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Post by sbtbfanatic on Dec 28, 2015 2:53:53 GMT
MMPR Season 2 Episode 11: The Song of Guitardo
Character Displays Talent Unrelated to Karate Middle Aged White Men Unable to Grasp Concept of Gravity
As soon as you see a title like this episodes' it's natural to grit your teeth. Is this going to be a musical episode where a bunch of actors who can't sing are forced to because the plot demands them? Are we going to have to see what a bunch of octogenarian writers think contemporary music sounded like in 1994? Will I be able to enjoy this unironically? As long as we don't have to hear Tommy sing things should go peachy.
Kimberly strums a tune on her guitar for all of 5 seconds before Zack shows up and tells her it sounds really great. Yeah 5 seconds is about all the time you need to hear any piece of music before you get the idea of where it's going. Kimberly asks Zack if he would be willing to listen to the other 205 seconds of her song and give her some pointers with the lyrics, particularly finding words that rhyme with "Tommy", "Green", and "You're Going To Lose Your Powers Soon and I Won't Want To Be Seen in Public With You Anymore : (."
I get the sneaking suspicion Zack's Season 2 dreads weren't his idea
So why is Zack Kimberly's go-to-guy for lyrical advice? Possibly because he's the same person that busted out an improvised song to woo Angela REDACTED at the end of Season 1. It's totally possible Zack is the one helping Kimberly write a ballad because he did the same thing before, or the writers got lucky when they plugged in one of the other Ranger Teens to be in this scene. Call me a cynic, but I'm voting for the latter.
Kimberly shows off a bit of her song, and it stuns me that Amy Jo Johnson actually has quite a set of pipes on her. The song she's singing is, thank fuck, not littered with embarrassingly hammy lines about how Tommy's so great and she sure hopes he'll be okay. It's a standard folksy melancholy tune about life changing. It's not some groundbreaking look into the human psyche, but it's a charming piece of music. One you wouldn't expect in a show that's filled to the gills with enough rock and roll to blow your bowl-cut to the back of the room and spill your dunkaroos all over your Game-Boy. The 90's.
Amusingly, the show cuts off Kimberly's song after another 5 seconds to transition to Lord Zedd's palace where he observes the young songwriter. Zedd decides Kimberly's guitar will make the perfect instrument for the Rangers demise, but Goldar interjects with one of the stupidest lines yet.
"But master, a guitar is wood! It's not alive!"
Thanks for the Snapple fact Goldar, I'm glad we kept you around this season. While this outburst is absurd, the reasoning Goldar gives is even more inane. He informs Lord Zedd that his magic will not be able to make a monster out of something that isn't alive.
Back up just one second. Zedd can't make a monster out of something that isn't living you say?
You mean something like a costume? Or a poster? Or a picture in a book? Or, spoilers, all of the monsters from Dairanger he's going to create later in the season that are all thematically based on inanimate objects?
Well everyone I've come to a conclusion. The writers got lucky when they put Zack in that earlier scene.
Lord Zedd barks back at Goldar "YOU'RE AN INANIMATE FUCKING OBJECT" before declaring he's merely waiting for an insect to get near the wooden guitar so he can morph it into the titular Guitardo monster. Please don't laugh, that's the monster's actual name. Though he'll have some tough competition in the terrible name department as we descend further into Season 2.
Later in the park, the Ranger Teens spend a nice relaxing afternoon picnicking. Billy, Tommy, and Jason toss a football around with each other in some more coincidental continuity until Richie shows up. Trini asks if he wants to eat lunch with them after some brisk outdoorsy boning, but Richie has to unpack his stuff after the move to Angel Grove. Richie then looks Jason up and down and asks what kind of benefits working on a Saban show gives.
Jason says how cool Richie is through clenched teeth when the Ranger Teens hear the sounds of a beautiful princess being attacked by a ferocious beast. Yeah it's exactly what you think it's going to be, and though you have every reason not to believe me, it somehow manages to be pretty funny.
Damskull in Distress
Bulk and Skull plan to summon the Rangers by performing this absolutely absurd routine straight out of an elementary school play. Though this is a pretty stock concept, Schrier and Narvy manage to goof their way into pure charm yet again. When Skull is acting as a princess, he could just do your standard falsetto and crack his voice here and there because wakka wakka man in drag humor. Instead, Skull goes full-on Terry Jones and voices this princess as a shrill British woman. It's significantly funnier than it has any right to be.
Not to mention that Skull dressed as a woman isn't really the joke. You'd expect the joke to be that Skull hates dressing up as a woman because women are totally gay. Well Skull is pissed, but not about being a princess. He's bummed out that he has to be bait while Bulk's wearing an awful looking dragon suit. Personally I'd like to believe Skull finds that dragon costume totally rad and wants to wear it so he can be a Bad Dragon too.
Bulk's atrocious dragon costume is also an inspired touch. It's nothing but shitty green pajamas with holes in them and a helmet with some googly eyes. More important than that though, is what Skull does when Bulk taunts him about being terrible bait. Skull feels pride in his wretched acting as a woman and showcases his womanhood in the most wonderful way.
This is how kids in the 90's learned what breasts were.
The Ranger Teens hear a sketch from Monty Python being acted out in the middle of the park and run to see if they can get John Cleese's autograph. Upon seeing the bullies, our heroes become disgusted that saintly gentlemen like Bulk and Skull would tell a falsehood. Trini tells the morons not to cry wolf, to which Skull responds "AY WOT?" Tommy and Jason tell them someday if they really do need help, nobody will help them because they're complete simpletons who do nothing but waste everyone's time. Can you still call something foreshadowing if it's incredibly ham-fisted and obvious when it's going to happen? Also can I still call something ham-fisted and obvious when it's in a baby show for infants?
Now that Lord Zedd's magic is ready, he prepares to summon the Guitardo monster to hypnotize the Rangers. In a stunning display of backbone, Goldar adds "If the Rangers don't outsmart your monster again." As much as I want to appreciate this line, it totally comes out of nowhere. Ever since Zedd has shown up, Goldar has done nothing but superglue his lips to the overlord's shiny red buttcheeks. Why is he getting a 'tude all of a sudden? It's not like he's some hyper-competent sidekick. Goldar was nothing but a bottle dropping bitch last week, so what gives him the right to be acting all high and mighty?
Bulk and Skull engage in some more shenanigans in the park while trying to lure the Rangers out of hiding, resulting in Bulk getting his dragon helmet stuck atop his bulky skull. Just as Skull attempts to undo Bulk's helmet, a massive cicada lands atop the boy's shoulders and terrifies them. Possibly because it couldn't look less like a real cicada and is clearly a shitty looking dog toy.
Lord Zedd takes the initiative to turn this awful looking prop into his newest monster. Enter Guitardo.
Guitardo US footage Lord Zedd forgot to magic a guy into that suit.
Guitardo insults Bulk's weight, and chases the two clods around the park while cackling. Serves you guys right! If you lie about monsters chasing you then a giant cicada will emerge, call you fat, and then hassle you up and down the block. Wait how did The Boy Who Cried Wolf go again?
Zordon alerts the Rangers to a dangerous new monster and tells them to haul ass back to base, but make sure to teleport in slow enough to give Guitardo enough time to maul Bulk and Skull. Alpha and Zordon inform the Rangers that the Guitardo creature has devastating mind control powers that must be combated cautiously. Speaking of which, Alpha needs to take Tommy over to the other corner of the Command Center to test how embarrassing his powers are this week.
Thankfully this is one of the few times we have to address Tommy's powers in this episode. Guitardo isn't trying to sap all of Tommy's energy with his mind control music, he's a run of the mill monster doing his thing and we don't need to give him some arbitrary power to drain energy to shoehorn Tommy into the plot. Bout goddamned time.
Zordon tell the teens that Guitardo's music is able to manipulate their minds and will put them in a trance for Lord Zedd if they aren't able to fill their minds with their own thoughts. Billy silently pumps his fist in the air as he realizes he can't shut off his big stupid brain and its ability to rattle off useless trivia every time someone looks at him funny, so this monster will be a cinch.
Inside the Viewing Globe, Kimberly notices that Guitardo has pilfered the guitar she left in the park and turned it into his own devious instrument. I certainly don't know how he was able to pull something like that off. That guitar is made of wood. It's not alive. In any case, Alpha alerts Tommy that his remaining powers could fail at any time, which is different than what we've been told about his powers the past few weeks in the following ways:
It isn't. Alright moving along.
Kimberly says she's sick of all this logistic nonsense and wants her man-candy to be at full strength. She asks why Zordon can't just re-energize Tommy like he did before, which is a question that's respectful to an audience who have been paying attention to this situation as it's progressed. I don't know what it's doing in this show to be honest with you.
Alpha informs her another surge of energy from Zordon's supply is no longer an option. Kimberly gives sad puppy-dog eyes at her boy when she's literally pushed off screen by Jason's hulking frame. Jason offers a sensual one handed massage to Tommy's ailing shoulder and confirms my suspicions that Tommy's relationship with Kimberly has been a sham since jump street.
The Ranger Teens wish Tommy well before morphing to stop Guitardo. The ugly bug is now armed with a morphed version of Kimberly's guitar and…some wings I guess.
Most guitars are controlled via their central blue button.
Guitardo dicks around on his guitar while the Rangers "react" to him. Unfortunately if you want this scene to sound good, you're shit out of luck Charlie. Just like last week's episode, all of Jason and Zack's dialogue while morphed has been recycled from previous episodes. So the show has to bend over backwards to find lines that 1) Fit the morphed Rangers reactions and mannerisms, 2) Summarizes the situation of whatever the monster of the week is doing, and 3) Not sound like stilted fucking garbage.
