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Are there any must watch Power Ranger series?

Kwigo

Kwigo

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
8,028
I'm almost through watching all Zordon-era Power Rangers series (from Mighty Morphin to Power Rangers in Space) and from what I've read, starting with Lost Galaxy there isn't anymore as much continuity as there was until then (is this true though?).

Because of this, I'm wondering if I should just continue watching everything or if there are series that I should just skip, either because they're just too bad or don't have any impact on the overal PR mythos.

Would appreciate some input, I know there are some Power Rangers fans on here :)

Also, Turbo is the worst season by far.

And before anyone asks, yes I'll read the BOOM! comics as well, already bought most of them.
 
sir_crocodile

sir_crocodile

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,485
Past the Zordon era ones, I like:

Lost Galaxy
Light Speed Rescue
Time Force

Wild Force is ok (I really like one of the characters in it) but not to the above. I didn't really like the next few after wild force so stopped watching

Light Speed is one of my all time faves. It is true that there is way less continuity, you get some stuff here and there. One particularly big one that I actually hate too lol
 
ArgyleReptile

ArgyleReptile

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,916
I personally enjoy the Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder, SPD triumvirate.

Though Dino Thunder the only one that is slightly relevant to the overall world building somewhat.
 
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Kwigo

Kwigo

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
8,028
sir_crocodile said:
Past the Zordon era ones, I like:

Lost Galaxy
Light Speed Rangers
Time Force

Wild Force is ok (I really like one of the characters in it) but not to the above. I didn't really like the next few after wild force so stopped watching

Light Speed is one of my all time faves.
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Thanks ! I've heard that Lost Galaxy and LSR are among the most beloved series after MM, I'll definitely be watching them.

jon bones said:
well, i have nothing new to add. time is a precious resource, skip right to the comics
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It's the type of series that can be perfectly watched while doing other stuff or even chores, so it's not like I'm losing time watching it :)
 
kurahador

kurahador

Member
Oct 28, 2017
17,538
Had alot of fun with Lightspeed Rescue as it's more grounded. Plus Supertrain Megazord.

In Space is also good and it's a required viewing being that it's the end of the era for alot of the old casts ---- Zordon, Bulk & Skull, Rita, etc.
 
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Badpsychometry

Badpsychometry

Member
Oct 20, 2018
454
Keep moving throughout the Saban era and Disney. I would stop after RPM. As that's where I stopped. But truly there are done great storylines in the older series. Ind personally say skip overdrive and mystic force
 
NeonZ

NeonZ

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
9,372
RPM is a great standalone series that pushes the Power Rangers' format as far as it can go while still staying Power Rangers (post-apocalyptic world with the Rangers defending the last remaining city from a machine army).

Time Force is great too, but more standard. A few other seasons like In Space stand out too, but rely more on continuity (with In Space being a big conclusion to the original Zordon era of Power Rangers that goes from the original season up to In Space itself, although the cast changes twice by then).
 
GARlock Spiral

GARlock Spiral

Banned
Dec 21, 2017
1,225
RPM

Some of the sentai is worth looking into

I suppose I shouldn't mention Kamen Rider Build, but it's, IMO the absolute best show as to what you're looking for.
 
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Kwigo

Kwigo

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
8,028
NeonZ said:
RPM is a great standalone series that pushes the Power Rangers' format as far as it can go while still staying Power Rangers (post-apocalyptic world with the Rangers defending the last remaining city from a machine army).
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Damn that actually sound really awesome!

Thanks for all the answers, I guess I should have expected a lot of different answers and opinions, so I might just continue watching it chronologically and just skip episodes here and there that aren't as good.
 
BassForever

BassForever

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
29,921
CT
I'd say the top 5 post Zordon era are

RPM: It's post apocalyptic power rangers, that's all you really need to know

Lost Galaxy: Has some of the best character drama in the series

Time Force: A very good season of PR with one of the series best villains

Jungle Fury: Another really solid season of PR that does everything very well

Dino Thunder: Probably worth checking out since Tommy returns and becomes the teams mentor, is also a strong season even ignoring Tommy.

Other seasons worth checking out imo are Lightspeed Rescue, Ninja Storm, Dino Charge, and SPD.

