Power Rangers as a whole

SPD evolved into Time Force.

Villains keep passing the big bad role around. First Sledge, the Heckyl/Snide, next Lord Ancron, then back to Sledge, then back to Heckyl, and now back to Lord A.

Well◊ I◊ Am◊ In◊ Love◊ Soul Of Chogokin, Bandai's Hi grade mecha toyline, is finally tackling the Megazord

edited 6th Oct '16 1:25:34 PM by CobraPrime

So what would you guys list as your best moments for non-red and non-sixth Rangers

For me:

King For A Day - Kat convincing the entire team to power down so Tommy can recognize his friends and break Prince Gasket's hold on him.

Power of Pink - Kendrix's sacrifice. Need I say more?

The End of Time pt. 3 - Jen being the only Ranger still on her feet while the others are writhing on the ground in pain. She even taunts Ransik into chasing her and shoots him while he's distracted.

The Chosen Path - Chad single handedly defeating Cycloptor in human form. Particularly impressive as this hadn't been seen on PR since Tommy.

A Father's Footsteps - Alyssa's fight against the Samurai Org. Not only does she block his blade but she breaks his sword with her elbow.

So, with the new movie coming out, I decided on a lark to go back and watch the series from the beginning. I've technically seen everything through In Space but that was so many years ago I don't remember very much at all.

I got the first three episodes under my belt last night, and here are my notes:

• I've made a lot of jokes at this original lineup's expense over the black guy being the Black Ranger, the white woman being the Pink Ranger, and the Asian woman being the Yellow Ranger. But I was not prepared for Zach, the Black Ranger, to be a hip-hop dance-figher. The 90's, everyone!
• It's every bit as campy as I remember. Which isn't a bad thing, mind, it's part of its charm.
• Bulk and Skull keep physically attacking Kimberly and Trini for not reciprocating their affections. Those, uh...those wacky sexual predators?
• First episode culminates in a remarkably anticlimactic battle with Goldar, in which he hilariously tries to look badass even as he's pissing himself and fleeing the moment the Megazord whips out its sword for the first time. Swearing he'll get them NEXT time, but they haven't even HIT him with it yet! What is he expecting them to do next time that will be less menacing than looking badass in his general vicinity. Goldar's a wuss!
• Second episode has them fighting Bones, who is legitimately menacing despite being wacky fun-times. Also something something TIME WARP something something. Props to the show for resisting the urge to have Zach do the Time Warp. Not really much to say here. The Rangers learn about the power of teamwork and overcome Bones - very important to learn now, since Bones is less inclined to run back to the Moon Base with his tail between his legs. In any case, it's a trippy battle.
• Also, Trini and Billy have their own little thing while the others are getting hugged into submission by puddies. Trini's scared of heights and thus has to overcome her fear in order to reach Billy, who stupided himself into a cliff edge trying to flee from a single f*cking puddy. It's a very good moment for Trini.
• Less good moment for Billy, who incompetently drops his morpher off the cliff! Fortunately for him, the fact that he is now powerless never comes up again. It teleports back into his possession in time for the big Morphin' Time scene.
• Third episode, Trini and Kimberly are trying to raise awareness about pollution, the boys are making thinly-veiled excuses not to visit an industrial waste dump with them, and Rita is going to CONQUER THE WORLD through POLLUTION!!!
• To this end, Rita ambushes Trini and Kimberly with a bunch of puddies at the dump, then uses a Minotaur monster to divide the boys and have them fighting two battles at once. Divide and conquer, bitches - I actually shouldn't use that word for emphasis because they divided on gender lines so it look like I'm calling Trini and Kimberly bitches.
• The Rangers battle the Minotaur in the Megazord and even its mighty power is no match for the creature! So Zordon comes up with a solution even MORE POWERFUL than the Megazord! Fake plastic weapons! That we're supposed to pretend don't look fake as shit, I know, but they totally do.
• Rita conveniently shrinks her Minotaur for no reason so that Zordon's plan isn't stupid as hell, and the Rangers' new weapons destroy it! Somehow, I don't expect future episodes to maintain this Ranger Weapons > Megazord hierarchy.
• Also, Goldar is there for some reason. He's with the puddies, but he doesn't do anything because Goldar is a wuss.
• ...what did any of this have to do with pollution?

