Everything about Power Rangers totally explained
Power Rangers is a long-running
American children's television series adapted from the
Japanese
tokusatsu Super Sentai Series, though it isn't simply an English
dub of the original. Rather, it's a 'new' production with English-speaking actors spliced in with the original Japanese footage in varying ratios. Due to the very Japanese nature of many of the Super Sentai Series' stories and design, the American shows are altered to fit a Western audience. However, many of the action sequences featuring the characters in costume and the
mecha (referred to as "
Zords" in the English series) are typically dubbed.
The series that began the
franchise was
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which began broadcasting as part of the
Fox Kids group of programs that aired on the
Fox network. It lasted for three seasons (from 1993 to 1996). The franchise has continued, and as of 2007 has consisted of 15 television seasons, 14 different series, and two theatrical films. The fifteenth season and thirteenth series,, debuted on
February 26 2007, and completed on
November 12 2007. The new series, debuted on
February 18 2008.
The
Power Rangers series was distributed by
Saban Entertainment from 1993 until the end of 2001 and was broadcast on Fox until the fall of 2002. The franchise was purchased by the
Walt Disney Company as a part of the buyout that took place between 2001 and 2002. This resulted in Fox Family Worldwide becoming
ABC Family Worldwide. In many cases, the helmet serves to protect his or her
secret identity. (In some cases, more powerful Rangers may have extra shielding on their suit to protect them from strong blows.)
A morphed Ranger generally possesses superhuman strength, durability, and hand-to-hand combat ability; unmorphed Rangers may possess other
innate abilities such as
telekinesis,
super speed,
invisibility that are usually not directly related to his or her Ranger powers.
Rangers appear to retain their original physiology beneath their suits when in morphed form, as Rangers' helmets have been seen removed or broken on numerous occasions, revealing his or her natural form underneath. Helmets aside, the suits are donned and removed nearly instantaneously with a glow of light or some other effect. Sometimes, Rangers "de-morph" involuntarily due to powerful physical attacks.
Rangers regularly operate in teams of five, with a special sixth Ranger frequently joining the team part way into the series; More recently a core team of three will later be joined by additional Rangers. Each Ranger's suit and energy spectrum will match a specific color, with red, yellow, and blue being joined by some combination of pink, green, black, or white. Rangers may be named after their respective colors, such as
Red Ranger,
Blue Ranger, etc., but numbers or other names may also be used. There is usually no more than one Ranger of a given color on a team, but exceptions of this rule are generally given alternate names (in Time Force, there were two Rangers with red-colored costumes; the first was the Red Time Force Ranger, the second was the Quantum Ranger). Each team's costumes are nearly identical aside from color, helmet design (most notably the shape of the opaque visor) and perhaps a numerical designation. Any additional Rangers will regularly have additional costume modifications, usually some form of additional armor.
The Rangers' color designation also influences their wardrobe throughout the series, as their civilian clothing is often the same color as their Ranger color. This correlation was joked about in Dino Thunder when
Tommy Oliver (a former Green Ranger, White Ranger, and twice a Red Ranger) became the new Black Dino Ranger; he said that he'd to go shopping because he didn't own enough black-colored clothing.
Elements of a Power Rangers season
Each team of Power Rangers, with few exceptions, obey a general set of conventions, outlined at the beginning of
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and implied, though not stated explicitly, throughout many of the other incarnations. These include the Power Rangers being forbidden to use their Ranger powers for personal gain or for escalating a fight, explaining why the Rangers don't simply crush the small monsters by means of their Megazord. The Power Rangers are also forbidden to disclose their identities to the general public, barring extenuating circumstances (although this rule was disregarded in, and, in which they were public servants [rescuesquad, police officers, etc.] Following a
Spartacus-inspired scene by
Angel Grove's townspeople, this rule was also disregarded at the conclusion of
Power Rangers in Space and, to a lesser extent, . The penalty for disobeying these rules, at least in
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, would be the loss of their power.
The arsenal available to the Power Rangers is also somewhat standardized: each Ranger is generally armed with a weapon such as a
laser gun and/or a
sword. Each Ranger also has a secondary set of
weapons that can often combine to form a larger weapon (usually a
cannon). As the series progresses, one or more of the Rangers are also usually given a
motorcycle for long-distance travel, as well as individual Zords. In many series, a Ranger is also given additional Zords or weapons. In some cases, one Ranger may receive something that other Rangers may not have; an example of this is the
Battlizer given to the Red Ranger of each series since
Power Rangers in Space. Although much of the arsenal can also be found in
Super Sentai, there are usually at least some that are not, generally added for the express purpose of marketing toys designed and sold by
Bandai.
