Power Rangers as a whole

I've been saying Jetman is better for a reason, but Jetman was a really hard act to follow. That and Bandora was a much lighter villain after Complete Monster Count Radiguiet which makes sense from a marketing standpoint. This is a kids show after all.

That's still going to be an issue whether the Megazord is sentient or not given how powerful it is.

In fact, are the Zords sentient in MMPR too? When they get thrown into that volcano the Rangers seemed pretty upset about it and even spoke about them like they were sentient.

It's not just that but it's also, as Linkara put it, if Daizyujin can talk, fight and do everything on his own, why does he have a cockpit? Why would he need pilots at all. It's very much the Captain Planet problem alright. But At least Captain Planet has a Weaksauce Weakness to justify the kids.

Regarding the Zords being sentient: the show never states it, at least not yet, but they do move on their own at times. Dragonzord in particular frequently pilot itself with Tommy just standing on the rooftop or Jason sitting in the Megazord cockpit, playing the Dragon Dagger.

Once Dragonzord Battle Mode became a thing, the Tyrannosaurus Dinozord usually fought alongside it despite Jason popping over to the Dragonzord's cockpit with the rest of them. He had a throwaway line in one episode about switching the Tyrannosaurus into autopilot or something to try and explain that.

Meanwhile, the Pterodactyl Dinozord tends to just f*ck off during the Battle Mode sequences. It flies off to get Starbucks for the group or something while everyone else is fighting. Bugs me.

Also, the Zords clearly cry out in pain and such when they're being killed off or banished. Most recently, Titanus was f*cking screaming as it was dragged down into the magma. So there's that too. None of this necessarily proves sentience, but if they aren't supposed to be alive like they are in the Sentai, then PR did a terrible job of hiding it.

edited 25th Oct '16 9:22:51 AM by TobiasDrake

Plus, Titanus did fight the rangers on its own in its debut.

Yeah, there was that too. They are clearly, unmistakably alive.

But "alive" and "sentient" aren't the same. If the Zords aren't intelligent, then that can still justify the presence of pilots by inferring that the Rangers can pilot them into more effective combat maneuvers than the Zords, acting on their own primal instincts, could accomplish.

The difference between a wild Pokémon and a trained one, basically.

Daizyujin, conversely, has no such defense for the presence of his cockpit. He's God. He doesn't need pilots.

edited 25th Oct '16 9:27:18 AM by TobiasDrake

What does God need with a cockpit?

A scapegoat, maybe?

• Public: Daizyujin just stepped on a private home! People are dead now! How could you, Daizyujin?!
• Daizyujin: Uh...I...uh...that wasn't me. That, uh, that was the pilots. Blue Ranger! You were in charge of that leg! How could you?!
• Blue Ranger: I was just pretending to do stuff. That's what you told us to—
• Daizyujin: Nonsense! It's all on you! You're fired! Um...hey, pointless child star, YOU'RE the Blue Ranger now!

And that's how we got Justin.

And to make myself feel better about Justin...

Nah, Justin just had the bad luck of showing up when the writing went to hell.

Another thing, does the pteradactyl only combine with the rest of the Zords when it's in megazord mode and not tank mode?

No it's in the tank mode, perched behind the T-Rex's head. You just don't see it during the combination sequence.

See here

Yes. Tank mode has the Triceratops and Sabretooth as the treads and the Mastodon as the cannons surrounding the Tyrannosaurus base. The Pterodactyl, as is the case with Dragonzord Battle Mode, flies off to get some takeout Chinese for the post-battle celebration.

Huh. Are you sure that's the Pterodactyl? Because when they go to Megazord from Tank Mode, the Pterodactly flies in and lands on it to form the chestplate.

edited 25th Oct '16 11:04:28 AM by TobiasDrake

Yes it is. It detaches and flies back to re-attach somewhere else.

See here◊ for a more clear image of the model.

edited 25th Oct '16 11:04:56 AM by Ghilz

Huh. Easy to miss, but I guess it's there.

Also, I don't know what the point of Tank Mode is. It's used in, like, three episodes. Its main purpose is to be an unnecessary transitional phase as the Megazord is forming.

And show kids how many features the toy has!

Looking at that toy just reminded me how much I love that the Mastodon's head plops into the Tank's lap for seemingly no reason other than for its trunk to form the Tyrannosaurus's penis.

Conspicuously, the Mastodon Head spontaneously ceases to exist when it stands up. Might have been too blatant otherwise.

Well it's used as a shield (Like... twice).

And trust me, that's not the reason it vanishes. Just look at ToQ-Oh and its Erection-based power ups and beating monster to death with its train-dick.◊

Still 99% sure it's why Ressha Sentai ToQger is getting skipped for Power Rangers adaptations.

