Headscratchers / Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always

• Who is Minh's father?
  • We're never told who he is and there's seemingly no photos of who he could be in the home. On top of that, once Trini dies, it's Zack who moves in and acts as Minh's guardian instead of whoever her dad is.
  • If the comics are any indication, it's Jason. But it would seem odd for Trini and Minh to be using Trini's maiden name, and Zack to be Minh's legal guardian if Jason is clearly still around.
    • Mostly Minh using her mom's surname. When doing research for an unrelated thing, it was discovered that Vietnamese women do not take their husband's surname upon marriage, but rather keep their father's. If Vietnamese-American women like Trini would do the same is unknown and may vary depending on how connected they are to their heritage.
    • Simon Bennett himself made it clear that they do not follow the comics when doing Power Rangers like Heckyl's unknown period of time when he became the Dark Ranger as Hasbro and Boom! Studios were not in consultation with each other when Cosmic Fury was in production so it is implied that the same goes for Once & Always.
  • Richie. Remember him from Season 2? No? Don't blame you, he only appeared in a few episodes to bridge the gap between Tommy's Green Ranger absence, and to serve as a Red Herring to the White Ranger. Him and Trini had huge crushes on each other, but both were too nervous to do anything about it. It's as good a guess as any. Coincidentally, his actor has also passed away so maybe The Character Died with Him too.
    • That works, but that wouldn't explain why Minh's using the Kwan surname; while it's possible outside of universe, she's doing so to make it abundantly clear to viewers that she's Trini's daughter. As stated above, Vietnamese women take their father's surname when born, but don't take their husband's surname. As far as Vietnamese-American women like Trini (if Trini and Minh are Vietnamese-American) and Minh go, it's hard to say if they'd follow the same tradition or not.

• Why is it that Zack is Minh's guardian and not, say, either set of her grandparents or even Billy?
  • While I get it that Minh's all Trini has-suggesting that her parents might have died at some point prior to the events of Once and Always-even in, say, Countdown to Destruction-you would think that Minh's paternal grandparents might want to be in their granddaughter's life.
  • Since they're never mentioned, we can assume they passed away at some point. And if they are still alive, perhaps Trini wanted to make sure her daughter was taken care of by one of the rangers in case they needed to protect her.

• Who owns the Juice Bar?
  • It's seemingly not Ernie (and we don't know if this is another case of The Character Died with Him like it somewhat is with Trini either) as all Zack says is that he hopes they still have/use Ernie's recipes when it comes to the milkshakes. It doesn't seem to be Lt. Stone either, as he's not appeared in Power Rangers since the season finale of Turbo. Ernie hasn't been seen since a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo at the end of the Turbo film.
  • Probably Bulk and Skull. They seemed to have gotten together into the food business judging by their billboard.
    • Doubt it. The billboard identified their company as a food distribution operation, not a restauranteur. While they likely do supply the Juice Bar with all of its food, it's doubtful they own the operation outright.

• Speaking of Ernie, where is he?
  • The last time we saw Ernie, it was a blink and you'll miss it cameo at the end of the Turbo movie, and his last speaking role was in Zeo. All we're told in Turbo is that his foreign service unit recalled him and that he was likely building a bridge across the Amazon. Did he return during or after Power Rangers in Space? Did he go on Terra Venture from Power Rangers Lost Galaxy? Is this another case of The Character Died with Him or is he off enjoying a much-deserved retirement?

• When did Billy return to Earth?
  • The last time we saw Billy, outside of his morphed form, it was in Zeo. Morphed, I want to say that it was the finale of Super Megaforce.
    • He was last seen in Beast Morphers actually. There was an episode where the Mighty Morphin, Dino Thunder, and Dino Charge Rangers appeared, though of the MMPRs only Jason appeared unmorphed.
  • He likely came back shortly after Power Rangers in Space as he and Alpha seem to work together in fulfilling the Zordon role.

