Power Rangers Cleanup

LET'S GO CLEANUP RANGERS!

Ah, Power Rangers, a long running franchise based on Super Sentai footage that has changed hands multiple times over the course of its many, many series. This has resulted in the quality fluctuating over each series, with pages for each either having complaining issues (Turbo, Megaforce) or gushing issues (In Space, Beast Morphers).

Since nobody else has done it, I guess I have to take the mantle of being the one to start the cleaning up of messes that these pages have.

Let's start with this example of First Installment Wins on the franchise YMMV.

• Subverted in regards to the Neo-Saban era, where the first entry, Samurai, was a top contender for the worst entry in the franchise for a while - and while Megaforce is now seen as worse, Samurai is still a Contested Sequel at best. In the case of the Neo-Saban era, it's third installment wins, since Dino Charge is considered the best.

First of all, YMMV can't be played with. Second of all, this just seems to exist to complain.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Jun 7th 2021 at 10:02:32 AM

Yeah that example can go. As hated as the Neo-Saban/Early Nickelodeon seasons are, that's just complaining and not at all an example of First Installment Wins. I also found these examples on the same page from Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:

• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Carter Grayson from Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue was originally considered a bland, uninteresting character. However, over time, he has become a Memetic Badass. "Yesterday Again" showed that He Really Can Act. Also in comparison to the past rangers in "Forever Red", he does come across as too reliant on his weapons, but few other rangers had the same "go in guns blazing" mentality. So Carter doesn't use the typical strategies other Rangers use but instead just shoots at the bad guys or tries to run them over with the rescue jeep.

I feel like Carter is more a character being Vindicated by History, since he wasn't changed that much in Lightspeed Rescue and was mostly a cool heroic leader throughout, though I'm not sure if that trope applies to characters.

• Ricardo "Rick" Medina is an interesting case. Originally playing the hated Cole in Power Rangers Wild Force, he was almost completely forgotten. Then, when Saban announced that Medina would be returning in Power Rangers Samurai, the fans almost went irate. This all changed, however, when his character Deker showed up. (That, and Medina himself was less of a jerk in Real Life as well.)
• Blake Foster (Justin from Power Rangers Turbo) is another odd case. Justin was hated for being an annoying brat. However, ever since he finished puberty, fans are much more loving of Foster, especially since he has expressed his appreciation of the fandom. Justin himself was redeemed fairly well in "True Blue to the Rescue", where he comes to save the day.

These examples involving Rick Medina and Blake Foster have to go since not only are they examples of real life people being given an audience reaction, but they have also become less liked among fans later on, Rick for murdering someone and Blake for starting drama towards Abraham Rodriguez, the actor that played Nate Silva, the Gold Beast Morpher Ranger.

• For one with a much faster turnaround, there's Alpha 6, also from Turbo. He was introduced as Alpha 5's Totally Radical, slightly ruder replacement. In the changeover to Power Rangers in Space, 6 had some emergency repairs that removed those traits and made him a straight expy of 5, making him much more acceptable.

Alpha 6 can stay though since he was hated in Turbo due to his annoying rap talk, but was more well received when he started acting like the original one in the seasons In Space and Lost Galaxy (I think? It's been a while since I last saw it but I thought I remembered him being at least in the two-part opening). That said, a more detailed entry about him is already on the page for Power Rangers in Space, so this example here might not stay around.

• Back in the franchise's early years, before they began their Discard and Draw approach each season, any time an actor left, their replacement was hated on sight. However, given time and a little Character Development, most are able to shed their Suspiciously Similar Substitute origins and become well-liked on their own merits. Rocky, Adam, Kat, Tanya, TJ and Cassie. The only one who didn't get this was Aisha, who had the unfortunate problem of spending most of her tenure Out of Focus (though Karan Ashley is a fan favorite, at least.)

The replacement rangers I think could stay since over time they were more well received after they get different powers in the later seasons, the Zeo powers and the In Space powers respectively, with Aisha unfortunately not getting that due to her actress leaving before Zeo. That said, it might be too general since it's more than one character, though I think it would otherwise qualify.