All in all, first three episodes are about what I expected. Worse in some areas, better in others. On the diversity note, I'm gonna have to apply a "for its time" qualifier to its "progressive" label for Zach and Kim. Trini doesn't get the qualifier because Hollywood is STILL wrestling with the acknowledgement that both women of color and Asians exist, so big points to her.

The show's heart is in the right place. It's campy and fun. The voice-overs are really obvious and I think they actually dubbed lines over the Western-filmed scenes too, because there's a lot of instances where Zach or Jason is onscreen and I hear them talking but they clearly aren't moving their mouths.

None of the first three episodes are wasted, either. Each one advances the story in some way. While the creature of the week setup is clearly visible, the first shows them becoming Rangers, second has them learning to work together as a team, and the third introduces their Ranger weapons - albeit in a kinda forced and silly way.

Tonight, I'll be watching episodes 4-6. Let's see if they can keep up this pace.

edited 12th Oct '16 7:13:59 AM by TobiasDrake

Yeah, I just wish they kept developing the characters more. >.<

BTW, they're called Putties, not Puddies.

I love how shit a Villain Rita is. Lord Zedd too, though he at least wins points by appearance and just general design.

"Let's conquer the world!"

"Okay how?"

"I dunno. Lets just look at what the main characters are doing today and wing it from there".

It's always weird because Power Rangers runs on Villains Act, Heroes React and The Villain Makes the Plot, yet at the same time... Rita and Zedd are so passive in their villainy, so often drawing from the kid's issue of the day for their plot.

edited 13th Oct '16 1:28:01 PM by Ghilz

Or claiming to do so and then doing something completely different. ...I'm sorry, I'm never letting Rita live down "I will conquer the world WITH POLLUTION!" and then making a Minotaur monster that has nothing to do with f*cking pollution.

No episodes last night. Life happened and I crawled into bed at about 1 AM. I'm now shooting for episodes 4-6 tonight.

EDIT: Also, I've always loved how superfluous the Rangers' secret identities are. The villains know their identities. The villains are also usually courteous enough to not cross that line anyway. Consequentially, the whole "Protect my loved ones!" angle doesn't really exist.

They have secret IDs because Zordon told them they have to or they'll lose their powers. Same reason they can't just step on Putties with the Megazord.

edited 13th Oct '16 1:37:54 PM by TobiasDrake

I can at least assume Rita just thought the pollution thing was dumb so went "Fuck it, Minotaur".

There's a later episode where she has her putties wreck Kimberly's model float for a parade (Who builds a model of a float is a question in of itself?)

Like, I wanna see the flow chart where we go from "Wrecked Foat" to "Earth Conquered"

Same reason they can't just step on Putties with the Megazord

I still love that.

Well damn.

Actually, there is an episode where they captured the characters' parents. Rita does partially cross that line. However, we've already seen she has a family and loved ones, so it's probably just a case of standards instead.

As for the secret identity thing, it's a pure Zordon thing. However, we've seen that having your ranger identities known to the public can be good and bad. Lightspeed Rescue is a good example of it. But Time Force and Eric shows that it's not always good. Some may let their fame go to their head. Plus, his rules seem to be about teaching responsibility.

Also, they're the good guys. They shouldn't be overkilling any monsters anyway. Of course, this little factor kind of is thrown out by Zeo and the sheer size of the Zeo Ultrazord. Even the monsters are scared shitless.

You're right. Overkilling the monster leads to it dying too fast. You want it to suffer and be able to watch the life drain from its eyes, the sudden realization it's beaten and it's the end!

That's what the good guys are about!

