Power Rangers as a whole

It's hardly that simple. Any more stuff than that requires in-episode time, so they would need to change parts of the script to justify a short Megazord battle. That was barely a minute's worth of time. Any more and they have to cut out pieces. So having extra footage doesn't do that much in the end. Them being from different dimensions also implies not everything "can" be done like summon their zords.

Likewise, they have to justify why others have their zords too. Tommy being able to transform into other forms was already crazy enough, and that may have been the only zord he can summon. It may be a specific ability of only that particular Morpher(one thought is that it's the only one they managed to get through the dimension). It's a decent enough justification that doesn't require too much thought.

Another issue is, why can't everyone use a zord too as long as it exists? It goes in both directions. One person with a special morpher using a zord is pretty easy to justify. The rest require more work and writing to justify it. Not that Tommy's abilities weren't clearly being overused throughout the episode, but they centered it around him. There's little time to explain every tiny little detail.

It's kind of a poor episode outside of the music, anyway. It would've been better as a 2-parter, yeah, so it could have a proper set of Megazord battles. Though that might require extra editing. And clearly some Zords need to be standalone. My guess is they felt it was easier to not try and write extra lines and keep it as simple as possible(and make Tommy the core character as is). It did honestly work, but it could've been better given more time.

Frankly, it's still better than the horrid end to Super Megaforce. The lack of a full Megazord battle is fair(how the hell do many exist? Some were outright destroyed and there's nothing to suggest they could be brought back through the Morphin Grid. After the ridiculous amount of "random power-ups", adding more to the bunch makes it more confusing. Especially when the Thunderzords and Dinozords were the same ones. But not in Japan, where they're unrelated. So it was just a mess). But they barely used the other rangers to fight, which they had footage of. That I don't feel is justified well. Though another full episode couldn't do much, since they would have to massively edit a ton of footage out. Besides that, suddenly reviving old enemies might not make sense much for PR. Yes, some were actually in some kind of "Hell" of sorts, but not all were. The lore isn't too well connected for every crossover to work right.

XD So a while back I was watching OG Power Rangers for a nostalgia trip. Just picked up again at S2:E39 "Rangers Back in Time", and was immediately struck by how funny cheesy 90's supervillain writing was.

Zedd's just watching the Rangers give presentations on childhood photos to their class because he's a voyeur, and then he's like,

• Zedd: That's it! Why didn't you fools think of this before?! The Rangers met Zordon as teenagers. If we turn back time and return them to childhood, they will be powerless.
• Goldar: An excellent idea, my lord, but how will we accomplish it?
• Zedd: You fool! With the Rock of Time! By calling forth its power, we will cause the Earth to begin spinning backward and time along with it.

Like. Can we take a moment to really appreciate this scene? Zedd's just watching Kimberly show off her childhood photo and then, out of f*cking nowhere, he just blurts out, "WE TERMINATOR THE POWER RANGERS AS INFANTS. It's so obvious! Why did no one ever do it before?!"

And Goldar has to try his very hardest not to say out loud, "That is the stupidest f*cking thing I've ever heard working this job, and I was there for the mind-control pachinko machine." Like, he is does a fantastic job of brown-nosing while still asking the important question about the logistics of Zedd's nonsense plan.

And then Zedd, like a boss, is just like, "Obviously we use the time control MacGuffin that's just been sitting in the corner gathering dust THIS WHOLE TIME." And then, just like that, he's not the crazy one. He's the guy pointing out that apparently this has always been an option and, from the beginning, Team Evil's just been stupidly not using it.

Like. That's kind of amazing.

EDIT: Also, nobody has the nerve to just point out to Zedd that if they kill the Rangers as children, then Zordon will retroactively pick different teenagers to be the Power Rangers, so this is really just kicking the can down the road. In fact, 50% of this team wasn't even there for the original Teenagers with Attitude decision.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 4th 2020 at 11:44:06 AM

It's been implied that the original five weren't even the first Power Rangers team on Earth. And as we'll later find out, Zordon is very good at finding new teenagers who are eager to fight the forces of evil.

Also, it's five overbearing and over emotional humans, thank you very much.

Edited by windleopard on May 4th 2020 at 10:52:45 AM

That was actually my only issue with it. The team is not the original team, so the plot doesn't really work logically.