That last one just seems like a general example. I wouldn't miss it if it was cut.

Been thinking, and you have a point, the ones the example does list can be listed on their own section for their own examples, like how Adam got more popular as Mighty Morphin went on, or how Rocky was more well-received as the Blue Zeo Ranger than the Red Mighty Morphin'. I'll try and make examples for them if they're not there already.

I also found this for LGBT Fanbase on the same page:

• LGBT Fanbase: An argument can be made for the WHOLE franchise, starting with the dozens of attractive young men running around in rainbow spandex. One could also cite the No Hugging, No Kissing rule as playing into it; many of the friendships which are meant to be platonic are so emotionally charged that they come off as Ho Yay. Many teams have had characters that that fandom at large views as coded gay or bi (Kelsey, Vida, Jayden and Antonio, or Riley for example). It also helps that many of the ranger alumni are LGBT+ allies, and have participated in NoH8 photoshoots. With Power Rangers S.P.D. we can also point specifically to Doggie Cruger, who became an instant Bara Genre icon. His counterpart from SPD's source material, Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, is submissive (and VERY muscular) in almost every erotic pic of him (even if it's straight!)

This needs to be rewritten. YMMV tropes aren't arguable so the first sentence goes, but the show is pretty popular among LGBT audiences and it helps most of the actors are accepting of this, with some like David Yost (Billy) actually being Gay. However, one thing that bothers me is the last two sentences involving Doggie Cruger and his Sentai counterpart, which not only feels like it should be their own and includes mention of the Sentai, but I feel like mentioning the erotic fan-art is going a bit too far, especially when it mentions the "straight" art when that's not what LGBT Fanbase is for.

Edited by ejmenendez on Jun 8th 2021 at 10:49:48 AM

I found this on Turbo:

• The Scrappy:
  • Justin, who had shades of the Creator's Pet. But a lot of it comes mostly from concept rather than execution. He was a young kid compared to the older Rangers and no matter how hard Blake Foster tried he always stuck out among the group. But as a character he was fairly well rounded: skilled and observant but with moments of jealousy, pride and short-sightedness. It doesn't help that Justin's actor Blake Foster recently went on social media to attack Abraham Rodriguez (Power Rangers Beast Morphers' Nate). Foster has subsequently received a lot of backlash from fans and fellow PR actors alike.
  • Alpha 6, also of Turbo, could qualify. While Alpha 5 was dorky-but-lovable, Alpha 6 was an attempt to make Alpha cool by using forced-hip slang ("Yo, Rangers!"). It's no coincidence that as Turbo ended, he was damaged, and his voice chip needed to be replaced with one of Alpha 5's.
  • Dimitria, both for replacing Zordon and being limited to interrogative statements for the first half of the series.
  • Elgar, mainly for being obnoxious and not remotely threatening.
  • Divatox is this due to the fact she replaced The Machine Empire and whining all the time when she loses. She also likes to set explosions all over the place and ALWAYS setting them for an hour, enough time for the Rangers to get rid of them! She is also seen as Rita-lite most of the time.
  • There are many fans who dislike Ashley simply because of her actress, Tracy Lynn Cruz. She had dated Johnny Yong Bosch and in an interview years later he said once she got on Turbo she dumped him, stole his money and his car. Johnny (and Adam) was already The Woobie to fans and some people paint Tracy as evil, saying that she "eats the skulls of babies to survive". To be fair to Tracy some fans even asked her if she did eat them during a Power Morphicon. Johnny appears to regret letting out that information, due to how bad the backlash got.
  • The Blue Senturion isn't very popular either. The fan theory that he was, in fact, responsible for the events of Power Rangers RPM didn't help; though that was eventually Jossed by "Clash of the Red Rangers".

I reported this on The Scrappy Cleanup thread, but no one responded. The points I made about these examples on the thread still stand and I think Justin and Alpha-6 are the only big keeps, while Dimitria is more of a Replacement Scrappy. Elgar might count but he's also on Base-Breaking Character, which now that I look at it, is essentially the same entry on here but with a few more words and an added sentence.