Mastodon is fucking subtle by comparison.

edited 25th Oct '16 11:16:52 AM by Ghilz

01x40 - Doomsday, Part II

• Today's evil plan is    WINNING, MOTHERF*CKER   . Rita's castle has flown to Earth, she's destroyed Titanus, she's summoned Satan Lokar! Never before has Rita been so close to...whatever the f*ck she's trying to do!
• The episode begins with Zordon glitching out. He redelivers the exposition on Cyclopsis while Billy works feverishly at the controls trying to find a way to make him stop.
• The Zords are going to need 12 hours to reach full power, so Jason makes a judgment call to take them at half power. Billy and Zordon warn that this could have dire consequences. If catastrophe strikes the Zords, it could have consequences across the Morphin' Grid and potentially depower all the Rangers for good. But there's just no time to wait.
• The Rangers morph into action, but Lokar blows the Megazord onto its ass with his breath weapon.
• Cyclopsis f*cking cuts off the Megazord's arm. Maybe half power wasn't a good idea, Jason.
• Kimberly: Shields are down! One more hit and we're finished!
  • The f*ck is that supposed to mean? Like you have shields. The Megazord gets ripped up in fights without any mention of shields. Remember that time it got covered in murder foam? Or rusted into oblivion? Boy, shields would have been nice to have then.
• Jason calls the Dragonzord and the closeup on his upper body as he plays the Dragon Dagger suddenly makes me realize: how the f*ck do he and Tommy play this thing through a full-face helmet? He holds it up to his face like he's blowing in it, but that's impossible. Are we supposed to pretend that the lips on the helmet move?
• Dragonzord shows up and gets his tail cut off! Was he at half power too? This is not going well.
• Lokar blasts the Zords with lightning while they're down, then Rita finishes them with an energy beam. The Zords start fading out of existence. It's over.
• The Rangers land back at the park where this all started through ironic witchcraft or something.
• Billy: That was actually the new security system Zordon designed for the Zords. See, if they lose in battle, they automatically disassemble and return to the secret hiding place to reenergize.
  • That sounds like a great big load of bullshit. Especially after the big fuss Zordon made about how anything happening to the Zords would have catastrophic consequences for the Morphin' Grid.
• Goldar shows up to attack the Rangers while Billy's working on the Communicators, but he loses his nerve again and just stands there uselessly glowering at them until Billy finishes fixing the watches and teleports the Rangers away.
• Alpha, meanwhile, hacks into Rita's database of spells. Because Rita has ever been seen using a computer. Sure, whatever. He finds a weakness in Cyclopsis and determines that Cyclopsis adjusts to his foe, so if they use lots and lots of mode-change stock footage, he'll get bored of the repetition and stop paying attention.
• While Zordon's busy explaining this to the Rangers, Titanus is shown spontaneously resurrecting itself on the Viewing Screen. This is not addressed in any way. He's just suddenly back. This episode is made of equal parts nonsense and confusing.
• The Rangers take Zordon's advice to heart and play through as much stock footage as they can until Lokar gets fed up and shoots at them. Then they form the Ultrazord and blow up Cyclopsis! And...I guess Lokar just f*cks off or something? Jason shouts, "you two have had it!" but he's nowhere to be seen when Cyclopsis is exploding.
• The destruction of Cyclopsis returns everyone to the park and also Rita anticlimactically takes her ball and goes home, returning her palace to the moon.
• Tommy shows up out of nowhere to remind everyone he still exists! Each of the Rangers takes a moment to shake his hand or clasp his shoulder, some gesture of affection to let him know they care and let the rest of the crowd know that Tommy has personal connections to them.
• In a scene that was clearly intended to be after the finale this episode was meant as, Zordon offers the Rangers the choice of whether they want to quit now that Rita's been defeated forever, ending the threat to the Earth run off back to the moon to plot her next scheme or stay on. They all agree to stay, it's a lovely Not-Ending.