It's not a stupid idea, but the timeline makes no sense. This would've been a great plot to have before the team changeover. The other time travel plot isn't much better, but it's way way back in time where they have ancestors. I don't think it contradicted anyone either, as they can be born in era, move throughout the world, and come back to Angel Grove or anywhere in the world by well over, what was it, 50-some years later?

The second Green Ranger was handled pretty well, at least, too. The time shenanigans don't cause any logistics issues, unless overall any "time" changes feel weird, respectively.

And then there's Alien Rangers, who feel like a re-hash of the first timeline plot, but it actually makes sense since it's not specifically turning back time so much as affecting only them. Not to say it's great writing, but there's no weird logic in that.

It's a good thing time travel isn't that often used as a plot device. And Time Force, the one who massively uses it, actually does bother to explore the problems it causes.

Wait, was that the time Zedd turned the rangers into children for one episode, or the time he did it and everyone on Earth got younger for an entire half season and Zordon had to call in ringers from a water planet? Wait, no, the second time it was Master Vile.

Also, that whole turn back time plot has some pretty big fridge horror. Like, if they turned back time ten years, what happened to everyone who was less than ten years old?

This is kind of random, but the other day I saw the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Darkmok, AKA the one where Picard gets trapped on an alien planet and had to work together with an alien captain whose race only ever speak in references to their mythology. Well, just before watching it, I watched a youtube video of Jason meeting Tommy for the first time at that exhibition match. Because of this, I kept mentally replacing the aliens' dialogue with references to the Green with Evil arc.

"Jason and Tommy at the martial arts exhibition. Jason and Tommy f**kfight."
"Tommy, under Rita's thrall."
"The sun hides behind the moon. The Megazord loses power."

Edited by WillKeaton on May 4th 2020 at 12:27:42 PM

Okay, I was NOT prepared for The Rock of Time to literally just be some random chunk of granite sitting on some hillside in... Mexico?

It's honestly hard to tell where the Rock is because Zedd's lightning bolt to activate it just sort of scans randomly across Vaguely North America. But from the angle we see the planet, the landmass he's striking is definitely on the east side of the Gulf of California.

So the Rock sends out a satellite that Superman Flies around the planet, spinning it the opposite direction and making time move backwards. And I like how Billy can actually see time moving backwards. Like. The clock is spinning in reverse but he's still moving forward in time.

Like. That's actually reasonable. In a sane universe, this is what would happen. Clocks would move backwards (well, today they would, I think; old-school mechanical clocks like this one shouldn't even be affected at all), but, like, time would still progress at an ordinary rate. And I kinda want the episode to just end right here and for the last shot to be a frustrated Zedd swearing and reading physics textbooks.

And I'm still marveling at how the Rock of Time has apparently just always been an option. Like, I expected to eat my words when it's some ancient space artifact with a huge cost. But no. It's just a big rock in Mexico. You shoot it with lightning and it shifts the Earth into reverse gear. No muss, no fuss.

Kind of amazing to realize that the passage of time is actually a conveyor belt, complete with a forward and backward switch. And also localized by planet; reversing time on Earth doesn't reverse time on the moon. Otherwise, turning back the clock to a time when Rita and her forces were still in a space dumpster wouldn't be such a hot idea.

I mean the rock of time just being there is on par with "Rangers we need those super guns which are on a random hill alongside a whole extra zord who will join you if you show mild competence."

Like imagine the first time Evil!Tommy calls the Dragonzord and the Rangers reply with Titanus.

Edited by Ghilz on May 4th 2020 at 2:05:08 PM

Wait a second, I've seen this.

...

And the next arc, the wedding between Rita and Zedd. I remember complaining about how uncomfortable and rapey that wound up being. Where the hell did I leave off?

(checks)

So apparently I haven't watched the show since losing my old job around the same time the Obama Administration was in office. My last episode was Wizard for a Day.

Okay. I guess I'll move to 03x11 - Fourth Down and Long.

Ah, the random monsters that kind of fit nothing due to Japanese footage.

