Sunday, September 8, 2013

Top 10 Weirdest (for Power Rangers) and/or Confusing Power Ranger plots

Things are pretty weird already on Power Rangers but here are 10 I consider the most strange. Being strange is not a bad thing, I consider these fun. You guys might not agree, these are just my ideas. The weirdest are usually written by Shuki Levy, former executive producer who is now working on his own production called "Tribe of the Wild."
 
10. Rita and Zedd marrying
Now, Rita and Zedd being married is a norm. We all know it as part of PR history. It is un-questioned basically. Behind the scenes, Lord Zedd was considered 'too scary' by parents and Saban brought in this plot to 'soften' Zedd up. But storywise, Rita never showed caring for Zedd in such a way. She clearly was repulsed by him (pun intended) and this was a power move more than anything. But in the end, like him falling for her without the love potion, she did fall for him. But instead of marrying him, she could had just outpowered him or overthrow him. Other thing is that with the love potion, using moon mud to make herself look young made no sense. He would had loved her under the love potion even without rejuvenating her face. Behind the scenes, it was done in order to have the younger Carla Perez play Rita.
 
9. Billy aging and Alien girlfriend
In Zeo, they used Billy heroically jumping on the Command Center council in the end of "Hogday Afternoon" as a reason he couldn't gain the Gold Zeo Ranger powers and rapidly age him. He had to go to Aquitar to retain his true age again. This was all done to write Billy out as David Yost chose to leave. I was 13 at the time, as soon as I saw the 'old Billy,' I thought, "Not again." It was like when they substituted Austin, Walter and Thuy with stand-ins and stock footage when they were fired before they were replaced by three new actors. It was just a weird explanation and storyline to get him out of there. We all know now what happened behind the scenes, the PR crew said David Yost was hard to work with while David Yost says there was too many homophobic slurs and a hostile work environment that he left.
 
 8. Zordon's Wave/Lost Galaxy
This is not so much weird but the most controversial and confusing story line that has cause much debate in the fandom. At the end of "In Space," Zordon was destroyed and his energy wiped out all the villains and monsters the Rangers fought from MMPR to Space. It wasn't said that he wiped out all the aliens in the whole universe but it was assumed. In Lost Galaxy, Scorpio and Trakeena seem to be from deep space, some thought part of Lost Galaxy but then it was clarified that the Lost Galaxy was a separate entity that had to be accessed from the Galaxy Book. In fact, a lot of the Lost Galaxy storylines were strange and made no logical sense. But I've gone over that before, like Mike and the Magna Defender. Mike had fallen inside Mirinoi but Magna Defender seem to come from another planet because Terra Venture was nowhere near Mirinoi when MD arrived.
 
7. Thrax
There was plenty weird things in Disney but for me, it was pretty standard and explainable. The one headscratcher for fans is when was Thrax conceived. And Thrax having a past with Sentinel Knight is also another headscratcher. Thrax was child of Zedd and Rita. Since Zedd and Rita married in 1995, Thrax had to be created between then and 2007 (when he appears in Operation Overdrive). But PROO already established that Sentinel Knight existed long ago and had conflicts with Moltor and Flurious hundreds of years ago. S.K. was then trapped... when exactly did he encounter Thrax? Oh well, I rather not dwell too much...
 
6. Dumping the Zeo Powers
Fellow Power Force member Linkara mentioned it made no sense to go from Zeo to Turbo as the Zeo powers were supposed to advance the Rangers and had great power. And out of nowhere, they plum abandon the powers. The Turbo movie does not explain this at all. Some fans infamously created the "Scorpion Rain" prank in order to bridge Zeo and Turbo. For those who do not know, these fans said on the internet it was an unaired episode and a synopsis was posted, some fans believed this. Anyway, storywise this made no sense to dump one pair of powers for like Linkara said, just cars. And plus given that Divatox was a pirate and her goons were more water-based. Wouldn't it had made more sense to give them sea powers? We all now know that Toei requires their adapters to never skip a Sentai season for footage.
 
5. Justin as a Power Ranger
There seems to be two groups on the Justin thing. When it happened, I was 14 and I didn't like the idea of a kid being a Ranger. Many fans around my age agree. A lot of the Turbo haters bring this up as one of the reasons. But Hector David Jr. (Mike of Power Rangers Samurai), having been around 7 or 8 the time thought it was cool. My 24 year-old friend also agrees, saying it made him think he could be a Ranger and he saw himself in Justin's shoes. Linkara brought up the good point that Zordon never said why he chose Justin as there was plenty other candidates worthy to be Blue Rnager like Billy, Tommy's brother David Trueheart or even Jason, if he wasn't captured by Divatox. Plus, somewhere out there was Zack.
 
 
4. Bulk and Skull knowing the 2nd Turbo Rangers
Bulk and Skull all supposedly knew the New Turbo Rangers (Cassie, TJ, Carlos and Ashley) without any introduction, it was like Saved By the Bell: The New Class where the cast rotated a lot but Principal Belding and Screech knew them as part of the gang.
 
3. Rito and Goldar as Maids
Goldar, who was the biggest badass ever in the beginning was reduced to an amnesiac maid. Comic relief was bad enough but worse was to reduce him to shell of what he once was. Rito we didn't know well, he essentially was only a threat in his introduction and quickly became comic relief. It was just weird to see where he was to see where he went.
 
2. Bulk and Skull as Monkeys
We pretty much grew up with it and didn't think it was so strange. But come on, think about it. Turning two of the longest running characters, the most popular non-rangers into essentially non-speaking characters (which we did hear them). This whole plot only lasted half of Turbo. It was said to be done in order to make a Bulk and Skull spinoff which never really happened. The weird thing is that Bulk and Skull turned back to normal after the four Turbo Rangers were replaced and they all supposedly knew each other without any introduction (check #4). Wouldn't it had made more sense for them to be monkeys during the second half?
 
