Power Rangers General Discussion Thread

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

"Freeze! Or I'll hit you with my sword!"

"My empress kept losing to... this? Maybe I should just do things on my own, steal some neat White Tiger powers to blend in with my Green Dragon while I'm at it."

his Season 3 one just made him into a diet soda version of Billy instead of letting him be his own character.

I don't recall the episode, so I'm curious as to how.

To say nothing of his unceremonious departure from the series in the Turbo movie

In fairness, he wasn't even going to do that. They wanted him to be the Blue Turbo Ranger, he was ready to just leave after failed contract negotiations, but they asked him to at least kinda do a "pass the torch" bit for the movie, to which he agreed.

 

[Sabrblade]

I don't recall the episode, so I'm curious as to how.

It was an episode where Rocky and his science teacher were in a student-teacher program where the two traded places, with Rocky as the teacher and the teacher as the student, and Rocky's whole thing in the episode was his being very studious and determined to get a good grade on the assignment. They tried to portray Rocky like he was some very intelligent, academia-driven student very much like how Billy was, only minus the super genius elements.

Then Rito turned the teacher into the monster of the day and Rocky and the others had to fight him in order to return him back to normal. Rocky did at least get a cool moment where he broke off the Ape Ninjazord from the rest of the Ninja Megazord combination in order to personally fight the monster by himself (as he felt guilty and responsible for letting Rito turn the teacher into the monster), but that was more of a Sentai footage thing than an idea the Power Rangers writers came up with.

 

[Shadewing]

He was, but a lot of that was the show trying to position him as someone to replace JDF should JDF wanna leave. There's a story about Hiam Saban telling him to grow his hair out because he assumed Tommy was popular because he had long hair.

Which, as an aside, how does someone build an empire through children's entertainment without actually understanding what kids find compelling? Power Rangers' early years feel like
Hiam Michael Scott'ing his way into a billion dollar enterprise.

Anyway... yeah. JYB was clearly someone the writers and producers had time for, but even he was given stuff with the hope that he could just be the new Tommy should JDF depart.

And then JDF did depart, but they ended up firing JYB anyway because like I said, this whole thing was a Michael Scott operation. How this show lasted as long as it did should be studied for years to come.

Yeah, Turbo was originally just Tommy and Kat leaving, but someone decided that they should just do an entire cast refresh (minus Justin since he was the refresh) Maybe its due to the first half of Turbo being dismal, that they just felt they needed new everything. Since we got a some BTS changes as well. JYB wanted to continue doing the show. Honestly, he's the only one I would have kept, as most the replacements at least got more respect then the previous replacements. Except Carlos. I don't know why, but I never really liked Carlos. He just felt like Adam's Rocky to me. ...That's kinda insulting to Carlos as he was never as "wtf do we do with him?" but still felt like they didnt really know what to do with him.

 

[LordGigaIce]

Yeah, Turbo was originally just Tommy and Kat leaving, but someone decided that they should just do an entire cast refresh (minus Justin since he was the refresh) Maybe its due to the first half of Turbo being dismal, that they just felt they needed new everything. Since we got a some BTS changes as well. JYB wanted to continue doing the show. Honestly, he's the only one I would have kept, as most the replacements at least got more respect then the previous replacements. Except Carlos. I don't know why, but I never really liked Carlos. He just felt like Adam's Rocky to me. ...That's kinda insulting to Carlos as he was never as "wtf do we do with him?" but still felt like they didnt really know what to do with him.

I'm a huge JYB fan and he probably could have been great as the new face of the show if they'd let him, but honestly? It sucks to say but... Turbo gets a whole new lease on life once the cast change happens.
Turbo was about where I tapped out on Power Rangers as a kid and rewatching it? Zeo was a genuinely good time and then Turbo just doesn't do anything with that. It's just awful, and I think the cast change coincided with a realization that they needed to punch it up a level.

 

[Sabrblade]

Yeah, the new cast seemed to click better because they were also younger, meaning they were closer in age to Justin so it felt less awkward that a bunch of teenagers were hanging out with a child prodigy in high school than it did when it was a bunch of grown adults were hanging out with him.

Like, the old guard had graduated and were ready to move on from high school, yet because Justin was still in school and part of the team now, the show needed to keep finding excuses to bring the others back into Angel Grove High despite their no longer being students there. IIRC, they made Kat a teaching assistant or something, but what were the others' excuses?

Replacing all of the older cast meant the new cast could be young enough to all attend Angel Grove High with Justin, even if that felt like a stab in the back to the old guard.

 

[Sabrblade]

Backing up to Tommy's all-consuming popularity, this video does a good job of breaking down how the MMPR movie was basically "The Adventures of Tommy Oliver and his Five Sidekicks":