One thing worth noting is the rock of time at least was gotten rid of. The super blasters were never used again, unlike Titanus, who was used for a good chunk of episodes. Certainly better than Tor, though he did get some decent use outside of the few Ultrazord moments. Due to the script, probably only one more time was planned(Tommy calls out Ultrazord but makes the Mega Tigerzord instead). Titanus gets barely used in Season 3, but that's not even in the Japanese version, so it makes sense to barely use it. And then there's the Shogun Ultrazord, which they didn't use the JP toys for(but that makes sense, as they're selling the US toys, heh).

Warning for spoilers for Tobias Drake.

Actually, it just occurs to me that every instance of a Ranger joining the good fight in the MMPR era was due to something the villains did!

• The original five would never have taken up Zordon's offer if Rita hadn't sent her putties to attack them and made them realize what was at stake if they didn't stop her.

• Tommy became a Ranger due to Rita kidnapping and brainwashing him and not only would he join the team but he would also become a thorn in a number of other villains' sides as well. No wonder Rita and Zedd were hated so much in the United Alliance.

• The Stone Canyon trio only learned about the Rangers' identities due to them being kidnapped by Goldar to trap the Rangers. This then lead to them becoming Rangers themselves.

• Rita repeats her "kidnap and brainwash the new teenager in town" plan with Kat. After she is freed from Rita's control she replaces Kim when she is put on a bus.

• Rita creates a clone of Tommy and gives him the Green Ranger powers. Tommy convinces the clone to rebel and he aids the team against Rita and Zedd.

• Tanya became a Ranger when the Rangers were sent through time to look for the Zeo crystals to restore their age after Master Vile turned back time.

Zordon should have sent Rita and Zedd a thank you note.

Power Rangers, not just MMPR, is very strongly based on Villains Act, Heroes React. Power Rangers are always a reactive force. The only exception would probably be the ones where the rangers are also Cops (IE: SPD/Timeforce).

Like I struggle to think of a season where the villains doesn't cause the handing out of powers in some ways.

EDIT: Probably Dinothunder? The main trio get the Dino Gems by breaking into Tommy's lab, but the villain AFAIK doesn't really cause it.

Edited by Ghilz on May 4th 2020 at 2:41:00 PM

Well the villain did kind of help create the Ranger powers in the first place.

Time Force somewhat has it to, as that's how Wes became the Red Ranger, as they needed someone from that time to become it to react to Ransik.

S.P.D. also has it. This is how we got the last two core Rangers, why the Shadow Ranger exists, and it partially affects how the Omega Ranger exists too(lesser degree as well).

In Space at first subverts it with only the Red Ranger. Already had his powers, not due to the villains showing up.

For the most part, the heroes get their powers to help fight the villains, by the first three episodes. Turbo started as a movie, so technically subverts it if you only look at the show. Phantom Ranger also has no real details on who he is. Magna Defender(original) is played up oddly, since it's not clear if it's a race or not. Considering Zika is the same. I don't think there was a Magna Defender II in Gingaman, so you din't have to worry about that kind of logic.

Sorta, but it's like, pre-villainy days. So I can sort of give it a pass, compared to all the seasons where its

• Villain: Is freed
• Mentor: "Well here's powers we were saving for this"

or

Villain tries to claim powers, only for heroes to beat them to it and become rangers.

Speaking of which, how many villains are Sealed Evil in a Can. Rita, Bansheera and Demons, Ransik (Briefly), The Orgs, Mystic Force bad guys, Dai Shi, the Operation Overdrive villains, Nighloks... If you include "Has been banished and returned" as a variation of this, then Lothor and Sledge arguably count.

But it's all but said that Andros and Zane always had their powers to fight Dark Specter's forces behind the scenes. It's just that we never got to see it. But it's basically also in reaction to villains.

And yeah the cops get their powers because of the villains, but I meant that in their case they tend to be more proactive coz they have an actual dayjob as cops.

Edited by Ghilz on May 4th 2020 at 2:56:26 PM

Lost Galaxy plays with it, as the powers themselves weren't actually known to create Rangers, but the swords existed as legendary artifacts to help fight evil.

Trakeena and Scorpius aren't banished, but they do show up similar to Lothor and Sledge too. Coincidentally they have their own spaceship. Also, our favorite space pirate(not Ridley) shows up akin to Trakeena and Scorpius.

