Not meant as a serious pitch (obviously, since I'm posting it on the Internet rather than sending it to Saban), but just a sort of speculative suggestion a la Christopher Bird's Why I Should Write (blank) series.
If all else were to hold even, Goseiger, Super Sentai's 34th season, would be translated into Power Rangers' 20th season. (It would be the series' 19th year, I believe, but if we're going to arbitrarily define things, it might as well be by Saban's arbitrary definition of what the 19th season is [Power Rangers Samurai].) Thus, it deserves to be something of an "event" year.
Unfortunately, Saban is currently going with the whole "just imitate the guys who wrote it the first time and it'll turn out serviceable" idea. This bothers me because Goseiger was merely an okay season of Super Sentai, but I think it could be used for great Power Rangers.
Specifically, imitating Super Sentai too slavishly would probably create something rather cringe-worthy. The Goseigers call themselves angels, for crying out loud! This could cause a negative reaction from mainstream America, to the point where I could see Saban skipping it in order to avoid a backlash.
So why don't we dodge it in another way, with one of Power Rangers' own old mainstays, "space aliens?" I even have a suggestion that I think would work very well, both calling back to olden days and simultaneously opening up new possibilities: Eltarians.
The problem with using anything from Power Rangers' past is that it's fraught with major expectations, and there wouldn't be a sentai-footage based way of supporting the connection. Here, that's not necessarily a problem. Why? Because it was never truly defined just what makes an Eltarian an Eltarian.
Sure, the primary Eltarian we know of, Zordon, was a head in a tube. This was pretty well defined, but doesn't it strike you as unlikely that this would be what all Eltarians were like? If they were tool-users, they had to have hands at some point.
There are also semi-apocryphal references to the idea that Zordon had once had a more humanlike body, and had been more proactive. Here we have our crucial element: What if these hypothetical "alien rangers" were Eltarians of a similar sort to the pre-livin'-in-a-tube Zordon?
Specifically, like the Goseigers, a team of youths in training who get stranded with only limited guidance on Earth. They're indistinguishable from humans except on occasions wherein they sprout wings in moments showing greater potential or some such. (Granted, associating Eltarians with such imagery has a good chance of becoming rather uncomfortable, but it's not like Eltar doesn't potentially have this problem already, what with having "El" in its name. I can't imagine that was completely unintentional, as Superman has the same "El" in his "real" name.)
This gets around problems associated with those few other probable and known Eltarians-Zordon and the Phantom Ranger-because Zordon had no body and if the Phantom Ranger never showed wings, perhaps it was because he didn't want to risk being widely identified as Eltarian, or maybe he'd lost his powers, or maybe he was just a guest on Eltar who used some of their stuff. (It's not like we ever got a reveal, darnit.)
Power Rangers: Eltarian Guys
So here's my starting pitch:
A group of young Eltarians (possibly six, although I could imagine not being allowed to kill off Green, so I'm going to say five) have been brought by their mentor (at least loosely equivalent to Master Head, and let's call him Zoltar) and his robot assistant (roughly equivalent to Datas, let's call him "Alpha 3000") to Earth in order to observe a world that has been quite important in Eltarian history.
(These individuals would likely have been children during the great war on Eltar from PR:T through PRiS, and would probably have vivid memories of being told that Rangers from Earth had been instrumental in saving them from Dark Specter's forces.)
When they are close to Earth, they get attacked by an enemy force, heavily armed bug aliens, and are thereby stranded on the planet's surface when their ship is downed. (They probably hang out with some humans and thus have domestic antics, but the humans are probably young adults, because really, guys, kid appeal things of this type have been done to death and back.)
It turns out that these bug aliens know the importance of Earth to Eltar as a symbol and stuff like that, and so they have come to destroy it. One of the enemies is a mysterious blue creature that seems to know more than he should about Eltar, and though he is subservient to the leader of the bug alien band, he seems to be whispering in his ear. (This individual is quite obviously based on Bladerun, and if you know anything about Goseiger, you probably can guess vaguely about where this is going. I guess I'll call him Bladerun for convenience.) Using their Eltarian Ranger powers, the youths manage to defeat even the enemy flagship, but Bladerun manages to survive and escape, and somehow a new foe is awakened.
The new foe, Ivan Ooze (derived from Makuin's appearances, because it's too perfect an opportunity to pass up the idea of a creepy purple slime-based ham villain being used as a preexisting and otherwise quite different creepy purple slime-based ham villain) and his ally, some big dumb brute guy, join up with Bladerun, who has now taken on a different shape. Bladerun shows even more mysterious and inexplicable knowledge of Eltar, most troublingly his ability to tap into old powers and weapons from Eltar. Ooze and his partner are suspicious of him, though, and eventually use the Rangers to seemingly defeat him. Eventually, they manage to defeat Ooze, possibly using their repaired ship-which, if this were the case, would be their last new Megazord, not counting combinations. I like the idea of the "Gosei Wonder" being recast as an Eltarian spacecraft, if only because of its vague resemblance in ship mode to the Delta Megaship.
(Probably, Gosei Knight would effectively be repurposed as a Ninjor type-a powerful helper who also teaches them combat techniques, since Alpha 3000 and Zoltar would be unable to do so by conventional means. Perhaps his training would allow them to use their golden power armor.)
Another mysterious new foe appears, however. I might play them as survivors of the Machine Empire (basically a version of the history I came up with for Venjix, as that never was established in RPM), as they match pretty closely in terms of aesthetic and general nature. This foe seems to be using Bladerun as a puppet against the Eltarian Rangers, and this comes to a most troubling head when he somehow manages to negate their powers (albeit temporarily). His treachery results in the destruction of the mecha faction, and he soon after reveals himself as...
Zordon of Eltar! (Did you see it coming? Cue flamewars.)
Somehow, Zordon came back, but he came back wrong. Not because coming back is something that turns you evil, but because all that good that was in the Zordon Wave got used up. Zordon was the goodest of the good, the Big Good of the entire galaxy, but even he couldn't do what he did in "Countdown to Destruction" without ultimately being changed. And now he's as evil as he ever was good.
