRU's over the weekend. Ransik's brain explodes, but Vernon Wells
appears (in an effect not unlike Ransik's "big head" teleportation) to vow
revenge. And Jen gets to say "your time is up," now inexplicably from the
Megazord cockpit, which is always nice.
After the ride is over, Circuit instructs you to remove your 4D glasses,
unbuckle your seat belts, etc. The usual schpeal you get after any sort of
thrill ride, made more humorous in that it's delivered by a robot owl. I
wonder, had I stuck around long enough, would he have said it in Spanish,
like on the monorail at Disney World?
Looking in the Toys R Us afterwards, having felt obligated to purchase
something after I just got a free ride on their dime, some monkey in their
employ got on the speaker system, and basically made an ass of himself,
advertising the ride. "Go-Go, Power Rangers! If you're tired of boring old
Saturday afternoons in just THREE-D, why don't you take a trip with the
Rangers in their FOUR-D..."
God, it was painful just recalling that much. He made mention of the Quantum
Ranger showing up in-store later on, which produced one of the best neophyte
reactions I've ever heard to a designation-ranger, as opposed to the more
publicly familiar color-rangers... "Which color is Quantum? Well, I don't
know!"
So... Onto the philosophical musings.
The Time Force Rangers are all active Power Rangers, and are working for
Logan as Time Force Officers, yet Wes is specifically stated to be the Red
Ranger. This does not bug me.
The TF Eagle is capable of time travel independent of preexistent timeholes,
like the one Commandocon opened. Eric appears in US cockpit footage. Morphed,
of course. Eric's helpful, but clearly treated as an outsider by the others.
It's the same CGI Eagle that appeared on the show, not a new model. He shows
up about midway through, and rides with you for the duration of the
simulator. He also helps Jen out in a pinch, when the Time Blaster is nearly
struck by a flaming ball of rock (shades of Raiders of the Lost Ark).
There aren't a lot of real world-shattering implications for the universe of
PR, though Atlantis is probably what's going to stay with me for the longest.
I'm still unsure on the details of that Death Star era...
This makes for three vehicles we know of on PRTF capable of time jumping. The
Timeship that Jen and the others crashed back in "Force pt. 2," TF Eagle, and
the Blaster. Curious that the Eagle got bundled in with the Quantum Powers,
since the Controller and Q-Rex were lost in a time travel experiment
themselves... You'd think Time Force would want to keep all of its timeships
in the same era. Of which, one explodes on landing, the other is in
possession of a guy who only just realized the PRTF are from the future, and
the last has a preset time limit- although it will allow passengers to
disembark.
(If we want to assume Frax had a separate timewarper at the end of "Force pt.
1" than the one Time Force confiscated from Ransik, perhaps the Time Blaster
represents a reverse-engineered time warping exploration vehicle. Softer
landings, cross-time communications... All the benefits of timehole-driven
technology, none of the problems of the old Timeship. Time limit might be a
safety margin for automatic recall. But that's more than I'm willing to
assume for the sake of a ride.)
I'd like to take a moment to really applaud the editors of this thing. They
put together a nice gestalt, considering the only Ranger to appear in US
footage is Eric. The Timeranger footage meshes pretty well with the computer
graphics- there's one "behind the back" shot of Katie during the future era,
with the US visuals playing out on her screen that just looks fabulous. There
are no credits, I wonder who worked on it?
What's interesting to me is that you're not actually onboard the Time Blaster
on the ride. The Rangers and Circuit are. The ride starts as you WATCH the
Time Blaster be launched through the timegate. For the rest of the ride,
you're just sort of watching events through their main viewer, and moving in
synch with them. There's just an odd "third person" sense to it, the more I
look back on the ride. They don't try and convince you the motion simulator
actually is the Time Blaster.
The whole attraction is basically an oversized trailer hauled around by this
big-ass black truck baring the PRTF logo. If I ever become a trucker, I
definitely want something along those lines. Some people like mudflaps with
naked women on them, I like PR logos.
As I made notations over lunch on a palm pilot, I came to roughly three
conclusions. First; I am a complete and insufferable nerd. Last year, Jesse
and I had discussed what it would be like if there were to ever be an MMPR
ride at Universal. And came to the general consensus that your more hardcore
net-fans would probably end up doing much the same thing that I was. Second;
I have an amazingly supportive family, when you consider the extent of my
obsession with this little spandex show. And third... I'm just not going to
be satisfied until I can go to Rosedale tomorrow, and ride again. Wonder if
mom wants to go...?
(Hey! I finished a Funaroverse essay! That's rare!)