Zeo aired with a cliffhanger that Lord Zedd and Rita would be back but instead we got this new take on Power Rangers with the now confirmed yearly themes. For this year we got Turbo and I never liked cars as a kid so this was not something I was excited about when I saw the posters that the new Power Rangers movie had cars. But it was crazy, we were getting a new Power Rangers movie and the show would continue based on it so I wanted to watch it even if I never got the chance as a kid. So let’s take a look back at the movie which is the pilot for the rest of the season and then the actual season of Turbo.
Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
It’s bad, Turbo: a power rangers movie is a snoozefest. I first watched it when I got back into Power Rangers and I tried to force myself into liking it but it never worked out. I know in the fandom it’s well liked and preferred by many over MMPR:TM, which to me is nuts. It feels like a really boring 5 part episode, it’s high budget when compared to the TV show since you get jet skis, horses and a ship but when compared to Hollywood movies or even Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie it’s very low budget. With the title “A Power Rangers Movie”, it makes me wonder if they were planning on making these smaller budget movies for every season but once they saw how badly it did they scrapped that idea. Just imagine a world with Space: A Power Rangers movie, but at the very least we did get Kimberly: A Power Rangers Movie unofficially.
What a lame way to get rid of Rocky with his injury in the martial arts tournament, they should’ve had him being attacked by Divatox and taken out of action to at least set up the threat or anything far more heroic than what we got. The beginning seems straight out of an 80s kids fantasy film..In general the movie feels like, a high budget bad episode of the show instead of a low budget movie like the original film if that makes any sense. Why did Bulk & Skull have amnesia in the movie? They were less interesting that way. I’d forgotten Kimberly & Jason were back in the film and while it’s awesome to see them it’s also a shame they were wasted like that. Even so they still performed better than the main cast now that i think about it.
The movie drags and the rangers don’t morph until near the end so we wait over an hour before it happens and there’s not enough interesting things going on to help that not feel as long. The change of powers made no sense at all nor was it given an explanation. I think around this time kids got tired of Zordon’s BS that these new zords are the best so they even skipped that. Justin? Ugh, they gave no logical explanation as to why he was allowed to be a ranger so it was obvious he was going to be disliked. I can grow to like having a kid ranger but still least make it plausible, as a kid I thought it was a horrible idea. Sorry Justin. Divatox’s outfit is interesting to say the least, rather revealing but fits Power Rangers just fine, not sure what I think of her though, not really evil enough but also not different enough or interesting either. I feel like so much more could’ve been done with the available things they had, this is just a bad overall. Maligore was a cool villain but it was hard to take him seriously, especially after that joke of a movie we had been watching.
Season
The 2 minute movie recap we get in the show since it’s in continuity and explained the pwoers was more interesting than the actual movie and sells it very well and better than the trailer. Things do look lower budget after having just watched the movie and it was nice to see Rocky again in an episode. Tommy suddenly liking cars is ok he was always a prodigy and good at everything since MMPR. Same with him randomly liking all kinds of different things as the plot called for so I can look past that. Justin is still annoying, especially since he took on one of the main villain generals unmorphed in the show, talk about villain decya. Getting rid of Zordon’s was a gutsy move but a welcome one.
Watching Turbo is weird. Tommy is my favorite Ranger but I’m not feeling it in this season and I think part of it is I don’t care about the team, since Tommy is only acting like Tommy always acted. Adam is still boring to me, the fandom always told me “he got better in Zeo” but to me that is not quite true, Tanya was never ever interesting, Kat became bland since she became Tommy’s girlfriend and Justin while something different tends to be more on the annoying side. Bulk and Skull as monkeys is a waste and annoying. Lt. Stone changing jobs is not so bad, ironic how these characters have more character development than the actual Rangers.
Divatox’s outfit and actress get an immediate downgrade, I guess the movie outfit was not safe for TV and the new actress just wasn’t as fun. Ger costume is less interesting and while she was not that interesting in the movie she’s somehow worse. I don’t understand why they gave her such a costume only to have a more conservative one later, the biggest problem is the boobs give it away that it’s someone different since they’re completely different sizes because if not for that I likely wouldn’t have noticed. The villains in general are boring with no clear motive and a downgrade from Rita/Zedd/Machine Empire. There is no real sixth ranger so they made the Phantom Ranger but since he didn’t have that much footage he was pointless, more of an effort should’ve been made with Blue Senturion to make him cool.
I do like the costumes and the megazord once it’s formed and the music is still top notch. The show does get better after the original cast leaves and I don’t know why, it’s just refreshing and it made no sense for the original team to be having trouble with divatox while with a new team makes more sense, it’s interesting to see the new team dynamics and it was better overall Justin redeems himself in the finale, he was awesome there. Why was the switch to the Turbo team so random? They knew about it but yet they don’t really acknowledge it until the end of the Passing of the Torch with a throwaway line, even the first switch team in MMPR had more of a set up and the original actors weren’t there.
Why does the new team act like they have such a connection with Zordon, this is mostly near the finale and In Space, they saw him for like 5 seconds when they got their powers. Why did they think it was necessary for the original team to leave who had all these training during obviously the worst time of the war against evil? You had these newbies face against the complete forces of the United Alliance of Evil? So there are a lot of questions to be had that weren’t properly resolved and they really should’ve done a better job as previous seasons at least tried giving some explanations. Overall the season has its ups and downs but it took Power Rangers to a new era of yearly themes successfully.
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