• Why did Billy go all Thou Shall Not Kill when it came to Robo-Snizzard and Robo-Minotaur in the junkyard? Even if he didn't know they needed to kill Snizzard to free their friends, neither of them showed any interest in turning over a new leaf, and he's never had a problem killing monsters before.
  • At a best guess, maybe he didn't want to have any kind of a Cycle of Revenge at the moment. That, or, they were hoping to get some answers out of them?
  • There's a difference between killing in combat and killing captured enemies out of revenge, and Rangers have shown an aversion to this in the past and take imprisoned monsters to a...well, prison.
    • Ok, not wanting Minh to kill them just for revenge, I understand. But they're still a threat, and they even acknowledge the magnet can't hold them forever, so might as well just blast them and get it out of the way.
    • It doesn't need to hold them forever, just long enough for them to sneak into the moon palace and get the captured Rangers out. Keep in mind at this point they don't know that they need to destroy Snizzard before removing the Rangers from the machine.
    • Why would Billy assume any different? Every single previous time, whenever the monsters cast some kind of spell or curse, if it isn't broken beforehand, it automatically does whenever said monster is permanently destroyed. It's actually a plot twist that the captured Rangers didn't return to regular human form once Snizzard was destroyed.
    • I read it as the Rangers leaving the monsters alive to lure Rita away from the palace in order to free them, giving them a larger window of opportunity to sneak in.
    • It still seems weird to have a TSNK attitude with robots. Robots that were based on creatures that they blew up decades ago. As shown with Alpha, even if they did have any good in them, they could be rebuilt. It's hard not to make a joke about the Rangers getting senile in their old age!
    • The Rangers not killing enemies who were captured alive is no news. In "The White Light", Billy and the other Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers could've easily killed the de-powered Rita but they instead placed her back inside her space dumpster.
  • Another possibility is on top of using them to luring Rita away from the palace, if they'd destroy them then, Rita might have retreated to the Dark Dimension again, assuming she didn't have enough power already.

• So, the Cranston Tech building. When the building was first revealed, I figured it was basically a rebuilt Command Center/Power Chamber and nothing more. But then it's revealed that it's an actual office building and the Command Center portion is hidden underneath. Uh, many questions. One, why would you build a tech center on a rocky beach with no other building for miles on end? Two, where do the employees park? Three, exactly how long is the commute to and from said building? Four, where do the employees go for lunch if they're sick of the cafeteria? Five, how in the world does nobody there not notice all the teleporting in and out? Or does working for Cranston Tech give you a teleporting communicator of your own?
  • Billy does mention that none of the employees know about the Command Center area. It's possible that the main headquarters are located somewhere more accessible, with that base being more of a testing ground for new tech.
  • OP here. Minh steals the Rad Bug from the parking lot, with some other cars and motorbikes there (that are speculated to belong to the other Rangers). Looking at the wide shots... where is said parking lot? The one Minh walks around in looks like a normal lot, but there's no concrete or blacktop open space where cars are parked in the wide shots.
  • Just be thankful it's not where the original Command Center was built. I don't think anyone wants to drive out to Kirk's Rock every day.
  • We only see the Command Center from one angle, it’s entirely possible the main car park is simply behind it, or could be underground. By the same logic, we don’t know for sure that the building is far away from the city, there could be a main road also just behind the building. And why would employees notice the rangers teleporting in and out? They only ever teleport into the secret sub-level, it’s not like they’re teleporting into the main office areas.