To be fair, this only applies to a few lines, but listening to two actors having a conversation when one of them clearly isn't actually partaking creates a peculiarly awkward scene that feels completely lifeless in a way this show usually avoids. You can sell me on multi-colored heroes fighting a man sized cicada while he plays the first few notes of Purple Haze, but as soon as one of those characters isn't genuinely reacting to the conversation you can count me out.
Guitardo spews some energy from his guitar doe and manages to "capture the minds" of all the Rangers but Pink. Now when I say someone has their mind captured what do you assume would happen? They become slaves to Zedd's magic? They're left catatonic and unable to battle? They're cast in a stage adaptation of Peter Pan?
Of course.
Jason responds to this predicament by exclaiming "THIS DUDE'S GONNA BE TOUGHER THAN I THOUGHT!" A statement he will find himself making every time a monster appears capable of tying its own shoes.
Guitardo then cackles at leaving the Pink songwriter all on her own, faced to combat him one on one. So did he miss her earlier? Or was she just concentrating really hard? Who cares.
Zordon tells Tommy that Guitardo has done the unthinkable, that exact thing he said was going to happen. Guitardo now has control over four of the Ranger's minds, or is making them float in mid-air. Look we watched the footage once and that was enough to know what was happening. Just read the script we wrote and shut up.
Tommy proclaims to Zordon and Alpha that this excuse to be a showboating asshole is exactly what he can use to justify getting in on the fight. Alpha tells him the situation is too dire, but Tommy tells him to blow it out his exhaust port because no kid out there is going to buy an Alpha 5 action figure. Zordon commends Tommy for being so profitable and allows the Green Ranger to go bail out Kimbaely.
Just as Kimberly is about to be struck by Guitardo's music, Green shows up and pushes her out of the way. Since Kimberly has successfully evolved into a helpless damsel, she allows Tommy to fight the monster for her instead of bothering to help him whatsoever. Guitardo and Green square off and partake in a fun but brief skirmish until the monster decides to call a time-out. Guitardo asks the Green Ranger to engage in a one on one with him at "the fair" before vanishing. Thankfully California has enacted a strict "One-Fair" policy or else Tommy would be searching for Guitardo for hours.
Tommy rushes after the monster and tells Kimberly she can look after their gravitationally challenged friends. Kimberly contacts Zordon and asks if she really needs to be left on babysitting duties for these chucklefucks, but she's informed the only way the others can be saved is by destroying Guitardo. Kimberly promptly ditches these bozos to go beat the shit out of that giant cricket.
Tommy reaches the fair, which is completely empty. Either Guitardo ate all the civilians there or he picked the shittiest most rink-a-dink carnival in the tri-county area to hold his impromptu concert.
Those dull eyes make me think Guitardo's the second coming of Jeff Healey.
Tommy becomes livid he bought tickets to this shitshow months in advance if nobody else was going to be here, but Guitardo promises a special presentation. The insect guitarist offers to play his newest song, "Green is a Goner", a touching musical presentation about the dangers of marijuana use.
Guitardo slaps Tommy around using his guitar and knocks the Green Ranger right off his stage. With his foe on the ropes, Guitardo plays another ditty that lifts Tommy into the sky just like the others. Before Tommy gets his mind controlled or whatever horse garbage we're supposed to believe is happening, Tommy plays a few notes on his Dragon Dagger which frees him from the evil music. Just like Christian Rock will do to heathens who listen to Devil Rock like AC/DC. #Switchfoot
Guitardo is enraged that someone is trying to upstage his one hit wonder and blasts Tommy with a new melody, one that causes the Green Ranger to become too heavy to move. Hmm, a monster who can make people float or make people really heavy? Sounds like mind control to me!
Tommy tries to hum another few bars with the Dragon Dagger but Guitardo's weight spell leaves him unable to lift his weapon. As the Dagger clatters to the ground, Guitardo prowls forward ready to finish off the Green Ranger once and for all. Just before he can strike the killing blow, Kimberly calls out the overgrown maggot and tells him to back off her bone throne. Guitardo responds by playing a little number for Pink, but he didn't count on her providing backup instrumentals for him.
I bet kids at home were clamoring to buy a Power Harp for Christmas.
Guitardo attempts to subdue Kimberly, but the music from her improvised harp bursts the guitar from his hand while knocking the monster backwards. Kimberly rushes over to Tommy so she can gloat that finally she gets to be the one who saves him. Tommy responds with his trademark gratitude when Kim says music is the key to beating the monster, "Yeah I know. Get me up from here." Jesus Tommy, did Guitardo control your manners as well as your mind? I'm glad your powers are almost dead.
Guitardo charges at the Ranger pair to get revenge for his busted guitar. Well I mean you did steal it from Kimberly bud, so you should really call this whole thing a wash. Even with their musical weapons aiding them, Kimberly and Tommy are beaten soundly by the hideous bug. Guitardo blasts them both with energy beams from his eyes and prepares their finale. Left without any options, Tommy gives his Dragon Dagger to Kimberly, and says if they combine their powers they might be able to finish this monster.
So Kim performs an, admittedly bitchin', finisher on Guitardo. Sadly that's all it takes to finish him off. It's a really weird mix of feeling underwhelmed and amazed in a 10 second span of time. Much like sex with someone who writes for a Power Rangers blog. But Kimberly firing the Dagger from her Bow looks slick enough that I'll give it a pass.
Yeah this feels like the end of a fight. Whatever.
With the monster unceremoniously destroyed, the other four Rangers are freed from their aerial prison and drop to the ground unharmed. Thanks for all the backup against the monster everyone, couldn't have done it without you. Kimberly's guitar re-emerges in the park now that the monster is destroyed, and Tommy takes a moment to thank Kimberly for saving his bacon against Guitardo. Wait hold on what? Tommy noticing another member of the team making a contribution in battle? I must be in some kind of topsy-turvy Dr. Seuss dimension.
Now that they're back on solid ground, the Ranger Teens restart their picnic inside the Youth Center. Yeah who doesn't live a nice indoor picnic? Well they didn't have any other choice, because it's raining outside. We can ascertain that because Kimberly says that it's raining, and someone off camera flashes a blue light to represent thunderstorms. Look, it would have cost 5 more dollars to have someone drape a hose over the camera, and Saban Productions isn't a money losing business.
Bulk and Skull wander in to beg the Ranger Teens for help in getting Bulk's helmet off. Trini asks why Bulk's not wearing any pants, but Skull is unable to provide a concrete answer. Billy uses angles and trajectories or some other science bullshit to force Bulk's headpiece off. Bulk spins around "comically" in his goofy dragon costume as the Ranger Teens are forced to duck to avoid his flimsy tail. Billy chuckles and says a big, clumsy, unwieldy tail would certainly be problematic during battle. He then angrily glares at Tommy, who smiles dumbly at him, much like a dog.
Feeling the tension in the room, Kimberly busts out her guitar and tells her friends that she completed her song. Trini says she's also written a song that the others might want to hear, and Jason tells her to shut up for once and let Kimberly have some time to shine for once in her goddamned life.
Kimberly plays her song for the others, with a little accompaniment from Zack, and it's a satisfying tender little moment of acceptance. It's not an upbeat peppy number about how everything will be great and all the Ranger Teens are going to live on the moon and have ice cream every night. It's a song about accepting that oncoming change may be painful, but as long as friends stay together, they'll be able to weather anything that comes their way. They'll always be on each other's side through thick and thin, and they'll always be a team.
As Kim's song concludes, Tommy asks if she'd be willing to play it again. He wasn't listening because it wasn't about karate.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Fake Tits
Personal Thoughts
Outside of a few minor issues, this episode is a really solid sit. It's got fun action, a sweet A-story revolving around Kimberly's music, and a nice warm finale that cements the fact that this stuff about Tommy's powers dwindling is about to come to a head. Wrap that around with some mostly top-notch Bulk and Skull scenes and you've got a great experience all around.
For just a neat little bit of trivia, the song that Kimberly plays for Tommy near the end of the episode was composed by Amy Jo Johnson, Kimberly's actress. Evidently in real life, AJJ really had a knack for playing music and the writers wanted to integrate it here. It's strange to me that you'd hire a group of actors with a diverse set of talents and completely ignore their capabilities to focus yet another b-plot on Tommy doing karate. It might help change things up a bit for a show that made its bread and butter in being formulaic.
This episode also does something I really appreciate. Tommy is the heavy lifter for the majority of the battle, but it's Kimberly who bails him out at the end. Kimberly even gets the killing blow on Guitardo. We don't need some nonsense with the Green Ranger hogging all the glory yet again, and that's a welcome change of pace. Not to mention a finishing move that isn't the Power Blaster was next to nonexistent in Power Rangers up to this point. Pretty cool stuff! Shame that this show is so reliant on stock footage that moments like this are a rarity.
Now on to good old Guitardo, the slamming cicada, the rockin' roach. What's he got going on for him? Well he's the penultimate Zyu2 monster and his footage is really interesting.
I mean it probably would be, but it hasn't been released yet. Sorry everyone. Now I have less Zyu2 stuff to talk about. Hey did you notice I liked Zyu2? Guys?
Now we Zyu2 nerdlingers are forced to wait with baited breath for the answer to a few questions. The biggest quandary on most of our minds is "Did Guitardo have a Zord battle?" To which I can answer with a resounding "I unno."
With the other two Zyu2 monsters who didn't have Zord Battles, Bloom of Doom and Invenusable Flytrap, there was some evidence hinting towards their potential giant sized footage. Fans were perpetuating rumors of Bloom's Zord fight involving Lokar, and we eventually saw a script that confirmed Bloom of Doom was intended to duke it out with the Thunder Megazord. There was that picture of Invenusable holding a Growth Bomb on that View Master slide that seemed a bit too specific to be your standard promotional photo. Guitardo? Nothing. We don't have a script for his episode, we don't have any promotional shots, and we don't have the raw footage to confirm or deny.
