power rangers

POWER RANGERS
A RETROSPECTIVE LOOK AT AMERICAN SENTAI

When the words power rangers are uttered back to back what do we think of. Most people think of cheesy special effects bad acting and rainbow colored spandex. Now granted this is what a lot of the Power Rangers have to offer but I believe beneath the layers of crap is an entertaining show. I say entertaining because that’s all it is I try to watch power rangers every once and awhile and it’s not for the plot it’s not for the acting it’s because aspects of the show can be entertaining. Now before I go on I’d like to give you a little bit of history on the show.

Power Rangers first appeared in 1993 and it was a huge hit with kids. Mostly because it was about teens who where super heroes and most kids at one point in their life want to be a super hero. The show had some pretty decent action for a live action kid’s show and physical comedy jokes that kids like and for the most part had some decent moral lessons attached to the episodes such as treat your friends right don’t be greedy stuff like that. What not a lot of people know now and even less people knew then is that the power ranger’s show we got is actually a sort of remake of a series already established in Japan. The American version we got was American actors while the teens where in human form and then we got the Japanese action scenes when they were in ranger form and in the zoids.

All the changes the rangers underwent over the years coincided with the Japanese footage. The adding of rangers, color changes, zord changes, costume changes all come from when the Japanese show changes something. Now whats interesting is originally they tried to link all the transitions and for a kid some of the plot was pretty cool. I remember when the rangers got the thunder zord's there comand center or home base was destroyed and they where without powers. For a kid whose like 10 11 that’s pretty deep. But after power rangers in space they stopped linking them and just did individuale series.

As far as I am concerned and I have spoken to a few people that feel the same. Power rangers when we were kids was good because we where kids and we still like it now because of our memories and we like the new ones because believe it or not the action is pretty decent for what it is. This brings me to my next point the action. There are three things that have really never changed one is the over the top explosions two is the most of the time cg lasers and three is giant robots. However what does change and for the better is the fighting both while in human and ranger form.

Now in the original series there were a few kung-fu esque fight scenes. And what I mean by this because all fight scenes where martial arts related. Is that the scenes had moves you would see in Jet Li and Donny yen movies. I remember one fight where Kimberly the pink ranger had a group of putty’s witch where the drones the main bad guy used in front of her so she jumps into the air and proceeds to run across the shoulders of the group of enemies which is a move Tony Jaa used in Ong Bak. Granted this was Japanese footage and its nothing to brag about as far as why to watch the show but its scenes like this that have gotten better over the years. Before I go on I’d like to point out that to fully enjoy the action takes a little bit of knowledge and a lot of suspended disbelief.

You need to know that the budget of the show didn’t allow for the best special effects and some things suffered for it. There outfits which are always spandex tights where suposed to be armor like a bendable metal alloy type thing. The crappy plastic swords where obviously supposed to be metal like there real world counterparts. The zord’s witch where like the Godzilla costumes where suposed to be giant robots now with all that in mind I’ll give you an example of a common scene seen over and over throughout the years.

First the rangers do some martial arts and kick the monster around or shoot at it and get beat up themselves either way it ends with the monster being weak enough that they could finish it off. More often than not to do this they would use their ultimate weapon which consisted of them combining there individuale weapons to form a giant cannon. How it played out you would see the rangers jumping around like fools getting slashed and tiny sparkler explosions going off their suits getting blackened and then a pretty simplistic cg laser beam followed by a giant explosion all of which seemed pretty cheesy. Now if you where watching the same scene with the right amount of suspended disbelief you would see five super powered warriors in special armor fighting a monster there weapons clashing as the monster uses its razor sharp claws witch damage the armor then when the monster is finally weak enough the rangers combine their weapons to form their ultimate weapon after focusing their energy into the cannon they unleash it and the beam of energy is so powerful it cuts the monster in half and the resulting overload of energy causes an explosion. The best way for me to put it into perspective is to compare it to anime.

If the same thing had been in an anime the rangers costumes would be easily scene as metal they would be flying all around running on walls making 30 foot jumps and when hit would fly back into walls causing them to explode and when the final blast came it would be as huge as a kamahamaha wave. And as the show progressed through the years we got closer and closer to this. Recently while watching one of the newer seasons there was a fight scene that I swear was straight out of anime. The ranger and the monster where fighting one on one and the monster had the upper hand then after a super charged jump kick that created a wave of energy delivered by the ranger the monster hit him with a punch that sent him flying.\

In the original series when this happened the screamed ahhh and jumped out of the way of the camera. But in this instance the ranger was lifted off screen I’m assuming by wires then when the cut back to him he had landed in gravel rolling a few times then getting to his feet and skidding to a stop just like in anime. Then the monster landed creating a small crater and they continued their fight. However I was then treated to a scene I never thought I’d see in power rangers the monster went to attack him and the ranger bended backwards putting the sword tip into the ground then used it to propel himself up and over the monster slashing it while in the air then landing on the other side all one continues shot no cut away so all down with wires. And the show keeps going and keeps improving the action scenes.
There have been space rangers, car rangers, two types of ninja rangers, alien rangers, dinosaur related rangers, forest animal related rangers, magic related rangers and the list keeps going.

