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What's Wrong with MMPR S2

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What's Wrong with Power Rangers Season Two

I have to refer back to Linkara's review of Power Rangers Season 2.  I felt he just sorta glossed over it and really didn't have a chance to point out all the plot points that I felt was just blatantly awkward for that season.

So, the first thing I want to cover is the usage of the Zyu2 footage.  For some of you who don't know, the Zyu2 footage was in fact footage shot by Toei under the order and direction of Saban.  Saban paid for this footage to be made since the original Zyuranger footage ran out after Doomsday.  The idea was that Power Rangers was going to end then, but the success of the show told Saban to continue on.  Toei was already in Dairanger production and of course Saban asked Toei to create some Zyu2 footage and monsters as well as have the suit actors for the Shugozo/Zords to reprise their roles.  Toei agreed to do so and shot about 25 episodes worth of footage.  This footage we fans call Zyu2.  The issue is how the footage was used.  Up until Lord Zedd showed up, the usage of the Zyu2 footage was fine.  But afterward, the rush to switch over to the Dairanger footage made everything look choppy and horribly edited.  What made it so obvious was the splicing of Dairen-oh over the Zyu2 footage monsters and it was so obviously Daizyujin's fist or sword slicing or punching instead.

Here is what I suggest, they should have continued on using the footage they ordered from Toei until they ran out instead of spicing Zyuranger footage with Dairanger footage.  It just doesn't look right when they did it the way they did.  If they had let it run out, then they could introduce Lord Zedd and his Parantashead monster to destroy the Dinozords, and then we would switch to the Thunderzords afterwards.  Or introduce Zedd at the time they wanted him, but have the Dinozords continue to face his monsters, then he finding ways of making much more powerful monsters which would cause the Power Rangers to switch to the Thunderzords once the Zyu2 footage ran out.

That's basically what I needed to get off my chest when it came to the Zyu2 footage.  The next thing I want to address is when they completely switched to the Dairanger footage and monsters, the whole thing looks chopped up.  Now, at first, I didn't realize it because well, I was a kid then, but I did have some issues when I first watched it.  I noticed how many times they would use the same set of stock footage over and over again.  That was probably even more of a screw up than the Zyu2 footage usage.  Obviously, in the third season, Saban got a hold of the actual Won Tiger and Dairen-oh suits for those first few episodes before they switched to the Ninja Powers and the usage of Ninja Sentai Kakuranger footage.  Not only that, but they also had the usage of Daijinryuu both in prop and the suit as well, as was seen in the beginning of Zeo.  

So, this is what's wrong with the second season.  Toei was already in production of Kakuranger when Second Season started for Saban.  They could have gotten a hold of the suits then and made good use of them.  Yeah, use some of the stock footage for summoning the zords and such, but new battle footage could have been shot by Saban a few times, thus creating their own footage instead of having to reuse the same footage over and over again for the zords.  

The most obvious re-use of footage is of course the stock footage of Daijinryuu being used for Serpentera.  I'm sorry, I know I discussed this in my comparison, but like Linkara discussing how well Kimberly's ending storyline was handled, I have to address this.  It's one of my peeves.  Yeah, the idea of this incredibly powerful and near unstoppable zord for Lord Zedd seems interesting and it makes him sound like an even more of a threat than Rita was.  However, the way it was handled...well, let me just compare both of them so that you guys will get the idea you need.

Daijinryuu, when she came down to stop the war between the Dai and Gorma Tribes, she blew up half of Tokyo, frightened Daimugen on a regular bases, destroyed Pachinko Daimejin, broke apart Dairen-oh, destroyed the Gorma Palace at least three times, cast a spell on humans and made them leap to their deaths (which was foiled by Doushi Kaku) and of course forced both the Earth Shattering Jewel (the source of the Gorma Powers) and the Lai Lai Jewels (Source of the Dairanger powers) to up and leave in order to sate her anger.  She was the one who officially stopped the war between the Gorma and the Dai Tribes.  

Serpentera destroyed an empty planet by attacking some spinning, floating pyramid in the sky.  (shrugs)  Yeah, she stepped on Tor and broke apart the Thundermegazord, but really, most of the time, she was just the car Zedd used to get down to Earth.  And she ran out of power each time she lifted her foot.  Oh, and she was destroyed by a jungle boy riding a motorcycle in Forever Red.  Yeah, I'll get to that in a moment.  I know there's theories that the Serpentera that Cole destroyed was some prototype that wasn't all that powerful and the real Serpentera is still in the M51 galaxy probably being used by some evil warlord there, but it wasn't mentioned in the actual show that it was, so I'm not gonna buy into that theory.  If it's not mentioned it's not cannon, it's just some one trying to speculate how a motorcycle could destroy a zord that's capable of blowing up planets.  And don't say it's because the bike was giving to him by a god, it's still bullshit!  But more on that in a moment.