Now, here's where details get a little fuzzy. Will he be redeemable, or is there no coming back from the dark side?
So what do you think? Good, bad, completely ridiculous? All three?
-Signing off.
Showing posts with label essay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label essay. Show all posts
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Theory Two-Timeline Oddities
(In which Invid explains what a heck is up with the current timeline. )
Part One-Thrax
Thrax presents an interesting conundrum for the long-time Power Rangers fan, such as myself.
First, he's an immensely fun character. As the son of Zedd and Rita, he actually looks like he's related to Zedd and has Rita's vocal and physical mannerisms-a hilarious and well-executed combination.
Second, the episode in which he was involved was a very good nostalgia episode, featuring frequent references to older continuity and proving that the writers haven't completely forgotten the monolithic fifteen year history of the metafranchise.
However, the third point is a rather significant problem: Thrax remarked that he once battled the Sentinel Knight, who was dormant until modern times after the sealing of the Corona Aurora. The sealing of the Corona Aurora was clearly established as happening when all of Earth's continents were still merged as Pangaea (for the record, about 270 million years ago)!
And Thrax can't really be more than the chronological equivalent of a prepubescent child during his Operation Overdrive appearance. Yet he was supposedly sealed for ages in a very familiar sort of space dumpster, and had all the knowledge of a rather sophisticated, elder, experienced Power Rangers type villain.
You've probably already surmised just what my solution to the difficulties this creates is if you've read my other essay. (Thrax is a time traveller.) I just want to add a few notes:
First, Sentinel Knight must get his space dumpsters from the same supply store as Zordon, which might actually have been Zordon's supply store. (More on that at some other time.)
Second, Thrax could only have been born at one of two times in the series: Either during Turbo, where Zedd and Rita mysteriously (and rather conveniently) disappeared until the next season, or after Zedd and Rita were transformed into dancin' fools. (There is also the shorter gap between the beginning of Zeo and when they start showing up again in that season, but it was a rather brief one, so it's less likely. And there is also the outside possibility that Thrax was an illegitimate child that Zedd and Rita had hundreds of millions of years ago, but let's be realistic here.)
So the real question is, would it be "possible" for the "good" Zedd and Rita to have produced a twisted, sicko puppy child like Thrax?
My vote is, probably not. First off, what "decent" parent would name his or her child after a disease?
Second... Er, no second.
Anyway, so probably, Thrax was a child born under great secrecy, and hidden away (possibly in the past) in such a way that he was not affected by the Zordon Bomb. (Upon learning that Rito did not appear in the PRiS finale, my sister suggested that perhaps Rito was sent back with him as a caretaker. In-universe explanations for costume damage-related facts for the win.)
There is one other explanation, that being that, since Rita was selected to be the Empress of Good Magic of Mystic Force, Zedd was left bitter and alone (I sure didn't see him around, although the Master sounded a bit like him), and did a lousy job of raising the kid.
Or it could be that they were just normal sized in the back of the big magical cloudy palace thing, and nobody noticed them because the Empress was so darned big. (cough)
Not terribly likely, though, because of the whole Rita mannerism thing, unless that was actually genetic...
Part Two-The Near Future
SPD supposedly takes place about twenty years after the series itself airs. RPM, it appears, also takes place after it airs (at least four years later, depending on how one wants to interpret it).
The events of RPM (the extermination of humanity except for a handful who escape to shelters such as Corinth) kind of make things... iffy for SPD. RPM has to take place sometime before SPD because if the Space Patrol Delta organization exists, it's pretty much impossible for Venjix to pose a serious threat. (Venjix: "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave-wait, where did you get that giant cannon-shaped Megazord, Dave?") And if it takes place before, well... SPD's existence is threatened for a variety of reasons, most notably the fact that SPD's normal-sized populations couldn't exist after a catastrophe of that magnitude.
There's a related problem-Terra Venture. If you remember, in Lost Galaxy Earth had the technology and resources to build a huge space platform capable of long-distance space travel. How come this stuff isn't still around after two or three more seasons?
Well, let's start with Terra Venture. We don't know what happened to the Dark Fortress after PRiS. Let's presume, since it, like Terra Venture, is frakkin' huge, it was heavily salvaged for purposes of building Terra Venture, and its superstructure, which has vague similarities, was used as the core of Terra Venture's superstructure. (However, it should be noted that Terra Venture was way bigger than the Fortress-they probably bankrupted a few dozen countries building the darned thing. It is also possible that Terra Venture was in fact older, and had been salvaged from something else... I think the writers kinda forgot where they were sometimes. Look here for a bit more info on Terra Venture's... oddities. One intimation is that they actually lifted substantial portions of land from somewhere to use as the ground...)
Anyway, I would suppose that the disappearance of this various advanced technology over time (the post Lightspeed Rescue/Time Force era-these two seasons contrasted with later ones have a lot of disparity) may simply be related to economics. In effect, the companies that can make this sophisticated technology vanished in the intermediate time period because it's darned expensive to make it, and any returns thereof may be the result of their tech passing on to other companies. This is actually supported a bit by the fact that there are apparently warehouses out there which have old Power Rangers tech in them, and for that matter the Angel Grove junkyard must be a treasure trove, since it probably has Machine Empire monster and cog bits in it, and definitely has Zord parts (!) recycled by Billy at some point.
And this tech is apparently only useful for fighting invaders, so it can't be that profitable. Uh huh. Yep, perfectly logical.
So the big question that remains, then, is that of the population. But I think this one also solves itself, at least to some degree.
To wit: "Earth isn't the only place where humans live."
Earth may have been extensively repopulated by the "space colonies," including but not necessarily limited to KO-35 and Mirinoi/Terra Venture. (My sister remarks that "the guys in SPD were kinda weird," but I'm not sure that's valid evidence...) This theory would also explain why, a mere twenty or so years into the future, the population of Earth has such a high proportion of aliens-they were the space humans' neighbors, and followed them. (I mean they were figuratively neighbors. Trade partners, things like that. Not neighbors in the sense of that one guy from the Super Sentai GoGo V/Timeranger crossover movie, who looked just like Vexicon/Blaster Mad and claimed to be his identical neighbor [because there were a number of recycled costumes claiming to be relatives of the originals].) This idea is certainly not hurt any by the fact that KO-35, at least, was mentioned in an episode of SPD as the planet where an alien criminal had been previously imprisoned.