Here's what I can tell ya. Pink and Green congratulate themselves after killing the monster. That never happened with any ground battle in Zyuranger or Zyu2 before a monster would grow. Not to mention we got a unique finishing move to kill off Guitardo. It might seem a little anticlimactic to bust out something cool like that and then have him grow anyway. That's not to say Guitardo definitely doesn't have a Zord battle we're missing out on, but it seems less and less likely the more you look at the evidence.
Look I just want to see a bug with a guitar fight dinosaurs. Fuck all y'all.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Dec 28, 2015 2:56:38 GMT
MMPR Season 2 Episode 12: Green No More Part 1
Hero's Energy Stolen by Diaper-Wearing Mollusk Stupid Looking Bullies Turn into Stupider Looking Mercenaries
It's the end of an era of toys everyone. Tommy's waning powers are on their last legs and Zordon has done everything he can to resuscitate the Green Ranger's shambling corpse. Now things have wound down for Tommy and he's waiting on one final report from Zordon on how long he can remain in the fight. Judging from this week's title? I'd say his chances are looking pretty good!
Kimberly encounters Tommy shooting hoops by himself, because the other Ranger Teens are sick of spending time with him. She offers Tommy some hope that Zordon might be able to find a way to restore Tommy's energy to full, assuming that the multiple times that Zordon elaborated he could do no such thing were all simple a miscalculation from the giant floating space head. Tommy says his days are numbered; nobody wants to buy a Dragonzord anymore, the Dragon Daggers are all on clearance, and he's pretty sure they're casting him in some show called VR Troopers.
Inexplicably, lightning strikes through the park all around Kimberly and Tommy. Is it a new scheme from Lord Zedd? Of course not. It's something significantly stupider than that.
Just what this show needed, more Tommy.
So, and I'm not shitting you, a faded image of Tommy appears in front of Kim and Actual Tommy to tell them he's from the future. He isn't much help though as he's only able to speak in one or two words separated from any possible context. Future Tommy says something about a future battle and using a Future Communicator before his future image vanishes. Real Tommy tells Kimberly this sounds like some kind of warning…from the future! In case you weren't listening to any of the lines that holographic character just said and needed the CliffsNotes version.
Back at Angel Grove High, Billy and Zack wander the hallways while searching for Zack's cousin Curtis. They don't have to search too long though as they soon find Curtis entertaining a group of on-looking students by dancing to some tunes from his jambox. Wow this Curtis fellow sure is a rip-roaring good time! Why I'd even say he might be as cool as Zack is. If Zack ever had to stop being a Power Ranger (perish the thought) maybe Curtis could fill in for him since they're such similar characters pigments people.
Which is of course all bullshit, because this Curtis clown doesn't have a drip-drop of charisma to him. If this show is trying to sell me on Curtis being as cool as Zack, then they're going to need to do more than have him break-dance in the hallways before grinning like a dweeb. It smacks of begging the audience to like this new character and pretend he's even an inkling as cool as Zack. Unfortunately the show forgot to hire an actor with a percentage of the screen presence Walter Jones has, so they end up with some loser nobody wants to spend time with.
Get outta here with your Carlton lookin ass.
After Curtis finishes his lackluster dance moves, Richie comes up and congratulates Curtis on his super cool dance moves. Curtis thanks him and says maybe the two of them should start hanging out together more often just in case Saban has any roles he needs to fill in the near future. Now all that's left is to find an Asian girl who never shuts her fucking mouth and their posse will be complete.
Richie offers to take Curtis out to eat, and Curtis proves exactly why you would hire him to replace one of your better actors by stammering over the line "Now this is what I call the beginning of a beautiful friendship." It comes out sounding more like "nowthyis what I. call a begin ingofa beautifult friendshit." If the reason for this character wasn't shitty enough as it is, his acting makes me want to turn off his Tom Jones music and slap him upside the head.
Tommy shows up and talks with Billy and Zack about his bizarre encounter with himself. This leads to one of Tommy's stupidest lines yet when he refers to his future self as "A guy who looked just like me." Do you honestly not believe that guy was you? Are you some kind of goddamned idiot? If a future version of yourself appeared to you on an episode of Who's the Boss then maybe you could cock an eyebrow. You are on Mighty Morphin Fucking Power Rangers. You fight giant turtles with cannons in their assholes every week. Is getting a message from your future self really that much more bizarre? Maybe you should try asking the floating head and sentient robot if they find your future vision at all peculiar. Asshole.
Then something even more insane happens. A pair of barrels are rolled down the hallway towards our heroes. Zack tells them to look out, because it would be a shame if the coroner had to write down their cause of death as "Donkey Konged." Billy, Zack, and Tommy karate leap their way away from the barrels and are shocked to see Bulk and Skull pop out from inside of them. The bullies, for once, weren't getting into comical mischief because they've both had an extra helping of chromosome pie. Instead it turns out they were put in there by the new bullies on the block. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to these jokers.
Zordon's cloning experiment went horribly wrong.
Yes these are the new bullies of Angel Grove High. Five characters who dress in different colors and supposedly have varying attributes. Gasp! You don't think...
Unlike our heroes though, these five are all about dangerous pranks like rolling idiots around in barrels. One might even call them DANGER Teens! They exhibit evil tendencies like chewing gum, and shoving around a nerdy extra that looks like an older Harold Ramis.
The Blue Bully explains to our heroes that he and his friends just transferred in. Just as I finish rolling my eyes at these five I start to laugh at the Blue Bully's voice. He sounds like he's trying to do an impression of Brad Dourif's Chucky voice. He even has the Jack Nicholson tinge to it. I keep expecting him to roar like a lion before he plunges an axe into Zack's chest. It's easily the best part of these stock nobody characters that only exist to serve as temporary foils to the heroes of our show.
Am I the only one who think he kind of looks like Chuckie too?
Tommy and Bully Red have a verbal sparring match about the rules around town, and how he better learn them quick. Rule #1: You don't get anywhere without being a puritan douchebag who espouses the benefits of homework and vegetables. Red Bully says he and his crew are used to making the rules wherever they go, so that means everyone will be forced to chew gum and sneer obnoxiously at the camera as long as he's in town. The Danger Teens depart while fiendishly cackling at nothing in particular, but it may be because they're comically exaggerated versions of human beings.
What's that you say? Exaggerated human beings? They sound perfect for Lord Zedd to create his own team of Rangers: The Dark Rangers! Any of you out there who called this plot point can mark a square on your Power Rangers bingo card. Goldar, shockingly, agrees with everything Lord Zedd has said, but he becomes confused about a green crystal he's been holding in his hand since the camera cut to him. Zedd declares this crystal will be at full energy as soon as the Green Ranger's energy is no more, and he will use it to destroy Zordon for being such a smug dick all these years.
Inside the Command Center, Zordon has some dickish news for Tommy. All the attempts to restore his Green Ranger powers have failed, and he will only have enough power for one final fight, maybe two if Lord Zedd makes another dud like Invenusable Flytrap. Tommy mentions the vision he had, and if it might have anything to do with this week's plot. Zordon says it obviously did, but the audience will have to wait and see what any of that horseshit means.
While Tommy cries on Alpha's shoulder, the other Ranger Teens screw around on the beach. All of them aside from Trini of course, who is currently arguing the conditions of her contract on this billion dollar franchise staying with her grandmother. While Zack and Jason practice some sweet karate kicks, Billy helps Kimberly find some rad looking seashells. Unfortunately she's interrupted by Brad Dourif bully who asks if she she might have any idea where AAAAAANDY is.
The Danger Teens arrive and tell our heroes that Angel Grove belongs to them now. Presumably the police have already encountered these five douchebags in leather and immediately surrendered in the face of their stereotypical fury. The Ranger Teens and the Danger Teens square off in a showdown that would look a lot more impressive if all five of our heroes were present to engage in it. Also if these idiots knew any kind of karate and weren't just lame bullies who can't do anything but provide wedgies while high-fiving each other about it.
Before the Danger Teens can get their faces smashed in. Lord Zedd zaps them with energy. The bolt transports the Danger Teens into his dimension known as "The Other World." So for those of you just joining us, Lord Zedd has effortlessly taken five teenagers and transported them into Hell. Oh I'm sorry, I meant to say "The Other World." Eventually this show is going to run out of vaguely threatening sounding names for alternate dimensions and that is the day I live to experience.
Once the Danger Teens are in his control, Zedd realizes they won't be able to become his Dark Rangers until Tommy's powers have been drained entirely into the crystal. In order to bring the Green Ranger to the brink, Lord Zedd creates a new monster based on the shells Kimberly was collecting. Behold the might of Turbanshell.
Was that nasty shell diaper necessary?
The Ranger Teens regroup inside the Command Center where Tommy tells them this new monster better be worth it, because it's going to be his last battle with them. Zordon shows them the giant Turbanshell rampaging through downtown Angel Grove. Tommy pouts as he realizes this is how his reign as the Green Ranger will end. Not with a bang, but with a mollusk that can't control its bowels.
The other Ranger Teens offer to battle Turbanshell on their own, but Zordon tells them the monster is incredibly dangerous. Zordon even claims that Turbanshell has an incredibly high power level! Heh…so Zordon's trying to tell me that Turbanshell's power level is…OVERly strong. You guys better bring Tommy with you to help.
The Rangers morph and arrive as Turbanshell continues its rampage. Just like the previous few weeks, Zack and Jason react to the monster destroying their city with recycled dialogue that makes it sound like they're not at all involved in the situation. Turbanshell demolishes a building and Jason's reaction is "THIS DUDE'S GONNA BE TOUGHER THAN I THOUGHT!" Zack responds to this wanton destruction by claiming "We need help!" It feels so stilted and lifeless, and I've had just about enough of this puzzle piece dialogue bullshit from you two.