• Elgar has detractors mainly for being obnoxious and not remotely threatening. But he also has fans for his badassery as the season progressed.

Divatox also has a Base-Breaking Character entry that is more original and fair, but could at least get rid of the "for some reason" in the first sentence.

• Divatox has detractors due to being a comedic villain and the fandom's general aversion to funny villains for some reason. But her hamminess and good looks, and not to mention her rivalry with Astronema one season later, give her a decent number of fans.

Ashley and Blue Senturion are definintely not Scrappies, where the former is more X-Pac Heat, where the actress is hated, but the character is mostly liked, especially with her relationship with Andros, and the latter isn't even close to being hated and the example is more based on a non-canon theory that is never actually brought up in any season.

The What Could Have Been entry for SPD says that the A-Squad were originally planned to be brainwashed, but Greg Aronowitz has repeatedly said in interviews that that was never the case. I want to remove it, but I'm worried about starting an edit war or looking nitpicky.

Looking at the page history. Seems some troper named Tv Lubber deleted the scrappy entries for elgar and just ported it to the base breaking character.

The Ashley example, as written, sounds more like X-Pac Heat or something similar (since apparently that trope is Wrestling-only). Fans hate a character not because of how they're portrayed, but because they have something against the actor.

Edited by WackyPancake on Jun 11th 2021 at 2:27:25 PM

Also, the Ashley entry sounds unnecessarily rude, and The Woobie is under No Real Life Examples.

So what should be done about Ashley/Tracey? Should I try to find an alternative for X-Pac Heat or should I get rid of it entirely? I'm personally leaning towards cutting it since it is nonetheless talking about the real life person and not in a wrestling sense.

I'd say cut.

Also, the Power Rangers entry on Iconic Sequel Character lists every particularly well-liked series in its own sub-bullet with the exact same "one of the most iconic and beloved in the franchise" sentence. Should it be trimmed?

Definitely trim it.

For starters most of them are Zero-Context Examples and are too general, like you said. If they're are any keeps, they need to be expanded on.

Now let's take a look at each of them:

• Power Rangers:
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers
    • Lord Zedd is introduced in the second season, but is still one of the most remebered villains in the franchise to this day. Definite keep.
    • Adam Park is introduced during the second season as the replacement black ranger, but nonetheless becomes one of the most beloved and recognizable characters in the entire franchise. Also a keep. The character has plenty of fans thanks to being played by Johnny Yong Bosch and having a really good crossover episode with Carlos.
    • Katherine Hillard is introduced in Season 3 as a Brainwashed and Crazy villain and then the replacement pink ranger. She then went on to become one of the most recognizable rangers in the franchise. Debatable. On one hand, she isn't as marketed as Kimberly was, but on the other hand she is the pink Zeo ranger and does have an important role among fans. Leaning towards keep but I won't argue if anyone suggests otherwise.
  • Divatox is one of the most fondly remembered villains in the franchise but didn't show up until the Pilot Movie for Power Rangers Turbo (Season 5). The series proper introduces replacement red, yellow, and pink rangers T.J. Wilson, Ashley Hammond, and Cassie Chan, three of the most popular rangers in the franchise. Cut. Divatox is a huge Base-Breaking Character among fans and the rangers, while certainly popular in the next season, are still too general to count.
  • Power Rangers in Space (Season 6) introduces Andros, Karone/Astronema, and The Psycho Rangers. Keep the Psycho Rangers due to them being incredibly well-known thanks to being evil counterparts of the rangers to the point where they were brought back in the comics. Maybe Andros and Astronema as both are pretty popular as well. But definitely expand on all of them if kept.
  • Power Rangers Lost Galaxy (Season 7) introduces Leo Corbett, Maya, Kendrix Morgan, and Trakeena. Cut. While the show and these characters do have a lot of fans, they haven't made many appearances outside of their own season, barring the crossovers of course, so they unfortunately might not count.
  • The entire Power Rangers Time Force cast (one of the most beloved ones in the franchise) were introduced in the ninth season. Cut, though maybe explain Jen and Eric as they are popular among fans and have major appearances outside the television series, particularly the comics and the Battle for the Grid video game.
  • The eponymous Power Rangers: Dino Thunder sans Tommy Oliver is one of the most beloved ranger teams in the franchise. They were introduced in the twelfth season. Cut, they're popular among fans, but lack of major appearances out of their season hurts their chances of this trope, the Beast Morphers/Dino Charge crossover only having them as cameos in the end not helping.
  • The eponymous Power Rangers S.P.D. is one of the most beloved ranger teams in the franchise. They were introduced in the thirteenth season. Cut, though maybe explain about Doggie Krueger due to fans finding him to be a really good mentor as well as being the first one, minus Tommy, to also be a ranger. Appearing in the comics and some video games certainly helps.
  • The eponymous Power Rangers Jungle Fury is one of the most beloved ranger teams in the franchise. They were introduced in the sixteenth season. Cut. While R.J. has made appearances, the cast is still not the most well-known among fans.
  • The entire Power Rangers RPM cast (one of the most beloved ones in the franchise) were introduced in the seventeenth season. Cut. While popular among fans, it's still not the first thing one thinks of when they hear Power Rangers, though maybe explain Venjix as fans find him to be really menacing and effective villain, and was even brought back in Beast Morphers as Evox.
  • The entire Power Rangers Dino Charge cast (one of the most beloved ones in the franchise) were introduced in the twenty first season. Cut. The cast, while likable, isn't as popular among longtime fans, mostly due to still being recent.
  • The entire Power Rangers Beast Morphers cast Evox (one of the most beloved ones in the franchise) were introduced in the twenty sixth season. Cut. Like Dino Charge the season is too recent to really count, being the last season before Dino Fury and only ending about a year ago.