It's not a reaction to the current cast, so it's a subversion at first. The backstory does go into it properly later on, explaining why they have their powers.

But that's also cause the Power Rangers were created in general to fight evil who always existed. That's part of how the Morphin Grid works.

Also, the first true exception is Beast Morphers, but in a different way. The suits were created not because of the villains whatsoever. They however did gain them to help fight the latest villains. Somebody was going to get them to just naturally protect.

S.P.D. had a backstory as well for Kruger of villains already fighting. The suits are for cadets, so it's not like villains didn't already exist. It's not a very good exception in-universe. There's multiple villains who exist that aren't just cause of Broodwing alone(who at best supplied vehicles, but that was it). The A-Squad already fought in their Megazord in the first episode, suggesting that the suits are for dangerous villains. It somewhat plays with the idea.

Edited by Irene on May 4th 2020 at 2:03:06 PM

But the villains basically are what lead the rangers to pulling the swords out of the stones. They show up to stop the villain from getting them and Mike first pulls the red saber to block an attack.

(Also since Magna Defender was mentioned, the villains are responsible for that too since their attempt to kill Mike is what freed him)

Edited by Ghilz on May 4th 2020 at 2:58:14 PM

Man, makes you wonder how much trouble many were to kill that they keep sealing them instead of blowing them up.

04x11 - Fourth Down and Long

Rita: If those brats can't follow a simple chemistry problem, why can't we defeat them?

Because chemistry is hard.

Finster's made a centipede monster mold, but Rita rejects the idea of more bugs. Can we just appreciate that Finster's job is literally character design? Like, what he does isn't really that different from a graphic designer creating new monsters for a video game. I wonder if he went to college for that?

And then the centipede mold accidentally fuses with a football to make a football centipede monster who magically turns people into footballs by hitting them with one. And the villains shit-talking each other in the process of celebrating this discovery is comedy gold.

• Goldar: (on Rito being made into a football) Look! He's finally useful for something!
• Zedd: Toss me that Ritoball!
• ...
• Zedd: Finster, by sheer accident, you've created something you could never have created on purpose!

Like. Was that necessary? Lord Zedd is the master of negging. Oh, I did not expect to like this episode but I'm having fun with these assholes.

So, for the human plot, Rocky's tutoring this kid Allen who is apparently dyslexic. And they treat it pretty sympathetically. Allen's smart, he just has a condition that he has to deal with. Rocky takes him to talk to his dyslexic uncle, who can give him advice. I like this.

Bulk and Skull are junior police for reasons I vaguely remember. They want to get an autograph from Rocky's uncle, triggering this great response, "These are parking violations. I'm not going to sign these."

Monster shows up and attacks. Because of his pointless secret identity, Rocky has to jump in in his civvies, but fortunately the monster is kind enough to transform everyone except Rocky first, neatly cutting away the potential conflict in whether or not Rocky should reveal himself as a Power Ranger to them in order to save their lives. Though I still can't help but think this could have been avoided if he'd just morphed as soon as he saw the monster.

Centiback kicks Rocky's ass, but Rocky calls Zordon for help. Zordon says he'll send the rest of the Rangers immediately, and holy shit does he mean it. Literally seconds later, the entire team shows up. What were they all doing, that they could individually drop this quickly? Kinda feel like Rocky was getting snubbed from some kind of team activity right now.

• Rocky: Don't let the ball touch you! (points at the footballs) See?! See what happens?! That's Uncle Joe and the others!
• Centiback: Alright! Second string's arrived! Ready to be sidelined?
• Tommy: I don't think so. It's gonna be you who's sent to the showers, not us.

Tommy's rocking it with the confidence of a team leader who's seen his share of this shit, while Rocky still hasn't quite shaken off the New Guy vibe, sounding more like a panicking bystander.

The Rangers and the Tengas square off to play football and I'm weirdly here for it. This is the part I was dreading but it's a lot of fun. Centiback is weirdly charismatic while he steadily tears through the Rangers, transforming one after another.

Rocky makes a play for Centiback, and Aisha uselessly stands in the back cheering for him. "Hey, Rocky! Get him!" Like, he's actually fighting off a swarm of Tengas and you can SEE HER in the background jumping up and down doing cheers. YOU COULD BE HELPING, YELLOW RANGER.