1. Aisha/Tanya Power Transfer
I am careful not to say Alien Rangers saga because I love them. What I still think is weird and confusing is the whole plot where Master Vile reverse time and made the Rangers into Kids. Now because of the Power Coins, the Rangers remembered each other but basically Bulk and Skull only recognized Billy. Tommy was a 'new kid' in 1993, Rocky, Aisha and Adam moved from Stone Canyon in 1994, and Katherine came in from Australia in 1995. Judging by their ages, they were probably meant to be hurled into 1988. But not even that was mentioned. Maybe because it was a 'kids show' they didn't want to go too much into details.
 
"Too much into details" also applies to Aisha/Tanya plotline. I understood the whole saga of the Rangers going into different times and places to get the Zeo sub-crystals but what made it confusing was what Aisha did. As you may remember, Tanya was left in Africa by her explorer parents and there were sick animals. I originally thought Tanya was from Africa and never was in the States. As an adult, I see they implied she was from the United States as she never seemed to have trouble with adjusting to America in Zeo. I said before she knew English but being from Africa doesn't necessarily mean she didn't know English. Plenty of Africans know English. Aisha thought she could help so she gave Tanya the Zeo sub-crystal and made her into a Ranger. Zordon said that her staying in the past her parents and family would transfer to Africa. Fans took this as Aisha as a Power Ranger never happened. This has caused lots of fan debate, especially now that Super Megaforce is coming up and lots of Rangers are returning and there is debate if Aisha will be a Ranger or not.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

My opinion:
#10. Saban should have made it a plot where Rita wanted to use the love potion to hypnotize Zedd but with a twist, Zedd is unaffected by the love potion and he tricks Rita.
#8. I think Saban should've have went in depth of the radius that the Z-Wave had or say that evil was still afoot in different galaxies and dimensions though the current evils are destroyed.
#7. The Once A Ranger teamup could've been a 3 parter if not 4. That way we could've gotten more in depth about Thrax's background.
#6. Yeah dumping the Zeo Powers for Turbo Powers was dumb. They should've had at least a couple more episodes of Zeo to where the Zeo Powers were destroyed or drained of energy somehow and have Divatox a true space pirate.
#5. I think Zordon chose Justin as a Ranger because he saw the other Rangers teleport (pretty much giving them away as Power Rangers). But it would've been nice to have an explanation.
#3. Saban shouldn't have made Rito and Goldar comic relief because that was Squatt and Baboo's job. Not to mention, he could've have kept them as a threat though they were generals.
#1. There should've been an explanation of why Karan Ashley (Aisha) didn't stay on the show. It would've been interesting seeing Aisha as Zeo Ranger II and the Yellow Turbo Ranger.

Unknown said...

I have a thought on how Thrax came to be. I think when Master Vile reversed time, Zedd and Rita conceived Thrax then. In my opinion this does make sense and would give at least some what of an explanation on how Thrax and Sentinel Knight came to know each other and what lead to Thrax's containment in a space dumpster. After the Power Rangers were able to restore the timeline Thrax could have been matured to adulthood just like how Tanya was. Anyway this is just my thought on Thrax's background.

henshin0 said...

i can explain the one about bulk and skull knowing tj et al. for a good 5-10 episodes in the first half of the series, carlos and ashley became recurring characters like richie and jason's girlfriend from zeo. they hung out with the rangers a lot, especially with adam and tonya (contrary to mmpr2 where the new guys hung out with the remaining cast rather than the cast they were replacing). who else was with the rangers all the time? bulk and skull. those chimps were with the rangers all the time (when they weren't driving stone bananas). it was never said, or implied they lost their memories, so they would clearly know justin, carlos and ashley by then. when tj and cassie joined the group, it was obvious they were with the gang, and bulk and skull wouldn't take long to get to know them, especially after crossing paths with them after all those odd jobs they had. there was even one where tj tried to help them clear their names after some stuff got stolen.

Infernowolf87 said...

I allows thought in reference to the Aisha/Tanya story that unlike the other our rangers Aishia wasn't really sent back in time just transported to Africa in the same time frame they were in (u mentioned it would have probably been around 1988). That the only way it makes sense that her parents would have made the move with her and be in Africa when time was rest her time as arangers would also have to remain intack in order for her to remember Tanya and the others to send them the the key that helped tanya find her parents during zeo.

Also surpised that you did just put all the time travel/manipuation stories together. given that they did 2 separte sets of stories that had the rangers become kids and going back in time. the first of each being very inaccurate as

Rangers Back in Time, Part 1-2
Had young bulk and skull knowing everyone when they should have only known Kimberly and billy since they were the on ones originally from angel grove

Return of the Green Ranger, Part
had the rangers sent to a colonial angel grove.

The second attempts at those story lines were more accurate with kim going back to angel grove of the wild west and young bulk and skull only knowing billy after master vile made them kids again.

it was also weird that the first time when they became kids that the ranges other that billy and kim would know each other and that their powers wouldn't have shielded them from the effects of time reversal (remebering they are rangers and all )the fist time it happened.

Unknown said...

To answer on Thrax, time travel with the Orb of Doom does not work. Master Vile only affected the Earth. I have heard of a cut scene in the Turbo Movie that explains the loss of the Zeo powers. Notice how Goldar and Rito were slightly more menacing and stole the bike when they regained their memories. There is also no mention of Ninjor or Auric or the Ninja and Shogunzords. There is also no mention of Alpha 5 though some believe he may have died on Eltar. I say that the Z- Wave was semi-sentient; that it only destroyed/purified ATTACKING villians. That is all I got. Do poke holes.