• In regards to SPA, it was intended for a Call-Forward to SPD, but it makes little sense. The actual SPD shown in that season had been established on Earth for a good, long while, and aliens living on Earth was a common occurrence. This special is confirmed to take place in 2023, which is only two years off from SPD. Is that season now in its own separate universe like RPM and Dino Charge, with the Once & Always version an alternate-universe variant?
  • My assumption is that SPA is more a subsidiary of SPD, probably the more militaristic branch as opposed to the planetary police forces. Still doesn't explain why they're fighting the Troobian Empire on Sirius (or at least in the Sirius System) during a time when Kruger should be running the space branch, though.
  • Having SPD in an alternate universe could go either way. On the one hand, crossovers with Dino Thunder and Operation Overdrive would point towards it being in the main timeline. On the other hand, Ninja Steel showed that Wes hasn't given his Morpher to someone else (and is also still alive), so unless Sky grew up in DBZ's Hyperbolic Time Chamber, his backstory wouldn't line up with current events.
  • Also the Alpha-Delta designations may be referring more to jurisdictions than subsequent versions. Earth is in Delta territory but Adam and Aisha are specifically fighting the Troobian Empire in deep space, which could be Alpha's territory.

• Why are they still using the Season 1 powers and Zords? The Zeo and Turbo powers were probably absorbed into SPA, but the Dino Coins were outmoded by the Ninja Coins in Season 3, which were then outmoded by the Zeo and Turbo powers. Did Billy and Alpha just use info from the other Dino Teams as a guide and upgraded everything to current levels?
  • Weren't the Ninja powers linked to the Ninja Coins (forgive me, it's been a while since I watched Season 3)? Since they were using the Dino Coins, they got the Dino powers and Zords.
  • The Doyalist explanation is that only the Season 1 suits and Zords make the company any big money.
  • In-universe, the Dino Coins were merely damaged, not destroyed like the Ninja Coins were. If you accept that the "Power Transfer" sword created duplicate Dino Coins, then Jason's was never destroyed, outside of maybe an off-screen battle (which would explain the meteor in Beast Morphers). Sentinel Knight restored Adam's coin, but not the others. Given that Tommy has a Master Morpher to access all his powers, whoever made that likely also restored the rest of the Dino Coins. Whether it was Billy or the Morphin Masters is up to interpretation. As to why the Dino Coins instead of the Ninja Coins, since presumably Ninjor could just make more of the latter, it's simple. Given the MM crew can keep up with more modern and powerful Ranger teams, it stands to reason the Dino Coins were made more powerful than they were in Seasons 1 and 2. It would also explain why they're using the big, thick Legacy Morphers now instead of the tinier morphers from back in the day, though not why the morphed belt buckles still use the old style in-universe.
  • Given the Dino Zords were straight-up rebuilt, it's entirely likely they were upgraded in the process as well, so it might be a matter of not even needing the other Zords. It's also possible since they were lent to the Alien Rangers that the Ninja Zords were just permanently given to them once the Dino Zords were rebuilt.
    • Only the Shogun Zords were lent to the Aquitian Rangers. The only Ninja Zord they used was the Falconzord, which Tommy used in Ninja Steel.
  • Alpha states that he and Billy had spent time modifying the Sabre-Toothed Tiger Zord to be operable without an active Yellow Ranger, following Trini’s death. It’s likely that they hadn’t done the same with the Bear Ninjazord or Yellow Shogunzord because those only ever belonged to Aisha who was still alive. But since she was unavailable this mission, it meant the Dinozords were the only ones they could use.

• Who is the leader of the OG team before Robo Rita captures half of them? Was it Tommy or Jason? We never get any indication because the focus is on Zack and Billy, and the rest are just using archived audio.
  • I feel like it should be Jason. I mean given that they've returned to the old suits, using the old Zords, everything returned to the first season, it would make sense for the original first leader to remain as such, which is Jason. Then again, I struggle to see Tommy's ego letting him go back to being a follower, but maybe being a father has humbled him.
    • Tommy has the Master Morpher, so he still has access to White Tiger, White Ninja (presumably), Zeo V Red, Turbo Red, and Black Dino Thunder powers. I see him more as his own One-Man Army who is assisting his old friends out of nostalgia. Jason led the other four MM Rangers (along with Dino Charge and Dino Thunder) in the Beast Morphers special, and likely served a sergeant role over the MMPR team in the Super Megaforce Legendary Battle (whereas Tommy was leading a select handful of legendary Rangers). So I'd say Jason is leading the team but Tommy is lending a hand.
  • It was likely shared leadership between Jason and Tommy. Unlike their actors, the characters never had any long-lasting beef and presumably remained friends long after "Forever Red." Billy technically wasn't leader, but given how much of a tech whiz he is, he essentially became the off-field leader, which is essentially what his role was back in MMPR too. Billy's also served as a leader during the Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers arc as well, as he was the only member of the team to be restored to his own age without needing to go on a Zeo Quest.

