[ad_1]
Rewatching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the original Power Rangers season, after growing up with the show can lead to some surprising discoveries. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers introduced a new format of adaptations in which some scenes from the already established Japanese Super Sentai franchise would be combined with an original story filmed in the United States. This unusual strategy, added to Power Rangers’ low budget, seemed like it was destined to fail. However, Mighty Morphin would end up becoming the beginning of a massive franchise.
Power Rangers has always been a show aimed at kids. As a result, some story decisions are not meant to be overanalyzed. That said, rewatching earlierPower Rangers shows, especially Mighty Morphin, can break some of the series’ magic and reveal some harsh truths about the story.
10 Zordon Recruited Kids To Fight Deadly Battles
Zordon may be seen as the benevolent Power Rangers mentor, yet some of his decisions are very controversial. Zordon recruited five teenagers who were still at high school to fight deadly battles against an intergalactic witch that, in the expanded Power Rangers universe, had been strong enough to defeat Zordon. While Power Rangers would later introduce characters that trained to be fighters from a very young age – such as In Space Red Ranger Andros – the original Power Rangers were all just kids. Zordon’s controversial style of leadership can be compared to Marvel’s Professor X, as he is both a father figure and a general to his team.
In the Power Rangers comics, Zordon’s decision to recruit “five teenagers with attitude” to counter Rita Repulsa’s return is even more shocking. The Power Rangers comics canon establishes that Jason, Trini, Zack, Billy, and Kimberly were not the first Power Rangers on Earth. Zordon put together a team of Power Rangers during the Cold War and sent them on a mission to the moon. However, of the five Power Rangers, only one survived this mission. Funnily enough, Power Rangers would only have a team of in-universe adult Rangers for the first time in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, the first post-Zordon Era Power Rangers season.
9 Rita Repulsa Could Have Super-sized Her Monsters From The Start
One of the biggest Power Rangers plot holes is that Rita Repulsa could have super-sized her monsters from the start. Likewise, how Zordon and Alpha could know the names of Rita’s monsters is a mystery. It seems like Rita, as well as most Power Rangers villains after her, followed a routine. The putty patrollers would fight the un-morphed Rangers, the monster would arrive, Rita would make the monster grow eventually, and the Power Rangers would summon their Zords. That said, there is an in-universe reason why Rita does not make her monsters grow before the battle or why the Power Rangers do not start the fight with the Megazord.
Zordon and Rita, who had known each other for thousands of years, had a non-spoken pact of no escalation. Both the Power Rangers’ leader and the witch knew that the other was powerful enough to escalate the fight very quickly, which would not help either of them. Zordon could always have sent the Power Rangers with all of their zords to attack Rita Repulsa’s Bandora Palace. However, this could have led to a full war between the Power Rangers and the likes of Lord Zedd and Dark Specter. Likewise, Rita probably feared that destroying Angel Grove with giant monsters all the time would make Zordon cross a few lines.
8 The Original Power Rangers Team Hasn’t Aged Well
One controversial fact often brought up about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is that the Yellow and Black Rangers were played by a Vietnamese-American actor and a Black actor, respectively. It must be noted that Thuy Trang did not play Trini in the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers pilot, Audri Dubois did. In addition, Walter Emanuel Jones, who played Zack in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, has said a few times that he never saw his Black Ranger casting as racist and that he is proud of having been the Black Ranger. Regardless, Power Rangers did have to evolve a lot in terms of representativity and cultural sensitivity.
For example, some Power Rangers episodes would inaccurately reference elements from more than one Asian country regarding Trini’s backstory, never properly defining where Trini’s family had come from. In addition, it was only in 1997’s Power Rangers Turbo that Power Rangers had a team leader played by a Black actor. Selwyn Ward’s T.J. replaced Tommy as Turbo’s Red Ranger for the latter half of Power Rangers Turbo, when the remaining Mighty Morphin-era actors exited the show.