With all the jokes laid at the Rangers causing excessive collateral damage from their megazord battles, Zordon saying "Don't escalate a battle without reason" is often overlooked. I'm partially interested in the movie because of how that aspect will be depicted, a problem with a television series is the requirement of a certain episodic pattern that can be repeated, and so the megazord fights typically happen once an episode (bar the first few episodes, which tend to showcase individual zords before the megazord becomes commonplace). A movie doesn't need the megazord to appear with nearly every fight. An idea I had if I was to make a PG-13 Power Rangers movie would have three major action sequences: the first morphed fight, another fight they barely win by summoning the individual zords, the climax where they summon the megazord (paralleling that is that since Rita had an alchemy/magic motif the putties would reflect that escalation, the remains of the footsoldiers would be utilized into larger and larger creations until the megazord is needed).

The secret identity thing is largely part of the superhero genre, the only time it's averted in the franchise is when they are official public servants.

01x04 - A Pressing Engagement

• This is a character spotlight episode. Rita intends to divide Jason from the other Rangers and take him apart that way. The central message is that Jason needs to learn to value his other team members and not be such a lone renegade. Problem is, that's not actually a flaw Jason possesses. I'm not even sure Jason HAS any flaws. He's kind of perfect.
• The bench press record is 1,010 presses?! That seems excessive for a high school youth center.
• Wait, BULK holds that record?! I call bullshit on that. I can't see him benching an ice cream cone 1,010 times.
• Bulk and Skull's slapstick actually got a laugh out of me. It helps that they were just doing generic bullying rather than creepy sex criminal bullying.
• Zordon explains that Rita sent Putties and a monster to "gain control of the park". The f*ck does that even mean? It's a park. A public recreation zone. Is she just planning to squat there until the federal government agrees to surrender the land to local ranchers?
• Kimberly: This is weird! It's almost like they're after something!
  • Kimberly scores an epic burn on Rita's typically aimless and confusing M.O.
• The sphinx monster has the ability to teleport Rangers to the gymnastic beam at the youth center - oddly specific but okay - and DEMORPH them. Holy crap, you guys, this thing should be the most powerful monster Rita has. It can take away the Rangers' powers! That's huge!
• I don't understand what the Power Crystals do. Jason uses them to teleport the Rangers to him, but they could already do that. Then the Rangers use them to combine their Dinozords into the Megazord, but they could already do that. Were they just using the Free Trial Version of Megazord up until this point?
• Goldar tries to put up a fight here. He works up the nerve to fire one useless shot at Jason, then goes giant with the monster and even gets a few good licks in on the Megazord. As soon as they summon the sword, though, he peaces out again. There's only so much his courage could handle.
• And in the end, Jason manages to hit that bench press record because he learned the value of teamwork. Even though the only reason he failed the last two attempts was the general incompetence of other people.

01x05 - Different Drum

• Rita's going to take over the world with MUSIC!
• Kimberly bonds with a deaf girl and apologizes for not signing the dance instructions! And then the deaf girl and another girl who was mean to her make up. It's all very heartwarming until Bulk and Skull arrive to shit on everything.
• Finster: I call it the Naughty Gnome.
  • Whoa, Finster! TMI!
• The Naughty Gnome plays music to abduct a bunch of teenage girls and make them follow him to his scary cave. This is a really creepy villain. Like, I don't know if they even realized how much of an Adult Fear this guy is.
• Wait, how did he get out of the city on foot as an ugly dwarf giggling to himself while clearly-drugged young girls obediently followed him? Surely someone would have called the police on the obvious rapist. The 90's truly were a different time.
• Naughty Gnome does a shit job following the plan. He's supposed to hypnotize the Rangers with his music when they arrive to save the girls, but instead he just rushes out to fight like a dumbf*ck and gets stupidly killed. Rita is surrounded by useless morons.
• The Rangers actually caught the Mega Sword as it came down this time! They're getting better.