01x41 - Rita's Seed of Evil

• The Rangers are growing some plants to transplant to the park and take a moment to discuss the important environmental role plants play in keeping our planet clean and life sustainable. Looks like this is going to be another green episode. Maybe the monster will actually threaten the environment this time.
• Bulk and Skull show up to shit on everything with a baby tree of their own. Jason mentions that Billy made a special fertilizer. Billy: master of cow poop steroids?
• Kimberly immediately recognizes Bulk's tree as plastic, so that was defanged right quick.
• Goldar sends Squatt to plant the deadly Octoplant, which will grow until its tentacles encircle the Earth and then rip it apart. Wait, I thought Rita wanted to conquer the planet, not kill it.
• The Rangers take their trees out to the park and plant them, and then Billy pours his special formula on them. I am reasonably sure it's Coca-Cola. Billy's having an off day.
• Bulk and Skull are still here, spying on the Rangers. They plot to steal the Rangers' trees and plant them elsewhere to take credit for it. That's a relief. Now when they fail to grow, it'll be because of Bulk and Skull, not because the Rangers poured Coke all over their roots.
• Squatt plants his evil tree and the Putties attack the Rangers before they can intervene!
• Bulk and Skull get locked in a port-a-john for comedic relief while the Rangers are fighting Putties. For the first time, Bulk may literally shit on everything.
• With the seeds beginning to take root, the Rangers teleport back to the Command Center to escape earthquakes that are rocking the park. Zordon briefs them about Rita's latest endeavor but it was feeding time when Rita was making the plan so he didn't get to scry on the discussion. Jason returns to the park to see if he can find Squatt's intentions.
• Five seconds after Jason arrives, Zordon finishes tracing the disturbance. He contacts Jason to let him know that Rita's planted the deadly seeds. He could have told him this in person but Jason was impatient.
• At the site where he and his squad were planting their trees, Jason sees electricity surging from one of the covered holes. He touches it like an idiot and gets shocked. This episode is not filler: it features Jason learning a valuable lesson about basic physics.
• Suddenly a deadly vine grabs Jason and I immediately don't like this episode, because I am botanophobic and this is basically my nightmare scenario.
• Jason morphs to do battle with the plant! Meanwhile, back at the Command Center, the other Rangers are presumably having a lovely spot of tea and discussing the latest sporting event.
• There we go. The other Rangers notice the alarm blaring in the Command Center and transform to go help Jason, who's been actively being tentacle raped by the Octoplant for like three minutes now.
• Once the Rangers save Jason, they return to the electricity site. "Alpha shut it down" so they could dig through the energy barrier, whatever that means. It's the 90's. I don't think the seeds have wifi.
• Goldar and Scorpina try to distract the Rangers from messing with the Octoplant by summoning the Super Putty fight footage! They have more of those now because f*ck you, that's why.
• As the Rangers fight Goldar, Octoplant hatches and it's a woman. Lilymon from Digimon, from the looks of it. Not exactly a planet-crushing monster vine that Rita was promised. Hype Backlash in 5....
• Rita tries to solve the size discrepancy by growing Octoplant, but try as she might, she can't fix what ain't broke, just overpromised.
• Goldar and Scorpina resume doing what they do best: casually f*cking off. The Rangers are freed up offscreen to call down their Zords and battle Octoplant.
• The Megazord has very little trouble with Octoplant. Then she gets distracted by her f*cking vanity and the Rangers kill her from behind with the Mega Sword. Definitely Hype Backlash.
• Bulk and Skull are still in the shitter, which manages to get loaded onto a truck and taken away without anyone noticing it's occupied. And then they were never heard from again.
• Never mind. They show up to class covered in shit and knock the Principal out with their stench. Gross.