You should also just watch the forever red episode of Wild Force as it's top tier ranger stuff, especially if you do watch Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed, and Timeforce.
 
CONCHOBAR

CONCHOBAR

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,910
Time Force is commonly considered one of best, if not the best, non-Zordon series. I also have huge soft spot for Dino Thunder.
 
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Dakkon

Dakkon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,191
Legitimately must watch? As in, actually great?

RPM.

The series was on the verge of death and they kinda said fuck it and went ham (just like In Space).

Things RPM does better than every other season:

* The main cast can actually act, and in fact almost all of them went on to be relatively successful actors, a rarity.
* Each Ranger is given dedicated episodes for their own plots to advance their characters.
* Has a unique setting for Power Rangers, it's basically Power Rangers x Mad Max.
* The villain actually is somewhat intelligent and tries actual plans and to mix it up.
* The villain is actually successful before the show starts, with the show opening to literal billions dead (no meme) as 99.9% of humanity has been killed.

The worst thing I can say about RPM is that it's opening song sucks real hard.

Also the zords look dumb but the show is aware of that.

It doesn't "build on the mythos", but it's such a strong independent season that is absolutely worth watching.

"Good if you liked the OG series and just want something solid/pretty great??"

Time Force is A+, does a decent amount of talking about how much bigotry sucks, the Pink Ranger is the leader and she is awesome, it's fun, the villain is incred. It's almost as great as RPM and is also very standalone.

SPD is A+, does a decent amount of talking about how much bigotry sucks, it's fun.

Jungle Fury is underrated as fuck, yeah the morphers are hilariously stupid (they're sunglasses), but the character moments are really great and the villains are actually pretty interesting.

"Builds on the mythos?"

Dino Thunder builds a little bit on the mythos of the original series up to In Space as it has Tommy in it as a main character. It's solid, but it's pretty by the numbers. It does have a fantastic episode if you're aware of Super Sentai at all in Lost in Translation tho.

Otherwise, none of the seasons past In Space really "builds on the mythos". The TV shows at best acknowledge other ranger teams exist with a morphing grid and MAYBE a team up, and at worst never actually think this through logically including why anyone is ever surprised by giant monsters or why anyone is surprised that the rangers are real or why Zordon passed his morphers and role on to a bad CGI faceplate or how do these villains and monsters exist after Zordon eliminated all evil in the universe or why there's a ranger team that makes a timeline where dinosaurs didn't go extinct and how that works out...you get the point.
 
Kanhir

Kanhir

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,889
Time Force and Dino Charge for me. I never got into RPM, it landed in the space between "I guess I'm too old for this" and "nostalgic rediscovery".

Wild Force is also an interesting one, because IIRC it was the first one where the Rangers were all recruited at different times and didn't know each other before, so they have a shaky and sometimes antagonistic team dynamic.

How did you like the first few series? I rewatched some episodes recently and it was a lot more overtly cheesy than I remember. Still great nostalgia though.
 
jwk94

jwk94

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,420
I'd honestly say watch everything through rpm, then maybe skip to Dino Charge.

But if you don't want to watch all of that, then go for time force, ninja storm, jungle fury (very underrated), and rpm.
 
jwk94

jwk94

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,420
Kanhir said:
I'd argue Time Force had the best Red, if only because he had an actual backstory and long-term character conflict and motivations, while simultaneously being the heart of the series.
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Agreed. There's nothing that mmpr does that any one season doesn't do better. Even dino thunder did the evil ranger better.
 
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Kwigo

Kwigo

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
8,028
Again, thanks for all the input !

Kanhir said:
Time Force and Dino Charge for me. I never got into RPM, it landed in the space between "I guess I'm too old for this" and "nostalgic rediscovery".

How did you like the first few series? I rewatched some episodes recently and it was a lot more overtly cheesy than I remember. Still great nostalgia though.
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As a kid I watched up to the middle of Turbo every saturday morning, Power Rangers was my religion back then, so it was really fun to dive back in.
The acting definitely needed to get used to, some episodes where REALLY bad, mostly when they were voice acting over Sentai scenes. I guess it helps a lot if you actually play your character instead of just saying his lines. Overall it's a really fun thing to do, a huge nostalgia trip and there really are some great and memorable episodes. The only thing that I really dislike is the insane amount of Deux Ex Machina they pull out of their asses. As a kid you'd think "oh wow they are so lucky to find the keys to new zords right after getting the current zords destroyed!", but now after binge watching it and realizing this happens about every 20 episodes, it's really annoying.