Edited by ejmenendez on Jun 12th 2021 at 12:12:44 PM

I'll cut the ones you suggested later, but I haven't seen enough of Time Force to be able to flesh out its entry.

EDIT: Done! I didn't add Venjix, though, because I didn't know what to say about him.

Edited by NitroIndigo on Jun 12th 2021 at 9:51:29 AM

Okay good news and bad news. The bad news is I just realized that their was a requirement for Iconic Sequel Character:

Note: in order for a character in a serialized television show to count, they must have appeared no earlier than season two. Examples that appeared in late season one go under Breakout Character.

So technically the only legit examples would be Lord Zedd and Adam.

However, the good news is that the examples could be all moved to Breakout Character here, with some examples I can try and fix up and some commented out examples that can be expanded upon. One example I do have questions over is this:

• "Once A Ranger" was a Milestone Celebration episode of Power Rangers Operation Overdrive which saw the Overdrive Rangers team-up with a team of popular Rangers from previous seasons. This team of Retro Rangers consisted of the aforementioned Adam Park of MMPR to Turbo fame, Tori Hanson from Ninja Storm, Kira Ford from Dino Thunder, Bridge Carson from SPD and Xander Bly from Mystic Force.

Outside of Adam, thanks to his actor's popularity and his well-received crossover appearances, the rest of the rangers are debatable since outside of this episode, they haven't had a major appearance since, so it could be looked at.

So the characters on Iconic Sequel Character after Mighty Morphin, and maybe Kat can all be moved to the Breakout Character page for Live-Action TV. Again I'm so sorry, I didn't even realize it until I looked at the note on Iconic Sequel Character. Other than that, good work.

While it's true that most seasons of Power Rangers are self-contained, they're still "sequels" because they're not the first instalment.

Yeah, that's a really good point. Power Rangers is kind of different from other TV shows since the Zordon era could be seen as different sequels as they continued it's story but gained new powers, acquired new equipment, and meet new characters until In Space, and even then while all seasons take place in the same universe, with a few exceptions like RPM and Dino Charge, it still has different characters and powers from the last time they were shown. In that case, keep it as is.