7 The Power Rangers Were Bullies Too
Bulk and Skull were the bullies/comic relief throughout the entire Zordon Era, most of which took place in Angel Grove High School. However, the Power Rangers could be as mean to Bulk and Skull as they were to them. Most of the original Mighty Morphin episodes would end with the Power Rangers pulling a prank on Bulk and Skull, from hitting their faces with a cake to stealing a videotape recording of the Rangers that could have made the duo rich.
6 The American Power Rangers Costumes Looked Too Cheap
Most of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers action sequences were repurposed footage from Kyouryu Sentai Zyuranger, creating a unique style of Sentai adaptations that continues to be used to this day. As such, almost every time the Power Rangers were morphed on-screen, viewers were actually seeing Japanese Zyuranger footage. However, considering that Zyuranger only had 50 episodes, Mighty Morphin soon had to use different strategies to continue the show. One of those was using original Power Rangers costumes to film action scenes in Los Angeles.
Most of the Ranger action from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ seasons 2 and 3 were American footage rather than Sentai footage, although all of the Zord battles continued to be from Super Sentai shows. The problem is that the American Power Rangers costumes looked way too cheap compared to the Japanese ones. This is especially noticeable with the Green Ranger’s Dragon Shield, which looked terrible every time it appeared in the original Mighty Morphin footage.
5 Every Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Episode Was The Same
Most Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episodes, especially the ones from season 1, told the same story. The Rangers would hang out at Ernie’s Juice Bar, the Putty Patrollers would have a fight with the Rangers, the monster would arrive, and the Rangers would morph. The final Megazord battle was followed by the Rangers back at the Juice Bar, laughing about something Bulk and Skull had just done. Power Rangers’ formula began to change around Mighty Morphin Power Rangers season 3 when the amount of original footage allowed the show to be more innovative. However, Power Rangers would only really move beyond this formula in Power Rangers in Space.
Every Power Rangers fan probably remembers when or how they found out that most of the scenes from their favorite TV shows were actually from a different show. That said, rewatching Power Rangers as an adult shows that it was quite easy to tell when Mighty Morphin and its sequels transitioned into Sentai footage. Early Power Rangers seasons barely tried to match the background of wherever the Rangers were with the Sentai action sequences. In addition, the Rangers would act out of character all of a sudden. Recent Power Rangers seasons have done a better job of integrating Sentai footage into the episodes.
3 Just How Long Were The Power Rangers In High School For?
Zordon’s Power Rangers team was in high school from 1993’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers season to 1997’s Power Rangers Turbo. How much time passed in-universe between Mighty Morphin and Turbo is difficult to say. However, five years and hundreds of episodes later, seeing the Power Rangers still at high school in Turbo made it feel like no time had passed at all. That is not to mention how the Power Rangers cast, who were already adults back in Mighty Morphin, were way too old to be playing high schoolers in Turbo. The transition into a new Turbo cast ahead of Power Rangers in Space’s space setting solved that problem.
2 The Power Rangers Wasted A Lot Of Time Morphing
What exactly is happening when the Power Rangers are morphing is one of the trickiest Power Rangers lore questions. There are multiple answers to that question, as different Power Rangers stories have portrayed morphing sequences in different ways. Does the Power Rangers’ morphing sequence happen in real-time? Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie suggested so, yet Power Rangers: Once & Always made it seem like it is actually much faster in “real life” than in the visual representation of the show. Either way, the Power Rangers did waste a lot of time morphing. More recently, Tommy and Billy were attacked while morphing in the BOOM! Power Rangers comics.
Not only was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers very formulaic and predictable, but the show also reused a lot of footage. Moments such as the Rangers calling their zords or the Megazord’s formation sequence were played in almost every Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episode, always with the same footage. Every Mighty Morphin episode had a 22-minute runtime. However, excluding the Mighty Morphin intro and the reused footage, a new Power Rangers episode had less than 20 minutes of actually new content. Recent Power Rangers seasons also reuse a lot of footage but in a more discrete way.
[ad_2]
Source link
Armessa Movie News