Jason remembers they have gargantuan death machines for just such a situation and calls for the Dinozords. What? You mean the Zords from last season? Yep those are the ones Jason yells out for because the ADR department fucked up. They were so busy poorly overlaying old lines onto Jason's movements that they forgot what the name of the Zords are this season. Bang up job.
While Jason calls on the Dinozords, he has to settle for the Thunderzords showing up in their place. The Thunder Megazord comes together and Tommy decides he might as well help out if this is going to be his last fight. He summons the Dragonzord for the first time in 7 weeks to combat Turbanshell. Good to see him too. That means this fight with a Zyu2 monster and Dairanger footage won't be nothing but a spliced together horseshit fight.
Turbanshell Dragonzord This 2 second clip is better than every Zord fight in Season 2 thus far.
The Thunder Megazord marches in place a few times to pretend like it's doing anything other than wasting time. Turbanshell realizes he's in some kind of goddamned nightmare where he can never be on screen with the Thunder Megazord, so he whips out his shell staff and blasts it with spirals of energy. The Thunder Megazord reacts off screen as it's surrounded by explosions. Dragonzord follows suit as the two mechs are overwhelmed by Turbanshell's mediocre display of pyrotechnics.
The main five Rangers are hurled out of the Thunder Megazord as Turbanshell mocks them for losing to someone who is perennially shitting himself. Instead of going in for the killing blow, Turbanshell vanishes before promising to finish them off soon. Because this is a two part episode and we need to extend it somehow.
Lord Zedd dictates his plan to Goldar when Turbanshell abruptly appears. Zedd asks what the fuck his wormy ass is doing in the Other World, and Turbanshell immediately starts gurgling like the ugly creep he is. The monster explains he needed to recharge his shell, and make sure to reapply plenty of baby powder in his problem areas. Zedd becomes even more disgusted than before. He demands his hideous hermit-crab assed monster get back down to Earth and drain Tommy's powers for good this time.
Though this doesn't seem like it will be much of a problem, as Tommy is currently keeling over in the park while the other Rangers rush to his aid. To comfort his ailing friend, Zack offers a line from Season 1 that doesn't really fit the context, "COME ON GUYS, WE CAN'T GIVE UP. WE'RE THE POWER RANGERS!" Yes, we are Zack. Well some of still are anyway. Just before Jason can regale us with things he once said in Season 1, a blast of lightning zaps the Green Ranger, causing him to vanish from the others' sight.
The Green Ranger soon appears in a desolate valley where it seems like no other life resides. So either Zedd has cast some deadly magic, or Anthony just sent Tommy to the cornfield for thinking bad thoughts. Tommy hears an odd gurgling noise only to realize Turbanshell has also made residence here. Green and Turban battle it out in the valley as Tommy's powers continue failing him. The monster knocks Tommy over and enacts Zedd's scheme.
Turbanshell Green Ranger Ew. Well Tommy's not going to want his powers back now.
Tommy is now left completely powerless and at the mercy of Turbanshell with no access to his friends or Zordon. Tommy runs into the distance as he can and hides behind a rock formation as the monster gurgles a laugh at him for being such easy pickins.
Zedd gathers Tommy's energy inside his crystal and cackles that the Green Ranger's energy can finally serve as the catalyst for his new squadron of Dark Rangers. The Regular Rangers try and contact Zordon to figure out what's going on, but Zedd's crystal has also conveniently shut down access to the Command Center. How? Doesn't matter. It did because this is a two parter and we need to raise the stakes. So shut up and keep watching loser.
Zedd magics the other five Rangers into his Other World where they are demorphed and meet the head honcho villain face to face for the first time. The Ranger Teens, now caught inside a shitty looking wispy forcefield are forced to listen as Zedd Bond-Villains his scheme to them. Zedd tells them their Morphers won't do them any good as long as they're trapped in his dimension, and his crystal will seal off all contact to Zordon so long as he's in possession of Tommy's powers.
Now that he has his arch-nemeses right where he wants them, Zedd introduces the fruits of his labor to the Ranger Teens. His own invincible fighting team, the Dark Rangers.
Dark Rangers Holy shit you have to be kidding me.
Ahahahahahaha. What? This is the best you could come up with Zedd? You're joking right? Where are the real Dark Rangers? Why did you paint those Putties? He didn't have enough pink fabric either so he had to make one of them an orange Ranger. This is astounding. These guys can't possibly be what you've been building up can they? Christ almighty.
The Ranger Teens hold in their giggles while Zedd promises these Dark Rangers are serious business, and not shitty looking Putties wearing gimp masks. Zedd tries the best he can to amp up these stupid looking losers, but you can't possibly take them seriously when you get a look at them. They're fucking ridiculous.
He looks like a jack-o-lantern.
Zack tries reasoning with these gussied up clowns and tells them Zedd isn't the kind of guy you want to be in league with. The Dark Rangers inform the Ranger Teens that nobody has ever given them a chance like Zedd has, and their many years of bullying have prepared them for this descent into nihilism and genocide.
Oh yeah remember how the Ranger Teens can't have their identities revealed to anyone or else they lose their powers? And now they're unmorphed in front of the Dark Rangers who are regular humans wearing stupid pajamas? Even if the Dark Rangers are under a spell that doesn't mean they've become both blind and stupid. How long does it take for that secret identity rule to go into effect Zordon? For all intents and purposes shouldn't we be replacing all five of the Rangers for this?
Zedd says he's sick of listening to the Ranger Teens' whining about how terrible the Dark Rangers look and wishes to observe the destruction of the Green Ranger. Kimberly demands to know where he is, and Zedd informs her that her man-candy is trapped somewhere in his Other World. Wherever he is, he certainly doesn't need to worry about being alone though.
Tommy stays hidden behind a tiny rock formation as Turbanshell slowly approaches the powerless young man. The monster cackles as it tells Tommy the Green Ranger is gone, and soon the former owner of that mantle will meet the same fate. Tommy starts sweating as he realizes in the next few minutes, he's going to become literal worm food.
TO BE CONTINUED
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Shell Collecting
Personal Thoughts
Though there's quite a bit of stupid shit in this episode, I can't deny how tense it makes everything feel. Tommy is abandoned with no powers to defend himself, the other Rangers are trapped in front of Zedd without the ability to morph, and Zordon/Alpha are unable to locate them or provide any assistance now that the Command Center has been locked down. Even though Turbanshell looks pretty goddamn ridiculous, he still managed to defeat the Thunder Megazord without much effort. Even if was in a spliced up Zord battle, he's still the first to take the Thunderzords down so effortlessly. They build him up as a pretty credible threat that you fear Tommy encountering without his powers. I appreciate that. I wouldn't give a bowl of fuck if Tommy were stranded without his powers and Invenusable Flytrap were looking for him.
For those of you out there who might be curious if there's even the tiniest bit of character to those Ranger Bullies, you'll be happy to know that they were given names. A high mark in characterization for Power Rangers. The Red Bully is Justin, Yellow is Tina, Blue is Bobby, Pink is Kristen, and Black is Zane. In case we needed to hammer in any harder that these guys contrast the Ranger Teens. I appreciate how four of them kind of fit the names of the Ranger Teens, but the writer gave up on Kimberly and just threw another girl's name out that started with a K.
With regards to the Dark Rangers, I wasn't being facetious when I described them as multicolored Putties. The Dark Ranger costumes were actually repurposed Z-Putty costumes and said to be of pretty lousy quality. I'll discuss them a bit more next week, but I promise you there isn't much more to say in that department.
Oh yeah there's one other great thing in this episode. During Lord Zedd's scene in the Other World, you can see the prop department must have fucked up his staff at some point because it's being held together by duct tape.
PowerRangers.jpg
Now onto the monster of the week, Turbanshell. I'm sad to say he's going to be the last Zyu2 monster we'll be looking at. As much as I've loved talking about all the Zyu2 material, all good thing have to come to an end. Even things that only four people care about.
Turbanshell's footage has been released for public consumption thanks to that hunkamaniac Jeff Pruitt. I can't thank Jeff enough for releasing this long sought after footage to us nerds, and I hope he's able to find the rest of it in the recesses of his basement tape collection. Check out the raw Turbanshell footage here, and I can discuss it as you watch it!
First thing that's worth mentioning is how Turbanshell is permanently giant in Zyu2 footage. He is not once shown normal sized. In Power Rangers, any of the scenes featuring small scale Turbanshell were U.S. original. That means his creation on the beach, his discussion with Zedd and Goldar, and his battle with Tommy in the Other World were all shot exclusively by the U.S. crew.
What makes this interesting is that Turbanshell has absolutely zero ground footage to speak of, and last week's Zyu2 monster Guitardo had no Zord battle footage that we know of. I'm not trying to say the two monsters are connected to one another, but it seems possible the Zyu2 crew would spice up their footage with one monster who had no Zord fight footage, and one monster who had no ground fight footage. This doesn't provide an answer for Guitardo one way or the other, but it does act as a defense mechanism for people assuming every Zyu2 fight had to include a Zord battle. Of course until we see the raw Guitardo footage we can't know for sure.
I recall people speculating what Turbanshell's potential ground footage might look like before any of the raw tapes were released. I'm happy tthat I had one more correct Zyu2 theory (that makes two for those of you counting), and that was that Turbanshell had no ground footage to speak of. It made no sense to me that Saban would use a monster's Zord battle footage in Season 2, and completely excise any potential fighting that wouldn't need the Thunder Megazord inserted into it. Why would they not use the material on the ground that would require minimal editing if any? I'm proud to say I was right on the money, and that knowledge has gotten me a crazy amount of pussy ever since.