There where after a while a few fan service episodes one was during the wild force season which had an episode entitled forever red which had the nine previous red rangers join the wild force red ranger to fight monsters trying to resurrect a zord used by lord zed which was one of the original rangers enemies. Another is during the dinosaur thunder season Tommy made a return and led this new group of rangers and during one episode he told a story that linked every season of rangers up until then.

I would also consider the dinosaur thunder season one of the best not only did it have the return of Tommy but there was an episode where Tommy was in a coma and had to fight all his other forms to regain his power which means the white ranger the green ranger and his version of the red ranger. Also there was an episode where he rangers sat down to watch a new satellite channel and through the channel they showed a full episode of the Japanese version of the dinosaur rangers which was neat to say the least.

Also around the time of wild force the seasons started having team up episode arcs where the previous seasons rangers would join up to help the new season’s rangers witch I also consider pretty cool. And some of the newer seasons started doing what we always hoped the original series would do and that’s have the generals of the main bad guy actually fight the rangers. Usually these generals would have ranger like armor themselves or be bad rangers witch aloud for more plot related fights using martial arts instead of the rangers jumping around a guy in a rubber suit. Get ready here comes another segway.

Godzilla movies are great for there cheesy rubber suits and funny monsters power rangers does this just as good as the older Godzilla movies when the rangers get into the zord’s we get a rubber monster and we get another rubber monster that is supposed to be a giant mech so if it’s ok for Godzilla to be cheesy and I have recently watched the newest Godzilla movies and it’s still rubber suits and still cheesy but still entertaining.

Bye now your all probably saying Jason all this info on power rangers is ok but what about the other American Sentai shows your paper is supposed to be about all American Sentai not just rangers and id say to you hey chill the fuck out I’m getting to it. There were a number of shows that came after power rangers that tried to play off the popularity of the show some lasted a season some lasted two and only a few lasted more than that what where those shows you ask well let me get right too it.

The first Sentai show after power rangers was we are we are V.R. troopers sorry I couldn’t resist. Anyway V.R. troopers and the rest of the shows on the list just like power rangers it used American actors and Japanese stock action footage from a Sentai show. It got almost as popular as power rangers but quickly died out from lack of footage for the action scenes because it used so much of it. Which is funny because V.R. troopers used footage from three different shows. Saban got the technique from Americanized anime like robotech and voltron. With the end of V.R. troopers we got a new show.

Big bad beetleborgs took over for V.R. troopers after its stock footage ran out. The one difference from the rest of the Sentai shows is that instead of teenagers it was younger kids about 10-12 which may have attested to its popularity. There was a group of monsters that where the reasons the kids had their powers and the reason the bad guys where in our world, fucking monsters. Anyway they where the comic relief of the show.

Up next we have masked rider. Masked rider as based on the very popular kamen rider series of Japan. Masked rider was different in the fact that there was only one hero not a team. Masked rider actually had some controversy because of the fact that the stock action footage used for the show was so obviously Japanese there’s even times when you can tell there are two different suits for the same hero.

The next show on our journey is superhuman samurai syber squad. This shows theme were computers and viruses with the heroes going into computers to fight mega viruses. This show also used stock footage for the fights the formula for the show was slightly different where the main hero played oddly enough by Matthew Laurence would enter syber space (cyber) and take on an ultraman esque form then his team would pilot robots that would attach to him giving him different weapons and armor. It also had the edge theme where the heroes where all in a rock band man that’s extreme.

The last two shows I want to mention have one thing different from all the other shows and that’s the fact that all footage action and otherwise is all American there was no stock footage from Japan.

The first of these shows was done by saban the people that brought you power rangers and was a fantasy show based on Irish mythology that show was The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog. It was pretty decent considering and the Irish mythology gave it a nice twist it lasted for 37 episodes according to imdb and 50 according to Wikipedia.

The second series was not so popular it was Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills besides being all American footage it also has the longest name of any American Sentai show ever. There were a few differences from all other Sentai shows that made it interesting. The first is the group where not really friends and had some trouble getting along.

There was also an episode where one of the heroes reviled herself to her mom and she was sent to a psychiatrist. One thing I liked was to get to their base was they had to go under a table at a local coffee shop witch made for a few funny moments. Also people actually realized they were missing insted of just accepting it.

Well that concludes the journey through American Sentai as it stands power rangers is the only Sentai show that is still going and airing today. The only full Japanese show to ever make it over to us TV was a few different versions of ultraman and would be dubbed over. I’d also like to include a few fun facts.

Tommy aka Jason David Frank is the only Sentai actor that actually studies martial arts and has a dojo in California. Kimberly aka Amy Jo Johnson had gymnastics training. In power rangers lost galaxy the actress that played the yellow ranger also appeared completely nude in not another teen movie and is the only ranger actress to do so. So that is it I hope you have enjoyed this and will give you a new outlook on American Sentai.