Obviously, this particular theory will either look better over time, or a lot worse.
It should also be noted that, counting this year, the year SPD aired, and the year Lost Galaxy aired, there have been three different years now since Power Rangers started where there isn't an existing Power Rangers team on Earth for the year (based on the assertion made many times that each series airs during the year it "occurs").
Part One-Thrax
Thrax presents an interesting conundrum for the long-time Power Rangers fan, such as myself.
First, he's an immensely fun character. As the son of Zedd and Rita, he actually looks like he's related to Zedd and has Rita's vocal and physical mannerisms-a hilarious and well-executed combination.
Second, the episode in which he was involved was a very good nostalgia episode, featuring frequent references to older continuity and proving that the writers haven't completely forgotten the monolithic fifteen year history of the metafranchise.
However, the third point is a rather significant problem: Thrax remarked that he once battled the Sentinel Knight, who was dormant until modern times after the sealing of the Corona Aurora. The sealing of the Corona Aurora was clearly established as happening when all of Earth's continents were still merged as Pangaea (for the record, about 270 million years ago)!
And Thrax can't really be more than the chronological equivalent of a prepubescent child during his Operation Overdrive appearance. Yet he was supposedly sealed for ages in a very familiar sort of space dumpster, and had all the knowledge of a rather sophisticated, elder, experienced Power Rangers type villain.
You've probably already surmised just what my solution to the difficulties this creates is if you've read my other essay. (Thrax is a time traveller.) I just want to add a few notes:
First, Sentinel Knight must get his space dumpsters from the same supply store as Zordon, which might actually have been Zordon's supply store. (More on that at some other time.)
Second, Thrax could only have been born at one of two times in the series: Either during Turbo, where Zedd and Rita mysteriously (and rather conveniently) disappeared until the next season, or after Zedd and Rita were transformed into dancin' fools. (There is also the shorter gap between the beginning of Zeo and when they start showing up again in that season, but it was a rather brief one, so it's less likely. And there is also the outside possibility that Thrax was an illegitimate child that Zedd and Rita had hundreds of millions of years ago, but let's be realistic here.)
So the real question is, would it be "possible" for the "good" Zedd and Rita to have produced a twisted, sicko puppy child like Thrax?
My vote is, probably not. First off, what "decent" parent would name his or her child after a disease?
Second... Er, no second.
Anyway, so probably, Thrax was a child born under great secrecy, and hidden away (possibly in the past) in such a way that he was not affected by the Zordon Bomb. (Upon learning that Rito did not appear in the PRiS finale, my sister suggested that perhaps Rito was sent back with him as a caretaker. In-universe explanations for costume damage-related facts for the win.)
There is one other explanation, that being that, since Rita was selected to be the Empress of Good Magic of Mystic Force, Zedd was left bitter and alone (I sure didn't see him around, although the Master sounded a bit like him), and did a lousy job of raising the kid.
Or it could be that they were just normal sized in the back of the big magical cloudy palace thing, and nobody noticed them because the Empress was so darned big. (cough)
Not terribly likely, though, because of the whole Rita mannerism thing, unless that was actually genetic...
Part Two-The Near Future
SPD supposedly takes place about twenty years after the series itself airs. RPM, it appears, also takes place after it airs (at least four years later, depending on how one wants to interpret it).
The events of RPM (the extermination of humanity except for a handful who escape to shelters such as Corinth) kind of make things... iffy for SPD. RPM has to take place sometime before SPD because if the Space Patrol Delta organization exists, it's pretty much impossible for Venjix to pose a serious threat. (Venjix: "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave-wait, where did you get that giant cannon-shaped Megazord, Dave?") And if it takes place before, well... SPD's existence is threatened for a variety of reasons, most notably the fact that SPD's normal-sized populations couldn't exist after a catastrophe of that magnitude.
There's a related problem-Terra Venture. If you remember, in Lost Galaxy Earth had the technology and resources to build a huge space platform capable of long-distance space travel. How come this stuff isn't still around after two or three more seasons?
Well, let's start with Terra Venture. We don't know what happened to the Dark Fortress after PRiS. Let's presume, since it, like Terra Venture, is frakkin' huge, it was heavily salvaged for purposes of building Terra Venture, and its superstructure, which has vague similarities, was used as the core of Terra Venture's superstructure. (However, it should be noted that Terra Venture was way bigger than the Fortress-they probably bankrupted a few dozen countries building the darned thing. It is also possible that Terra Venture was in fact older, and had been salvaged from something else... I think the writers kinda forgot where they were sometimes. Look here for a bit more info on Terra Venture's... oddities. One intimation is that they actually lifted substantial portions of land from somewhere to use as the ground...)
Anyway, I would suppose that the disappearance of this various advanced technology over time (the post Lightspeed Rescue/Time Force era-these two seasons contrasted with later ones have a lot of disparity) may simply be related to economics. In effect, the companies that can make this sophisticated technology vanished in the intermediate time period because it's darned expensive to make it, and any returns thereof may be the result of their tech passing on to other companies. This is actually supported a bit by the fact that there are apparently warehouses out there which have old Power Rangers tech in them, and for that matter the Angel Grove junkyard must be a treasure trove, since it probably has Machine Empire monster and cog bits in it, and definitely has Zord parts (!) recycled by Billy at some point.
And this tech is apparently only useful for fighting invaders, so it can't be that profitable. Uh huh. Yep, perfectly logical.
So the big question that remains, then, is that of the population. But I think this one also solves itself, at least to some degree.
To wit: "Earth isn't the only place where humans live."