On the Hindsight Cleanup, I brought up the Hilarious in Hindsight entries for Power Rangers SPD, but no-one responded. I'm too new to post links, so:

• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Omni, the final villain of the series, is an extremely powerful sentient spaceship, capable of warping people's minds to serve him. Sound familiar? Fan Myopia
  • When it comes to just the spaceship part, it's inverted. A previous Sentai season also did it. Audience reactions can't be inverted
  • In the first episode, Sky says that Bridge is not Red Ranger material. Cue the 15th Anniversary Special (see above). In that same episode, Kruger asks Sky if he'd follow Syd into battle if she was a Red Ranger, only for him to scoff that she's a girl. A dozen or so episodes later, and the A-Squad is revealed to be female... and a couple of years later... Seems fine, but four years is more than "a couple" and 30+ episodes is more than "a dozen".
  • Power Rangers beat Super Sentai in the first Female Red race. This is fine in a vacuum, but it's redundant with the last sentence of the previous bullet.
  • Hey, Boom? There's an orange ranger now! Not sure.
  • Hey, Boom? YOU'RE actually a Ranger now, though red instead of orange. Not sure. (This is about a recurring actor, by the way.)
  • So Syd can absorb materials to use as a secondary skin & use the material as a weapon in civilian form, huh? Wonder what cartoons about at least one Henshin Hero would take that idea & run with it for one of its secondary/main charact* Fan Myopia that isn't even finished.
  • Several about Chris Violette: Both of these feel like tenuous connections.
    • He once again wore a blue uniform for a future space paramilitary force as Britch Weeton on Star Trek: Discovery.
    • He was cast as Domingo in Supergirl (2015), who is, unlike Sky, racist against aliens.

Also, I think there should be a Super Sentai cleanup, because they tend to attract example bloat and mutual Fan Myopia with Kamen Rider.

Edited by NitroIndigo on Jun 12th 2021 at 6:59:06 PM

Most of them can definitely be cut. Most of these examples talk about a work that has nothing to do with Power Rangers, like Mass Effect or Ben 10.

As for the Bridge becoming a Red Ranger and the female Alpha Ranger examples, those are definite keeps, though explain what is hilarious about Bridge as we can't reference other on-page tropes in examples, as they can be removed or changed, and make the "dozen or so episodes" into "near the finale". I'm debating on the whole Super Sentai thing as while Power Rangers does rely on the former's footage, for the most part both shows are their own thing with different stories and characters. Maybe note how SPD had a female red before Shinkenger got theirs, but I'm not entirely sure.

As for the Boom examples, I'm leaning towards keeping the example of him becoming a ranger since while his actor has been a recurring actor, Power Rangers Ninja Steel is his first time coming back as a main character. Definitely remove the first Orange Ranger since, 1. there has been an Orange Ranger before him in both Ranger and Sentai shows, Battle Cossack, and 2. there are debates on wether or not Kat from the same season counts as an Orange or White Ranger or her own classification, Cat Ranger.

The consensus on this wiki seems to be that SS and PR are close enough that their Mythology Gag entries can include references to each other.

EDIT: I trimmed the Hilarious in Hindsight entry. Courtesy link.

Edited by NitroIndigo on Jun 13th 2021 at 9:38:05 AM

Sounds reasonable, in that case SPD having a female red before Shinkenger can likely be referenced somewhere.

I added an Older Than They Think entry on YMMV.Samurai Sentai Shinkenger as well.

I think Astronema, Eric and Venjix can have their own entries under iconic sequel character. They all appear later and have Astronema later got a major appearance in the subsequent series and appeared in megaforce. While Venjix is an outright returning big bad and well liked due to his menace and competence. I can draft entries if you like.

Go ahead. I omitted those characters because I wasn't sure what to say about them.

Sorry for double posting, but the more recent PR seasons have an entire section for meta examples on their moments pages. I know that's not allowed, but since this is quite a big thing to edit, I'm asking for consensus first.

Most Meta moments can be cut. However, I did ask this a question about Yugioh The Abridged Series and it's Awesome page a while back in this thread with the response being that if it's about the content of the work itself or if it's still in-character and technically an extension of the work, it can count as a moment, so something like the Samurai Rangers appearance at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade might count and be rewritten. Anything else on the other hand can be deleted.