Observations of Power Rangers

Cafe Society
1

I have 3.5 year old boys. It’s been demonstrated that at 3 years of age, reguardless of nature or nurture, they genetically change to spontaneously obsess over Power Rangers. Thus I’ve become an unwitting expert in them.

This is the kind of knowledge that you only get from parenthood, similar to the discovery that, your parents didn’t send you to camp for YOU to have fun, they did it so that THEY could have fun.

So. My discovery isn’t that Power Rangers and their offspring (s.p.d. and Mystic Force, currently.) are a perfect, perrennial, money making industry. It’s not that the formula is ideal (cool costumes, you have special powers, you transform, then transform again into a megazord…meaning for each 5 member team, there’s no less than 768 different toy marketing combinations.) Lots and Lots and LOTS of Monsters du jour, requireing new moves, new powers, new weaponry. Gotta buy that $10 foam sword…actually, two of them, so the boys can poke their eyes out at exactly the same time.

That’s all little stuff.
I’ve discovered the secret, and it is this:

All of the power rangers wear masks so that the production company can grind through stunt people at an alarming rate. I imagine there are long lines of used up stunt doubles, all less than 22, who no longer have a career in kung-fu. I’d imagine they’re in Vancouver.

In effect, it’s a puppy factory, only instead of puppies, they turn out ninjas. Arthritic, hobbling, ninjas.

2

Not Vancouver. Probably Kyoto.

The reason they change every year is that Power Rangers is just a redubbing of Japanese series, with new interstitial material shot using American/Canadian actors to transition from battle to battle.

3

No, IIRC the Power Rangers Dino Thunder series is filmed in Australia. And Power Rangers Ninja Storm was not dubbed- you can tell by watching their lips. :wink:

They may all be a rip-off of an original Japanese series, but they seem pretty independent now.

And yes, there are about a million different itinerations…

EJsGirl, a mother of 6 & 4 year old boys…

4

Apparently, Tommy has been in all the series, in one form or another.

5

I seem to recall that in the first series that made it big, there were five characters - three boys, two girls. But the stunt players were made up of four boys and one girl. That made for an interesting situation, if you were paying attention.

6

Yes, this mom of a little boy is well aware of it. :wink:

7

It is worth noting that, since your boys are only 3.5 and you may never have seen the original series (which was really the only one I was young enough to see,) Tommy was ontroduced in either the late first or second season (I think) and was EVIIIIIIIIL! Them after he became good, he slowly lost his powers, and then the power of the Green Ranger was given to the Red Ranger to use, so he got TWO zords and also that funky gold shoulder thing. Eventually, they found another ranger power, and Tommy became the white ranger. Or something. :stuck_out_tongue:

And from what I could tell back then, all the fighting scenes in costume or with the 'zords were from the original Japanese, as were the scenes of the villians on the moon, as it was clear they were dubbed. But the scenes with the actors not in costume, it was in English.

8

I also wondered if some of the power rangers didn’t end up also playing the part of the unnamed minions as well.

I’ve been reluctantly impressed at the apparent budget the series has. All those monster suits and wire-fu shots can’t be cheap.

Found this too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Rangers

9

I remember when Power Rangers originally came on. I was six or seven. I was a big fan for a year or two. Even then I knew how forumlaic it was.
I’m surprised it’s still going.

Something I think is funny now, though I missed as a child is that the black ranger is black and the yellow ranger is Asian. I’m surprised they didn’t make the red ranger an Indian.

10

I remember when the White Ranger came on. He appeared in an episode and they didn’t show who he was, and then it must have been the end of the season because it was a few months till the next episode. I remember speculating with my friends over who the White Ranger would turn out to be. We decided that it probably would be Tommy.
I don’t think it was long after that that I stopped watching. I stopped watching before the spinoffs started at least.

11

The action sequences are original. For the few scenes where the characters are not wearing helmets, they have English-speaking actors redo the scenes.

12

Im 23.

Now, if they “recut” MMPR to be more like MXC , I would watch that. :eek:

13

Tommy is Dr. Oliver, right? In Dino Thunder? I ask because he’s the black ranger in that one, as well as the “adult mentor” character. The white ranger is Trent, the bad kid.

In Ninja Storm, the “adult mentor” is Cam’s dad, the ninja master who has been turned into a hamster (shades of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”).

God, this is sad…

14

I still recall my bitter disappointment at the premiere of Power Rangers when it wasn’t the Night Flight version of Dynaman.

The original Red Ranger’s a gay porn star now. And I think the original Yellow Ranger’s dead.

15

What about the Silver Power Ranger, Zhane? Where the heck did he come from? (I just happened to look to my right and see a Zhane action figure sprawled face down on my couch.)

I’ve been hoping my 11-y-o outgrows PR soon. I think every Xmas morning picture for the last six years or so is of him standing in front of the tree holding some sort of megazord.

What I’m really hoping he outgrows soon is that spawn of the devil Yu-Gi-Oh. But that’s a topic for another thread.

16

Yep. According to IMDB, the Yellow Ranger died in 2001 in a car crash.

Anyway, as a 23 year old, I was in the target audience for the original Power Rangers, and boy did I eat it up like candy. I think I continued watching up until they started doing the Ninja Force stuff or whatever, which coincided with one of the movies. I guess that’s about when it jumped the gigantic magically enhanced shark-monster.

“Make my monster GROW!”

17

I think in one incarnation he was? In Power Rangers: Turbo, the red ranger certainly looks to have some native American blood.

18

If I recall correctly, the Pink Ranger was working as Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s stunt double for a while.

19

Man, if I had a dollar for every time a man said that to me…

20

Man, I wish real life was that funny. My contacts in the field tell me the orginal Red Ranger isn’t in gay porn, that’s just a muscled out guy who looks like him.

The Red Ranger is apparantly selling time shares in Las Vegas. Seriously.