Power Rangers without Nostalgia

Yeah Power Rangers doesn't stand the test of time. I watched it when I worked in the church daycare (these were the original 90s episodes- the church still uses VHS tapes that were donated when I was in preschool) and it was crap.

Power Rangers, any incarnation, is best viewed as a So Bad, It's Good Guilty Pleasure, at least that's how I always saw it. Time Force and Mystic Force are probably my favorites, Turbo, the less said the better, except for Divatox's cleavage.

edited 14th Jul '13 4:41:04 AM by tricksterson

Turbo was deliciously cheesy, but I preferred others.

Lost Galaxy was my all-time favorite. Mainly the villains. The Rangers needed better acting lessons for sure.

Yeah I find it sometimes hard to go back and watch MMPR too, but at the very least I still love the songs.

MMPR Theme

Which was so good Masaaki Endoh did a cover for it

We Need a Hero

edited 3rd Sep '13 9:25:07 AM by WorldTurtle

I harbour no nostalgic feelings for Power Rangers whatsoever. I wasn't allowed to watch it, so I saw exactly one episode when I was a kid, because our daycare made an exception one day so we could watch Goosebumps, which was right after it. Based on what I've read about the show, I think the villain was Divatox, but I have no idea what season she's in off the top of my head.

Anyway, when I found it on Netflix I decided that I would watch it. The whole thing. I'm almost done the first season.

It's...strange. I have no idea why it caused such an uproar. Literally the only thing I can think of is that it's basically a live-action action cartoon. The violence is maybe a little more graphic than western audiences are used to. The Rangers' suits and Megazord often take visible battle damage, although only ever scorch marks. And the monsters often explode rather spectacularly.

But the Rangers are such a bunch of goody-goodies that I'm surprised they weren't seen as role models. They get good grades, respect their elders, care about the environment, hang out at a youth centre, exercise, only fight when Rita provokes them, and deal with (admittedly ineffectual) bullies without resorting to hitting them.

I actually quite enjoy the show. There's a certain cheesy charm to it that you just don't see anymore. The acting is pretty wooden (although it does get noticeably better as the season goes on) and the switch between American and Japanese footage is pretty noticeable simply due to the technology used. But I'm looking forward to later seasons.

I think the controversy was because the Power Rangers were basically the first Saturday Morning heroes that could actually punch people on-screen and shoot the bad guys.

It was really more with stories of kids trying to emulate the action and getting hurt. For every kid inspired to take up martial arts because of the show there will another three who think they can do it already.

Jason David Frank said the cast and crew wanted to emulate the more intense violence of the Sentai but were always told to hold back and "smile while fighting," as opposed to giving them a Death Glare. The idea is they didn't want their heroes to look angry and vicious. Of course, that comes with its own set of implications where kids watch the show and think that violence doesn't have consequences.

^ They were also very careful I think to keep it at fantasy violence. Its also why I think the Rangers were made to be role model citizens, rather than "teenagers with attitude"

Like the original pilot had the Rangers actually being pretty violent and kicking some bully ass. In the actual show when the Bulk and Skull characters were actually "bullies" the Rangers mostly just defended themselves and dodged assaults rather than actually hit and kicked them. And after the initial 40 episodes that was suppose to be the entire series, even that ceased.

And yeah unless you really like cheesy cheap Godzilla meets Saved by the Bell shows, Power Rangers is going to do nothing for you if you didn't grow up with it. Case in point I stopped watching shortly before Wild Force moved from Fox Kids to ABC Family And while I can watch all of those seasons before without a problem, purely on Nostalgia anything after I stopped watching is impossible for me. Even more well received seasons like Dino Thunder, SPD, and RPM I couldn't get past a couple episodes.

Then again I watched Power Rangers Samurai and enjoyed it. Despite how hated it apparently is. Because its bad in a way I was accustomed to with Power Rangers.

I watched me some Power Rangers back in the day. It's meant to entertain kids, and I think it did that well.

I'm not sure I can wrap my head around Linkara's retrospective, necessarily. After all, the story filler was the least interesting part of the show. Having Bulk and Skull undergo character development? That's just a crime. It's like when Screech stuck around in Bayside High for decades, until he became Vice Principal. This is just terrifying. I don't want to think of these living cartoons getting stuck in a rut for their adult lives.

edited 26th Jan '14 5:49:12 PM by johnnyfog

Their character development in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was fine. From incompetent bullies to incompetent cops.

They should have left after that or Zeo.

I did hang on to Power Rangers for a while, at least until Time Force ended. I had Saturday school (don't ask; I still can't speak the extra language), so I was always missing episodes and trying to catch up, so I eventually just gave up, though the Shayla/Merrick subplot did capture my interest for a bit in grade 9, as did Tommy coming back for Dino Thunder when I was in grade 10 (I was a weird teenager).

Linkara's show got my curious about it again and I started watching RPM yesterday, and I, a 25 year old woman, am genuinely enjoying it. Beyond the cheesy costumes, monster fights and Japanese stock footage, there's a really good kid's Sci-Fi show in there. Some of the other seasons have aged badly though.

I've only watched Linkara's stuff, but he's made a very compelling case for the show. At the very least, it definitely has a lot of good ideas.

Personally, I love it when bullies undergo character development. I'm not sure what your problem is here.

Not maturing as human beings would be getting stuck in a rut for their adult lives.

edited 28th Aug '14 7:43:47 PM by GethKnight

They didn't even do much bullying, as in antagonizing the Rangers, past the first few episodes. They became more strictly comic relief on the fringe of the "civilian story" of the episode, like taking part of the dance competition Zack was worried about and doing horribly.

You're not talking to me, are you? Because that's my basic argument.

Even then, Bulk would never miss an opportunity to taunt whichever Ranger is having some sort of crisis, but you always knew it would end up flying in Bulk's face, often literally. So he was kind of a bully, but I guess being saved by the Power Rangers when Lord Zedd's minions nearly ripped them to shreds planted the seeds for them to eventually better themselves.

I guess when I meant "first few episodes" I meant past the "Doomsday" original episode order. The second season gave them their search for the Ranger's identities subplot, which made them too busy to be bullying anyone.

I do know that after Doomsday, there's the football episode, where Bulk takes the opportunity to mock how scatterbrained Tommy had gotten, but after that, they kind of disappear from relevance for a while.

Agreeing with you.

Ah, ok. Sorry about that.

I honestly love their Character Development. My favorite part is they pretty much end up being very heroic in In Space by that time. They rallied the citizens against Astronema's Armada. Can't get more awesome than that. I do miss when Skull didn't transfer to Lost Galaxy. Albeit, the current two characters who did barely showed up so it doesn't make much of a difference, but still. Was there a out-of-series reason for it? Much like how Galaxy Pink's actor had leukemia which wrote the current(and awesome, imo) plot.

I remember back when Power Rangers first aired (at least I believe it was the first version of it) it was aired between two shows I did like watching, so I normally just let the TV on inbetween...but I never liked the show. It was just stupid.

If we're relating when we left and when we came back to the show, I was devout through Zeo, left during Turbo, missed Space entirely, came back for Lost Galaxy through Time Force, and left again at the start of Wild Force.

I was also deeply into VR Troopers, Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad and Mystic Knights, since they were in the same "family" as Power Rangers.

Mystic Knights! I'm impressed someone even remembers that show. I barely did ^^. I appreciate the use of Ireland and Irish actors, rather than Americans with bad accents XD.

I left after Time force but I did catch pieces of Wild Force and Dino Thunder, and recently started on RPM, since that one has a really strong rep. It's well deserved, I must say...