Centiback finally notices her and nails Aisha with a football, and nothing of value is lost (at least in regards to this fight). Rocky quits the field, realizing how screwed he is.

• Rocky: Those footballs emit an energy beam, right? Maybe we could turn the beam upside down and backwards... and invert the spell!

OKAY. That's not gibberish at all! And the worst part is that according to Alpha, the science is actually sound.

• Zordon: It is imperative that we summon Ninjor.
• Ninjor: (appears) Did someone say Ninjor?

Man, everyone is just conveniently available as soon as they're requested today. I think Ninjor's been hanging out over in the corner this whole time.

So Rocky and Ninjor go to fight.

• Rocky: I'm not afraid of you, Centiback, now that I can reverse the spell!

DON'T TELL HIM THAT, YOU IDIOT.

So Rocky catches the football in a bucket and the bucket turns its energy beam upside down and backwards so that he can throw it at the other footballs and make them human. Because f*ck you, that's why. Power Rangers doesn't need to explain itself to you.

Then they do it again and the ball passes right by Centiback, like inches from his face, to save the Rangers. You know, for a football monster, he is alarmingly bad at intercepting passes.

Rita sizes up the monster and the Rangers call in their Ninjazords. They then proceed to do f*ck-all for a bit while Ninjor fights the monster instead. They literally throw one punch. Ninjor does all of the work in taking down Centiback.

There's a bit of wacky comedy where Bulk and Skull get chewed out by their supervising officer for abandoning their post, which wasn't their fault because they were turned into footballs by a magic football monster. During which, the officer gestures with a football, and Bulk and Skull have PTSD attacks about the football. Everyone laughs at them because f*ck those assholes.

I dunno. This bit feels kinda mean-spirited.

And then the episode ends on Allen being diagnosed with dyslexia. Uncle Joe basically stares into the camera and explains the meaning of dyslexia, how it affects students' ability to learn, and the importance of teachers recognizing it.

So, end result, this episode wants to have a pretty neat but thoroughly undeveloped conversation about dyslexia that is completely divorced from 90% of the events that transpire, in which Ninjor defeats a football centipede monster while the Power Rangers are nearby. And yet, it's surprisingly funny and entertaining to watch. 8/10 because people care about numbers, I guess?

I keep forgetting Ninjor exist. That the creator of the MMPR power is a guy who sounds like Dudley Do-Right is weird.

Edited by Ghilz on May 4th 2020 at 3:02:32 PM

Nobody knows they'd become rangers.

So my point stands.

I said "they somewhat play with it", not that it subverts it.

Please read what I actually say. Your rebuttal doesn't change that Lost Galaxy changes it up to a degree.

The reality is that powers are known to exist in almost every case and created by the Heroes to battle the Villains. Lost Galaxy does not do this specifically. That's what makes it played with and not the same scenario as the rest.

Besides, "Villains cause trouble and heroes react" is too broad and missing how much context exists. There's a lot of different factors. Time Force isn't even a particular subversion either. The Ranger suits exist to take down villains and put them behind bars as is. That's why they were created.

It's not a subversion because they're cops either. S.P.D. create the cop system because of villains causing trouble.

Beast Morphers is the only other one to remotely change it up. The powers were not created to battle the Villains. They were created as is as a cop system of sorts, as a secret protector to be safe. The villains showed up later.

Magna Defender II is a unique situation and the only time the powers were known to exist(they aren't even powers, they're literally Magna Defender's own body being reused as armor, which never made any sense, but Lost Galaxy was known for script issues. That's just one of them) in Lost Galaxy but the Heroes got them due to the Villains.

There's a few other cases where the powers exist not because of the villains. Why the villains are WHY the Lost Galaxy rangers gain powers, the villains didn't cause those, they are artifacts of an old war.

Then there's times where the powers are untied to the grid. The Energems don't exist because of Sledge and AFAIK the grid's not mentioned once on Dinocharge.

That's true of most series though (Lightspeed Rescue, Samurai, and half of SPD being the exception)? Like, no one knew the 5 randos from Mystic Force were gonna be the randos of prophecy till it happened.

