Saturday, March 14, 2009

Appreciation for the Power Rangers franchise

When I read on the SRK (Shoryuken.com) forums that the Power Rangers franchise has been cancelled, it felt like another end of an era for me as that series has been a part of my childhood for a while and I admit I was still watching it in my high school days. In the 90s, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers era was pretty awesome and nothing has really come close to topping that in recent seasons except for taking advantage of CG in some cases with the Disney takeover. After the Space season ended, that was then Power Rangers was at its peak and it went downhill from there even though I kept watching. The OG show brought many memorable moments like this:



At its 17th season on ABC / Toon Disney called R.P.M., its pretty much over for the franchise. I remember watching clips of some Power Rangers convention that happened two years ago, which was pretty crazy. This whole series brought us lots of badassery from certain rangers (usually the red ones and bonus "6th" ranger) along with sexual fantasies if anyone went down that dirty path with the female rangers. The last season I seriously watched was Dino Thunder with the return of Tommy (the Green and White Ranger from the OG season) and pretty much stopped caring catching time from time with S.P.D., Mystic Force, Operation Overdrive, and Jungle Fury. When it was on Fox, it was good times, but I think with Disney taking over sometime during the Wild Force season, something special was missing. Usually the can't miss episodes are when the sixth ranger gets introduced, a team up of a current season that's going on and the one previous to that, and the finale. Then again, certain episodes came out that were awesome were "Forever Red" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg1Uf_gj4Nw from Wild Force and "Once A Ranger" from Operation Overdrive.

Yeah, I also watched the first movie when it also on theaters and that was basically an extended everyday episode. Some of them have moved on from those days, but certain rangers had more successful careers like Adam (OG Black, Zeo Green) played by Johnny Yong Bosch, who moved on to do voiceovers for lots of big animes and even Nero for Devil May Cry 4. Okay, I feel like I rambled enough for this while getting nostalgic for it at the same time. Here's the SRK thread remembering the good times from certain moments to debating who's the hottest girl in the franchise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg1Uf_gj4Nw

Okay, I'll try to rank them (I'm probably wrong)
  1. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
  2. Space
  3. Zeo
  4. Turbo
  5. Lost Galaxy
  6. Dino Thunder
  7. Ninja Storm
  8. Time Force
  9. Lightspeed Rescue
  10. Wild Force
  11. Operation Overdrive
  12. S.P.D.
  13. Mystic Force
  14. Jungle Fury
  15. R.P.M. (Haven't watched it)