• It's mentioned on-screen that Trini was vaporized, not leaving behind a body. So... how did they get her morpher? Shouldn't it have been destroyed too? Did Billy make another one out of guilt?
  • He might have, honestly. According to the Soul of the Dragon comics and this special, he knows how to make Power Coins and Morphers (he and Angela Fairweather, from Lightspeed Rescue, are indicated as the likeliest candidates to have made Tommy's Master Morpher). It stands to reason that he probably did.
  • I think the Morphers can take a lot of punishment. Minh essentially took a bullet for Billy and the Morpher in her pocket took the full force, it survived perfectly intact. Goldar was only able to destroy the Ninja Coins when they were out of their Morphers, and the original Dino Coins short-circuited and cracked during the first battle with Rito because of an energy overload, but were still physically there. Morphers are built to last, they are very durable and can protect the coins well. Worst case, the Morpher is damaged but the coin itself is fine. Just get a new Morpher for the coin, done.
  • An answer can possibly be found in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, where Kendrix sacrifices herself to destroy the Savage Sword. Even though she herself is obliterated, the Quasar Sabre is completely intact, and the Space Morpher is fine once the sword is destroyed - with the only problem being that the sword was draining Cassie's energy while connected to the morpher. And the Quasar Sabre flies off into space, which turns out to be so that Karone can get it and become the new Pink Ranger. So the morphers can likely withstand lots, and if a ranger dies while morphed, the morpher will just reappear somewhere close to where a new potential ranger can bond with it.
  • I'm more concerned about how they explained Trini's death to the non-Rangers in her life with no body to show for it - what did they do to account for Trini's death in a legal sense?
    • It's entirely possible that, with how close the current timeline is to Power Rangers S.P.D., the older Rangers have some sort of agreement with the government on some level that all they have to do is report Trini died due to Ranger-related activities and her body was vaporized as a result. That agreement likely came into play at or around the same time Lightspeed Rescue was given access to morphing and zord technology, even as early as the Terra Venture colony ship. That being said, Billy's comment about how none of his employees know about the command center being in the basement might put some doubt on this theory. That doesn't mean that they don't know that he's a Power Ranger, just that they don't know that their boss effectively rebuilt the Angel Grove Command Center as a subbasement level to his company.
  • Well they could say she fell off a cliff, which she technically did. Without a body, they could first report her as missing and when it isn't found, she is presumed dead.