Though I am curious whether or not Turbanshell was meant to act as a "finale" of sorts for Zyu2. Given that he's a permanently giant enemy that seemed to give the Rangers an inordinate amount of trouble, it seems possible that his placement as the last Zyu2 monster to be used was intentional. Though this is totally me talking out of my ass, and nothing but wild speculation. You'll also notice the number Turbanshell wears is 24, and there are 25 Zyu2 monsters. If the numbers the Zyu2 monsters wore are meant to represent their placement, as I'm hypothesizing they do, that would mean another monster would act as the Zyu2 "finale." So who would be Zyu2 #25? Hopefully we can find out someday. Maybe it's Two Headed Parrot and there is no intended endpoint. What the fuck do I know?
Well since we don't get much of the fight with Turbanshell today, there isn't a lot to mention. That shot of Turbanshell grabbing onto the Dragonzord originally had him turning around to smack around the Dino Megazord as well. If you look carefully in the gif above you can see Turbanshell looks like he's gearing up to attack something else when he's finished with Dragonzord.
One other fun moment in the original battle is the Megazord summoning its Power Sword to fight Turbanshell. Unfortunately the weapon proves ineffective against the monster's bulbous ass.
We were this close to Power Rangers creating another fetish.
Other than Dragonzord and Megazord bursting with sparks a few more times, there isn't a whole lot more to talk about until next week. It's gonna be our Zyu2 climax, make sure you bring some tissues. I'm going to need them.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Dec 28, 2015 2:57:14 GMT
MMPR Season 2 Episode 13: Green No More Part 2
Lord Zedd Makes Up A Bunch of Shit, Expects Nobody to Notice Local Government Agency Uses Tax Dollars to Name Worm
Last week, Lord Zedd had all six Power Rangers by the short-hairs. He had used his newest monster Turbanshell to absorb Tommy's Green Ranger energy into a crystal. This crystal gave him the power to create his own team of Rangers who resembled comically awful luchadores. Zedd captured the main five Rangers in a 4-cent forcefield to witness his rise to power, leaving Tommy alone and powerless to fight Turbanshell.
We rejoin Tommy hiding behind a rock formation as Turbanshell looms closer. Even though he's left without any Ranger powers, Tommy figures to go for broke. He leaps over the rocks and spin kicks Turbanshell into the grass. I've become so numb to Power Rangers abruptly solving cliffhangers that I can't even tell if that's a satisfying payoff or not anymore.
The monster refuses to be bested by someone with optimum bladder control and thrusts its staff into Tommy's gut to toss him across the field. Tommy stops for a moment to realize his karate bullshit isn't going to work, so he ducks down into a small gap in the valley where he's hidden from Turbanshell's wormy sights. The monster seeks out his prey once again as Tommy hides silently in the dead grass.
Even though this sort of combat is the opposite of what Power Rangers does best, I can't help but be enthralled by it. There's no magic suit, there's no special weapons, there's no contact with a magical space head who can solve your problems for you. Tommy is alone in the wild facing a ravenous mollusk with nothing but his wits. He uses the environment to his advantage to fight Turbanshell even though he's only capable of stalling the creature. It's tense in a way that this show usually isn't, but it's a welcome change of pace when you want to make a monster seem more threatening than your typical Ticklesneezer.
As Turbanshell lumbers around searching for Tommy, the former Green Ranger grabs the monster's leg and causes it to tumble down the tumbleweeds. An action its body clearly wasn't made for.
Nice of those two gentlemen at the bottom of the hill to wait for him.
Tommy briefly grabs Turbanshell's staff to defend himself, but the monster knocks him away before reclaiming its weapon. It's at this point Tommy stops trying to outsmart his opponent. While Tommy may be a bastion of intelligence, his wits are no match when compared to an invertebrate in a diaper.
Back at the Command Center, white energy wisps surround the Rangers base, as Alpha 5 tries to figure out how to break out of Zedd's energy barrier. Zordon tells Alpha he's got five minutes to sort this shit out, because Zedd's got their Netflix account blocked off. If Zordon doesn't get to finish this season of Breaking Bad tonight, he is going to come out of that goddamn tube and turn Alpha 5 into the newest shipment of Bad Dragon stock.
Back in Lord Zedd's Otherworld, Goldar pleads with his master to let him trash those stupid kids for making him look so incompetent the last 70 episodes. Zedd tells him the Ranger Teens didn't have a damn thing to do with his embarrassing performance. Besides, he's going to be sending them back to Angel Grove, instead of killing them right there. Look guys, sometimes you write yourself into a corner and realize you ran out of deus ex machinas months ago.
Granted I actually like Zedd's reasoning for letting them go. He wants the Rangers to watch helplessly as their city gets torn to ribbons. Turbanshell is going to smash everything up and they won't be able to help now that their powers have been taken.
Wait back up just a second. Their whats have been what?
Lord Zedd stole Tommy's dwindling power supply with his green crystal, but when the fuck did the other Rangers' powers get treated as a package deal? Last week, Lord Zedd informed the Ranger Teens they didn't have access to their powers because they were trapped inside of his Otherworld. He didn't steal anything from them, they just couldn't morph inside of his evil dimension for whatever reason. Now they don't have their powers because this episode wants to artificially increase the tension. I guess you could argue that the Ranger Teens can't access their powers since they're not able to get in contact with Zordon, but if that's the case then why wouldn't Zedd have brought that up as part of his plan while it was happening?
Whatever, Zedd zaps them and they're teleported back to Angel Grove completely powerless for some reason. Kimberly reminds everyone that they still need to rescue Tommy, because she's dating him and his safety is far more important than the lives of everyone else in the city.
Speaking of Tommy, Turbanshell has finally cornered the ex-Green Ranger and is ready to finish him off. Goldar abruptly teleports in and commands the monster to back off. Turbanshell refuses to let some gold dicked idiot kill-steal him, but Goldar calls rank on him and reminds this wormy nobody he's going to be dead before the credits roll, and Goldar ain't goin nowhere. Turbanshell skedaddles as Goldar taunts Tommy with a bunch of green puns. Then Tommy feels even worse because he just remembered that's the color Ranger he used to be!
Goldar pulls out some shitty looking gadget and says that Tommy's humiliation isn't even close to being over. Tommy tries to hide his boner as he waits for Goldar to reveal the secrets of galactic BDSM, but it turns out the space baboon has something far more insidious in mind.
Invenusable Flytrap An impromptu clipshow.
Goldar shows Tommy all three of the times he used to kick ass and bone Kimberly, but informs him all those days of shilling toys and signing autographs for fat kids are over. Goldar surmises that Tommy must have saved his friends over one hundred times by now, but according to my counts Goldar is off by approximately 785 million. Tommy soon falls sadly to his knees as he realizes this clipshow doesn't have nearly as much karate as he had hoped.
As Tommy sobs openly into his own beefy arms, Billy works tirelessly to regain contact with Zordon and Alpha. He tries to solve the problem by flapping his digits against an unplugged keyboard, as Trini and Zack notice a news report mentioning Turbanshell's reappearance in the city. The report announces that local government sources have confirmed the creature's name.
What? That's not. What? Who the fuck is getting paid to learn monster names? How do you verify that? What are the checks and balances in the Monster Naming Administration? How positive are we that Zedd didn't start this organization to siphon public funds so he could buy a new Smotherbox for Goldar?
Someone please go into the MNA headquarters and punch one of their agents in the chest. If they crumble to pieces then they're Putties, if they don't then just keep punching more of them until you find one. The government can't rule your life fam. #BushDid9/11
The news report shows footage of Turbanshell destroying the city and awkwardly cuts to a scene where Turbanshell is writhing in agony with his face covered in a white mist. Man these reporters are good. They managed to get footage of stuff that hasn't even happened yet!
Lord Zedd discusses his scheme with Goldar back on the Moon, and reveals off-handedly that soon the real Rangers' Zords will be re-programmed for the Dark Rangers to control. A development that's been introduced so late into the episode that it can't possibly mean anything. Goldar asks Zedd what he's doing in this scene, because he's supposed to be antagonizing Tommy in another dimension right now. Zedd tells him to clam up and be in whatever scene he was written in regardless of internal continuity.
Just in case you thought the show knew what it was doing, we cut from Goldar in the palace to Goldar in the Otherworld soon after. Tommy looks distraught over how bad he sucks now. I mean he's good at karate sure, but now he can't summon dragon machines and smack people around with a dagger flute. Why even bother being alive anymore?
Goldar continues to gloat and informs the Ranger Formerly Known as Green that the device he used to project Tommy's previous highlights is also a time device that can send Tommy spiraling into space. Because of course it is, why wouldn't it be able to do both of those two entirely similar things? With Tommy as powerless as a newborn pup, Goldar demands the teen to admit his inferiority to this hideous dog-faced mongrel. Mostly to give him something to j/o to when Zedd's getting extra mouthy.
Tommy looks ready to submit and responds, "Goldar you are…." Tommy hesitates again, realizing that this will likely be his final moment. He raises his head once more and concludes his sentence "OUT OF YOUR MIND!"
Okay I admit it. Sometimes Tommy's cool.
Tommy kicks Goldar's sword out of his hand while "Go Green Ranger" plays triumphantly in the background. Everything that hasn't made sense in this episode and the last fades from your consciousness as you watch a renewed Tommy do his damndest to beat down Goldar, someone who has been talking a monumental amount of undeserved shit and needed a little slapping around. It's satisfying, it's cathartic, and it's exactly the shot in the arm I needed to become invested in this episode.