Earth may have been extensively repopulated by the "space colonies," including but not necessarily limited to KO-35 and Mirinoi/Terra Venture. (My sister remarks that "the guys in SPD were kinda weird," but I'm not sure that's valid evidence...) This theory would also explain why, a mere twenty or so years into the future, the population of Earth has such a high proportion of aliens-they were the space humans' neighbors, and followed them. (I mean they were figuratively neighbors. Trade partners, things like that. Not neighbors in the sense of that one guy from the Super Sentai GoGo V/Timeranger crossover movie, who looked just like Vexicon/Blaster Mad and claimed to be his identical neighbor [because there were a number of recycled costumes claiming to be relatives of the originals].) This idea is certainly not hurt any by the fact that KO-35, at least, was mentioned in an episode of SPD as the planet where an alien criminal had been previously imprisoned.
Obviously, this particular theory will either look better over time, or a lot worse.
It should also be noted that, counting this year, the year SPD aired, and the year Lost Galaxy aired, there have been three different years now since Power Rangers started where there isn't an existing Power Rangers team on Earth for the year (based on the assertion made many times that each series airs during the year it "occurs").
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Theory One-The Ultimate Power in the Universe
(In which Invid explains the greatest secrets of the greatest power source of the Power Rangers universe.)
In many seasons of Power Rangers, we are told that this or that is the most powerful energy source "IN THE UNIVERSE!" The Zeo Crystal, the Lights of Orion, the Corona Aurora. While the Lights of Orion were swiftly proven to be quite a bit less impressive than they were hyped as being, one would think that the Zeo Crystal or the Corona Aurora would prove unique. So why are there two?
One could say that this is simply Power Rangers storytelling, and a trope of the action genre. I choose not to accept that glib and simple explanation.
The Zeo Crystal was described as being the greatest power source in the universe, something essentially without parallel. I choose to embrace that idea, and embrace it strongly. However, the Zeo Rangers, who used the Crystal as their power source, were far from invincible. They frequently were brought to the edge of defeat or needed backup, and there was another Ranger-the Gold Ranger-from another planet who proved to have raw power that essentially exceeded theirs.
"But Invid!" you say. "They had to work with the footage of the Super Sentai and stuff! They couldn't just flout that!" My response is, no one told them they had to make the Zeo Crystal, established as the grand McGuffin everyone wants, the new power source. They could have just made something up like "these are the Techno Rangers. They fight the Techno Badguys to Techno Music." But they didn't. They chose to go with something that would enrich the series and give it extra layers. And it does give the series a most interesting layer.
If the Zeo Crystal was the most powerful object in the Power Rangers universe, why were the Zeo Rangers not invincible? Why was it possible to pose the slightest threat to them, and why could they not obliterate the entire Machine Empire with a single blast? Why did Zordon not use the power of the Crystal to protect Earth from every potential threat?
Did you catch that? "Why did Zordon not..." Hmm. Does that suggest anything to you? (Other than the fact that a stunt like blowing the Machine Empire away and building up giant Zord-based defense forces would be likely to start off something like what happened in the ancient past in the Gransazer series-a giant invasion of an alliance of every alien empire in the universe that results in the end of civilization.)
No?
How about I pose another question. Where the !#&% do all the new Power Ranger powers come from?
We are told in the second season at one point by Zordon that for Kimberly to attempt to use the Pink Power Coin alongside its past counterpart would cause an "overload of... Pink Ranger energy" (roughly paraphrased).
What does that mean? It might just mean that it could break the Morphin' Grid.
Yes, we should remember that it's possible to break the Morphin' Grid with enough energy. Rito and Thrax both have done so. Since that time in the second season, nothing's ever stopped large numbers of Rangers from working together if they wanted to. Hmm...
Perhaps the reason the Zeo Rangers were not infinitely powerful had nothing to do with a lack in their power source, and everything to do with what was really being done with that power source. While it is clear that the energies of the Zeo Crystal were providing the power needed to construct the Zeo Zords, power the Zeo Morphers, and the like, perhaps that wasn't all they were doing.
Perhaps, if it was the greatest power in all the universe, its power was being used to do lots of things.
Look at what happened at the start of season three. After the team of monsters led by Rito has considerably weakened the Rangers and the Zords, at a critical moment, Rito, by himself, with a single attack, severed the connection of the Power Coins to the Morphin' Grid and utterly destroyed the Zords. Ninjor fixed things, partly through what turned out to be the risky scheme of connecting the Rangers' life force to the Power Coins (a plot tool used to drum out Kimberly towards the end of the same season, when Amy Jo Johnson's contract was expiring), and Rito was never able to accomplish such an act again. For that matter, Master Vile couldn't, even though he was able to revert the ages of the entire population of Earth. And his monsters alone could break straight through the Rangers' Glitter Armor-er, their Metallic Armor.
Years later, when Thrax gathers the alliance of Operation: Overdrive villains, and utilizes their combined powers-the powers of the gyro-powered Fearcats, Kamdor and Miratrix, Flurious, Moltor, and his own son-of-Zedd-and-Rita self-he is able to knock out the Rangers' connection to the Morphin' Grid. But there isn't even enough excess energy to singe the Rangers themselves, this despite the fact that Andrew Hartford has far less energy and technology at his disposal than Zordon ever did (in the Command Center respect, not hardware such as Zords, which he obviously has quite a lot of). You could certainly argue that this is a poor comparison, that the OO Rangers are far more powerful than the MMPR, but I don't think so.
One would presume from his heritage that Thrax was at least as powerful as Lord Zedd, although he apparently had far fewer resources overall at his disposal (i.e., no Moon Palace, no Serpentera, etc.). Lord Zedd was clearly stronger than Rita or Rito, possibly (probably) both of them together. While the other members of the villainous cast of OO are less powerful-Moltor seems roughly as powerful as Rito to me, although obviously far smarter, Flurious seems to be at least somewhat more powerful, Kamdor and Miratrix are quite powerful (okay, mostly just Kamdor), and the Fearcats are ninja death tanks-combined, they are quite formidable, perhaps United Alliance of Evil strong (though obviously without the warfleets or armies at their disposal). They are, in fact, totally too much all taken together for the Power Rangers to fight. But it took all of them just to break the Morphin' Grid.
