The Rise and Fall of Power Rangers

Yayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayay

[Xander_Roche]

Second of all, I did kinda fuck up by not making mention of the Boom Comics or Lightning Collection. They aren’t as much of centerpieces to the brand as the shows and movies and main toy lines but it was still worth mentioning, for that, I apologize.

[Frieowksf]

My introduction to Power Rangers was with Dino Thunder. I was very young, my brothers and I were very into dinosaurs, so this show got our attention fast, of course, at the time I didn't know who Tommy was. I followed the show until after Mystic Force and had no idea the show ran anymore until I saw commercials for Samurai.

[amankumarshaw]

I never knew mystic force was received poorly ..here in India it was a big deal when it was airing everyone seemed to love it..

[ryanreviews]

wild force was just straight up beautiful. that ending was probably one of if not my first introduction to that "hole" feeling after a good show ends.

[sulavsinght.]

My first power rangers series was S.P.D.
I was surprised when Commander Cruger chose Jack as red ranger rather than Sky.
But I also loved the way when Jack makes his entry as a red ranger.
That was my first experience with power rangers series and then I watched more and more series after that😌 #alwayslovedpowerrangers

[videogamesworld]

The rise the fall the rise the fall the rise and then the fall again. This series has gone through thsi

[gavo]

I fell out of Power Rangers many years ago, I was always more of a Transformers kid, but I have such vivid memories of adoring Jungle Fury as a kid. This video was a cool trip down memory lane, and I hope for you guys still holding on that the series can make a comeback.

[slashersoul]

I grew up with Samurai, remember bits and pieces from Jungle Fury, mostly the theme, and honestly kinda liked Megaforce, since at the beginning it called back my favorite show, obviously being Samurai. I also loved the anniversary special where we saw the return of several rangers, especially OG Green, but I can see the flaws, especially since I’m older now and not completely clouded by my love of superpowers, transformations and swords.

[RainSennin_ismyAlt]

Came back to this video right after the death of the greatest Power Ranger of them all. RIP Jason David Frank.

[GaryA]

Awesome video and great summary! The biggest thing I got out of this was how friggin Brilliant Haim Saban is! Sells PR for billions to Disney, buys it back on the cheap and revitalizes it just enough to sell it for more to Hasbro 😂

[abhaymhatre]

I grew up with the Disney Era and it was so awesome . I loved it as a kid and still do . All my friends and peers also grew up with power rangers as well . My favourites are SPD, Dino Thunder, Mystic Force, Jungle Fury and RPM . The last season I watched was Dino charge and I liked it .

[jerelminter]

The idea for the Power Rangers didn't originate from Haim Saban, it existed earlier than that. Stan Lee from Marvel almost adapted an earlier season of Super Sentai in the early 1980s called Sun Vulcan (after already licensing Spider-Man to Toei in the late 70s which they created a live action TV show out of).

Lee (with Margaret Loesch), pitched his Sun Vulcan idea to several American TV networks, and they all rejected it.

So when Saban got his hands on Sentai, he wanted to adapt Bioman (which was the season that was airing in Japan at the time) and he too got rejected by American TV networks. Saban at least produced a pilot that never aired, but the show sat on the shelf for nearly 10 years until he pitched it to Margaret (the same one who worked with Stan Lee years earlier), and she was the one who gave Saban's Power Rangers the green light.

[juanchirino]

To shed a little light on the Disney Era I want to share that my daughter grew up watching Power Rangers with me and after the Zordon era ended I noticed a big shift in her when returning from school.

Usually she'd come back with daily stories about what she and other kids at her school thought about the current season and now (post In Space) she and the other kids had far less to say. There seemed to be true interest only in the twist of the pink ranger in Lost Galaxy and the ending of Time Force. And I remember that none of the kids seemed to like Forever Red very much but that might have to do with color preference as most of them hated the color red and I guess that had an influence on which rangers they were and weren't drawn to.

Then Ninja Storm happened and there was an obsession among my daughter and the other kids at her school. With the first female blue ranger Tori, with the ninja motif that offered the rangers inherent abilities separate from their Morpher granted ones, with the hamster mascot Sensei, with Cam's journey to green samurai ranger, with Lothor and his nieces Marah and Kapri too.

It was very clearly a season that renewed interest and ratings and feedback seemed to concur. Rather than being the return to form I think Dino Thunder just capitalized well on the success of Ninja Storm. I also feel it worth mentioning the Ninja Storm and Dino Thunder crossover was the most talked about thing for my daughter and the kids at her school ever. This crossover was for whatever reason the epitome of badass to them.

They all collectively stopped caring about the franchise in general after Dino Thunder outside of checking out the Once A Ranger crossover from Operation Overdrive and having praise for it. Along with IMHO inevitable talks of a future season with the Retro Rangers team featured in that until they realized it would never happen.

They really liked seeing Tori and Kira again and the fact that Tommy wasn't the ranger at the center of the team.

After that crossover the last time my daughter had any kind of story to share about Power Rangers was one where she mentioned that her circle of friends who still even payed attention to the franchise wished Antonio was the main character in Samurai/Super Samurai and how annoyed they were at the botch that was the handling of the first female red ranger Lauren.

I myself lost interest circa Zeo, but it was interesting seeing each season and examining the highs and lows in them. I enjoyed seeing the different ways each tried to evolve the franchise's formula.