After briefly being manhandled by the golden goon, Tommy kicks the time device out of his hand and catches it. Tommy knocks his longtime nemesis over and declares he was almost ready to give up on himself, but those flashbacks instilled confidence in him. Tommy says that all that footage of Green Ranger kicking ass showed him what he could do even if he isn't morphed. Which means Goldar's tactic would have worked if Tommy were smart enough to understand it.
Tommy uses Goldar's device to zap the alien and transport him to some vaguely defined location where he won't pose a threat for the next few minutes. Our hero then ponders how he can escape this dimension, since he's already tried doing karate and that didn't work. Then Tommy comes to a brilliant conclusion: He can use Goldar's time device to contact himself in the past. For those of you at home who find yourself in possession of a gorilla man's time manipulation, I would strongly advise you don't awkwardly hammer on random buttons in the hopes that it will fix your problems.
Thankfully since Tommy is our lord and savior Karate Jesus he flawlessly manages to contact his past self. The holographic Tommy gives regular Tommy a Communicator and I guess this is what the time-warp Tommy was about last week. Except future Tommy said something about a hard battle and danger or something. Tommy doesn't do any of that this week because he doesn't need to exposit vague dialogue to increase tension anymore.
Tommy uses his Communicator to teleport into Billy's garage where the other Ranger Teens are elated to see him. Particularly Kimberly who postpones her love affair with Jason until Tommy loses his powers for realsies. Before Trini can offer one of her rousing speeches to congratulate Tommy on his survival, Alpha 5 connects to Billy's computer.
Zordon informs the Ranger Teens that the only way out of this mess is by shattering Zedd's green crystal. The catch is that only a non-Power Ranger can enter the Otherworld. Ignoring the fact that the Green Ranger was transported there by Turbanshell last week, and the Dark Rangers currently reside there. I guess calling those chucklefucks Rangers would be doing disservice to the word.
Tommy says he fits the bill of non-Ranger for what would be the one time in Jason David Frank's life, and would be perfect to invade Zedd's dimension. The other Rangers tell him it's much too dangerous, but if you think Tommy "Gloryhog" Oliver is going to turn down a chance to look badass you got another thing coming.
Tommy arrives in the Otherworld where Lord Zedd informs the Dark Rangers their Zords are now armed and ready. Trust us. They look really cool and if you get a chance to see them they'll blow your mind. Tommy sneaks up to the green crystal, in plain view of the Dark Rangers who choose to say nothing. Presumably because they look like inhuman abominations of God.
They look like U.S. Madame Woe's cousins.
Tommy nabs the green crystal and shatters it before Zedd can apprehend him, freeing the Dark Rangers from his control. Did you want them to fight the regular Rangers? Or control some Zords and blow stuff up? Or do absolutely anything? Sorry chump, the Dark Rangers can only do two things: Stand around and look like gimps.
Tommy teleports back into Billy's lab, and the other Rangers are happy to see their Morphers have returned to them. I would be too had I known Zedd stole them, but that's what I get for not letting this episode do whatever it wants without nodding in agreement.
Tommy says handling that green crystal has given him enough power to handle one last fight and joins the other Ranger Teens in morphing. The Rangers summon the Thunder Megazord to handle giant-sized Turbanshell and cease his destruction of the city. Tommy doesn't summon the Dragonzord, because even if he can handle one more fight that doesn't mean he can be assed to do something in one.
The Thunder Megazord puts up a tepid defense against Turbanshell yet again and gets slapped around by the monster. Even though Turbanshell doesn't use its staff weapon, it has a new array of techniques at its disposal to defeat the Rangers. Such as sealing itself into its shell and launching itself at the Thunder Megazord so hard that it transforms back into the Dino Megazord.
10 to 1 odds that shell wasn't supposed to break open.
Turbanshell's attack splits up the Thunderzords, leaving only the Red Dragon Thunderzord to defend itself from the monster. Turbanshell blasts Red Dragon with energy beams from its eyes, leaving the Thunderzord critically injured and reeling on the ground.
Tommy decides he should probably get involved in this poorly fought battle and prepares to summon the Dragonzord. Just before he's able to unsheathe his dagger, Zordon calls Tommy and informs him that the only way to stop this monster is to heat up its inner shell and then freeze his outer shell with water. Good idea Zordon, that sounds a lot more interesting than an exciting battle with Zords.
Turbanshell abruptly stops its battle to look for something to eat, and spots a truck carrying various fruits. We briefly see inside the fruit pile that Green Ranger is hiding among the fruit waiting to be devoured by the monster. Plenty of young viewers get violent erections as they prepare to witness the second coming of Terror Toad.
Turbanshell gobbles up a clawful of fruit, which includes the hidden Tommy. Immediately after being devoured, Tommy lands inside the monster's guts and blasts his stomach lining with a gun he produced out of absolutely nowhere. Don't worry if you're lost, this comes across just as nonsensical and confounding as how I'm describing it.
Turbanshell Green Ranger I always hated this boss in Yoshi's Island
Now that Tommy is blasting at the monster's stomach lining, Turbanshell's body starts smoking as he wriggles around in agony. Kimberly and the others notice something is strange and wonder what the hell is happening with this monster. I guess if there's one monster whose primary weakness is its gastrointestinal wall, it would likely be the one who's permanently wearing a diaper.
Turbanshell complains that he needs to stick to bland foods from now on, because food like watermelon is well known for its disastrous effect on your stomach. As the monster growls in agony, Zack offers a solution. He's going to say some recycled lines from Season 1 to Kimberly and let her explain what he can do to help. The conversation goes as so
Zack: Let me chill this dude! Kimberly: That's right! The water, as soon as you hit him with it… Zack: Right! Come on guys!
That sounds like two humans having a conversation with each other right?
Zack leaps off-screen where he finds a conveniently placed industrial sized water hose that he turns on Turbanshell. This prompts Turbanshell to say one of the more ridiculous lines thus far. "NO NOT WATER! ANYTHING BUT THAT!" Jesus Turby, you're bummed out by drinking water? No wonder you've got such a sensitive tummy.
The water from the hose freezes over Turbanshell's body and leaves the monster covered in chalky white splotches. The rapidly fluctuating temperatures cause Turbanshell to burst with sparks repeatedly, which in turn causes the monster to spit out Tommy in the form of a green energy ball.
Kimberly runs to her man's side and asks him what the fuck he was doing firing a gun off inside a worm creature's belly. Tommy offers little explanation to put his ailing girlfriend at ease, and instead returns this weapon to Billy who apparently invented it off-camera without any fanfare. Exactly the kind of thing you would reserve for Tommy's final fight as the Green Ranger.
The Thunderzords are back up to speed and reform into the Thunder Megazord. The weakened Turbanshell can do little but raise his arms in protest before the Thunder Megazord uses its saber to cut him down to size. The monster releases one final bowel before exploding and finishing off the Zyu2 era. Excuse me as I jump off the nearest bridge.
Back at the Youth Center, the Ranger Teens relax after their latest hard-fought battle. Even though Tommy now reeks of worm vomit, the others allow him to hang out with them one last time before they take him out back to ritually murder him. Trini jabberjaws away about how the Dark Rangers will be brought home with no memory of what happened to them under Lord Zedd's command. This leads me to believe anyone who uncovers the Rangers' secret identities is promptly neuralized by Alpha 5.
The Danger Teens show up at Ernie's and ask for five sodas. Maybe you could not be an asshole and ask for a specific drink and not a type of drink. You dick. I don't go into a restaurant and ask for five "alcohols" all for myself, so I can drink to numb the pain of being such a worthless piece of fucking
Kimberly comes up with a perfectly whitebread solution to this problem. Clearly what these mentally unhinged sociopaths need to feel better is to have some friends! Forget the fact that these are five people all hanging out together. No, what they need is more friends, which will change their behavior and outlook on life before they're consumed by the Indian burial ground curse that turns every citizen in Angel Grove into a simpering moppet.
Richie tells the Danger Teens their five sodas will cost them $4.95. Jason slaps a crisp fiver down and tells the weird kids who rolled people down the hallway in barrels for kicks that he'll pay for their sodas.
This brief moment of kindness changes the Danger Teens fundamentally. Now they too love recycling, karate, and casual racism. They shake hands with their Ranger Teen counterparts before the scene transitions and all five of them are executed by firing squad.
The Ranger Teens drop by the Command Center where everyone congratulates Tommy on being so cool even without his powers or profitability. Tommy says it wasn't the costume or suit that gave him powers, but what the Japanese stunt actor could do that really made him special.
Tommy's going to miss the other Ranger Teens while they're on school break and they have to forcefully cut him out of their lives because he's a powerless nobody, but no matter what happens in the future all five of the Ranger Teens will always be able to hold their fond memories of Tommy close to their hearts.
Jason...
Trini…
Billy…
Kimberly…
Zack…
…On second thought, don't let the door hit ya' on the way out. Rest in shit Tommy.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: The Green Ranger
Personal Thoughts
As much as I want to say this one is a bonafide classic, there's a bit too much that doesn't quite cut the mustard this week. The Dark Rangers don't matter, Zedd's schemes become more intricate and unlikely as time goes on, and where in the name of fuck are Bulk and Skull? They don't even make a cameo. I need some goofery to offset all these strong emotions I'm having that Tommy will never be a Power Ranger again or whatever.
Speaking of the Green who is no more, Tommy's finale works out okay I suppose. His battles in the Otherworld are really solid stuff. The problem is his last battle with Turbanshell seems like a really shitty send-off. You have the most popular character on your show and his final showdown is against a worm with indigestion. Could you have maybe let him do something a little more exciting?
You know what would have made a pretty fun Green Ranger finale? Lizzinator. You get to see a super powerful monster that completely clowns Jason. Then Tommy can use the last of his power to bail his bro out. Then the Dragonzord gets one last solo fight, but you can explain its defeat as the Dragonzord losing power alongside Tommy. Then shoehorn in the Thunder Megazord doing its lame-ass splice fight with Lizzinator and maybe we'd have something a bit more fulfilling.