• Why is Billy considered the leader? It's never stated in the special and when the OG Rangers morph, it is Zack who leads it.
  • When is it said that Billy’s the leader?
  • I'd chalk it up to experience, since he was on the team all way until right before Turbo started.
  • There's actually a good reason: Billy is the only member of the team to have served with everyone on the mismatched team present at one point or another. Tommy has been as well, but since he got captured, Billy's the only one who knows every member of the team well enough to lead them all.
  • OP here. I ask because it's one of the parts of the Heartwarming section, along with listing Zack as second-in-command and it struck me as odd considering how much he does in terms of the story compared to the Zack, who was already the original MMPR second-in-command and has most of the highlights in the special. He becomes the guardian of Minh, leads the first of the only two full morph scenes, was a part of the only civilian fight, gives Minh the speech on heroics, gets the final blow on Robo-Rita, and is placed center amongst the Rangers for the final scene in-suit. Plus, again, there is no specific mention of Billy being the leader or any actions that specifically highlight him as such in the special itself. Not to mention, Billy never addresses what his actions actually did to Minh.
  • Power Rangers, as a whole, has shown multiple times that experience does not mean qualified to be the leader.
  • If you go back and watch the first four seasons, while Jason and Tommy were the nominal leaders, when it came to actually defeating the bad guy, everyone followed Billy's orders. He's the one who invented all the gear, found the weakpoints, made repairs, and, in general, was the one everyone relied upon to save the day. This really came to a head in Seasons 3 and 4. Tommy's "leadership" basically amounted to telling the Rangers to attack and when to summon the Zords. In every other respect, Billy was the one everyone deferred to. The special keeps that dynamic, for the most part. Zack fills in for the Jason/Tommy role as the one who was the emotional center of the team and field leader, while Billy was the one who actually figured out how to win and provided everyone with the actual means to achieve victory.
  • Given their age and experience they might have grown past the point where they even need a "leader" to keep everyone in check and make the calls. They've been doing this for 30 years, they're probably already in agreement and know what needs to be done. Billy is simply the focus of most group scenes because he's the "star" of this special so to speak, likely because of the all the returning characters he was the one who was on the show the longest.
  • Billy is also the driving force because he's the one who accidentally brought Robo Rita into the mix, and he's desperate to stop her. To the others, she's just another enemy to be defeated. To him, she's My Greatest Failure.

• How exactly is Aisha in the 21st century much less still in touch with the rest team? She chose to stay behind in 19th Century Africa to help the animals of that time. Even if she found a way to return to the present, Zordon’s lines (and the events of Zeo) imply history was rewritten with Aisha and Tanya taking each other’s places in history, with the heroes being the only ones who remembered both existed. We also know that Tanya is still around given the Yellow Zeo Ranger is one of the captured rangers. I highly doubt Aisha could get a job, much less work alongside the SPA if there’s no legal record of her existence.
  • While Robo-Rita's time travel attempt requires metric tons of energy to pull off (possibly because her goal is to travel back to a place and time she already existed and interfere with her own personal history or just because she had to juryrig it), there are multiple means the Power Rangers can travel back and forth through time, including Time Force stopping by the pick someone up, the Morphin' Masters interfering, and so on. Heck, SPD actually had a means of time travel. So there are plenty of ways she could've gotten back to the present. Alternatively, there are multiple means of acquiring immortality, and it's not outside the realm of possibility Aisha could've obtained it.
  • Aisha was NOT in 19th century Africa. She was in modern day (well, THEN modern day, anyway...) Africa. Remember, Tanya exchanged places with her, and then reunited with her missing parents in an episode of Zeo, who had originally left her in the care of Ashalla, the wise woman of the village, who we also see embracing Aisha in the Viewing Globe after the Zeo Crystal is reassembled. So the time difference was, from every indication, negligible if any.
    • To further drive the point home, Ashalla is revealed to be Aisha's great aunt during her introduction.
    • OP here thanks for letting me know. It's been a long time since I saw the Zeo Crystal arc, I guess I misunderstood Zordon's line about "family history being rewritten."

• Why would Rita select Snizard and Minotaur of all monsters to be her generals for her grand time travel revenge scheme? Now, yes, before anyone says anything, the real world, behind the scenes reason is that Hasbro told the crew to use Snizard and Minotaur in order to tie in with their Lightning Collection figures, but we're talking in universe here. It makes no sense that she would choose a couple of random Monsters of the Week over two members from her loyal crew of Goldar, Rito, Finster, Scorpina, Squatt, and Baboo. You could give Robo-Snizard's and Robo-Minotaur's respective abilities of "freezing and shrinking Rangers" and "tracking morphed Ranger energy" to any robo-monster Rita conjured up; it's not as if the original Snizard and Minotaur possessed those abilities. One could argue that anyone from her old crew failed her too many times before for her liking and that she wanted to make sure this plan was successful, but Snizard and Minotaur had previously failed her so hard that they died. Multiple times, in Snizard's case.
  • Snizzard and Minotaur were actually above average in terms of power and it's implied Snizzard was a personal favorite, given the ones resurrected for the Wedding were personal favorites. As for why she didn't resurrect any of her old crew, Robo-Rita lacks any good qualities Rita had, including actual attachment to her followers or loyalty to them. To Robo-Rita, her old crew were likely no more important than her monsters of the week.