01x42 - A Pig Surprise

• The Rangers are volunteering for Annual Pet Adoption Day, finding owners for cute puppies. Because of course they are. Attitude!
• An old woman shows up with a pig on a leash, looking for a family to adopt him. That's going to be tricky. She hands over the leash to the Rangers and departs, but Zach - who is late - happens upon her in the woods and sees her turn into a Puttie! It's a trap!
• The Putties ambush Zach to keep him from squealing but they forget that they suck at everything and are handily defeated. In the chaos, Zach notices a strange device on the ground! Having no idea what it is, his first instinct is to pick it up and take it with him. Goddammit, Zach. That could be a bomb for all you know! Don't take it to Billy, take Billy to it.
• Bulk and Skull show up looking to get a pet. They request something cool and different. Kimberly hands them the leash to Norman, because she is a bad person who lied when she promised to help find Norman a good home.
• ...actually, I may owe her an apology, because Bulk seems to take an immediate shine to Norman and by the next school day, he's showing him off.
• Billy: It seems to have some kind of timing mechanism on it that's counting down to zero.
  • Gee, I wonder why. Could it be a BOMB? Hmm. Maybe you shouldn't be studying it in your house.
• Trini puts together Zach's report of the disguised Puttie with the old woman they met the other day! The Rangers head to the school to find Norman! ...because I guess they were skipping classes to work on the BOMB. Attitude!
• At the Youth Center, Bulk and Skull eat off opposite ends of the same hoagie, and I can only think of them meeting in the middle, Lady and the Tramp style. Thanks for that visual, post-Doomsday Power Rangers.
• Billy and Trini notice that the device suddenly stops spinning. The timer's hit zero. Checkmate. ...and they should count their lucky stars it's not a BOMB or they would be splattered Ranger goop right now, along with most of Billy's house. So much terrible suspicious object safety going on right now.
• Suddenly, Norman turns into the Pudgy Pig! So, let's talk about Rita's plan. She gave the Pudgy Pig to the Rangers via disguise so that they would pass it onto some person, then at a set time, it would transform back into its natural state and wreak havoc that could have been wrought just fine without the convoluted plan. This is needlessly complex for no real reason. It doesn't achieve or accomplish anything. Nothing is gained by the Pudgy Pig pretending to be Norman for a couple days. This isn't a great start to the postseason episodes.
• Pudgy Pig's lost his edge, too. He stands there and menaces at Bulk for a minute to try and convince him to hand over his sandwich. He wants the sandwich, but he's not willing to just take it. That would be rude.
• Zach prepares to fight the Pudgy Pig, but it vanishes in a puff of flatulence. Okay.
• The Rangers attack the Pudgy Pig and the show tries to pretend it's not the same fight scene by not showing him eating their weapons and instead just having their weapons magically vanish between frames. Also a little drunken editing so when he jumps down from the building, he shouts "Fooled ya!" and reverses back to the top before jumping down again. Then he teleports away again.
• Goldar: While the Power Rangers are busy with the Pudgy Pig, I will destroy Angel Grove!
  • That's stupid, Goldar.
• The Rangers find Pudgy Pig attempting a mating dance on a smaller pig. This just got really gross.
• Trini: Oh, how sweet! It's love!
• Kimberly: That is so gross.
  • I'm with Kim! Power Rangers: Civil War! Choose your side: gross or sweet?! There will be blood.
• Zordon contacts the Rangers and tells them about Pudgy Pig being a diversion and Goldar attacking. See, this is why that's stupid. Goldar's plan depended on the Rangers not realizing he was here while he stages a high-profile Kaiju attack on their city. That's stupid.
• Suddenly Scorpina attacks! And she shoots the Rangers with the Omnibeam of Forgetting You Can Just Call In The Zords And Ignore Her Entirely! This forces the Rangers to waste time fighting the Putties and Scorpina in what is clearly footage from Scorpina's introduction in the Green Ranger Saga.
• Once Goldar starts trying to step on them, they stop being stupid and summon the Zords.
• The Megazord throws Goldar around for a bit, then—
• Jason: Bring Megazord to full charge!
  • Goddammit, he brought THAT up again. The Power Sword recharges the Megazord's batteries but Goldar peaces out before it can be used to kill him. Right in the nick of time, too. I don't remember getting to see the Megazord actually swing at him the last time this fight footage was used.
• Acting on the assumption that his lack of edge and horniness means the Pudgy Pig is really Norman after all, Billy invents a machine that will reverse the process and turn him back into Norman. Plan B, I assume, is bacon.
• It works, and shortly after Trini delivers the news that the farm's owner will adopt Norman so he can be with his girlfriend until he's inevitably slaughtered for the aforementioned bacon. Farmers don't raise pigs for lulz, Trini. You just gave away Bulk's pet to become food.
• The episode ends with the Principal bringing a live pig into the classroom for some f*cking reason, so that Bulk and Skull can reveal that they're deathly afraid of pigs now as an attempt to mitigate the fact that Trini totally gave Bulk's pet away to become food.

"And trust me, that's not the reason it vanishes. Just look at To Q-Oh and its Erection-based power ups and beating monster to death with its train-dick.◊ "

Did they actually even do that more than one time breaking out of the chains?

So did they explain how Pudgy Pig came back?

Somehow a device turned a regular pig into it again. Probably a magic/technology mix. We know that they can make the same monster over and over again, after all. They even have a book of monsters. Plus, nothing stops Finster from remaking it via clay.

So is it meant to be the same Pudgy Pig from Food Fight or just a monster that happens to look like him and has his name?

Going from fighting the children controlled mecha and Satan to a rematch with Pudgy Pig seems like a massive step downwards.

Well none of those happened in Power Rangers :-P

On A Pig Surprise, It's actually probably the first episode that really shows an endearing side to Bulk. It's sort of awesome how he immediately takes to that pig.

edited 26th Oct '16 6:57:29 AM by Ghilz

The latter. It's an ordinary pig transformed into a monster through the power of bullshit, and that monster conveniently happens to look exactly like the Pudgy Pig. It's a less aggressive Pudgy Pig, however, who is content to politely wait to be fed rather than eating everything in sight and then f*cks off to go get laid.

A rematch with a nerfed Pudgy Pig, no less. Which is a distraction from the true threat: just fighting Goldar again.

Yeah, after the climax that was Doomsday, this was pretty underwhelming.

I agree with that. It's why I'm kinda mad at Trini for giving Bulk's pig away to become food. God, this episode was so bad. It had some good parts, but it was so bad.

edited 26th Oct '16 7:03:38 AM by TobiasDrake