Power Rangers What?

So, I finally finished Power Rangers Zeo.

It's a kind of slow season, after the plot-heavy (I know!) third season of MMPR. It's more connected than the episode titles would have you believe - the "Tommy Finds His Brother" episodes were just as connected to each other as any of the incredibly-multi-parters of S3, but all had different titles.

But still - The Machine Empire never really graduated from sending monsters of the day in the way that Rita and Zedd eventually did. There was no game plan, no "Now that this hasn't worked, we try this instead" kind of... backup planning if not plotting.

The closest we got was the revolving door of leaders in the last third of the season which really only made things more directionless, as none of them were working together, and the switches rarely came with anything feeling like real resolution.

Hell, the final battle was a way-too-short, US-filmed, rangers-made-giant-because-the-zord-suits-can't-survive-being-shipped-stateside fight with King Mondo. The reams and reams of forces we keep seeing in the establishing shots of the base ripped from the sentai never come into play. The final storyline is one episode long, and most of that has to do with getting the Gold Powers back to Trey.

If it weren't for the Machine Empire's true sendoff, I'd be incredibly angry. But then, after the "battle", Rita and Zedd (who came up with some plan that let them enjoy sitting back and watching the fight with drinks in hand - I love them so - which the audience is not privy to) get all false humble with King Mondo and family, hand Prince Sprocket a gift, and drive off in their Moon RV.

And then the gift box explodes. And we pull back the shot to reveal the royalty of the Machine Empire in smoking bits all over the ground, few, if any, limbs intact, and a head or two visible.

A talking head visible. For, you see, they survived.

That is fucked up and I can't believe they got away with airing that on children's television. I'm very, very glad they did, mind. I'm just very, very surprised.

And now to rewatch the Turbo movie and really dig into just how wrong-in-a-bad-way parts of it really are.

Power Rangers What?

So, I finally finished Power Rangers Zeo.

It's a kind of slow season, after the plot-heavy (I know!) third season of MMPR. It's more connected than the episode titles would have you believe - the "Tommy Finds His Brother" episodes were just as connected to each other as any of the incredibly-multi-parters of S3, but all had different titles.

But still - The Machine Empire never really graduated from sending monsters of the day in the way that Rita and Zedd eventually did. There was no game plan, no "Now that this hasn't worked, we try this instead" kind of... backup planning if not plotting.

The closest we got was the revolving door of leaders in the last third of the season which really only made things more directionless, as none of them were working together, and the switches rarely came with anything feeling like real resolution.

Hell, the final battle was a way-too-short, US-filmed, rangers-made-giant-because-the-zord-suits-can't-survive-being-shipped-stateside fight with King Mondo. The reams and reams of forces we keep seeing in the establishing shots of the base ripped from the sentai never come into play. The final storyline is one episode long, and most of that has to do with getting the Gold Powers back to Trey.

If it weren't for the Machine Empire's true sendoff, I'd be incredibly angry. But then, after the "battle", Rita and Zedd (who came up with some plan that let them enjoy sitting back and watching the fight with drinks in hand - I love them so - which the audience is not privy to) get all false humble with King Mondo and family, hand Prince Sprocket a gift, and drive off in their Moon RV.

And then the gift box explodes. And we pull back the shot to reveal the royalty of the Machine Empire in smoking bits all over the ground, few, if any, limbs intact, and a head or two visible.

A talking head visible. For, you see, they survived.

That is fucked up and I can't believe they got away with airing that on children's television. I'm very, very glad they did, mind. I'm just very, very surprised.

And now to rewatch the Turbo movie and really dig into just how wrong-in-a-bad-way parts of it really are.

Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie

OHMAN.

This movie weirds me out. Because there were so many problems with it the last time I watched. And there still are. But. For some reason, coming right on the tail of Zeo, and having a familiarity with Kat and Tanya again (because Adam and Tommy were around long enough during the initial run of rangers that I didn't forget they existed in the way I did Kat and especially Tanya. Tanya is strangely one of my favorites now), the movie does work better. It's still weird.

Starting with the fact that they didn't bother pretending that the rangers were anything approaching high school age. If I didn't know that Turbo kept them in HS, I'd assume there was an unannounced timeskip between Zeo and this movie. I mean, there still quite obviously was one. Jason didn't go anywhere at the end of Zeo, and was getting involved with Emily. In this movie, he's been gone somewhere long enough that, textually, he and Kimberly being in Angel Grove is a surprise for the rangers, and subtextually, he and Kim are totally banging.

Speaking of which, Tommy clearly doesn't know. Because even with him being involved with Kat (and having moments with her throughout the movie), whoever wrote the script obviously believes him to still pine primarily for Kim. With Kat right there. It must suck magnificently to be her. (Especially because they were dressing her like she was about ten years over her age. Man.)

Now, what I managed to miss last time I was watching, because of the complete joke that is Justin, was that the rest of the rangers agree. Watch them during the scene where Justin hops out of the jeep at the ghost ship. Tell me they're not all thinking Zordon's off the deep end once Justin announces he's the new ranger. When he asks if it's cool or what, all he rest of the rangers have clearly gone with "or what."