Power Rangers series regularly have villains of their own make which don't appear in the Sentai footage, though for budget and footage reasons there are always carry-overs from the Japanese source material. Less commonly, some series use only the Sentai designs and footage, though despite this some sets have to be replicated for original footage if need be. There was also one instance when to maintain the trend of the Sixth Ranger for a series where only five existed in the source footage, the
Titanium Ranger was created especially for
Lightspeed Rescue.
In seasons following
Power Rangers in Space, it became common for each team to be part of a separate storyline from those of previous incarnations. A tradition in later seasons came about such that two teams of Power Rangers teamed up to take on a villain. In, the tenth incarnation of
Power Rangers, this is taken to the next level, as ten
Red Rangers teamed up in the episode "
Forever Red", and in a team of former rangers from various incarnations of the series teamed up with the Overdrive Rangers to defeat an alliance formed by the son of Rita & Lord Zedd, Thrax, in the episode
Once a Ranger. The only seasons thus far to not feature such a team-up are, due to a shift back to non-
SAG talent when production was moved to
New Zealand, and, due to a relatively short series length. This was somewhat rectified when Xander, the Green Mystic Force Ranger, and Tori, the Blue Ninja Storm Ranger, appeared in the
Operation Overdrive crossover two-parter, "
Once A Ranger".
It is traditional that the arsenal of a Ranger team, especially the Zords, be destroyed at the end of the season in order to destroy the final monster, which is often the main villain. The Rangers also tend to give up their powers, though they remain available for later teaming-ups (For instance, at the end of
Ninja Storm, the Rangers sacrificed their powers to imprison Lothor. Once Lothor was freed, however, they were able to get their powers back in order to fight him).
Seasons
Colors
Just like the
Super Sentai series that Power Rangers is based on, the color palette of a Power Ranger team has varied greatly throughout the years.
The Titanium Ranger is the first and, as of 2008, only original Power Ranger developed for the English-language television series.
In
Time Force, the sixth ranger, the Quantum Ranger, has a red-colored suit which is only distinguished from the Red Ranger's suit by its black accents and the jagged arrows.
Ninja Storm has the Crimson and Navy Rangers that wear suits of darker hues of Red and Blue, respectively.
SPD includes nine additional rangers, a final count of fourteen rangers, which is the most in all of the Power Rangers franchise history. Both the Omega Ranger (who wears a White suit) and the Shadow Ranger (who wears a primarily Black suit) are regular characters, whereas the Kat Ranger (who wears a primarily orange suit) and the Nova Ranger (who wears a silver suit) are only seen for one episode each. The
S.P.D. A-Squad wear the same colors as the main team.
Mystic Force has two allies who don't fall under the basic color schemes. The Solaris Knight wears gold armor over navy blue spandex and the Wolf Warrior wears dark red armor.
Spin-off
Masked Rider is an American adaptation of the
tokusatsu series
Kamen Rider BLACK RX, one of the many series of the popular
Kamen Rider Series. It was produced by Saban and aired in 1995. It was a spin-off of
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
The main title character of Masked Rider was featured on a three-part
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episode (
A Friend in Need) before his own series was started. The Rangers themselves were never mentioned in the television run of
Masked Rider, however, as Saban reformatted the series to sever links with
Power Rangers, given that their popularity had been gradually beginning to slide following the first films. However, the Rangers were featured in the home video release of the
Masked Rider story
Super Gold, in the form of narrated clips from
A Friend in Need, and also made a guest appearance in Masked Rider's short-lived comic book adaptation.
It has been heavily criticized for splicing random footage from the
Kamen Rider Series' shows and films, to the point it was obvious that the Rider was wearing different costumes.
Motion pictures
]]
The
Power Rangers series have also brought forth two theatrical
films, which were distributed by
20th Century Fox. As of 2007,
Fox's home entertainment division, long after Fox's parent company News Corporation and Haim Saban sold Fox Family (currently ABC Family), including Saban Entertainment and the
Power Rangers franchise, to the Walt Disney Company, still maintains worldwide home entertainment rights to these two
Power Rangers films.
