The theme song is a stirring, distinctive piece of rock-and-roll. Funnily enough it's also the only one in the franchise's 3 decade long history to never mention the word "go" in any capacity. DINO RANGERS ROAR, POWER RANGERS SCORE, SAVE US FROM THOSE EVIL FORCES, WIN!!! (POWER RANGERS DINO THUNDER)
The background music whenever the Rangers morph. Listen to it here.
The Replicantzord. It is unceremoniously summoned out of nowhere by Mesogog, easily defeated when the Rangers' Zords throw their finishers at it, after which it turns into a giant version of the previously defeated Ugly Monster. The fact that Mesogog summoned a copy of the Rangers' Megazord isn't mentioned throughout the rest of the battle. This is in part due to the mecha in question being the main threat of Abarangers'sThe Movie and its appearance in the series being a small cameo. As the movie was never adapted, the small cameo makes up the entirety of its screen time.
Also, the Triassic Ranger's ability to send the battle into a trippy other dimension ala VR Troopers; this ability was never explained and never got used outside the Abaranger footage (it wasn't given an explanation there either).
Designated Villain: Frigida from "Drawn Into Danger". She isn't associated with Mesogog or Zeltrax, only wanting to defeat the rangers for intruding into her Kingdom.
Die for Our Ship: Trent sometimes gets this from Conner/Kira shippers.
Ensemble Dark Horse: As of now, Cassidy and Devin are seen as the only comedic-duo in the franchise that have come close to living up to Bulk and Skull since they go through a lot of Character Development and aren't just cardboard cutouts of the characters they were based on. It also helps that they're the only ones who have successfully captured the rangers secret identity on their own (though they chose to turn it down for the sake of the team).
Mesogog's creepy voice, scary yet impressive design and no-nonsense attitude have made him one of the most popular villains in the Power Rangers franchise. Especially in comparison to his predecessor Lothor.
A lot of fanfics explore the effect that being Brainwashed and Crazy and hurting innocent people against his will would have had on Trent's mental state.
"Fighting Spirit" also inspired a number of fan theories and fics exploring Tommy's various traumas, regrets and hopes in his long years as a Ranger.
Tommy as a flawed man whose mentorship is shown to be imperfect is another common plot for Dino Thunder fics given his hand in the creation of the Tyrannodrones and the Fossilator. The implications of what this means for his relationship with his previous teammates are also addressed quite often. (Oddly, Power Rangers RPM would later partly do this plot for real with Doctor K, a flawed scientist mentor who created the Big Bad).
The Dino Thunder teens meeting and geeking out over Tommy's previous teammates is probably the most popular Dino Thunder fanfic plot.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Kira/Conner and Kira/Tommy are more liked than Kira/Trent.
Fan Wank: How Tommy got that PhD in archaeology in the first place (a degree that takes anywhere between 8 and 11 years to actually get normally). A theory goes that when he had his brain scrambled by Prince Gasket in Power Rangers Zeo, he gained the ability to detect temporal anomalies and (briefly) see into the future. Thus, the ability to see the future also allows him to see the past, giving him near-perfect historical knowledge as well as just generally boosting his intelligence.
"Fighting Spirit" has Tommy fighting his past three Ranger forms in what appears to be a dream. The comic Shattered Grid has an evil version of Tommy killing different versions of himself across the multiverse. Lord Drakkon could also be considered a terrifying look at how much death and suffering Tommy, Trent and all evil Rangers we've seen across the series could have done if they weren't either turned good or destroyed before they became far more dangerous. Drakkon's Ranger form even somewhat resembles Trent's Ranger form.
Another example for "Fighting Spirit"- Tommy's past three Ranger forms tell him "You’ve proven your will to live is stronger than any Ranger power" after he refuses to give up fighting the Green Mighty Morphin Ranger. In Real Life, Jason David Frank struggled with depression and other mental health issues, and eventually committed suicide.
Early on in the series, Conner expressed a disinterest in being a superhero and wanted to leave to continue pursuing a career as a soccer player before saving a little girl made him realize how important the Power Rangers are. In real life, James Napier admits he took the role to pay for film school and, some time after the SPD team up, left acting in general to pursue a career as a director and writer. He has since then made it no secret he doesn't think fondly of his time on the show and has had no involvement with fans since.