IMHO there's not really a season that was bad just some that were better than others and it boggles my mind that so many people still put Mighty Morphin at the top of their list when ranking them from best to worst as in retrospect all of Mighty Morphin was pretty gosh darned rough.

The low budget is so obvious from the presentation and production value. Some of the acting (sweet Jesus) and dialogue (product of its time though it might be) there also hasn't aged gracefully. You can really see how much Kimberly's actress in particular had to grow into her role watching it again blessed may she be.

[Kevin]

Time Force is probably my favorite season of Power Rangers. I believe they had the best outfits and the acting was great too.

[javontemorant]

My last season was Supermega Force. I know Power Rangers was never known for tremendous acting but I hated how Neo-Saban forced absolute dreadful acting with no emotions from Samurai to going forward.

Seasons Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder, and SPD had cheesy moments but it still had moments we could take seriously due to great acting from cast.

[SonicHedgehog]

I'm not gonna pretend that I'm a diehard -G1- Mighty Morphin fan, my very first introduction to this series was through Dino Thunder and SPD with their respective 6th ranger being my favorite, Trent is literally a Sasuke version of Tommy and Omega is just too cool to not be loved, and also the intros from the Disney era are my favorite. Seriously, every single one of those intros freaking slaps. I didn't know who Tommy was at the time and if I'm being honest, even after finding out how huge he was years later, I still wouldn't change my opinion of him in this season, from what I can recall, aside from his focused episodes, Tommy was always "just there" as the black dino ranger and being the mentor figure to the other rangers.

[Beatnu]

I’d say my peak of Power Rangers fandom was from Lost Galaxy to SPD (and watching many replays of the original arcs in between). I was feeling Ranger fatigue when Mystic Force was starting up and when I watched the premiere episode, I just couldn’t gel with it and the characters didn’t exactly leave a strong first impression on me. But I certainly don’t envy the task of having to follow up Dino Thunder and SPD, they were seriously tough acts. Plus I was turning 13 at the time so I was feeling pressured to move on to other interests. I’ve seen bits and pieces of subsequent seasons throughout the years since, but that run of Ranger seasons I was on really was tv magic for me. I’d definitely give RPM a shot if anything, heard plenty of good things about it. And I did also like the 2017 movie.

[small_dropin_the_big_ocean]

My first Power Rangers were S.P.D and Dino Thunder. They used to air S.P.D repeatedly in India and every kid knew Doggy Kruger. It's like a childhood nostalgia. S.P.D was my favourite, from it's morphin sequence to songs to characters. I still remember them. 😭 Same goes for Dono Thunder.
Alongside, I absolutely loved Ninja Storm for it's light hearted environment and thought the fight between Thunder Rangers and Wind Rangers was a huge deal lol. The crossover between Ninja Storm rangers and Dino Thunder Rangers, that Japanes/Super sentai reference everything is nostalgic and beautiful for me.
I wasn't a big fan of Mystic Force and kinda liked Operation Overdrive but that's because it was interesting to see them fight, pull out their weapons in style and I liked the concept of magic and adventure.

However, the true MVP is RPM which I failed to completely grasp at the age of 10 but now that I look back, I absolutely get blown over by how detailed and well-crafted this show was. Despite some hiccups in plot, it took it's characters seriously, was genuinely funny at times, poked fun at it's own morphing and roll-call stuff, dealt with themes that are hard to portray with ease and so on.

Fast forward to Dino Charge, I already was in college and it was my younger sister with whom I sat down to watch it. Before this, I was disappointed with Samurai as it felt a bit too empty. Megaforce was a snooze fest and made me so angry because the characters literally were just cardboard cutouts. They even shamelessly copied every scene with no improvisation or even attempted to add anything. Dino Charge was interesting and I liked the characters and the whole hunting for 10 dinogems was a cool concept. The side villians were interesting and I was looking forward how that half-human half-monster being would torture rangers in its super season. Dino Super Charge was, unfortunately, just okay. Not too engaging or depth like it's predecessor and I also ended up dropping it coz I got busy.

I haven't seen any more power rangers but I tried to watch few clips on youtube and it's not that cool anymore. That Ninja one was as bad as it could be, I did see the potential but it went to waste.
The Hasbro power rangers brought back a bit of a personality to their characters but I don't know, it wasn't going anywhere for me. It felt like they think kids cannot handle darker themes and conflicts seemed to be resolved way to easily.
Dino Fury looked interesting (I think it's the current season with its super season as well). I have watched few episodes and was thinking to continue further since I liked an awkward red ranger and green girl seemed to get more footage but I kinda liked her and her brother and the whole bad parenting troupe (I stopped at ep 6 so don't know if I m wrong, no spoilers plz)

Overall, I would say I would like it more if they set up charatcer's personal motivations and make them face their fears with their whole power ranger duties either coming in their way or changing their perception or something but they're not really setting up interesting charatcer arcs for past few seasons. Like everybody's (except one or two ranger) so cool with their powers? No struggle, no personal motivations interesting enough to create conflicts, no dreams? They're not even funny or quirky anymore.
This is the reason why I am getting over power rangers.

[therojoking]

I genuinely liked mystic force but that's probably because I was a kid. I went back and watched dino thunder (although the special effects leave a lot to be desired) I loved it. its crossover with both ninja storm and SPD were just fun and great and the cast, while cheesy at times, were absolutely great. mystic force however, had a good pretence and the red ranger/wolf guy storyline was interesting it became too focal.

[WCLCooke]

This franchise is a big part of my childhood and I will appreciate it for giving me inspiration for my own books.