"It's Morphin' Time!" Power Rangers and its Many Spinoffs

So I, like everyone of my generation, grew up loving the Power Rangers, and there are those to this day who tell me I bear a striking resemblance to Billy, the Blue Ranger. Let's discuss the many incarnations and imitations of the Power Rangers over the years.

Check out the article on Wikipedia on the Power Rangers to get your memories jumpstarted. I personally watched them from 1993-1997, and stopped right about the time of the second movie.

But let us not forget those cultural phenomenons that weren't, such as VR Troopers, Big Bad Beetleborgs, and the extremely obscure (at least as far as I can tell) Superhuman Samurai Cyber Squad, who were samurai neither in ideology nor appearance.

We can also discuss fun topics like the racist undertones of MMPR (the black guy was the Black Ranger, the Chinese girl was the Yellow Ranger).

I know for me, the saga of the Green Ranger was one of the big time stories growing up that I just adored. And likewise the White Ranger was a great addition. And both times Tommy got cool weapons and a cooler costume than any of the others'.

But I digress. Show your love for one of the classics of kids' sci fi!

M. Scott

 

I watched the original ones when I was in high school. It was a fun little show. Bulk and Skull were cool.

 

MMPR, In Space and Dino Thunder are probably the best three.

MMPR since it's so classic

IN Space for bringing in Astronema and the Megaship

and

Dino Thunder for the return of Tommy

 

I watched Power Rangers up to the point when they got that little kid to be the Blue Ranger. That was with the cars. I think it was the Turbo stuff. Once that kid became a Ranger, I stopped watching it. My favorite was always Adam.

Anyway, I also loved VR Troopers. I used to watch that everytime it came on.

 

And for Kira.

 

I loved the original Power Rangers when I was a kid. The green/white ranger Tommy was always my favorite.

I actually got to meet two of the original Power Rangers: Billy Cranston (Blue Ranger) and Tommy Oliver(Green/White Ranger). It was awesome, had to wait in line for just about 3 hours. We got a picture with them and I will never forget that day.

Power Rangers was cool until the original cast left, then it started to go downhill and I was interested anymore. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became my thing.

 

The original incarnation and the one or two after that were kinda cool. Once they got to the point when all the orginal members were gone, I had grown out of my like of the power rangers.

I liked the vr troopers too, until they stopped airing it.

 

I used to love Beetleborgs!

And Billy the Blue ranger was the best, because he had a triceratops.

 

I loved Power Rangers in elementary school. And I haven't admitted that outloud for about ten years, so go figure.

Like many have said before, the show was good until the original cast left. It just wasn't the same after that. I liked Rita Repulse-er-something (it's been so long, I don't remember her whole name).

 

My nostalgic feelings were crushed a few years ago when I had the chance to view a few episodes of the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. It's horribly acted, the sparse music is like something composed by the band Europe, the fight scenes are laughable-- even discounting the weird sparks that fly whenever someone is struck, the choreography and camera work struggle to rival a high school video (believe me, I actually saw a classmate of mine top the fight sequences); the guys-in-suits zords-vs-bad-guy-of-the-week was so stereotypically Japanese/Godzilla that it was difficult to swallow even as a child; the storylines were so repetitive that it seems that all they changed sometimes was the villain-of-the-week.

It may have been a decent show to watch as a kid, but as an adult... ?

 

I see it kind of like Barney - kids love it, but adults mostly hate it with a passion.

 

The first Power Rangers were the best by far, the pink ranger was hawt.

 

Yes! Power Rangers, I used love to that show! I always pretended to be the Pink Ranger. There are way too many spin-offs though. Each time I see a commerical for one, they're in space or back in time.

 

Super Sentai can be enjoyable to watch

 

I'm so sad that the Westerners get only Power Rangers. In the East, there's literally a thousand of these shows, all about a group of young people (usually five) being superheroes and they have to fight the monster of the week (who will also grow large and have to be destroyed by vehicles/robots) while at the same time, you have some preachy morals/dealing with issues thingy. They're all really the same, even the colours of the heroes (the leader is usually red, the other colours are blue, yellow, pink, green, black or white. And uniformly, the girls get yellow and pink colours, must be the standard girly colour for Japan or something ).

