Morphenomenal Memories: 25 Years of POWER RANGERS

Disney Era (Ninja Storm to RPM)

When Disney acquired Power Rangers and subsequently produced Wild Force, the writing had been on the wall — Disney had bigger projects on their plate so they didn’t have enough time to focus on this particular franchise. In effect, they looked like they didn’t really care about Power Rangers except for when it’s time to report about its toy and merchandise sales revenue. Despite initially considering cancellation of the series altogether, Disney instead decided to set up shop in New Zealand so they can keep the show going. Not long after, Toei started alternating between Japan and New Zealand for filming and producing later seasons of Sentai, giving room for a hand-in-hand partnership for Toei and Disney to produce both Sentai and Power Rangers.

The relocation also meant another fresh start for the franchise. The producers tried to take that “fresh start” one step further by branding all seasons prior to Ninja Storm as comic book stories. While I don’t mind a soft reboot of a long-running franchise, I wasn’t a fan of them blatantly disregarding the past as metafiction. To me, it felt like WCW’s reboot in the mid-2000s. It was a good thing that the show’s producers abandoned the idea early on.

Admittedly, I didn’t tune in much to the show during this era. I didn’t have as much faith in the franchise as I did before, thus I started following the Sentai series they were based on instead. After all, why would I tune in to a show that the higher-ups plan on cancelling anyway? The only season that stood out in the Disney Era in a good way was Dino Thunder because it showed a lot of promise the most. Dino Thunder in particular pulled Tommy back into the fray as the Black Dino Ranger, though him being a paleontologist seemed like it came out of left field. I also found it funny that there was one episode that the Dino Rangers watched an episode of Abaranger. I found it funny that in the Power Rangers universe, Sentai would be based on them instead of the other way around.

Under this era was the season that I consider the worst, Operation Overdrive. I didn’t watch the entire series but I did watch the 15th Anniversary team-up special titled “Once A Ranger”. I mentioned before that Forever Red had its inconsistencies, but Once A Ranger had so many red flags that it was hard for me to enjoy it. There wasn’t even any effort to use the original Power Rangers theme song for critical scenes featuring Adam, especially during his morphing sequence. The primary villain for this episode, Thrax, is the son of Lord Zedd and Rita, which I thought was impossible since he was at least thousands of years old given that he had an encounter with the Sentinel Knight in the past. Given that Zedd and Rita just got married about 14 years prior, I would highly doubt that they would be able to accelerate Thrax’s growth by that much. I hate it when I have to overanalyze things like this. And finally, to establish some form of drama, the Overdrive Rangers had opted to give up rather than keep fighting when their powers were taken away. What a bunch of wusses.

Apart from this team-up, Operation Overdrive gained notoriety when Samuell Benta, who played Will in this season, kept one of four autographed Power Morphicon banners as a personal souvenir when they were meant to be auctioned off with the proceeds going to charity. Power Morphicon staff have previously asked him to return said banner but he stood his ground and refused. Since then, he has been DELETED (Sorry if my article seems… broken) by all Power Rangers fans, including myself.

After Operation Overdrive came the marginally successful Jungle Fury and the apocalyptic RPM, with Disney declaring the latter as the final season. During the moratorium period after RPM, the first season of Mighty Morphin was re-released by Disney with the presentation akin to the Adam West and Burt Ward-headlined Batman TV series. That insulted me the most. I understand that the show’s tone has changed over the years, but to throw in loopy special effects and outlandish graphics and pass it off as a “remastered” version pissed me off.

Perhaps due to budget constraints, this is also the first instance in which actors played different characters in multiple, and sometimes consecutive, seasons. You’d be familiar with names like John Tui, who played Doggie Cruger in SPD and Daggeron in Mystic Force, and Kelson Henderson, who has played a slew of supporting characters and villains since SPD (though he had bit roles in two episodes of Dino Thunder) and is still part of the franchise to this day.

I’m sure Haim Saban had enough of Disney’s mismanagement as well because not long after, he announced that he bought back the rights to Power Rangers. I’m not gonna lie — I was excited when Saban made the announcement because it opened the door for a resurgence of the franchise. But of course, the franchise’s resurrection wouldn’t be easy.