What does that suggest to you? I know what it suggests to me: That the Morphin' Grid is far more durable than it used to be. How could that happen?
Zeo Crystal, dawgs.
My firm and solid opinion is that Zordon didn't fritter away the energy of the Zeo Crystal sending out teenagers in spandex to stop the Machine Empire. Well, not only to stop the Machine Empire. See, the Machine Empire was a serious threat, but kind of a short-lived one. While Zedd and Rita needed to employ guerilla tactics against them, the Machine Empire was led by a bunch of pretty stupid and comparitively weak robots.
I mean, for crying out loud! King Mondo? More like King Moron. Or maybe King Mondo Fat.
These guys had this huge army of incredible size, tens or hundreds of thousands of Cogs, right? They had thousands of Quadrafighters, which would not have been threatened by Earth's military very much, and a hundred or so huge space battleships that had massive artillery and whatnot. So what do they do when they arrive on Earth? They send out a "scouting party" of maybe two or three dozen Cogs. The Rangers beat up the Cogs, and what do they do? They send a monster. The Rangers destroy it, and what do they do? They send another monster! Talk about falling into the same trap your predecessors did.
Anyhow, I digress. Lots. The Machine Empire was logistically a big threat, but they were just a flash in the pan compared to Zedd and Rita or even the whiny Master Vile. They just don't build 'em to last, do they? (Of course, this is ironic in light of the probable origin of R.P.M.'s villains. Note that I wrote the bulk of this essay back during Operation Overdrive.)
So it really would have been silly to let all the energies of the Zeo Crystal go to waste, wouldn't it? I suspect that Billy, Alpha 5, and Zordon were doing something behind the Rangers' backs that season.
They reinforced the Morphin' Grid, making it far harder to simply break the way it did at the beginning of season three.
They built up the reserves of the Command Center, setting up the resources they would later use to create the Turbo Zords. (I find it probable that at least some of the Command Center/Power Chamber endured the destruction at the end of Turbo. That was a darned durable building-they blew it up half a dozen times, or so it feels like, and it was still there. No wonder it was so rare to attack it directly.)
Zordon had a few dozen more Zords of various sorts built and hidden around the galaxy (and possibly the planet) for the Rangers to find, and these popped out of the woodworks during PRiS (and other later series).
I mean, come on, you don't really believe that "NASADA" built that space shuttle that could dock with the Astro Megaship and which formed the head of a Megazord, do you?
And it was awfully convenient, wasn't it, that there just happened to be a Megazord that could combine with that just kind of sitting out in space in the middle of nowhere (the Delta Megazord).
And it was awfully convenient that there was a team of more powerful Zords just waiting to be activated in a dire emergency. Literally waiting.
Another suspicious peculiarity-Trey of Triforia. During the scan that revealed him to them, they remarked that he had the same kind of energy they did (i.e., "Power Ranger energy"). While this could be a "generic" Morphin' Grid energy signature, it could suggest something else: That Zordon was a pathological liar about his acquaintances, and he knew exactly who Trey of Triforia was. Because he gave Trey the powers of the Gold Ranger, and he gave Trey the "Super Zeo Gems" to hand back at a convenient moment (Zordon: The Super Zeo Gems! They had been thought lost! Thanks for giving them to us, Trey! Trey: Wink, wink, nudge nudge!) so that Zordon would never need to explain just why he'd been holding out on the Rangers.
"But Invid!" you say. "Zordon would never lie to the Rangers! And why would he come up with such an outrageously silly plan and such? Where's your proof?"
I thought you might ask that question. So let me follow form and respond to your question with a question: Why did Billy need to scrounge up a few more components so that the Super Zeo Megazord could be utilized to its full extent, if the Gems had simply magically granted them the Super Zeo Zords?
I'll tell you why he needed to scrounge up the parts. It's because he and Alpha were building these Zords behind the Rangers' backs, and they had to launch them before they were 100% ready. Billy's resident genius veteran Ranger status apparently had some major security clearance perks.
I suspect that good ol' Trey was actually, for the most part, just a helpful plant by Zordon, so that he could send the Rangers new stuff without arousing suspicion over holding out on them. (This is reinforced by the fact that Zordon could apparently tell exactly who the Green Ranger was the first time they met, but "couldn't" figure out the Gold Ranger's identity. Look here at 117-GWE1, and then at 432-DIKY. Just because Trey talked all mysterious-like doesn't mean he was being honest, and the site notes a minor continuity error.)
I've got no freakin' idea at all where the heck Auric came from, though, and I'm just as eager as anyone to know what happened to the big lug. (Ninjor too, for that matter.)
The fact that Zordon left for Eltar at the beginning of Turbo also suggests to me that he was up to something.
I mean, come on. He was stuck in his Earth plasma tube for at least 10,000 years. Why was he homesick all of a sudden unless he wanted a bit of space from the Rangers? (For purposes of doing stuff without those pesky teenagers busting in every few minutes, that is. And it just hit me-Dimitria must be his secretary.)
Another thing arousing a little bit of suspicion: The Phantom Ranger.
At the time that the Phantom first appeared, Zordon had left for Eltar some time ago, and at the time, I might have suspected that the Phantom was actually Zordon in heavy duty disguise.
Very heavy duty.
After all, it was more or less established that the Phantom was actually Eltarian himself. They called him the "Eltarian Traveller," or rather, Dimitria did.
But that obviously couldn't be for two reasons. Reason one is that in PRiS, we see the two of them more or less in the same place at the same time.
Reason two is that the Phantom had a quasiromantic thing going on with Cassie, and Zordon doesn't seem like her type. (Heh heh heh.)
Even without the whole Eltarian thing, I suspect that the Phantom Ranger's gifts of Zords may actually have been sent by Zordon. I mean, on his page on the Writer's Guide describes him as "covert operative for Good and giver of Zords" (emphasis mine)!
Possibly the most peculiar and suspicious thing about all of this, though, is that the Zeo Powers were never destroyed or eliminated. They were simply forgotten, passed on for teh noo end coolar powahz wiff carz (i.e. the New Sentai Season Stuff).
