Of Zords and Guardian Beasts

Power Rangers is an odd beast.

Yes, I just admitted I've been watching Power Rangers. Yes, I'm a bit embarrassed about that, but there are reasons. Not good reasons, necessarily, but...

Let me back up.

About two months ago, director Joseph Kahn released onto Youtube and Vimeo Power/Rangers, a short which people have called a gritty re-imagining of the franchise. To some extent, it is a dig at 'gritty reboots' which permiate the movie and comics industry, though Mr. Kahn said nothing to this effect during an interview I was listening to, rather saying he wanted to 'legitimize' Power Rangers. This made me curious about the franchise.

I wasn't a fan when it was originally on TV. I had a brother who was, but I always considered it a bit silly. (I wasn't wrong.) Later, I watched the occasional episode 'ironically', but even then I was curious about the continuity of the series, and if the show runners were actually building mythology. So now, with Power/Rangers out in the wild, my curiosity has gotten the better of me, and I've been watching the various series on Netflix.

Which brings me back to the present.

Power Rangers is an odd beast.

It's no just the acting, which fluctuates between functional and awful. It's not just the fight choreography which fluctuates between pretty good and bad wire-fu a 3rd grader might dream up. It's...

Take Power Rangers in Space, for example. Episode 33 has a couple of rangers arguing over chores. Five episodes later people are being rounded up and taken to a prison camp, and the next episode has the prisoners being digitized so they can be turned into monsters. It's that wild tonal shift which really confuses me. One minute the Rangers are teenagers who are worried about a big exam, and the next minute they are watching as an army threatens to take over the city. But gee, I hope they got an 'A' on that exam.

So far Might Morphin' was entertaining, Alien Rangers was short, Zeo was servicable, Turbo was Godawful, and Rangers in Space actually pretty dark. The jury's out on Lost Galaxy.

All of it serves to fuel my curiosity about the Super Sentai shows that they are based off of. I wonder if I can find subbed episodes. Even the plot descriptions are wildly different.

From Wikipedia:

Power Rangers:

When the evil witch Rita Repulsa [...], are freed from their imprisonment on the Moon, the wizard Zordon, [...], enlists five teenagers—[...]—to become the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to battle Rita's invasion of the Earth, using their Power Coins and Dinozords to combat her monsters. Rita soon creates her own evil Power Ranger by brainwashing recent transfer student Tommy Oliver, but the Power Rangers are able to free him from her control and he joins their side.

Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger:

Five young warriors from an ancient civilization of Dinosaur-evolved Humans are awakened during the present day after 170 million years of suspended animation when their sworn enemy, Bandora the Witch, is inadvertently released from her magical container on Planet Nemesis by two astronauts. The five warriors, the Zyurangers, must summon the power of mechanical-looking deities known as Guardian Beasts, each modeled after a different prehistoric beast, in order to protect mankind from Bandora's evil forces. A sixth warrior, Burai the Dragonranger, later becomes involved with the conflict between the Zyurangers and Bandora's forces.

Dinosaur-evolved humans. Mechanical-looking deities. I need to find episodes of this.

If you have any interest, watch Power/Rangers, just be warned that the Vimeo version is the R cut, meaning bloody and with boobs. If anyone's curious about more of my thoughts on Power Rangers, I can certainly share. Just don't get me started on Turbo.

Stupid Turbo.