User blog:Christobalthevision/Power Rangers Legacy



Power Rangers is an American entertainment and merchandising franchise built around a live action superhero television series. Produced first by Saban Entertainment, later by BVS Entertainment, and today by SCG Power Rangers, the television series takes much of its footage from the Japanese tokusatsu Super Sentai, produced by Toei Company. The first Power Rangers entry, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, debuted on August 28, 1993, and helped launch the Fox Kids programming block of the 1990s, during which it catapulted into popular culture along with a line of action figures and other toys by Bandai. As of 2001, the media franchise has generated over $6 billion in retail sales worldwide.

Despite initial criticism that its action violence targeted child audiences, the franchise has continued, and as of 2017 the show consists of 24 television seasons of 20 different themed series and three theatrical films released in 1995, 1997 and 2017. In 2010, Haim Saban, creator of the series, regained ownership of the franchise after seven years under The Walt Disney Company.

Since Power Rangers derives most of its footage from the Super Sentai series, it features many hallmarks that distinguish it from other superhero series. Each series revolves around a team of youths recruited and trained by a mentor to morph into the eponymous Power Rangers, able to utilize special powers and pilot immense assault machines, called Zords, to overcome the periodic antagonists. In the original series Mighty Morphin, the wizard Zordon recruits "teenagers with attitude" against Rita Repulsa.

When "morphed," the rangers become powerful superheroes wearing color-coded skin-tight spandex suits and helmets with opaque visors; identical except in individual rangers' color and helmet design. Morphed Rangers generally possess enhanced strength, durability, agility and combat prowess. Some possess superhuman or psychic abilities such as super-speed, element manipulation, extra-sensory perception or invisibility. In addition, each individual ranger has a unique weapon, as well as common weaponry used for ground fighting. When enemies grow to incredible size (as nearly all do), Rangers utilize individual Zords that combine into a larger Megazord.

Rangers teams operate in teams of five or three, with more Rangers joining the team later. Each team of Rangers, with a few exceptions, obeys a general set of conventions, outlined at the beginning of Mighty Morphin and implied by mentors throughout many of the other series: Power Rangers may not use their Ranger powers for personal gain or for escalating a fight (unless the enemy does so), nor may the Power Rangers disclose their identities to the general public. The penalty for disobeying these rules, in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, is the loss of their power.

As in Super Sentai, the color palette of each Power Rangers team changes every series. Only Red and Blue appear in every Ranger team, while a Yellow Ranger has been present in every season except Power Rangers Dino Charge. Other colors and designations also appear throughout the series. A Rangers' color designation also influences their wardrobe throughout the series: civilian clothing often matches Ranger color.

Production of Power Rangers episodes involves extensive localization of and revision of original Super Sentai source material in order to incorporate American culture and conform to American television standards. Rather than making an English dub or translation of the Japanese footage, Power Rangers programs consist of scenes featuring English-speaking actors (either from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or the United Kingdom) spliced with scenes featuring either Japanese actors dubbed into English or the action scenes from the Super Sentai Series featuring the Rangers fighting monsters or the giant robot (Zord and Megazord) battles with English dubbing. In some series, original fight scenes are filmed to incorporate characters or items unique to the Power Rangers production. Like many of Saban Entertainment previous ventures in localizing Japanese television for a Western audience, the plot, character names, and other names usually differ greatly from the source footage, though a few seasons have stayed close to the story of the original Super Sentai season.

Along with adapting the villains from the Super Sentai counterparts, most Power Rangers series also feature villains with no Sentai counterpart. Generally, the primary antagonist of a Power Rangers series (for example, Lord Zedd, Divatox, etc.) are not adapted from the Sentai. Exceptions to this includes Mighty Morphin, Zeo, Lightspeed Rescue and a few others which only use villains adapted from the Japanese shows.

The series that began the franchise, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (an American adaptation of the 1992 Japanese Super Sentai Series, Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger), began broadcasting as part of the Fox Kids block of programing that aired on the FOX network. It lasted for three seasons (from 1993 to 1996).

Saban Entertainment distributed the Power Rangers series from 1993 until the end of 2001, and Fox broadcast it until the fall of 2002. The Walt Disney Company purchased the franchise as part of a buyout that took place in 2001. This resulted in Fox Family Worldwide becoming ABC Family Worldwide Inc. This buyout also saw Saban Entertainment becoming BVS Entertainment in 2002, from News Corporation, Fox's parent company, and Haim Saban. The show continued to air on Fox until the company replaced its Fox Kids package with "FoxBox" in the United States. Since September 2002, all Power Rangers shows had aired on various Disney-owned networks (ABC Kids, Toon Disney and Jetix channels worldwide). When Wild Force ended, Disney moved production of the franchise from Los Angeles to New Zealand. This resulted in the closure of MMPR Productions and the dismissal of many members of the production. From Ninja Storm to date, Power Rangers is produced in New Zealand. ABC Family, another Disney-owned network, also used to air Power Rangers until it did away with its Jetix timeslot after August 31, 2006. On February 12, 2009, Toon Disney ended in the wake of Disney XD, ending cable airings of Power Rangers in certain areas of the United States. Several ABC affiliate broadcasting groups declined to air most of the Power Rangers series since 2006 due to the lack of FCC-compliant educational and informational content in the programs.

The Saban era seasons, starting with In Space, have gone under the "Saban's Power Rangers" moniker, up until Time Force. Since the re-acquisition of Power Rangers by Saban in 2010, this practice has continued once again starting with Samurai.

Starting in 2005, up until 2007, during its run on Jetix, Power Rangers reruns were aired under the moniker Power Rangers Generations, showcasing select episodes from Mighty Morphin through Dino Thunder.

An article in The New Zealand Herald published on March 7, 2009, identified Power Rangers RPM as the last season of the Power Rangers run. Production manager Sally Campbell stated in an interview, "...at this stage we will not be shooting another season." A September 1, 2009, revision to Disney A to Z: The Official Encyclopedia by Disney's head archivist Dave Smith states that "production of new episodes [of Power Rangers] ceased in 2009". Production of Power Rangers ceased and the last series by BVS Entertainment, RPM, ended on December 26, 2009.

On October 1, 2009, Bandai released a press release that Disney would re-broadcast Mighty Morphin Power Rangers starting in January 2010 on ABC Kids in lieu of a new series utilizing footage from the 2009 Super Sentai television series. A new toy line accompanied the series and appeared in stores in the later part of 2009. ABC's over-the air telecasts ended on August 28, 2010, and turned the hour back to affiliates.

On May 12, 2010, Haim Saban bought back the Power Rangers franchise from Disney for $43 million and announced plans to produce a new season of the television series. The eighteenth season, Samurai, began airing on Nickelodeon on February 7, 2011, with the previous episodes beginning rebroadcast on Nicktoons later that year. It was also announced that Saban plans to make a new Power Rangers movie.

On July 2, 2012, it was announced that Saban Brands would launch a Saturday morning cartoon block on The CW, called Vortexx, on August 25, 2012, that would air Power Rangers Lost Galaxy. To commemorate the series' 20th anniversary, Nickelodeon began airing Power Rangers Megaforce on February 2, 2013, featuring all of the past rangers from the series' 20-year history. On October 1, 2013, Saban Brands announced that it had extended agreements with Nickelodeon and Bandai America Incorporated through 2016 for its globally recognized Power Rangers franchise. In January 2016, Saban and Nickelodeon extended their broadcast partnership through 2018.

The 90s Are All That aired Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as part of Mighty Morphin Weekend in 2013.