While I have your minds on Lizzinator, let me show you a nifty image. Someone behind the scenes on Power Rangers posted an image of some Zyu2 monster costumes hanging out together. While I could talk about actual people, I'd much rather discuss the empty suits hanging behind them so check it out.
Pumpkin Rapper is in the back where he belongs.
Turbanshell without his trademark diaper? I can imagine it'd be a lot easier to escort him around without that monstrosity around his waist. It makes me laugh that the Turbanshell suit was obviously so cumbersome that they would only keep his shell on if it was absolutely necessary.
As a matter of fact, we'll never see Turbanshell wearing that thing again. No, Turbanshell is another one of many monsters who was repainted and changed into a "new" monster for background scenes later on in Power Rangers history. They painted his body green and ditched his intricate looking shell to make the costume easier to move it, but look a lot less interesting as a result.
Turbanshell Mosquito Man That's right, they turned him into a foxy looking pirate.
Now's the moment I've been dreading for weeks now. Turbanshell marks the end of Zyu2 footage. The one thing more important to me than anime, weed, and McDonalds. Somehow I'll find a way to keep writing even though I don't have my precious bug-eyed shark monsters to look at anymore. Don't cry for me, I'm already dead.
The final bit of Turbanshell footage begins right here, and the first thing you might notice is that Turbanshell immediately eats Tommy hiding in the melons. After eating Tommy he fights against the Megazord, whereas in Power Rangers these two events were reversed. I prefer the Zyu2 method of letting Tommy simmer inside the monster's tummy before emerging when Turbanshell is about to defeat the other Rangers. It builds tension instead of Tommy being eaten and immediately burning up the monster.
Something kind of cool during the Zyu2 Zord fight is that Turbanshell knocks all of the Dinozords out of the Megazord formation, much like he did against the Thunder Megazord. This results in the Tyrannosaurus briefly going one on one against Turbanshell. They mimicked this pretty adequately with the Red Dragon Thunderzord being beaten down by the monster. This is the only time in raw Zyu2 footage that the T-Rex would go solo against a monster. Unless we're missing something crazy in the unreleased footage.
Oh yeah, and one of the absolute best Zyu2 moments comes when Turbanshell is taunting the T-Rex Dinozord. It was cut from the U.S. version for reasons I can't possibly imagine.
Turbanshell gif Japan's knowledge of American culture knows no bounds.
When Zack "sprays water" at Turbanshell, this is very clearly covering up the fact that Zack was originally jumping inside the Mastodon Dinozord and spraying snow breath at the monster. I'm not sure why they didn't use footage of the Lion Thunderzord producing mist to act as some kind of freezing agent on Turbanshell, because there's definitely footage of the Lion Thunderzord doing that. You know what I don't want to see in my karate action show? A hose being used to stop an incredibly powerful monster. Ditch that trash. It'd be way cooler to see a lion spitting smoke at a giant worm.
Turbanshell was supposed to be destroyed by the Ultrazord, and we lose one final shot of Tommy summoning the Dragonzord prior to the monster's defeat. Since the Dragonzord would have only shown up in stock footage against Turbanshell, there was no need to retain Tommy summoning the Zord. After all, it only would have stood around before we cut to the Thunder Megazord finishing the monster off for the umpteenth time if this scene were retained.
One final thing I took notice of was the fact that Turbanshell's staff weapon was completely absent during the second portion of his Zord fight. There's no explanation for it in the Zyu2 footage, so I'm not really sure why it vanished. Since Turbanshell used his staff in the U.S. footage against Tommy, it might have been interesting to have the former Green Ranger break the weapon somehow, or at least get it away from the monster to explain its absence later. It might have been cool man I don't know.
And now to finish things up, here's a special video from Zyu Ranger that details how a Turbanshell battle with the Dinozords AND Thunderzords could have been handled. Check out his channel if you want a straight adaptation of the Zyu2 footage too!
Catch you guys next week when we're finally FINALLY done with terrible looking hacked up Zord fights. Now Season 2 is destined to have interesting and fun looking fights without having to splice together a bunch of unrelated footage. Happy days are here again!
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jan 15, 2016 15:00:38 GMT
MMPR Season 2 Episode 14: Missing Green
Jason Feels Bad About Something that Happened 40 Episodes Ago Trini Disappears For Half the Episode, Nobody Bothers to Notice
I hope you dear readers have mourned the death of Tommy's Green Ranger powers after last week's tragic finale. Now the rest of the Ranger Teens are left to battle Lord Zedd's forces without their chronically impotent teammate dragging them down. Without their Make-A-Wish Ranger tagging along to get his energy absorbed, the primary five Rangers finally have a chance to let themselves shine once more. They now have the opportunity to become fully fleshed out characters!
Y'know, unless the episode revolves around how much everybody misses Tommy so much. Though that would be ridiculous.
Our episode starts with Zack helping Jason train for an upcoming karate tournament. While Jason could usually win any match with both nuts tied behind his back, something is distracting him from his usual hunkdom. Jason's problem is that every time he tries to strike, he's struck by the image of a disappointed looking Tommy. The very same image Jason saw when he introduced Tommy to his parents as "a good friend."
As soon as Zack asks what's wrong with Jason, he answers his own question, "It's Tommy? Isn't it?" He says this with such exasperation and pain that you'd almost think Zack's jealous over what Tommy and Jason had together.
I'll spare you good people from my childish assumption that two men who care about each other might be gay for the thousandth time and instead offer this theory: Is Zack supposed to be frustrated that Tommy replaced him as Jason's best bud? He seems awfully testy when he realizes Jason is dwelling on Tommy's situation. I could be making mountains out of dramolehills, but if I can find an inch of depth to this show then I'll furiously dig into it 'til I hit paydirt.
Jason says it's not Tommy's glistening abs that are on his mind, but the memory that he was the one that let Tommy's powers disappear in the first place. Jason refers to the Green Candle situation that was what initially de-powered the Green Ranger back in Season 1. Something that's been eating away at him so badly that he hasn't mentioned it once since it happened.
While I could piss and moan that this development was never foreshadowed or referenced previously, I'll refrain from all that shit. This is an idea that has a chance to give a character some depth. Jason hasn't lost one goddamn fight ever since he put on that Red Ranger suit, except for the moment of hesitation that cost Tommy his powers.
Initially I thought this was weird to address now. Why is Jason dwelling on Tommy's first power loss after his second occurred? Well the answer to this could be that the writers simply didn't think of this idea until now. Personally I'll take a thousand ideas that come a bit late than ever having to deal with something like "The Rockstar" ever again.
Lord Zedd takes notice of Jason's lingering regrets and finds this the perfect instrument for the Rangers' demise. Zedd declares Rita's Green Candle didn't have shit on what he's packing, as we cut to four brand spankin' new Ranger colored candles. Black, Pink, Yellow, and Blue are all represented by a candle that Zedd plans on using to extinguish their respective Rangers' power supplies. So why isn't there a Red Candle for Zedd to use? If I had to guess it's because Goldar melted it down his body last week and told Zedd it got lost in storage.
Billy's candle remains a safe distance away from the only candle of color.
Zack tries talking with Billy and Kimberly about what they can do to get Jason out of his slump. The only solution Kimberly can concoct is getting in touch with Tommy, because her character has finally evolved into a lamprey that can only exist if Tommy's around to latch onto. It's stunning to me that this show finally ditched Tommy for literal minutes, but almost instantaneously we need the other characters to go crawling back to him so we can keep all the kids who love the Green Ranger satiated.
While discussing Tommy's depleted powers, she uses the phrase "Ranger or no Ranger", which catches the attention of Bulk and Skull as they wander in the background. That's all well and good, but there's an itsy bitsy problem about what Kimberly says after that.
"Ranger or no Ranger, he's still our friend and Jason needs him. I know Tommy would want to help."
The issue is that Kimberly says Tommy's name while the camera is still focused on Bulk and Skull listening to her. What the show wants me to believe is that Bulk and Skull heard Kimberly mention the Power Rangers off-handedly, and this has piqued their curiosity. What the show has shown me is that Bulk and Skull just heard Kimberly say in no uncertain terms that Tommy is absolutely, undoubtedly affiliated with the Power Rangers.
This is almost definitely a goof in the ADR department, because Kimberly's line happens off-screen when the camera focuses on Bulk and Skull looking at her suspiciously. It's just such a gigantic fuck-up because the way this scene is shot there's next to no way these two couldn't have possibly heard this conversation that they absolutely should not have been privy to. At least not if you want to keep this sub-plot running for the next 40 episodes. I'm sorry, this moment bugs me really bad, let me try and give it some context.
Imagine if in one of those Spider-Man movies, J. Jonah Jameson yells at Peter Parker to get him pictures of Spider-Man or he's fired. Then Peter responds "Yes sir Mr. Jameson I'll get pictures of Spider-Man" and then we cut back to JJJ's face before we hear Peter's line continue, "Which should be rather easy, because I am in fact Spider-Man."
So Bulk and Skull manage to hear only four words out of a conversation they clearly were listening to in its entirety, and conclude that the Ranger Teens are also trying to discover the identity of the Power Rangers.
Jesus Christ. Seriously? They don't even suspect the Ranger Teens for half a second? They don't assume Tommy is a Ranger after literally hearing him described as one? If that's the conclusion they're going to jump to, then why wouldn't you rewrite Kimberly's line to make it more vague? Sorry, let me calm down. I'm spending all this time arguing about the deductive reasoning of two guys that look like this.
Skull looks like a stoned iguana.