Also they resolve some issues way too quickly, like this morning I was watching the episode of PR in Space where TJ loses his memory. It took him like 2 minutes to get it back, there's absolutely no real impact from something that could have been an interesting minor story arc. And it's always like this, a cool premise that gets resolved in a matter of minutes, if not even seconds.

Zeo was way worse than I remembered, but Turbo is definitely the low point on the early PR series imo. I just hated Justin back then, now I understand that it must have really been difficult for the kid to play on such a show. Poor lad. Also the fact that suddenly you don't have anyone from the OG cast remaining and the fact that the characters are way less interesting (even though they are less stereotypical than before) is hurting the show a lot.

PR in Space so far is actually really good and the first series that I didn't watch at all as a kid. It's hilarious how many Star Wars references they are making as well (the dagoba system, Alpha 6 saying "I sense a disturbance in the force", and so on).

Overall I'd rate the Zordon era, as of now, like this:
Mighty Morphin S1 > MM S3 > in Space > MM S2 > Zeo > Turbo
 
jph139

jph139

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Oct 25, 2017
14,373
I've been working my way through them, too - I just finished Lightspeed Rescue, hoping to hit Time Force at some point but not sure when now that Netflix dropped it.

The Power Rangers subreddit did a comprehensive poll a couple years ago that I found really valuable in finding a "consensus" - which lines up with most talk that I see. RPM, Time Force, In Space, SPD, Dino Thunder as the top five. In general, late 90s to early 00s seems to be "peak" Power Rangers, with seasons after that being hit or miss.

So far I've really enjoyed the years with Judd Lynn as head writer - he starts midway through Turbo and leaves after Time Force. In Space feels pretty legit - like, a solid network genre show, albeit one aimed at kids and with a shoestring budget. If you enjoyed that, the next three seasons are up to that same standard.
 
Kanhir

Kanhir

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Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,889
Kwigo said:
Again, thanks for all the input !



As a kid I watched up to the middle of Turbo every saturday morning, Power Rangers was my religion back then, so it was really fun to dive back in.
The acting definitely needed to get used to, some episodes where REALLY bad, mostly when they were voice acting over Sentai scenes. I guess it helps a lot if you actually play your character instead of just saying his lines. Overall it's a really fun thing to do, a huge nostalgia trip and there really are some great and memorable episodes. The only thing that I really dislike is the insane amount of Deux Ex Machina they pull out of their asses. As a kid you'd think "oh wow they are so lucky to find the keys to new zords right after getting the current zords destroyed!", but now after binge watching it and realizing this happens about every 20 episodes, it's really annoying.

Also they resolve some issues way too quickly, like this morning I was watching the episode of PR in Space where TJ loses his memory. It took him like 2 minutes to get it back, there's absolutely no real impact from something that could have been an interesting minor story arc. And it's always like this, a cool premise that gets resolved in a matter of minutes, if not even seconds.

Zeo was way worse than I remembered, but Turbo is definitely the low point on the early PR series imo. I just hated Justin back then, now I understand that it must have really been difficult for the kid to play on such a show. Poor lad. Also the fact that suddenly you don't have anyone from the OG cast remaining and the fact that the characters are way less interesting (even though they are less stereotypical than before) is hurting the show a lot.

PR in Space so far is actually really good and the first series that I didn't watch at all as a kid. It's hilarious how many Star Wars references they are making as well (the dagoba system, Alpha 6 saying "I sense a disturbance in the force", and so on).

Overall I'd rate the Zordon era, as of now, like this:
Mighty Morphin S1 > MM S3 > in Space > MM S2 > Zeo > Turbo
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Turbo's issues were mostly caused by the clash between the Sentai being a silly parody of the series formula and the PR's Serious Business plot. Justin didn't help at all.

There's a great writeup on the issues that plagued the series from Turbo through Time Force. It's well worth a read, if only to see how incredibly creative they had to be to make everything work.
 

xfactor99

Member
Oct 28, 2017
728
jph139 said:
I've been working my way through them, too - I just finished Lightspeed Rescue, hoping to hit Time Force at some point but not sure when now that Netflix dropped it.