My theory is, that crafty old so'n'so Zordon had the whole lot of them tucked away somewhere, ready for future use in a desperate crisis. I mean, that guy had a backup plan for everything. (The fact that it was implied in one episode of Zeo that Tommy's and Kat's grandkid was a Power Ranger, with the oldschool communicator and all, just supports this idea.)
When, despite the destruction of Darkonda and Dark Spectre, Astronema's forces are still closing in, threatening the destruction and subjugation of Earth and the entire galaxy, and Andros has infiltrated the Dark Fortress with the intent of trying to convince Karone that she's not a bad guy (fat chance of that, sucker), he finds Zordon, alive, well, and blurry-mouthed and bossy as ever, ordering him to take that ol' drill sword of his and stick it right in 'is eye!
Zordon: I have an urge to die!
Andros: No! Prime, you can't die!
Zordon: I will be gone, but others will live!
Andros: No! I can't do it!
etc.
(Sorry for the Transformers: The Movie [the '80s one] reference.)
And when Andros finally musters up the guts to do what all Rangers inevitably do (follow Zordon's orders) and smashes Zordon's plasma tube, all the bad guys that had allied under Dark Spectre are either turned to dust or purified.
Hmm, wonder where Zordon got the energy source to pull a stunt like that?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You might remember, if you're still reading, that I mentioned the Corona Aurora, oh, about an hour ago. If you don't, I mentioned it in the context of resolving the fact that it and the Zeo Crystal are both supposed to be the most powerful object in the universe.
I've got an answer for that too, and you might see it coming: The jewels of the Corona Aurora are actually the pieces of the Zeo Crystal.
"But Invid!" you say. "You've clearly lost all sense of reality! Both the Corona Aurora and the Zeo Crystal were locked away and inaccessible for a million billion years!"
Ah, but not so fast! Do you remember just how Zordon kept the Crystal out of Master Vile's hands?
He had the Rangers cut it into five pieces (hmm) and send them back in time (hmm).
If it worked once, why not again?
This time, Zordon would have had the shape of the Crystal's pieces altered extensively, making it utterly unlike its original form. And he obviously must have sent it a lot further back. I've seen no real evidence that the crown portion of the Corona Aurora has any kind of special powers (other than attracting huge numbers of villains), so I'm dismissing it out of hand. (Of course, since I first wrote this, Flurious uses it to help him find Jewel #5. So what? He was sticking another jewel into it! The sub-mythos of Operation Overdrive also simply suggests that these kinds of things "rub off" energy on each other, anyway.)
The Corona Aurora doesn't look like the Zeo Crystal, but it comes in five pieces like the Zeo Crystal, is the most powerful object in the universe like the Zeo Crystal, and is sought after by a powerful passel of villains like the Zeo Crystal. If it walks like a duck...
One last addendum to the facts of the Zeo Crystal, and its uses by Zordon: The Lights of Orion.
You thought I'd dismissed those, didn't you?
Well, I don't view them as having the power of the Zeo Crystal or the Corona Aurora, but I do view them as being connected to them.
Connected how?
Leo commented that the Lights were intended to be used for good. Where the heck did they come from, if they were intended to be good?
Maybe a floating head in a plasma/energy tube or a time warp had something to do with it...
And don't tell me that it was impossible because they were unlocked 3000 years ago or whatever. (I suppose I pulled that number out of the presence of the Lights at the battle Magna Defender fought in back then; they were floating around careless and fancy free at that point, let out of wherever they were contained by ol' MD himself.) You know just what my answer would be. (Time travel, in case I'm being more oblique than I think.)
In many seasons of Power Rangers, we are told that this or that is the most powerful energy source "IN THE UNIVERSE!" The Zeo Crystal, the Lights of Orion, the Corona Aurora. While the Lights of Orion were swiftly proven to be quite a bit less impressive than they were hyped as being, one would think that the Zeo Crystal or the Corona Aurora would prove unique. So why are there two?
One could say that this is simply Power Rangers storytelling, and a trope of the action genre. I choose not to accept that glib and simple explanation.
The Zeo Crystal was described as being the greatest power source in the universe, something essentially without parallel. I choose to embrace that idea, and embrace it strongly. However, the Zeo Rangers, who used the Crystal as their power source, were far from invincible. They frequently were brought to the edge of defeat or needed backup, and there was another Ranger-the Gold Ranger-from another planet who proved to have raw power that essentially exceeded theirs.
"But Invid!" you say. "They had to work with the footage of the Super Sentai and stuff! They couldn't just flout that!" My response is, no one told them they had to make the Zeo Crystal, established as the grand McGuffin everyone wants, the new power source. They could have just made something up like "these are the Techno Rangers. They fight the Techno Badguys to Techno Music." But they didn't. They chose to go with something that would enrich the series and give it extra layers. And it does give the series a most interesting layer.
If the Zeo Crystal was the most powerful object in the Power Rangers universe, why were the Zeo Rangers not invincible? Why was it possible to pose the slightest threat to them, and why could they not obliterate the entire Machine Empire with a single blast? Why did Zordon not use the power of the Crystal to protect Earth from every potential threat?
Did you catch that? "Why did Zordon not..." Hmm. Does that suggest anything to you? (Other than the fact that a stunt like blowing the Machine Empire away and building up giant Zord-based defense forces would be likely to start off something like what happened in the ancient past in the Gransazer series-a giant invasion of an alliance of every alien empire in the universe that results in the end of civilization.)
No?
How about I pose another question. Where the !#&% do all the new Power Ranger powers come from?
We are told in the second season at one point by Zordon that for Kimberly to attempt to use the Pink Power Coin alongside its past counterpart would cause an "overload of... Pink Ranger energy" (roughly paraphrased).
What does that mean? It might just mean that it could break the Morphin' Grid.
Yes, we should remember that it's possible to break the Morphin' Grid with enough energy. Rito and Thrax both have done so. Since that time in the second season, nothing's ever stopped large numbers of Rangers from working together if they wanted to. Hmm...