Stage show
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers World Tour Live on Stage was the name of the stage show that toured during the second season of the TV show. It featured all the characters on the TV show at around the same time as
The Wedding. This stage show was also simliar to the Super Sentai stage shows that are held every year when a current series is on tv in
Japan and are held at
Tokyo Dome along with other shows featuring
Toei Superheroes.
Recent distribution
Power Rangers on DVD
Currently, there are only 28 DVD releases of
Power Rangers in the USA (as listed below).
The current
Power Rangers DVD titles are:
, 1995; 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
, 1997; 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie/Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, 1995, 1997; 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (DVD compilation set of both movies.)
The Best of the Power Rangers: The Ultimate Rangers, 2003; BVHE (DVD compilation of episodes from five different seasons of Power Rangers. The episodes Forever Red and White Light [Tommy's reintroduction as the White Power Ranger] are amongst them)
Volumes 1-5, 2003; BVHE
Volumes 1-5, 2004; BVHE
Volumes 1-5, 2005, BVHE
Volumes 1-5 Boxset (UK), 2006, BVHE
Volumes 1-3, 2006, BVHE
Dark Wish, 2006, BVHE
Volumes 1-5, 2007, BVHE (For the first time in the US, all five volumes contain the entire season.)
Internationally, however, there have been additional DVD releases (such as Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force and Wild Force in Germany) and as free DVDs attached to Jetix Magazine UK. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3 have been released in Germany as well. There are plans to release Zeo-Lost Galaxy and rerelease Wild Force in Germany as well. France also has plans to release all of Power Rangers on DVD.
Power Rangers on iTunes
Power Rangers episodes have recently become available on the iTunes Music Store. So far, part of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and all of are available, and the first 26 episodes of are as well.
Power Rangers on Disney XD
Power Rangers is one of several shows made available for free online streaming, on Disney's official video streaming website Disney XD
. This scheme allows any U.S.-based web-user to watch entire episodes up to two weeks after broadcast. Episodes are even sometimes released via the website before airing on TV. However, most of the episodes have not yet begun streaming on the website and only sneak peeks and teaser trailers are available.
International airings
Power Rangers has always had success in foreign markets and still airs in many countries today, except for New Zealand where the series is being filmed today.
USA - Airs on Toon Disney and ABC
UK - Airs on Jetix UK and CITV
Australia - Airs on Channel Seven and FOX8
France - Airs on TF1 and Jetix France
Germany - Airs on Jetix Germany, Super RTL and RTL
Italy - Airs on Italia 1 and Jetix Italia
Middle East - Airs on MBC 3
India - Airs on Jetix
Canada - Airs on Family Channel
Poland - Airs on Jetix Polish, Polsat and TV4
Spain - Aired on Tele 5, Antena 3, Canal Megatrix, FoxKids Spain and now on Jetix Spain.
Mexico - Airs on Jetix and Canal 5
Brazil - Airs on Jetix Brazil and Rede Globo
Chile - Airs on Jetix
Latin America - Airs on Jetix
Portugal - Airs on SIC
Philippines - Airs on ABS-CBN (Mighty Morphin', Zeo, Turbo, Wild Force, Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder, S.P.D., Mystic Force); Studio 23 (Zeo) and Hero (Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder and SPD). The series is dubbed in Filipino.
Malaysia - Airs on RTM, initially sponsored by Litt Tak, the distributor of Bandai toys in Malaysia
Singapore - Airs on MediaCorp TV 12 Central
Indonesia - Airs on Indosiar, previously on RCTI
South Africa - Airs on Mnet
Zimbabwe - Airs on ZBC and Star Kidz and Kidz.Net
Japan - All }} shows and movies are dubbed into Japanese for television and video. The voice actors are often pulled from past Super Sentai casts, which also leads to the English-dubbed action sequences being "re-dubbed" or "restored" back to Japanese as well.
South Korea - Airs on JEI TV. Bandai of Korea dubs the original Super Sentai series from Japanese into Korean and airs it as "Power Rangers," and has so far had Dino Thunder, S.P.D., Magic Force and Treasure Force.
Greece - Airs on Jetix Hellas
Characters
Rangers
Evil Rangers
Villains
MonstersFurther Information
Get more info on 'Power Rangers'.
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