Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context AdaptationExplanationExtrication / PowerRangers

Go To

1''Franchise/PowerRangers'' has had a quite a few unexplained holdovers from ''Franchise/SuperSentai'':
2----
3
4* ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'':
5** Dora Goblin from ''[[Series/KyoryuSentaiZyuranger Zyuranger]]'' devoured the souls of children. Gnarly Gnome, however, did not, which led one to wonder what were all those balls of light that flew out of him when he exploded.
6** Season 1 has two examples involving Zack. First, when he morphs to fight Knasty Knight in ''Happy Birthday Zack'', his Power Axe is already battle-damaged for some reason. Second, when he appears to fight Goatan in ''Lions and Blizzards'', his hands are bandaged and bloodied. In the first case, Goushi's axe indeed took a hit from Dora Knight before he morphed. In the second case, Goushi was injured doing a BareHandedBladeBlock while trying to snap guest character Sayaka from Dora Chimera's control.
7** Season 2's Mirror Maniac's mirror face is shattered for no explicable reason when he [[MakeMyMonsterGrow goes big]]. His [[Series/GoseiSentaiDairanger Dairanger]] counterpart, Master Mirror, got his face shattered by Shishi Ranger prior to that.
8** Also from season two is the Showbiz Monster, who for no apparent reason dissolves into light when defeated instead of exploding. This is because while Showbiz Monster was just a standard MonsterOfTheWeek, his ''Dairanger'' counterpart Media Magician was actually a sympathetic character, and thus got a gentler death.
9** Similar to the above, when Nimrod and her two henchmen AC and DC are defeated, only Nimrod explodes, while the other two just fade away. This is because in Dairanger, these were the ghosts of her sisters, two monsters who had already been fought and killed in fights cut from Power Rangers.
10** In Season 3, following being defeated by the Ninja Megazord, Rito is shown with a human image over him before he falls (followed by a shadowed image of Rito's head being seen after the explosion, which the show explains is how Rito escaped). The reason for this is in ''Kakuranger'', this is actually the final battle of Rito's Sentai counterpart, Gashodokuro, with the image being his human disguise, Junior.
11** Also, in Season 3, when a monster is defeated, a ball of light would occasionally fly up into the sky before exploding. This is due to the monsters being {{Youkai}}, with the orbs being their youkai spirits.
12* In ''Series/PowerRangersZeo'', Rita accidentally creates a monster from a purse...which is inexplicably not only her strongest creation ever, but possibly the strongest MonsterOfTheWeek in the ''entire franchise,'' even able to shrug off the finisher from the Zeo Ultrazord. In the ''Ohranger-Kakuranger'' teamup movie it comes from, there actually is an explanation for this: it's not that it's incredibly powerful, but simply that as a magic-based ''Kakuranger'' monster, it's impervious to the Ohranger's technology-based weapons.
13* ''Series/PowerRangersTurbo'': In ''Carranger'', the Rangers didn't use their zords to fight Porto's Super Sentai counterpart because they still didn't have any zords in the episode the battle scene comes from. Here, the Rangers don't have that excuse.
14* ''Series/PowerRangersInSpace:'' In ThePsychoRangers debut episode, they spend the first fight in a copy of the real Rangers' suits, for reasons that aren't adequately explained (it's not a FrameUp, since they keep the costumes after the originals show up). In ''Megaranger'', the Nezirangers were showing [[VillainRespect Villainous Respect]] to the Megarangers by dressing up as "the strongest warriors", only revealing their real appearances when they'd surpassed their opponents.
15* ''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy'' had a MonsterOfTheWeek named Horn, a weapons dealer who showed the Transdaggers to Furio as something he acquired previously. Later, the Rangers manage to steal them from him and add them to their own arsenal, but don't explain how they knew the Transdaggers even ''existed'', let alone that he had them (they'd never been shown or mentioned on-screen in any Rangers' presence until the moment the Rangers stole them). In ''Gingaman'', the team knew from the start that Bucter (Horn's counterpart in that series) had stolen the Kiba Blades from the first generation of Gingamen, and were simply reclaiming their own property.
16* In ''[[Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue Lightspeed Rescue]]'', Diabolico and Olympius have a rather strange death scene where, after they explode, two columns of energy flow up into the atmopshere, where a demon face turns into a skull, screams and explodes. This is because in the ''[=GoGoFive=]'' version of this scene, the ghost of Bansheera's counterpart Grandienne was possessing them and died with them, thanks to the feedback loop of positive energy from the [=GoGoFive=]'s arsenal (this scene was [=GoGoFive=]'s final battle). The reason she was a ghost was because in the sentai, the Max Victory Robo's Max Nova destroyed her bodily form (the Rangers weren't aware her spirit survived); this battle was cut short in ''PRLR'', ending on Bansheera vanshing and the Lightspeed Megazord being unable to find her.
17* ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'':
18** Jen goes crazy on the MonsterOfTheWeek Fatcatfish, to the point of wanting to kill him instead of arrest him, because...[[DisproportionateRetribution he once attacked her and Alex in the future.]] Yuuri's actions in the Sentai are much more understandable, since he's the assassin who killed her family.