Perhaps the reason the Zeo Rangers were not infinitely powerful had nothing to do with a lack in their power source, and everything to do with what was really being done with that power source. While it is clear that the energies of the Zeo Crystal were providing the power needed to construct the Zeo Zords, power the Zeo Morphers, and the like, perhaps that wasn't all they were doing.
Perhaps, if it was the greatest power in all the universe, its power was being used to do lots of things.
Look at what happened at the start of season three. After the team of monsters led by Rito has considerably weakened the Rangers and the Zords, at a critical moment, Rito, by himself, with a single attack, severed the connection of the Power Coins to the Morphin' Grid and utterly destroyed the Zords. Ninjor fixed things, partly through what turned out to be the risky scheme of connecting the Rangers' life force to the Power Coins (a plot tool used to drum out Kimberly towards the end of the same season, when Amy Jo Johnson's contract was expiring), and Rito was never able to accomplish such an act again. For that matter, Master Vile couldn't, even though he was able to revert the ages of the entire population of Earth. And his monsters alone could break straight through the Rangers' Glitter Armor-er, their Metallic Armor.
Years later, when Thrax gathers the alliance of Operation: Overdrive villains, and utilizes their combined powers-the powers of the gyro-powered Fearcats, Kamdor and Miratrix, Flurious, Moltor, and his own son-of-Zedd-and-Rita self-he is able to knock out the Rangers' connection to the Morphin' Grid. But there isn't even enough excess energy to singe the Rangers themselves, this despite the fact that Andrew Hartford has far less energy and technology at his disposal than Zordon ever did (in the Command Center respect, not hardware such as Zords, which he obviously has quite a lot of). You could certainly argue that this is a poor comparison, that the OO Rangers are far more powerful than the MMPR, but I don't think so.
One would presume from his heritage that Thrax was at least as powerful as Lord Zedd, although he apparently had far fewer resources overall at his disposal (i.e., no Moon Palace, no Serpentera, etc.). Lord Zedd was clearly stronger than Rita or Rito, possibly (probably) both of them together. While the other members of the villainous cast of OO are less powerful-Moltor seems roughly as powerful as Rito to me, although obviously far smarter, Flurious seems to be at least somewhat more powerful, Kamdor and Miratrix are quite powerful (okay, mostly just Kamdor), and the Fearcats are ninja death tanks-combined, they are quite formidable, perhaps United Alliance of Evil strong (though obviously without the warfleets or armies at their disposal). They are, in fact, totally too much all taken together for the Power Rangers to fight. But it took all of them just to break the Morphin' Grid.
What does that suggest to you? I know what it suggests to me: That the Morphin' Grid is far more durable than it used to be. How could that happen?
Zeo Crystal, dawgs.
My firm and solid opinion is that Zordon didn't fritter away the energy of the Zeo Crystal sending out teenagers in spandex to stop the Machine Empire. Well, not only to stop the Machine Empire. See, the Machine Empire was a serious threat, but kind of a short-lived one. While Zedd and Rita needed to employ guerilla tactics against them, the Machine Empire was led by a bunch of pretty stupid and comparitively weak robots.
I mean, for crying out loud! King Mondo? More like King Moron. Or maybe King Mondo Fat.
These guys had this huge army of incredible size, tens or hundreds of thousands of Cogs, right? They had thousands of Quadrafighters, which would not have been threatened by Earth's military very much, and a hundred or so huge space battleships that had massive artillery and whatnot. So what do they do when they arrive on Earth? They send out a "scouting party" of maybe two or three dozen Cogs. The Rangers beat up the Cogs, and what do they do? They send a monster. The Rangers destroy it, and what do they do? They send another monster! Talk about falling into the same trap your predecessors did.
Anyhow, I digress. Lots. The Machine Empire was logistically a big threat, but they were just a flash in the pan compared to Zedd and Rita or even the whiny Master Vile. They just don't build 'em to last, do they? (Of course, this is ironic in light of the probable origin of R.P.M.'s villains. Note that I wrote the bulk of this essay back during Operation Overdrive.)
So it really would have been silly to let all the energies of the Zeo Crystal go to waste, wouldn't it? I suspect that Billy, Alpha 5, and Zordon were doing something behind the Rangers' backs that season.
They reinforced the Morphin' Grid, making it far harder to simply break the way it did at the beginning of season three.
They built up the reserves of the Command Center, setting up the resources they would later use to create the Turbo Zords. (I find it probable that at least some of the Command Center/Power Chamber endured the destruction at the end of Turbo. That was a darned durable building-they blew it up half a dozen times, or so it feels like, and it was still there. No wonder it was so rare to attack it directly.)
Zordon had a few dozen more Zords of various sorts built and hidden around the galaxy (and possibly the planet) for the Rangers to find, and these popped out of the woodworks during PRiS (and other later series).
I mean, come on, you don't really believe that "NASADA" built that space shuttle that could dock with the Astro Megaship and which formed the head of a Megazord, do you?
And it was awfully convenient, wasn't it, that there just happened to be a Megazord that could combine with that just kind of sitting out in space in the middle of nowhere (the Delta Megazord).
And it was awfully convenient that there was a team of more powerful Zords just waiting to be activated in a dire emergency. Literally waiting.
Another suspicious peculiarity-Trey of Triforia. During the scan that revealed him to them, they remarked that he had the same kind of energy they did (i.e., "Power Ranger energy"). While this could be a "generic" Morphin' Grid energy signature, it could suggest something else: That Zordon was a pathological liar about his acquaintances, and he knew exactly who Trey of Triforia was. Because he gave Trey the powers of the Gold Ranger, and he gave Trey the "Super Zeo Gems" to hand back at a convenient moment (Zordon: The Super Zeo Gems! They had been thought lost! Thanks for giving them to us, Trey! Trey: Wink, wink, nudge nudge!) so that Zordon would never need to explain just why he'd been holding out on the Rangers.
"But Invid!" you say. "Zordon would never lie to the Rangers! And why would he come up with such an outrageously silly plan and such? Where's your proof?"