This season would not be the last time that Power Rangers featured a scientist mentor whose inventions were used by the main villain. Doctor K took it a step further by actually creating the villain and her resulting guilt over the fallout was a million times worse than Tommy's.
Tommy's morpher in this season is a two-piece device that requires him to insert a key into a wrist brace. This is the same setup as in Gosei Sentai Dairanger, which only got one of the six Ranger suits in Power Rangers. Guess who wore that suit?
It's also the same setup for the Turbo Morphers.*
In "Fighting Spirit", three Rangers, one red, another white, the other green, give their powers to someone on the verge of death. The same thing happens to Gai in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. Bonus points for the Green Ranger being the same one in Gokaiger.
And the White Ranger in the Gokaiger scene is the one from the Sentai for this series.
Kira's sonic scream and love of music prompted Linkara to compare her to DC's Black Canary. In 2015, DC launched a Black Canary solo book where Dinah was part of a rock band.
This season has a Ship Tease between Trent, a male White Ranger and Kira, a female Yellow Ranger that went nowhere. However, Power Rangers Ninja Steel has a male Yellow Ranger and female White Ranger as an Official Couple. Not only that, but they are the first couple in Power Rangers history to be in a relationship from beginning of their season all the way to the end. Oh and the name of the female White Ranger? Hayley.
"Fighting Spirit" has Tommy fighting his past ranger forms. "Dimensions in Danger" has the complete opposite happening; Tommy using his past forms to fight an evil version of Dino Thunder Black.
Tommy and Mesogog have a couple of scenes that positively gush Subtext. In his Dr. Mercer identity, he told his son that he and Tommy had had their time and moved on, as if they'd been in a romantic relationship, and when Tommy's held captive and strapped to a table in Mesogog's lab (!) in one episode, Mezzie leans to within an inch of him several times while threatening him. Any closer and he'd be nuzzling Tommy's neck. When Mesogog orders his Mooks to attack once the Rangers show up, Tommy sighs, "I hate when he gets like this."
It Was His Sled: Tommy being the Black Ranger. No one on this site even attempts to hide it, but it's justified, as everyone called it when it was announced he was coming back.
Jerkass Woobie: Zeltrax in "Golden Boy" inadvertently created his son, Goldenrod. Zeltrax decided to use him to help destroy Tommy, and would grow to accept him as family. Unfortunately, he watches his son be destroyed by Tommy. He mourns the only family he had while getting another reason to hate the Black Ranger.
Les Yay: This particular season is noteworthy because it is the first series known to (nearly) have an intentional example of this, through a combination of What Could Have Been and Word of Gay. Hayley Ziktor, Team Mom and Mission Control to the Rangers, was going to subtly be revealed to be a lesbian in the finale, where she’d go off on her next adventure with a woman implied to be her girlfriend. However, partially due to time constraints and partially due to the politics of the time, this scene never aired. Show-runner Jackie Marchand reveals this at roughly the 30-minute mark of this interview.
The stereoscopic scenes in Drawn into Danger, which only makes the fight scenes somewhat worse if you watched the original source material.
Trent's line, "There will be only one color left in the rainbow" becomes this when you realize that white is not in the rainbow.
Never Live It Down: Pretty much everyone, including fans of Dino Thunder will never live down the moment in "White Thunder Part II" where the kid, who tricked Cassidy and Devin, was clearly (and poorly) dubbed over.
Replacement Scrappy: The White Ranger clone for not nearly being as badass as evil Trent, and mostly acting as a jobber in all his appearances. Not helped is his servitude to Mesagog, compared to Trent's unpredictable nature while under the white dino gem's influence.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Whilst Tommy wasn't exactly hated, some fans who didn't like Tommy's Gary Stu status from Power Rangers Turbo have warmed up to him again in this series due to being a more complex character.