01x06 - Food Fight

• Right off the bat, Bulk and Skull are carrying cream pies. Honestly, what are the odds those pies WON'T be in their faces in the next five minutes?
• The Rangers are having a food fair at their school, but Rita feels really sick. Bulk and Skull start a food fight, and Rita flips her shit and storms off to find a monster to chuck at them out of spite.
• You know what? I'm cool with this plot. "Rita sends down a monster for no particular reason because she's in a bitchy mood and wants to take it out on someone" is actually a more coherent motivation than her usual world-conquering ideas.
• Rita: Make sure he has a big appetite! I want him to eat ALL THE FOOD ON EARTH!!!
  • Rita Repulsa does nothing halfway. Especially spiteful dickery.
• The Pudgy Pig arrives on Earth, immediately starts eating from trash cans, and I suddenly realize that Rita just solved humanity's growing landfill problem. Does the Pudgy Pig poop? Is that a potential concern? Thought-provoking questions, this episode raises.
• Zordon calculates that it will only take 48 hours for the Pudgy Pig to eat all food on Earth. Zordon needs to get out more. I don't think he understands how large the planet is.
• Pudgy Pig eats all the Rangers' weapons but politely punches the Rangers away while doing so. Eating people?! That's abhorrent! Even Pudgy Pig has standards, yo.
• Pudgy Pig can ALSO teleport the Rangers and forcibly demorph them in the process! ...uh...okay. Then what was the point of the Sphinx? Finster does say this is his best monster yet. Maybe he incorporated Sphinx powers into it just 'cause. Are these creatures modular?
• Pudgy Pig does not like spicy foods! ...how is he supposed to eat all food on Earth if there are entire countries full of cuisines he refuses to touch?
• The Rangers use spicy food to make Pudgy Pig vomit back up everything he's eaten, including their weapons, then beat his ass with the weapons. ...I suggest thoroughly washing everything, though.
• The Food Fair is saved! Because Alpha...cooked? Does...does Alpha eat food? He's a robot. I am so lost. This episodes raised an awful lot of questions that will surely never be answered about the logistics of Rita and Zordon's forces.

Justice League vs. Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers is gonna be a thing.

Makes sense. The series was reinvigorated with a recent comic relaunch. I've read them, they're really good.

Also, I've been trying to figure out how to bring this up but I've noticed that in order to keep up with the frantic movements of the Sentai footage, the Rangers' voices get...weird...when they morph. Like, they start shouting hyper-gibberish in energized super-voices.

"OKAY LET'S GO WE GOT THIS POWER SWORD WOOHOO LET'S KICK IT!!!!!!!"

The Morphin' Grid is a hell of a drug.

edited 14th Oct '16 8:10:43 AM by TobiasDrake

He can't, He's a floating in head in a tube and has been stuck there for 10,000 years :-P

...Does Zordon eat? Does Alpha just drop food into the top of his tube like you feed goldfish? God, try taking Zordon seriously after getting this mental image.

On Goldar being a coward: Seeing as he survives his fights with the Megazord, maybe teleporting away as soon as the sword comes out is a good idea.

edited 14th Oct '16 8:41:17 AM by Ghilz

• Zordon: Rangers, Rita is attacking the—
• Alpha: Feeding time!
• Zordon: Oh boy, gold flakes!
• Jason: Uh....
• Zordon: OM NOM NOM NOM
• Kimberly: Should we be here for this?
• Zach: Yeah, uh, this is awkward. You're not about to ask us to help clean his tank, are you?
• Alpha: That sounds like a volunteer!

edited 14th Oct '16 9:06:15 AM by TobiasDrake

All that's missing from that image is Billy in the background, barfing behind a console while Trini pats him on the back.

Rangers and Justice League is the crossover I never knew I wanted.

Looking at how the Red Rangers have been turned into one man armies over the years makes me appreciate "A Pressing Engagement" a lot more. We have Jason holding his own against two monsters and needing to be rescued by his friends instead of the other way around. It really drives home the fact that the Rangers are a team and are at their strongest together.

It was a pretty good episode. It just would be nice if the message of "Jason can't do everything on his own and should stop trying to singlehandedly do everything himself" was an actual lesson Jason needed to learn.

Six episodes in, Jason is flawless. He's, like, the perfect specimen of a person. Utterly devoid of negative characteristics. I don't actually remember if this changes later in the show.

Maybe turning him into John Bender for the movie is a good thing.