I thought you might ask that question. So let me follow form and respond to your question with a question: Why did Billy need to scrounge up a few more components so that the Super Zeo Megazord could be utilized to its full extent, if the Gems had simply magically granted them the Super Zeo Zords?
I'll tell you why he needed to scrounge up the parts. It's because he and Alpha were building these Zords behind the Rangers' backs, and they had to launch them before they were 100% ready. Billy's resident genius veteran Ranger status apparently had some major security clearance perks.
I suspect that good ol' Trey was actually, for the most part, just a helpful plant by Zordon, so that he could send the Rangers new stuff without arousing suspicion over holding out on them. (This is reinforced by the fact that Zordon could apparently tell exactly who the Green Ranger was the first time they met, but "couldn't" figure out the Gold Ranger's identity. Look here at 117-GWE1, and then at 432-DIKY. Just because Trey talked all mysterious-like doesn't mean he was being honest, and the site notes a minor continuity error.)
I've got no freakin' idea at all where the heck Auric came from, though, and I'm just as eager as anyone to know what happened to the big lug. (Ninjor too, for that matter.)
The fact that Zordon left for Eltar at the beginning of Turbo also suggests to me that he was up to something.
I mean, come on. He was stuck in his Earth plasma tube for at least 10,000 years. Why was he homesick all of a sudden unless he wanted a bit of space from the Rangers? (For purposes of doing stuff without those pesky teenagers busting in every few minutes, that is. And it just hit me-Dimitria must be his secretary.)
Another thing arousing a little bit of suspicion: The Phantom Ranger.
At the time that the Phantom first appeared, Zordon had left for Eltar some time ago, and at the time, I might have suspected that the Phantom was actually Zordon in heavy duty disguise.
Very heavy duty.
After all, it was more or less established that the Phantom was actually Eltarian himself. They called him the "Eltarian Traveller," or rather, Dimitria did.
But that obviously couldn't be for two reasons. Reason one is that in PRiS, we see the two of them more or less in the same place at the same time.
Reason two is that the Phantom had a quasiromantic thing going on with Cassie, and Zordon doesn't seem like her type. (Heh heh heh.)
Even without the whole Eltarian thing, I suspect that the Phantom Ranger's gifts of Zords may actually have been sent by Zordon. I mean, on his page on the Writer's Guide describes him as "covert operative for Good and giver of Zords" (emphasis mine)!
Possibly the most peculiar and suspicious thing about all of this, though, is that the Zeo Powers were never destroyed or eliminated. They were simply forgotten, passed on for teh noo end coolar powahz wiff carz (i.e. the New Sentai Season Stuff).
My theory is, that crafty old so'n'so Zordon had the whole lot of them tucked away somewhere, ready for future use in a desperate crisis. I mean, that guy had a backup plan for everything. (The fact that it was implied in one episode of Zeo that Tommy's and Kat's grandkid was a Power Ranger, with the oldschool communicator and all, just supports this idea.)
When, despite the destruction of Darkonda and Dark Spectre, Astronema's forces are still closing in, threatening the destruction and subjugation of Earth and the entire galaxy, and Andros has infiltrated the Dark Fortress with the intent of trying to convince Karone that she's not a bad guy (fat chance of that, sucker), he finds Zordon, alive, well, and blurry-mouthed and bossy as ever, ordering him to take that ol' drill sword of his and stick it right in 'is eye!
Zordon: I have an urge to die!
Andros: No! Prime, you can't die!
Zordon: I will be gone, but others will live!
Andros: No! I can't do it!
etc.
(Sorry for the Transformers: The Movie [the '80s one] reference.)
And when Andros finally musters up the guts to do what all Rangers inevitably do (follow Zordon's orders) and smashes Zordon's plasma tube, all the bad guys that had allied under Dark Spectre are either turned to dust or purified.
Hmm, wonder where Zordon got the energy source to pull a stunt like that?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You might remember, if you're still reading, that I mentioned the Corona Aurora, oh, about an hour ago. If you don't, I mentioned it in the context of resolving the fact that it and the Zeo Crystal are both supposed to be the most powerful object in the universe.
I've got an answer for that too, and you might see it coming: The jewels of the Corona Aurora are actually the pieces of the Zeo Crystal.
"But Invid!" you say. "You've clearly lost all sense of reality! Both the Corona Aurora and the Zeo Crystal were locked away and inaccessible for a million billion years!"
Ah, but not so fast! Do you remember just how Zordon kept the Crystal out of Master Vile's hands?
He had the Rangers cut it into five pieces (hmm) and send them back in time (hmm).
If it worked once, why not again?
This time, Zordon would have had the shape of the Crystal's pieces altered extensively, making it utterly unlike its original form. And he obviously must have sent it a lot further back. I've seen no real evidence that the crown portion of the Corona Aurora has any kind of special powers (other than attracting huge numbers of villains), so I'm dismissing it out of hand. (Of course, since I first wrote this, Flurious uses it to help him find Jewel #5. So what? He was sticking another jewel into it! The sub-mythos of Operation Overdrive also simply suggests that these kinds of things "rub off" energy on each other, anyway.)
The Corona Aurora doesn't look like the Zeo Crystal, but it comes in five pieces like the Zeo Crystal, is the most powerful object in the universe like the Zeo Crystal, and is sought after by a powerful passel of villains like the Zeo Crystal. If it walks like a duck...
One last addendum to the facts of the Zeo Crystal, and its uses by Zordon: The Lights of Orion.
You thought I'd dismissed those, didn't you?
Well, I don't view them as having the power of the Zeo Crystal or the Corona Aurora, but I do view them as being connected to them.
Connected how?
Leo commented that the Lights were intended to be used for good. Where the heck did they come from, if they were intended to be good?
Maybe a floating head in a plasma/energy tube or a time warp had something to do with it...
And don't tell me that it was impossible because they were unlocked 3000 years ago or whatever. (I suppose I pulled that number out of the presence of the Lights at the battle Magna Defender fought in back then; they were floating around careless and fancy free at that point, let out of wherever they were contained by ol' MD himself.) You know just what my answer would be. (Time travel, in case I'm being more oblique than I think.)
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