No one knew the OG 5 were gonna be Rangers will Alpha hit the "Select 5 teenagers" button (heck by the voice over, Zordon didn't even pre-screen that shit, the computer just picked)

Mystic Force had the ancient warriors who were effectively rangers(or presented to be armored warriors similar to them, at least), so it's not a remote exception at all or remotely played with, really. The powers definitely existed first. The only slight change would be that the suits are powered by those powers, but the powers were immediately there. More specifically, Udonna outright told them they could morph, but it was presented in a mystical way to match the season.

Who got the powers wasn't my point anyway. It's that sometimes the powers are hard known beforehand, and not created strictly because of the latest villains. Sometimes they are. Well, usually they are. Some don't much explore it(Samurai) enough to understand how soon the powers were created. There's context for a lot of seasons. The powers were created back early enough in MMPR to make the Wild West Rangers too. However, they existed, what, 10,000 years ago too? Or was that 1,000 years ago? And then there's Ninjor, the original creator of the Power Coins. Wait, when did a White Coin exist? What? It's safe to say MMPR kind of didn't know how to handle stuff because the Super Sentai didn't match. This was usually fixed from Zeo and beyond.

Lightspeed Rescue already had powers created as is. It didn't happen out of nowhere. Somebody knew they'd become rangers. Same with S.P.D. Same with Samurai. These aren't "they didn't know". The person who gave out the powers literally knew what would happen.

Lost Galaxy is the only time where the Rangers existing was not something anyone knew to begin with. The only people that knew were the audience if they've seen previous seasons. It's basically the broad generalization you stated, they gain their powers in reaction(though not necessarily created cause of the villains either) to the villains causing issues.

As I said, that's a super broad generalization and it's not that simple. S.P.D. didn't make any kind of exceptions to that either. The cop system, again, is a result of villains causing trouble beforehand. It was created to fight aliens across the galaxy. We saw Rangers immediately and there was no actual flashback that suggested they didn't exist practically right away to help uphold the law. It never actually acknowledges how soon it was, so it can't really be an exception if the story doesn't explain it.

As for Magna Defender II, that's more on Magna Defender giving Mike his entire body to use. He chose to do that. The most that seems like the Magna Sword does as is is augment one's powers, and possibly controls the Torozord too. But it isn't a morpher either, which appeared out of nowhere too. It's just handled weirdly and makes little sense. It's also possible that they're humanoids who gain armor due to special trinkets too. Like a permanent evolution akin to Scorpius', but done differently. They don't really try to make sense of it either way.

Edited by Irene on May 4th 2020 at 2:28:27 PM

I don't think the Defender gave his body, so much as he gave the Armor, which is clearly tied to Torozord since when the Torozord is destroyed Mike loses the ability to morph.

The problem is? They don't suggest at any point it's ever been armor. We see alien shapeshift very often. There's nothing to suggest Zika has armor too. It's a problem with the script, and it's probably what they were going for at one point.

Magna Defender is from an alien world, so they never bothered to confirm if it's some kind of armor or their natural thing.

This isn't really a thing in the Super Sentai either(as in, it's pretty much identical bar the Magna Defender II transformation having a morpher while the Super Sentai does not). His only "upgraded" form is the giant zord thing. Which changes his armor, but the closest to a real morph in-universe.

What it's probably implying, as Bullblack and Magna Defender pass their powers along, is that it might be a battle form. But there's no way to confirm that and it could just be channeling his body into proper powers. The Magna Morpher comes out of nowhere too. It's not in the Super Sentai and just added on. So at best it seems the weapon is the "source" of the powers, but it's kind of unclear how the powers work for Magna Defender and Zika, who wear the same kind of armor. Or how defined the powers really are. Zika does have his own dagger too.

It's too bad they didn't properly define them, cause they were honestly a cool idea.

Edited by Irene on May 4th 2020 at 2:43:26 PM

... Do you not have eyes? Or are you actually suggesting he's going around naked with a knight and bull themed chitinous exoskeleton and the visor is in fact compound eyes and the cape a vestigious appendage?

Coz I'm not following where you're going. Like, we even see his armor damaged before he dies.

Like that he might not have a physical body inside the armor, or that his armor's interior is some sort of extradimensional space (since he keeps Mike in there and shoots him out of his chest?)

Edited by Ghilz on May 4th 2020 at 4:38:46 AM