The Power Rangers subreddit did a comprehensive poll a couple years ago that I found really valuable in finding a "consensus" - which lines up with most talk that I see. RPM, Time Force, In Space, SPD, Dino Thunder as the top five. In general, late 90s to early 00s seems to be "peak" Power Rangers, with seasons after that being hit or miss.

So far I've really enjoyed the years with Judd Lynn as head writer - he starts midway through Turbo and leaves after Time Force. In Space feels pretty legit - like, a solid network genre show, albeit one aimed at kids and with a shoestring budget. If you enjoyed that, the next three seasons are up to that same standard.
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This is accurate. RPM, Time Force, in Space are generally seen as the top 3 seasons, with Samurai, Operation Overdrive, Ninja Steel near the bottom and Megaforce dead, dead, last.

And yes imo PR definitely peaked during the Space - Lost Galaxy - Lightspeed Rescue - Time Force run when the show was maturing and comfortable telling in-depth stories and knew how to shoot great fight scenes.
 
Kanhir

Kanhir

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Oct 25, 2017
3,889
xfactor99 said:
This is accurate. RPM, Time Force, in Space are generally seen as the top 3 seasons, with Samurai, Operation Overdrive, Ninja Steel near the bottom and Megaforce dead, dead, last.

And yes imo PR definitely peaked during the Space - Lost Galaxy - Lightspeed Rescue - Time Force run when the show was maturing and comfortable telling in-depth stories and knew how to shoot great fight scenes.
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I can't imagine what possessed them to make Super Megaforce. Adapting two completely different Sentai with one cast is bad enough (although MMPR/Zeo managed it), but considering Gokaiger was an anniversary special with returning cast members and featured the main cast transforming into all previous rangers (including pre-PR Sentai)? That needed its own series to breathe and decompress.
 
Auros01

Auros01

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Nov 17, 2017
5,504
What's the best place to watch some of this? Are they available to stream anywhere or do you have to buy?
 
Mandos

Mandos

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Nov 27, 2017
30,891
Lots of great ones, SPD, RPM, Ninja force, Dino Thunder, time force, light speed rescue. Only real stinkers are overdrive and wild force out of what I watched
 
Josh5890

Josh5890

I'm Your Favorite Poster's Favorite Poster
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
23,179
Past the Zordon era, the only other series I watched religiously was Light Speed Rescue. It was fun.

Auros01 said:
What's the best place to watch some of this? Are they available to stream anywhere or do you have to buy?
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Netflix has some. Not sure about all of them though.
 

xfactor99

Member
Oct 28, 2017
728
Auros01 said:
What's the best place to watch some of this? Are they available to stream anywhere or do you have to buy?
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They are not on Netflix anymore, but apparently they will ALL be on YouTube..eventually (they have been a bit slow uploading episodes)

www.theilluminerdi.com

Old Episodes Of Power Rangers Will Be Streaming On YouTube - The Illuminerdi

Power Rangers fans were shocked to hear the news that most seasons of the show would be leaving Netflix. This initially came with no announcement of where the
www.theilluminerdi.com www.theilluminerdi.com
 
Htown

Htown

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Oct 25, 2017
11,318
based entirely on the bits I saw from the twitch marathon, I'd say RPM is worth watching
 
TheWooniestWoona

TheWooniestWoona

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,778
Dino Thunder, SPD, and RPM

If you have to chose only one of those, go RPM.

Dino Thunder is really fun to watch as a fan of the original seasons.

SPD is just a fun future show, and I love the idea of the main rangers being the literal B-team.

RPM is a great show. Probably the best season out of the whole franchise. The budget holds it back a little bit, but it's not a huge deal.
 
TheWooniestWoona

TheWooniestWoona

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,778
Edit: Crap, double post.

01e6fa9cea757c01e79039b0d12d4bc8.gif
 
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Kwigo

Kwigo

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
8,028
I want to say, again, thanks for all the input!

And I just love to see how many people here have something positive to say about this franchise, it's what got me through my childhood and while it's cheesy, inconsistent and low budget, I still love it dearly.
I'm excited to watch those later shows for the first time, so again, thank you all!
 
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