Power Rangers Zeo: Stronger than Before!

Honestly, I'm not usually for internet videos. They tend to represent the internet in a visual form: Mean-spirited, and nowhere NEAR as funny as they think they are.

But, while I was surfing on HJU, I ran across this video by Linkara from AtopTheFourthWall (great name) entitled History of the Power Rangers. For whatever reason, this blogger decided to go through each of the seventeen Power Rangers series, one by one, doing a cross between a description and a review of each one.

Initially, I thought it would be yet another "Abridged" deal, and he'd just toss out as many harsh criticisms as he could find about each show, and given that for some people, somehow, its cool to diss Power Rangers, I figured it'd get pretty bad. But I watched the first one anyways.

...Surprisingly, I was completely wrong. While I expected a mocking of the biggest part of my childhood, I got an honest, analytical look at Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Yeah. Read that twice. He explored the good characters (the Rangers), the bad (Rita and her army), even the side characters (Bulk and Skull!). He even talked about the themes present in the first season. I didn't even know Power Rangers HAD themes! (Granted, its been 15+ years since I saw the first season.)

But you know, that wasn't really enough to warrant an article on JiH until I saw him do Power Rangers Zeo. Check it:



See, when I was a child, I was a huge fan of Power Rangers. I mean, to a ridiculous extent. I had the Power Rangers bedspread, I kept two posters of the original team of Power Rangers (morphed and unmorphed) on the wall right in front of my bed. I had the entire team of action figures--both at 6" and 9"--and their laser gun. I remember working extra hard in kindergarten to get all S+ (remember that) because my mom had bought me the Megazord, but wouldn't give it to me until I got all S+ on my report card. It was my favorite toy even years later when they brought out the other Megazords.

I spent years scouring Wal-Marts and Toys R'Uses for the Rangers individual weapons. I finally found them just before the Power Rangers movie came out during a trip to Atlanta with my mother. I begged my mom to buy the pack of them, because I thought the crappy Wal-Mart in my small town would never sell them. (...I may've been right. I don't recall ever seeing them there.)

And of course, I never missed an episode. From the first episode where the team brushed off Zordon as being some crazy computer, to the first time they introduced Tommy the Green Ranger. (I would, of course, eventually beg my mom to buy me the Dragonzord. ...Never got that Dragon Dagger though!) I even remember spending the night at my aunt's house (she lived right up the road from us) and watching a new episode of Power Rangers in which they created a "new" formation of the Megazord with the Dragon Zord as the base. I rushed home and got the pieces of the new combo I hadn't brought with me so I could see if you could actually put it together that way. (You could!)

I remember marveling when they introduced Zedd as the new villain, wondering how the Rangers could beat a guy who could even steal control of their own zords. It was a two-parter aired in Primetime, and I thought it was the pinnacle of television writing. (What else would a seven year old think? He took the Tyrannosaurus!!) I even watched when they switched out my favorite Ranger Jason (and those other two, I guess...) for Rocky, Adam, and Aisha. I was angry at the show, but I kept watching--pestering my mom to go to the movie theatre to see their film. (For the record, their movie zords sucked, but I loved the costumes and the cockpit designs.)

I spent my formative years, from 5-9, watching the Power Rangers. It was my favorite television show, and they were my favorite heroes.

...So imagine my surprise when, at the end of season three, they destroyed the zords, blew up the Command Center, and completely took away the team's powers once and for all. I couldn't believe it; the bad guys had won! I had no idea how they were going to get out of this one, and then...



You couldn't have found a more excited, more irritated kid. "What is it!? What's happening!? WHAT'S COMING?!"

It would be several months before I found out what, exactly, was coming, but you'd better believe I was home from school--on time--to see the first episode of Power Rangers Zeo. From the very beginning, they got me with their opening:

(Sadly, I have to link you because every single douche that uploaded the video disabled embedding.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vmUyduQYsw

This was something completely different. For three years we'd had the same suits, the same opening, the same villains. It was consistent...familiar. Their main power-ups were with zords and maybe that metallic armor ("It's freaking glitter!"), but the rest remained the same. With Zeo, we had something completely different.

With the opening episodes, the old villains were gone, the old powers and zords were lost, and aw hell, you heard Zordon in the clip above.

Things would forever be different, and there was no turning back. In many ways, Zeo represented everything I loved in Power Rangers. Cool suits, cool weapons and cool robots (Zeo had the best robots aside from the original season, to be honest), of course, but it also represented the best of the pre-Lost Galaxy era, with their interconnected plotlines from season to season. Some heroes would occasionally retire, but by that time the guys who you once viewed as "the new kids" were suddenly like old friends, and veteran heroes. And while it seemed there would always be a new threat, stronger than the last...you knew the heroes would rise to the challenge. It made you feel like the Power Rangers universe...really was, one cohesive universe. (...A surprisingly dark universe, as we would learn in A Zeo Beginning. Apparently the ENTIRE FREAKING GALAXY has already fallen, and the last remaining planet just happens to be Earth. Yep, the last line of defense is apparently "teenagers with attitude".)


Even the writing took a step up around this time, laying seeds for different plotlines and letting them play out over several episodes--or even several years. (The United Alliance of Evil doesn't really seem too important in Zeo's run, but BOY does that change during the latter half of Turbo and for *all* of In Space.) They even gave the mystery ranger thing another go, with far superior results. The White Ranger mystery only lasted for maybe an episode or two, and even then the primary candidate was obvious. The Gold Ranger, however? What a sucker-punch!


Speaking of the Gold Ranger, the person who would eventually use the Golden Staff is right here:





And that pushed the series from "awesome" on into "...Greatest season EVER!"

Eventually Power Rangers would ditch all that and take a cue from Sentai, with a complete cast change from season to season. Its up to you as to whether you think this was for the best, but for me, Power Rangers lost something irreplaceable after that. There's no denying it worked (Power Rangers would continue for another 10 years, after all), but I feel like it was a lot easier to view Power Rangers as its own series back when there was a single continuity, as opposed to the past few years where many have viewed it as a cheap knock-off of the originals.

Anyway, I'll be following History of the Power Rangers from now on, but I had to discuss what was a central part of my childhood because...well, its my blog and I can do things like that. Hope you enjoyed it, and hopefully it caused you to have a fond trip into your own memories.