Retroactive Recognition: In "Lost & Found in Translation", the Red Ranger in the Japanese "Power Rangers" is voiced by Jamie Linehan...who 15 years later, would voice both Steel and Vargoyle in Power Rangers Beast Morphers.
Smurfette Breakout: Kira. She is not just the only female, but the only ranger period to fight with 2 veteran rangers (Tommy and Adam), the first Yellow Ranger to appear beyond her core season without her teammates, and has shared screentime with more rangers outside of her series than any other female in the entire franchise. Not bad for a Disney-era ranger! Especially when you consider she operates under the same team with Tommy... Come for Tommy, stay for Kira is pretty much a proper description here.
So Bad, It's Good: The dub that takes up most of "Lost and Found in Translation". Absolutely hilarious.
The shields on the Green and White Mighty Morphin' suits that were used in Fighting Spirit seemed to be coming apart during the fight scenes. This is likely because the suits were bought from a museum to use for the episode and were likely created for displaying rather than actual stunt work. (this may also count for why the suits weren't 100% show accurate either e.g the silver trimming of the green helmet).
Tommy's resolve is strong enough to not only beat them, but DESTROY THEIR ARMOR while doing so, something very few monsters ever managed in twenty years. He's also been shown to have bad memory at times, so he probably misremembered how exactly his suits looked over ten years ago.
Mesogog's bobble-headed final form (the "Mesomonster" in the credits) with its rather rather phallic neck that keeps flopping around like it's about to break off.
The Valkasaurus Megazord has the Triceratops mouth at the end of one arm, and the T-Rex tail at the end of the other arm, except for when it attacks the monster - then it has hands that hold its battle axes. You can blame Abaranger for that, though.
Take That, Scrappy!: "Day of the Dino: Part 2" and the "Thunder Storm" two-parter show Mesogog blatantly calling Lothor a joke.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The clone of Trent (the Evil White Ranger) was a bit bland. Worse, his final episode could have been a real Tear Jerker if he'd been portrayed as less one-dimensional.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Trent as the evil White Ranger is capable of giving a serious beatdown on the other Rangers, viciously freezes Tommy in amber, and is basically a terrible threat. So then they lay off, have him temporarily turn good because of the meteor's influence, fighting Zeltrax for position... basically doing everything but living up to the badass threat he first posed to the good guys. It's especially disappointing when they really had no need to turn him good so early, other than to retread "Green With Evil", so that they could continue to accommodate his Sentai counterpart's continued villain status until the end.
If they had Kat instead of Hayley (see What Could Have Been), there would be a sort of Love Triangle between Tommy, Kat, and Elsa/Principal Randall.
That would have been interesting to see, especially during the 'Beneath the Surface' episode.
Ethan and Cassidy trying to date feels like it could have been more than a one episode subplot before ending it just due to concerns dating will interfere with their respective work.
Tough Act to Follow: This has caused some of the following seasons in the Disney Era (except RPM) to be this as since it's generally seen as one of the better seasons. Granted, SPD was still a well-received series by many but the threethat cameafter have a rather mixed or negative reception.
Anton Mercer. Though the entire incident with Mesogog was his own fault, it's not hard to feel sorry for him since it's clear that he's struggling to live a normal life with his alter-ego who can act up at any minute and ruin his life.
His adopted son, Trent, qualifies as well. He loses his biological parents in a cave-in and is adopted by Anton, with whom he is shown to have a rather strained relationship. He falls under the influence of the evil white dino gem which nearly destroys his friendship with the Rangers and when his father's secret is revealed, Trent faces being forced to give up his morpher. It's really hard to watch him go though all this, especially given how much he wanted to be a superhero himself.
Devin. He's the Nice Guy who just wants to help Cassidy pursue her goals to become a news reporter but whenever he almost succeeds, it always ends up backfiring on him which results in her scolding him every time.
is a stirring, distinctive piece of rock-and-roll. Funnily enough it's also the only one in the franchise's 3 decade long history to never mention the word "go" in any capacity. DINO RANGERS ROAR, POWER RANGERS SCORE, SAVE US FROM THOSE EVIL FORCES, WIN!!! (POWER RANGERS DINO THUNDER)