This is probably what I wanted to see when they introduced Serpentera.  Serpentera should have been a true legitimate threat to the Power Rangers.  But it became a joke.  Tor could drain it, when it lifted its foot, it would run out of power. I realize this was limited to the footage used because well, even Toei reused its Daijinryuu footage a few times.  Like I said, I think it has to do with the costume probably being the most cumbersome of the franchise.  I mean, for one thing, they probably had the head either controlled by a rope like with King Ghidorah, or some form of limited remote controlled robotics.  So, the suit actor couldn't move around much in that suit.  However, we don't always have to see the monster to know it's a threat.  And Saban could have thought of ways of doing that.  There were props of Daijinryuu's foot that Saban could have used.  The suit was actually put together in parts, there was an upper torso part which included the shoulders, neck and head, as well as the lower part which was the feet and tail.  And then there were the arms and legs as well as the feet and hands.  They could have shot the suit actor from the torso up, covering the lower half with buildings or smoke to give a sense of scale and shooting Serpentera from a low angle.  Another way to fix the multiple flying scenes is to use the flying Daijinryuu prop.  They had that prop on a green screen, I would have loved to have seen shots of Serpentera flying in over shots of Angel Grove instead of the reused shots of Tokyo.  I mean, obviously, the shot a lot of the city shots of Angel Grove in Australia.  It's obvious, you can't hide it.

Okay, here is how it should have been handled.  Get the suits, make Serpentera a true threat.  With the suits, you could also be able to interact with the power rangers as well.  There would be moments where the rangers decide that they need to get rid of Serpentera because of the threat it creates.  There could be moments of sabotage and such.  There would be more interaction between Serpentera and the zords and battles there when a monster fails and Lord Zedd shows he's had enough.  I mean, this thing is supposed to be nigh unstoppable.  But they made it into a joke.

Now, for the Forever Red thing on Serpentera.  In Zeo, they had the suit.  Of course part of Wild Force was filmed by Disney while the other half was filmed by Saban.  Still, it appeared in Forever Red that they had gotten a hold of the props and of course, in Zeo, they had the suit.  However, I heard the production got a little jumbled up, budgets were cut and such and the battle we could have gotten where they used the actual prop and the suit for Daijinryuu was scrapped for that shotty CG Not-Serpentera Iguana.  It's so obviously not Serpentera.  For one thing, Serpentera is a very dark green almost black color.  I mean, it was so dark it fooled me into thinking it was black a few times which is why my images of Daijinryuu had her as black.  But really, it's a very dark green color.  This version, well the guys in the CG department obviously didn't know what Daijinryuu looked like and just guessed which is why we got this purple-headed, duck-faced monstrosity trying to pass itself off as Serpentera.  And as I said above, I don't care if that bike was given to Cole by a god, it still wouldn't be able to take down something that can destroy a planet.  That was just a pathetic way to end such a regal-looking zord.  And really, I know people still say: "It's a prototype."  They never said it in the series, it was never mentioned that it was or that Lord Zedd had another one, if he did, he should have used both to attack double time on the Earth, but he didn't, so I'm dismissing that speculation right here and now.  It's not canon.

The usage of the Dairanger footage is pretty obvious when it comes to chopping it up for Power Rangers.  I have it say it's more so than ever when it comes to Tor, Serpentera, and the White Tigerzord.  I mean, that thing is very obvious.  In the original Sentai Dairanger, several times, the Kiba Ranger was evil because the Gorma kept Kou under a spell, so a lot of times, the Dairangers had to fight Won Tiger.  They had to chop a lot of that out which is why I think Second Season was an utter mess.  Sure, Turbo Ranger was just a mess too, but for me, it was Second Season Power Rangers.  It really was.

So, I'm gonna do my own version of what Linkara did for his review of Turbo Rangers.

They decided to play 52 pick-up with the Zyu2 footage when they spliced it in with the Dairanger footage.  They used the happy pupils on Dragon Caesar's eyes to mean he's evil.  They chopped up Dairanger so much because of the White Ranger, which made Tommy look childish a few times when he transformed and a lot of times confused.  They made Yako (the sword Saba) who had this rather handsome and deep courageous voice sound like a very wimpy version of Finster.  They turned Daimugen into a pogostick.  They turned a bounty hunter, skeleton wolf demon into a spastic hyena.  And they turned an all-powerful peacekeeping, heavenly dragon god into a fucking sports car!

Rita Repulsa: "I have a headache!"

Yeah, and that's what's wrong with Second Season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
Okay, here is what I think was wrong with Season 2 of Power Rangers. Especially when it came to the stock footage. Enjoy my rant.
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The-Burning-Wrath's avatar
Now that I see it. Season 2 wasn't great IMO. It did get somewhat better with the Wedding episodes, but it got kind of dumb after a while. 

Another thing I never got was how bizarre season 2 was.