So for me, the Power Rangers are just so bloody funny, seeing the Westerners tranform one of these typical shows into a Western setting (actually, the Ranger portions are all just lifted from an old show, no?). That said, some parts are fun, especially the original five. OK, Tommy was also alright, but the original five were way cooler, especially the original Red Ranger.

For real childhood memories, I'd go for the real Japanese shows like Flashman (very similar to Power Rangers, five teens battle aliens) and Ultraman and it's various spin-off (this one is solo hero who transforms into giant silver/red guy to battle Godzilla-wannabe monsters), including an Australian production of Ultraman which was rather cool. Much much better than Power Rangers.

 

Power Rangers Episode:

The five Rangers are hanging out and having a good time in Angel Grove. Meanwhile Rita/Lord Zedd is cooking up a new monster. Rita/Lord Zedd sends monster to earth where it terrorizes the populace. The rangers fight it but to no avail. They then morph into the Power Rangers. They start on the losing side but begin to gain the upper hand. Just when victory seems certain, Rita/Lord Zedd makes the monster grow. The Rangers call the Zords. The Zords form the Megazord. The Megazord fights the giant monster for a couple minutes, until the Rangers call the Power Sword and win the battle with one quick swipe(hey, why didn't we try that five minutes ago?) End with cheesy comedic bit back at the Angel Grove bar/restaurant.

Oh yeah, and I loved the show in elementary school

 

Of course they're funny. They were always winking at you. There were silly things like Bulk and Skull in the hallway of the school singing songs with an acoustic guitar that sounds like a cheezy distorted hair metal electric guitar. I always loved the silliness aspect of it.

 

In retrospect the Ninja Turtles and X-Men were much cooler and I sucked as a kid for switching to the Rangers.

 

I was a huge huge fan of the Power Rangers, I had the action figures,the t-shirts, and I even met the red ranger(It wasn`t the actor but a guy in a red ranger suit)The pink ranger was sadly my first love.

I was a victim of the power ranger violence I got a hell of a bruise when my cousin and I were fighting to decide who would be the red ranger in a pretend game.

I gave up when they became the Zeo rangers

 

Although his name escapes me right now. I knew the Red Power Ranger. His older brother went to school with mine back in Idaho. My nephew hangs around with his younger cousin still.


Jag29

 

The Girls did not always wear yellow. In fact in Sentai the yellow was almost always a guy. Unless they had two girls. As for the show it's self. Power Rangers in Space and Lost Galaxy were the only great ones IMO. PRIS was the frist time where they had the mian villein and one of the Rangers be family members. Also it brough about the best evil Rangers of all time. Pshyco Rangers were the best evil group of Rangers ever.

 

..ha, i was also far too old when this show first hit (i was in Grade 11!), but i had an....acquaintance who was TOTALLY into this stuff. He was, of course, the biggest nerd/geek/loser at our high school, so of COURSE i hung out with him

As a result, i did catch the odd episode of this show. It was kiddy-silliness to the extreme, but the Pink Ranger WAS pretty hot. If it had come out about 6 years earlier, i would've been ALL over this.

Ultraman will always be a-number 1 in my book.

 

I stopped watching the PR after the Lightspeed Rescue series. The ones after just weren't as great and the bad guys were hilarious and above all completely stupid.

I used to love the MMPR the best as the Green/White ranger was my favorite. I loved that flute Tommy used to raise his dinozord. I still have the song from the flute in my head. I remember one Halloween I dressed up as the White Ninjeti ranger. It was so fun.

I hate growing up b/c I still wish I could watch them.

 

The franchise has been lacking ever since the first series. I don't watch any of the newer ones, but sometimes if I see that it's on, I'll check it out to see what the newer stuff is like, but in my opinion nothing has even come close to the original.