• Why are Snizard and Minotaur even robots to begin with? Rita is a robot because the body she was resurrected in just so happened to be mechanical in nature, but she was clearly capable of casting regular, non-robotic magic just as her old self was, so why not revive Snizard and Minotaur in their original forms? Alternatively, if Rita went out of her way to make them robotic versions specifically to match her new body ("I'm a robot now, so now all my minions will be robots, too!"), why did she summon plain ol' Putty Patrollers instead of some type of new Robo-Putties?
  • Robo-Rita might be Rita's evil incarnate, but she's still Rita, and Rita does have a habit of making her monsters thematic, so it might have been as simple of 'I'm going to make robots' for the heck of it. As for why she didn't make Robo-Putties, probably because she spent a year creating Robo-Snizzard and Robo-Minotaur and her plan involves having an absolutely massive number of Putties, enough to launch a global invasion, so presumably, she needed to pump out Putties as quickly as possible.
    • And if her memories are fully intact, she probably wouldn't even need Finster there. He probably made the Putties when Rita commanded, but with only the Robo-Snizzard and Robo-Minotaur around, she was probably the only one who actually knew how to run the machine. I honestly don't see Rita demanding to learn how it worked before eventually just ordering Finster to do it. She's smart enough to know that much.

• Wouldn't it have been better if Adam (despite being part of S.P.A.) to be the Black Ranger in this special?

• So the morphers cannot transform a person who wants revenge as is initially the case with Minh. So why did Orion's morpher accept him when he wanted revenge on the Armada for the destruction of his homeworld? Or the Thunder Rangers, who wanted revenge on Sensei Watanbe for killing their parents (A lie told by Lothor, the one who really did kill them)?
  • For starters, I’ve always gone with the belief that different set of ranger powers go by different rules. Even if the Power Morphers will only work for someone who’s being entirely selfless, it doesn’t mean the Megaforce Silver Morpher is necessarily bound to the same restrictions. Secondly, given that Orion had a vision of the Sixth Rangers when he first found the morpher, it could well be that he had already been bonded to it, as he said, he knew he was destined to find the Sixth Ranger keys. So if he were already bonded, it doesn’t matter if he wanted revenge when he finally used it for the first time.
  • Another possibility is that revenge had nothing to do with why the morpher didn’t work for Minh at first. It could be that it was still bonded to Trini, even after her death. When it bonds to Minh, she has visions of Trini, and it’s implied that Trini’s spirit is somewhere in the Morphing Grid, and it was somehow responsible for deliberately transferring the bond over to Minh.
  • Also, technically the Lightspeed Rescueverse is the sameverse as Mighty Morphin. All Rangers are. The only acceptions are Dino Charge and RPM.
• Wouldn't have been way better to say the "[Color] Ranger power!" and zoom in from the third season? Why do the normal morph and they call out the Zords?
  • The special probably was originally intended primarily as a season one celebration more than anything else, which is why they use the Dinozords, the green ranger instead of white ranger and the season one morphing call. Amy Jo Johnson and Jason David Frank were even approached to play Kimberley and Tommy. But both refused and Austin St John wasn’t allowed to travel to New Zealand due to his legal troubles, so they had to write out the green ranger and bring in Rocky and Katherine to replace Jason and Kimberley. Assuming that was a relatively late change in production, the renders for the CGI Dino Megazord may have already been done. At that point it makes sense to keep the season one morphing call, because the season three call was tied to the Ninja Zords.
    • To back it up, Jason David Frank died too.

---