This has nothing to do with anything on this site really, but since I have nothing else to ramble about, I thought this was just as good as anything else. ^_^

Those of you that know me might know I've had a big thing for Power Rangers for years now. It started from taping it for my younger brother and watching it while he did, until eventually I was hooked. There's been times my interest dropped... during the Lost Galaxy series, for example. I stopped watching at some point until the next series, and missed the last several episodes in the process. Which I now regret, because I later saw some of the reruns, and some cool things happened. Such as the return of some of the In Space rangers for a couple episodes or so. I might never see the other episodes I missed. I saw the final few episodes though, so I know how it all began and ended, the filler episodes weren't entirely important. Other than those though, I think I've seen every single episode. Pathetic, eh? hehe.

My point is, I think I saw the coolest episode of the entire run of the show this last Saturday. To celebrate 10 years of Power Rangers (here in the US at least), they had a special episode.. bringing back 10 of the previous red rangers. That's basically all of them, even though Rocky took over the original red ranger powers, so he should have been on there. But what can ya do. The only one they didn't get the original actor for was the alien ranger from Aquitar. I wasn't fond of that whole "Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers" period anyway, with the real rangers being children and having to find the zeo crystals to return to normal. So in all, you had Jason as the classic Mighty Morphin Power Ranger, Tommy as the Zeo Ranger, TJ as the Turbo Ranger, Andros as the Space Ranger, Leo as the Galaxy Ranger, Carter as the Lightspeed Ranger, Wes as the Time Force Ranger, Eric as the Quantum Ranger, and Cole as the Wild Force Ranger. I can't remember the Alien Ranger's name, cause it was weird. But he never morphed, cause he arrived in his suit already (since they didn't get the original guy to do the part I guess).

Not only did they bring back all those classic people (which was awesome to see if you've been a fan of the show as long as me), but they also brought back the classic Alpha 5 (with that good'ol original voice). And since the Astro Megaship was destroyed near the end of the Lost Galaxy series, they got a new one.. the Astro Megaship Marc II. Which of course looked identical to the original since I'm sure they used the exact same model. Other things related to classic episodes were the fact that the bad guys were remnants of the Machine Empire, from back during the Zeo series. They wanted to seek vengence for King Mondo's destruction back then. And to do so, they were diggin up Serpenterra, supposedly strongest "zord" ever made, which could possibly destroy Earth. This belonged to Lord Zed back in the day, and it would only run for very short time periods due to the massive amount of power it required. So Zed and Rita never did much destruction with it. But these new guys put some fancy power core in. This is why these 10 rangers were called, to put a stop to it. Another thing to note, was that the voices of three of these evil generals were none other than those of Kai, Katherine, and Zack, who were also previous rangers. You can't really tell cause they alter them to sound mean, but if you listen carefully you can hear traces of their voices. Kai was the blue ranger during Lost Galaxy, Katherine was the pink ranger during multiple series(replacing the original Kimberly), and Zack was the original black ranger.

There was also a brief appearance from Bulk and Skull at the beginning. Despite the comedy in the classic episodes being pretty silly, the fact that it was there kind of defined Power Rangers at the time. And Bulk and Skull really added to that. When they started phasing them out during In Space, and eventually dumping them after Lost Galaxy, the shows lost a lot of quality. They started making everything so "serious". The comedy was never as good, because they tried to base a lot of it on real life situations. Once the In Space series started, the rangers were away from Earth most of the time, so they couldn't focus on Bulk and Skull, Ernie, the school, the juice bar, or Angel Grove even. And the ranger actors were never as good as the originals. In Space was the last series where I thought they still managed to have a decent cast. After that, they replaced ever single ranger with each new series, and continued this practice ever since (getting all new weapons, zords, and bad guys in the process). They never have enough time to have any good character development. It's sort of there, but not like originally. Such as when Kimberly fell for Tommy and they became an item. Or when Billy stopped being quite such a nerd and became a much better fighter (and was the veteran in the group eventually, and the last of the originals to be there). All of those things happened over a period of time. None of this happens now. It's always a "moral of the story" type of deal only. Then they throw everything out and start over. I'm not saying it's all bad now, though. But it could be better.

Anyway, my only complaint about this episode was how it ended. And for anyone who hasn't seen it yet (since it was scheduled to air on the 12th at 8:30am, though came on Saturday at noon as well), you shouldn't read what I'm about to say, unless you want me to spoil it. But Serpenterra was supposed to be the strongest zord ever, capable of destroying the rangers, and even the Earth. Well, they screwed that up good. First of all, Serpenterra is a dark green. Despite being the correct color while they were digging up him, once they switched to the CGI model when they took off in it, it was a shiny kind of silverish-green color. Just barely green. And it looked too thin. The squeaking noises were cool, though. But when Cole hopped on his fancy motorcycle, flew into space, then RIGHT THROUGH THE BLAST that Serpenterra shot at him, he managed to avoid dying, fly inside the thing's mouth, destroy it, and fly out the back as the huge explosion ripped the sky. While the whole time, 9 rangers stood down there on the moon, just watching and cheering. How stupid was that?? They never called a zord. They didn't have to work together. The newbie just managed to avoid death and destroy the ultimate weapon somehow. The problem here was that they rushed it. It should have been two episodes. The whole second episode should have involved fighting this mammoth, possibly losing some of their older zords in the process. It could have been so awesome, had they only tried. But overall, the episode is still the best I've seen.

The reason it's still the best, is because of the well-choreographed fighting scenes. The first fight involved them all in human form (well aside from the alien and Lost Galaxy rangers, they hadn't arrived yet), fighting mass quantities of Cogs. This part was awesome, since every one of these rangers were good fighters. Even though Carter only used a blaster during his particular scene. But they focused on each one of them individually as they fought, filled with plenty of jumping, punching, swinging, kicking, and whacking. The fight then moved outside onto the moon's surface, where they did the big long morphing sequence, followed by a huge pyrotechnics explosion behind them (typical for such a situation, but always impressive). The fight among the rangers and the 5 generals then ensued, two rangers per general. This is when the special effects extravaganza began. Not only did the effects and music work well, but the excellently choreographed martial arts scenes shined through again. There were scenes, such as when Carter and Andros were charging at their armed opponent, where they were doing the greatest sideways flips and leaps I have ever seen, avoiding large explosions from his big-ass gun, shooting back the whole while, until they were face to face with the guy, at which time they kicked his ass of course. And blasted him off the cliff for good measure. I also thought the Matrix-esque jump kick Tommy did on his opponent was cool (which also destroyed the guy).

So like I said, overall, it was the best episode I've ever seen. And I've pretty much seen them all, so I should know. It's a shame that Power Rangers isn't what it used to be, but with an episode like this once in a while, it makes up for it.

Woo I rambled quite a bit on that subject. hehe. If you've never watched Power Rangers before and might be interested in what I'm talking about, watch on ABC next Saturday morning at 8:30 (Eastern) for the repeat, and let me know what you think.


posted at 2:43 AM