Category: Power Rangers

All posts relating to the ever-present Power Rangers franchise and all incarnations within.

Ninja Mild Wind

I’ve been largely silent on this matter for quite a while, but for whatever it’s worth, I’d figure that I would give my thoughts on the current Ninja Storm run of Power Rangers; the first whole season to be released under the Disney era – though some would make a case for Wild Force actually being the first, but I’d consider that a transitional season of sorts; a passing of the guard, if you will.

So I saw about a dozen or so episodes of Ninja Storm… I think up until the Thunder Ranger guys joined the team. It feels like a regression of what came before. The last few seasons before this really kicked their storytelling into high gear; Time Force is often considered one of the best Power Rangers seasons due to its tight storytelling, well-rounded characters, and even its tease of mature content about as far as it could push on what is still considered to be kids stuff. And even Wild Force had its moments.

Ninja Storm dumps all of that and goes back to the simple, campy storytelling style of the early Power Rangers seasons. Granted, you have teenagers talking and acting like teenagers. That’s to be expected. You have a delightfully hammy villain in Lothor. A strange mentor figure – a talking gerbil – fills your Zordon quota… I don’t want to call it bad or anything… but it feels like when Doug Sloan came back to Power Rangers – he had been involved in the early MMPR stuff, which kinda explains a lot – he basically jettisoned the last several years of narrative progress and went back to basics. You know, the stuff that made Power Rangers a household name in the first place.

Bare in mind this is coming from someone who is a year away from hitting his twenties. I am probably the farthest thing from the target audience that this series that I’ve followed since (almost) the very beginning is largely aimed towards. I’m sure that whatever Doug Sloan does here and in subsequent series going forward, he’s doing what he feels is best to try and maintain that young audience. For the older fans, however, who have seen the series evolve past those early days of camp and simplicity, Ninja Storm may very well feel like ten steps back and while some can easily accept the new paradigm and even grow to love it, it might be a hard sell for others.

Right now, Ninja Storm does feel a bit juvenile, but maybe it’s less a series issue and more a matter of I’m getting older and maybe this stuff isn’t for me anymore. That’s when it hits you.

This was something I wanted to get on written word. Who knows? I may feel differently down the road, but for now, those are my thoughts on Ninja Storm. Wish everyone there nothing but the best and hope I can give this show another chance when it’s over.

Power Rangers

So I live in Canada, right? We have Canadian networks up here. One of those is a channel called YTV, short for Youth Television. Essentially the Canadian Nick. So they were announcing a new show called Power Rangers. And when I first heard the name, my first thought as a kid was “Okay, they’re doing a western cartoon of some kind.” Because, you know… the Lone Ranger, Texas Rangers, that’s what I usually associate with the word “ranger.” Something in a western setting. Never actually saw anything regarding the show until they aired a commercial when they showed clips of the morphing sequence, which in isolation, it’s just kids thrusting silver things in front of the camera and that’s it. Doesn’t tell you anything. I don’t think there was even sound.

So one day, the tv was on and by chance, there was an episode on screen and I can tell you which episode it was; it’s the one with the little kid wih the pig tails and the chunky chicken monster and it was not a good impression. The kid kinda ruins it for me – don’t know if it’s bad acting or just bad writing. Kid actors usually aren’t all that great, which is why the Phantom Menace… well, that’s another story, ain’t it?

So while the kid wasn’t great, I did like the other bits; the giant robots fighting rubber monsters, the spandex gimp suits, there was a bit of camp to it. Enough to like that I’d watch another episode or two whenever it popped up. And the more I watched of the show, the more I got into it. And just when I was getting into it and getting excited about new episodes coming about, YTV yanked it off the air… because of all the controversy with the violence and such that I never knew was a thing.

So my only means of watch Power Rangers was when the CBS station from Vermont that aired on channel 3 around these parts would air episodes on Sunday mornings. And they were episodes from the second season. 2nd part of the Mutiny, debut of Lord Zedd, Thunderzords, and hey, every Sunday morning, there’d be a new episode of Power Rangers. Can’t wait for Part 3 next week…

Except what happened was they only show episodes once a week, while Fox aired it several times a week and it’d be several episodes worth. So one week, it’s Part 2 of the season premiere storylinen and the next week, it’s an episode of a giant cactus monster or something. This was before internet was a thing, so there was no way to fill in the blanks other than the little pressers. There’d be interviews with half the cast and they’d talk about new Rangers. And a month in, that half the cast had a new White Ranger and it was Tommmy and how did that happened? Wait, who are these new guys? What’s this Tor Shuttle Zord thing? What the hell is going on?

Long story short, my folks eventually got one of those specialty cable boxes and one of the channels on that box was FOX, so now I had the chance to watch most of the Power Rangers shows that I missed out on. By this point, I had a pretty good idea as to the origins of Power Rangers; the relation with Super Sentai, the idea of changing suits every run, and that would eventually be a thing starting with Zeo where they made a big event out of it. And Fox became a regular channel and I continued watching Power Rangers, from Turbo, to Space, to Lost Galaxy, and such. I eventually got Internet access and learned more about the series lore and such.

Honestly, I miss the original Power Rangers crew. They were simplistic and stereotypical, but they were also cool and their suits were sweet and simple. People were hoping for the Dairanger suits to debut, but I never cared for those. To me, they looked like they were wearing white vests over colored spandex. Imagine how much of an upgrade that would’ve been.

“Rangers! Lord Zedd has sent out another horrible monster. You will need new armor to protect against his deadly attacks! Equip yourselves with the POWER VESTS and you’ll be protected.” Yeah, no thanks.

The ones that came afterwards? They’re okay. I kinda liked the Zeo suits. I didn’t care for the Turbo suits and the big changeover from Tommy and crew to the new guys… they grew on me after a while. And then Power Rangers In Space was a thing and I was disappointed that they spent most of the show on Earth… why called Power Rangers In Space if you’re not going to be in SPACE most of the time?

These are minor things. I still watch the shows. They’re still fun. They try to be more serious and the acting is a step above what came before. But at the end of the day, it’s still Power Rangers. It’s still cheese, but it’s good quality cheese. And I like me some good cheese.