19** A ''minor'' case is Wes's surprised reaction to Eric transforming into the Quantum Ranger. That storyline is pretty much adapted wholesale from ''[[Series/MiraiSentaiTimeRanger Timeranger]]'' with one detail changed: in ''Timeranger,'' three factions were fighting over control of a giant robot, the V-Rex, and it wasn't until Naoto took the V-Commander that it was discovered that it had an associated combat suit; Tatsuya was surprised because no one knew the Time Fire suit even existed. In ''Time Force'', the three factions know from the get-go that the Quantum Control Box will give its user the Quantum Ranger powers, so Wes's surprised reaction when Eric morphs comes off as strange to some.
20* In ''[[Series/HyakujuuSentaiGaoranger Gaoranger]]'', Duke Org Ura is destroyed the first time when Shirogane charges at him and impales him on the Gao Hustler Rod. In ''[[Series/PowerRangersWildForce Wild Force]]'' however, the scene is kept but the shot of the impalement is cut out, so it looks like Merrick just destroyed Nayzor by shoving him.
21* Why does Kat from ''Series/PowerRangersSPD'' turn into a bird-themed Ranger despite being a CatGirl? Because her counterpart Swan from ''Series/TokusouSentaiDekaranger'' was a bird-girl instead.
22* Warmax from ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'' is a member of the dread [[EliteMooks Barbarian Beasts...]] who [[AnticlimaxBoss gets exploded by one hit from the Mystic Minotaur, and that's that.]] Except in ''Series/MahouSentaiMagiranger'' that ''wasn't'' that; it turns out the body was just a puppet and the ''sword'' was the actual monster, which then possesses Magi Green and wreaks havoc. This part of the episode was not adapted into Mystic Force, likely due to the large amount of unmorphed footage.
23* In ''[[Series/JukenSentaiGekiranger Gekiranger]]'' and ''[[Series/PowerRangersJungleFury Jungle Fury]]'', monsters come in either alive (most of the major villains and last dozen or so monsters-of-the-week) or undead (most of the monsters-of-the-week, created from undead {{Mooks}} called Rinshi who are upgraded, gaining the ability to turn into the MonsterOfTheWeek at will) and have different deaths depending on this; live monsters get the standard fiery explosion, while undead freeze into statues and explode into dust, shattering just like the Rinshi they're made from. In the two-part premiere, the first MonsterOfTheWeek ''appears'' to die with the standard explosion multiple times, but isn't dead for real until he shatters. The difference is, ''Jungle Fury'' keeps several stories much the same as ''Gekiranger'' but doesn't make it especially clear when a monster is ''not'' a Rinshi Beast. Usually it doesn't matter much (It's not ''spelled out'' why Phantom Beasts and Grizzaka's underlings do not turn to dust in ''either'' version, but there's no reason to think they're Rinshi to begin with.) However, in one episode, TheStarscream Naja has "life talons" that can restore him from near-fatal damage and resurrect others. He tries to tempt Camille with this. In ''Jungle Fury'', it's not clear why that would appeal to her. If he joins her, they'd have "power over life and death," but only for as many resurrections as Naja has Life Talons; by the final WeCanRuleTogether speech at the climax, that's ''three.'' So not much temptation there. In Gekiranger, on the other hand, we get a detail that was left out of JF: ''Mele (Camille) herself is a Rinrinshi (Rinshi Beast),'' and talons from Braco (Naja) can make her ''truly'' alive. ''That'' is why it's so tempting. (It's also why, when he uses his first talon to save himself from Camille's poison, he instantly changes from Rinshi form into monster form, never to take on Rinshi form again: in Geki, it's the first clue of what the talons can really do; ''he was no longer a Rinshi.'' It's ''also'' the reason why the two monsters he resurrects explode like monsters in other seasons when destroyed; ''they'' are also no longer Rinshi and so don't die like Rinshi. The talons' ability to make you not a Rinshi anymore are an important detail when a normal explosion instead of a Rinshi death meant ''the monster was still alive'' three or so episodes previously.)
24* A minor one from ''Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge''; in ''Series/ZyudenSentaiKyoryuger'', the villains' plans revolved around gathering human emotion, specifically anger, joy and sadness. This element has not carried over to ''Dino Charge''...and yet almost all the monsters still have a happy, sad or angry face somewhere on their bodies.
25* The monsters from ''Series/ShurikenSentaiNinninger'' were created by combining an evil spirit with an inanimate object. The monsters from ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaSteel'' are simply aliens, who look like Earth tools, toys and appliances for no apparent reason.
26* The Delta Gigadrone from ''Series/PowerRangersBeastMorphers'' looks an evil version of Nate's Beast Wrecker Zord Battle Mode. ''Go-Busters'' had a subplot where Enter stole the blueprints to the [=BC=]-04 Buster Vehicle and spent a few episodes gathering materials to create the Megazord Delta.
27** In the later episode ''Grid Connection'', the two Tyrannosaurus Zords appear out of nowhere, despite having been destroyed in their home series, and magically transform into the completed Megazords. In the original, they were explicitly copies formed via ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve, which transformed into the corresponding Mecha via the same method.

Top