And rightly so - whoever was in charge clearly thought that having a child ranger would help draw in younger viewers, because identification and all. Problem with that line of thought is, of course, that the initial child audience had no problem identifying with the first rangers. All of whom were teens. Yes, the rangers were getting older, as the replacements were always teh same age, but the getting older had nothing to do with whatever dropping viewership there might have been during Zeo. If it was anything, it was the epic standalone, no-long-term-plot-whatsoever form the season took, or maybe the mistreatment of Billy (we're not getting into that now. Possibly not ever).

But we wind up with Justin. Who is pretty much brainless energy, which has never been what a child thinks they are, accurate though the depiction may be. And boy is it.

But. The villains do manage to counteract the childishness that Justin brought with him. Hell, Divatox even gets to say "Hell's bells"! But mostly, it's the level of humor with them. While there's some borderline slapstick, it's got enough abuse behind it to keep an edge, and mostly it's all sorts of little things that I can't quite sum up here.

And Divatox's boobs.

But man. I cannot get past the tribe on that island. It's every ugly island native stereotype you could wish not to have, rolled up in one neat "they don't even have intelligible lines or motivation" package without any redeeming factor. Hell, during the big mook fight while Maligore is being released, they just run around and let the Pirhanatrons do the actual fighting.

There was no reason for them to be in the movie. And that just makes the cultural ignorance that much uglier.

And the Zord fight was a huge letdown. Especially because I think the transformation sequence was American-done. The miniature work there was amazing, and I was waiting for a Zord battle to match, but it doesn't. At all.

The plot was all over the place, but that's to be expected, really. Even if some parts had no real reason for happening, there was adequate plot justification. And the locations were gorgeous.

It's just a complete hot mess of a movie, and it totally deserves the Power Ranger name.

On to the series!

Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie

OHMAN.

This movie weirds me out. Because there were so many problems with it the last time I watched. And there still are. But. For some reason, coming right on the tail of Zeo, and having a familiarity with Kat and Tanya again (because Adam and Tommy were around long enough during the initial run of rangers that I didn't forget they existed in the way I did Kat and especially Tanya. Tanya is strangely one of my favorites now), the movie does work better. It's still weird.

Starting with the fact that they didn't bother pretending that the rangers were anything approaching high school age. If I didn't know that Turbo kept them in HS, I'd assume there was an unannounced timeskip between Zeo and this movie. I mean, there still quite obviously was one. Jason didn't go anywhere at the end of Zeo, and was getting involved with Emily. In this movie, he's been gone somewhere long enough that, textually, he and Kimberly being in Angel Grove is a surprise for the rangers, and subtextually, he and Kim are totally banging.

Speaking of which, Tommy clearly doesn't know. Because even with him being involved with Kat (and having moments with her throughout the movie), whoever wrote the script obviously believes him to still pine primarily for Kim. With Kat right there. It must suck magnificently to be her. (Especially because they were dressing her like she was about ten years over her age. Man.)

Now, what I managed to miss last time I was watching, because of the complete joke that is Justin, was that the rest of the rangers agree. Watch them during the scene where Justin hops out of the jeep at the ghost ship. Tell me they're not all thinking Zordon's off the deep end once Justin announces he's the new ranger. When he asks if it's cool or what, all he rest of the rangers have clearly gone with "or what."

And rightly so - whoever was in charge clearly thought that having a child ranger would help draw in younger viewers, because identification and all. Problem with that line of thought is, of course, that the initial child audience had no problem identifying with the first rangers. All of whom were teens. Yes, the rangers were getting older, as the replacements were always teh same age, but the getting older had nothing to do with whatever dropping viewership there might have been during Zeo. If it was anything, it was the epic standalone, no-long-term-plot-whatsoever form the season took, or maybe the mistreatment of Billy (we're not getting into that now. Possibly not ever).

But we wind up with Justin. Who is pretty much brainless energy, which has never been what a child thinks they are, accurate though the depiction may be. And boy is it.

But. The villains do manage to counteract the childishness that Justin brought with him. Hell, Divatox even gets to say "Hell's bells"! But mostly, it's the level of humor with them. While there's some borderline slapstick, it's got enough abuse behind it to keep an edge, and mostly it's all sorts of little things that I can't quite sum up here.

And Divatox's boobs.

But man. I cannot get past the tribe on that island. It's every ugly island native stereotype you could wish not to have, rolled up in one neat "they don't even have intelligible lines or motivation" package without any redeeming factor. Hell, during the big mook fight while Maligore is being released, they just run around and let the Pirhanatrons do the actual fighting.

There was no reason for them to be in the movie. And that just makes the cultural ignorance that much uglier.

And the Zord fight was a huge letdown. Especially because I think the transformation sequence was American-done. The miniature work there was amazing, and I was waiting for a Zord battle to match, but it doesn't. At all.

The plot was all over the place, but that's to be expected, really. Even if some parts had no real reason for happening, there was adequate plot justification. And the locations were gorgeous.

It's just a complete hot mess of a movie, and it totally deserves the Power Ranger name.

On to the series!