It Lives(?)

Boy, it's been a while.

My last post over here was nearly a year ago... Ah, well. I'm going to try to keep it alive this time. Honest.

So there are several subjects I feel the need to address that have happened in the past year, which I obviously haven't talked about.

MMPR 2010

I did talk about this a bit... let's all pretend that it never happened, okay? It was the worst rehashing of an old show I've ever seen, and I watch Transformers and He-Man. I've had some experience here.

(A lot of the "re-version" nonsense was tolerable, but when they started scribbling all over the Green Ranger saga's "To Be Continued" bits, it completely ruined it. It takes a lot to make me say that.)

Goseiger (Super Sentai 2010)

Goseiger wasn't too bad. I think its greatest strength came from its huge and fractious villain cast. I also adored Gosei Blue and Gosei Yellow, and Gosei Black was extremely tolerable. (Forget those "Skyick" dweebs, though.) Gosei Knight was essentially Batman as a giant robot's transforming head, which was pretty cool too. While Warstar wasn't that interesting a faction except for their visual aspect (they were essentially like Toho monsters done up as sentai enemies), Makuin was creepy in a usually good way, "his" relationship with Kinggon was the kind of tight partnership that is refreshing after all the backstabbing you see elsewhere, and that "Matlintis" bunch was exactly what mechanized enemies should have been. "Bladerun's" final appearances were essentially a particularly satisfying icing on the cake.

I'm reasonably hopeful that it has the potential to make a good Power Rangers season.

Saban Reclaiming Power Rangers...

Oh, gosh. I don't even know what I want to say about this.

On the one hand, Disney had clearly had enough of working with the franchise. They wanted an out, and Saban gave them one.

On the other hand, they'd finally gotten a handle on the franchise with RPM, turning a nonsensical comedy sentai into a serious business yet still fun series which was (I'll admit I'm biased) the best Power Rangers ever. That's not knocking other Power Rangers series; if I thought they were all bad, I wouldn't watch Power Rangers. I'm just saying that RPM is better.

And it took at least a year for Saban to really get going last time, guys. I'm not looking forward to this.

...and moving it to Nickelodeon

Hey, guys? I don't have cable. And I'm not likely to get it in the near future. There's still various video sites (except YouTube, which is apparently well-policed at the moment), but this series is going to be a pain for me to keep up with.

Power Rangers Samurai

Having said that, I have managed to watch the first few episodes. That, coupled with various news item type stuff I've read, leads me to the following conclusion:

Power Rangers Samurai is pretty weak.

First off, the adaptation: This is seriously the closest, tightest adaptation of a Super Sentai I know of since Time Force (possibly closer, except for all that stuff about headaches and medicine). That's all well and good, except I already saw Shinkenger. If it can't bring something new to the table, I'm going to have a hard time being interested. This has nothing to do with being a "bad" adaptation, though I'll admit I'm choking on a few of the additions they have made. Time Force was one of the best seasons of the show ever, but its similarity to the sentai was merely a part of its strength; Time Force made positive additions that significantly added to the story. The strongest element in the Time Force story was Ransik, not that sentai stuff, and he had nothing to do with any of the rest of that guff.

My point is that you don't need to be so slavish, and if you think the story could be improved upon, by all means do so.

Second major point: This is the worst storm of puns ever to "grace" Power Rangers. Except maybe in Ninja Storm, but I admit I didn't watch that long enough. This was like an episode of a cartoon I used to watch where there was a guy who tried to work a pun on "bee" into every sentence, except worse because everybody was doing it all the time.

And this is Power Rangers, where bad puns are commonplace.

I'm not sure whether to tell them that's the worst thing ever, or to give them a medal for their effort.

Third major point: Bulk and Spike. What. The. Heck.

There's nothing wrong with bringing back an old character. What is wrong is doing it in a way that makes absolutely no sense.

I have yet to figure out what these sequences, which are the same kind of low humor of the original Bulk and Skull sequences, but with no connection whatsoever with the main characters, are supposed to accomplish.

Hey, wait, Spike is Skull's kid? How old is he supposed to be? 17-18? That means he'd have been born somewhere between season two and four, doesn't it?

Fourth major point: Somewhere, I read that Saban intended to have a light-hearted tone "lacking in its predecessors Jungle Fury and RPM." These were the same series where a fly did announcing on giant robot/monster battles and where one of the villains was essentially just a self-important teenage girl who actually acted something like one (Tenaya 7). Were you guys paying attention?

Fifth major point: The episode where a kid was missing his dad in the army... I don't know whether to be furious at the cheap handling of the subject (making the boy's wish into a momentary vision was awful, and I'm sorry if you disagree with me, but that's how I feel about it) or happy that they covered a real-world problem that children face today.

Sixth point: Joining the ranks of such enemy mooks as Putties, Tengas, Cogs, and, well, the contents of this list, we have... Moogers?

So you decided to call the tentacle-headed, blood-red foot soldiers Moogers?

This is the only portion of the Power Rangers lexicon so far that infuriates me nearly as much as that old Lost Galaxy standby, "Power Up Mode" (although to be fair, it's still a distant second).

Gokaiger (Super Sentai 2011)

So there was a strange bit of information going around that the next Super Sentai team would be based on pirates, of all things.

Then, it turned out the rumor was true. They're pirates.

Then, we learn that they're going to actually be pirates-intellectual property pirates.

And having watched the first few episodes, they are also hilariously literal fictionalized Age of Piracy pirates.

You guys, this is the best Super Sentai idea ever.

And the first few episodes don't disappoint, either.

Finally

So, my conclusion is: 2011 won't really be as good a year for Power Rangers as 2009, but it'll be much better than 2010 (though how it could fail to be better than 2010 ultimately was is pretty much unfathomable).

Hopefully, I'll be able to stay focused on keeping up on this, and maybe get some of my back content going.

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.)