Zack drives the other three Ranger Teens out to a cabin owned by Tommy's uncle. Kimberly assumes this is where Tommy's vanished to now that his powers are gone and he isn't welcome in their presence ever again. Zack asks Kim why she's so sure he's here and she informs her friends it was the first place they ever got tongue deep in each other.
The Ranger Teens pull over to check their map, which involves all four of them getting out of the car and reading it out-loud. Not because this is what actual human beings do, but because it makes blocking a lot easier. Zedd commands Goldar to go capture the four Ranger Teens and bring them to his Dimension of Doom. Fuck's sakes guys we had a mystical evil dimension from Zedd the last two weeks. Wouldn't it behoove Zedd to take some time and consolidate all these dimensions he's got? He can't possibly be using all these things enough to get a good return on investment for them.
Goldar appears in front of the Ranger Teens and asks if they remember him from back when he used to do cool things in Season 1. The Teens morph as Goldar overlooks them from atop a grassy hill while they stand behind Zack's car. This needlessly complicated manner of framing only exists to set up a scene where Bulk and Skull are in clear view of Goldar, but are unable to see the Power Rangers behind Zack's vehicle.
I've been tolerating this secret identity sub-plot for a while now, but this week's instance doesn't make a goddamn lick of sense. Bulk and Skull's master plan is to take a picture of the Power Rangers when they confront Goldar. That's all well and good for them, but why should we in the audience care?
This whole scene is staged as though Bulk and Skull are about to take a picture of something they shouldn't be seeing. All they're going to have is a photo of Goldar yelling at the Power Rangers. That's not incriminating at all. Sure it's in front of Zack's car, but if these two morons just heard Kimberly admit Tommy is a Ranger, I'm pretty sure they're not going to be smart enough to connect those dots.
The only saving grace of these lame scenes is Skull's camera.
I can't see that parrot without thinking "DEXTER'S SECRET"
Goldar blasts the four Rangers with energy from his sword that teleports them into Zedd's Dimension of Doom. I'd explain what it looks like, but it would be a waste of your time. It's nothing but the set from last season's Dark Dimension with a few candle holders in the foreground, and some bars that act as a prison for the four Rangers. In case you needed to be reminded that this show is incredibly cheap.
In front of the imprisoned Rangers, Goldar pulls out the remnants of Rita's Green Candle, which has just enough wax left to light up the other four Ranger Candles. Kim and Billy voice their objections, while Zack and Trini remain silent because the show didn't feel like finding old voice clips to dub in for them.
Zordon summons Jason to the Command Center to explain today's situation. The Rangers have disappeared and Alpha is scanning around to find their location. Zordon admits to Jason that the other Rangers really wanted him to win the Golden Pipe Karate Tournament, and they also knew how bad he missed Tommy's golden pipe. Ah yes, the Golden Pipe Karate Tournament, isn't that part of the "We Don't Know How to Shoehorn a Weird Looking Sentai Monster into the Plot so Name a Karate Tournament After it" Championships?
Zordon spoils the Ranger Teens surprise from earlier and tells Jason they were planning on getting into contact with Tommy to put Jason's nerves at ease. He also tells Jason that the other Ranger Teens got him an iPad for Christmas, because he doesn't know when to keep his giant mouth shut.
Lord Zedd has other plans for Jason. The overlord fires energy from his staff to turn the Golden Pipe trophy into his newest monster, Pipebrain.
Pipebrain He's packing a little pipe between his legs.
Zordon alerts Alpha and Jason with the lowdown on Zedd's new monster. He claims Pipebrain to be incredibly swift and powerful, which is Zordon's way of saying the monster won't be doing much and we need to make him sound impressive. Alpha notes that he's finally got a lock on the other Rangers and locates them inside of Zedd's Dimension of Doom. Zordon's greatest fears have once again come true this week, as Goldar is taking advantage of what he claims is the one weakness of the Ranger Team. Damnit! Goldar finally silenced Trini and her big mouth.
No, of course their one weakness is the fact that their powers can be drained via magic candle wax, something that leaves Jason fucking pissed. He watches his friends slumping in Goldar's prison as they suffer the same fate Tommy went through long ago, and he is not having any of it. He's the leader of this team and now he's left watching his comrades get drained down to normal.
It's not exactly subtle, but seeing Jason look this furious over his friends' situation is better acting than we get from this show just about every week. You're watching a person's emotional weakness come back to haunt them as it happens to other people they care about, and it's really satisfying.
Zordon leaves Jason with the warning that entering Zedd's dimension could also mean the loss of his powers as well. Jason asserts himself as a leader and tells Zordon he'll take any risk as long as it means saving his friends. Alpha reassures Jason that he made the right choice when he left Tommy's candle, which is a lot more powerful of a statement coming from the comic-relief robot than "Ay-yi-yi! This is dangerous Jason! Watch out for trouble! My circuitboards are on the fritz!"
In order to access the Dimension of Doom, Jason must defeat the lethal Pipebrain monster. The Red Ranger steels himself for this task before morphing and arriving in battle with Zedd's newest soldier. It's a fight that will test all of Jason's skills and abilities.
At least it would if it wasn't a spliced together snooze.
During my write-up on "The Mutiny Part 3", I mentioned how all of the early Season 2 Zord battles were spliced together from Zyu2 monster footage, and Dairanger Zord footage. All of the ground battle footage between the actual Rangers and the monsters didn't require this kind of editing, which made it far superior to the Zord battles that would not be able to show the Megazord and the monster on screen at the same time. This resulted in choppy and lousy looking fights that felt like a practical joke on the audience.
Well now we're out of Zyu2 monsters, and Dairanger monsters are getting tagged in. The problem with that is that the monsters from Dairanger fight a completely different group of Rangers that look nothing like our Ranger team.
Zack isn't feeling like himself today.
This means any ground battle footage from Dairanger that contains actual fighting is unusable. The only footage we can use of these monsters is them standing around looking threatening, or possibly firing an attack off-screen that the Rangers react to. Something like this.
Pipebrain Dairanger Would you believe me if I told you this was one of the better splice fights?
Essentially, all my issues with the Zord battles and ground battles from earlier in the season have been flipped. Now the ground battles are unengaging while we wait for the Zord fight to look good. Yippee.
So Pipebrain stands off-camera while threatening Jason, and summons a batch of Z-Putties to do some actual fighting. Jason no longer reacts with old lines from Season 1, but what sounds like a 60 year old man trying to sound like Austin St. John. This fight was built up so fucking well, and you take all the wind out of my sails by having a grunting old man dubbing over a fight where he can never interact with his primary opponent. Thanks for nothing Power Rangers.
Lord Zedd is sickened by how boring this battle is and thrusts his Grow Bomb to Earth. Pipebrain becomes gigantic and Jason summons the Red Dragon Thunderzord. While the ground battle was lackluster, we finally get an opportunity to see a Thunderzord do something cool.
With flawless special effects!
The Red Dragon Thunderzord converts to Warrior Mode and squares off against Pipebrain. The monster and Zord strike a pose and begin their battle. With some nice martial arts moves, the Red Dragon Warrior Mode chops at Pipebrain repeatedly before kicking him hard and leaving him on the dirt. The gold plated monster slowly closes its eye as it admits its defeat. Even though it didn't explode and fuck almighty Jason you've been doing this for so long. How do you not know the score by now?
Surprising nobody, Pipebrain opens its eye and launches one of its phallic pipes to restrain the Red Dragon ThundercougarfalconZord. Pipebrain surges electricity through the pipe, which causes the Red Dragon to burst with explosions. Though things look dim, the Thunderzord refuses to give up. Red Dragon puts its hand to its ear and is empowered by the cheering voices of all the Hulkamaniacs across the nation. Unless they were blizzack people.
Red Dragon Warrior Mode pulls out its staff and uses it to slash the pipe restraining him and emasculate Pipebrain. After beating on the creature, the Red Dragon Thunderzord starts spinning its staff around which disorients the Pipebrain monster. With its opponent on the ropes, the Red Dragon busts out its own finishing move to take Pipebrain down.
Red Dragon Thunderzord GIF Why don't we get the Thunder Saber for the trillionth time?
With the monster destroyed, Jason arrives inside Zedd's Dimension of Doom. As Goldar gloats about his inevitable victory, Old Man Voice Jason tells him to think again. Gold and Red engage each other in combat with Goldar temporarily gaining the upper hand. Jason spin kicks the crony's sword out of his hand to even the odds, before kicking him right into the display holding the Ranger Candles.
Despite the fact these candles had insignificantly sized flames atop them, their tipping over causes the Dimension of Doom to become covered in flames. Obviously this dimension is where Zedd stashed all his kiddy porn, so he kept it coated in gasoline in case the feds ever got nosy. This is naturally followed by the evil emperor demanding Finster to magnet all their hard drives.
Goldar teleports out of the hotbox as Jason grabs the key to his team's cell and unlocks it. Jason asks for the weakened Rangers to fork over their Power Coins. While their energy drains, Jason places the coins atop each Rangers' candle. With the Coins in place, Jason uses his own Tyrannosaurus coin to cause the other coins to glow. This surge of energy somehow restores both the Rangers and the Candles to full. Look, we're at the zero hour and we needed a resolution that makes as much sense as anything else. Who cares?
Jason hands his friends their Power Coins as the kidnapped Rangers teleport out of the Dimension of Doom one by one. As Jason gets ready to vamoose, Goldar's hand suddenly grabs his leg and tells him to get his ass back here. Even though Goldar teleported away when the dimension caught fire earlier. Sorry to those of you paying attention. Whatever, he's here now for some more tension, at least until Jason kicks him in the face and teleports out.
As Jason escapes we get one of the most pathetic lines from any character ever. Goldar exclaims to the vanishing Red, "My life is dedicated to destroying you!" Holy shit Goldar. Maybe join a book club or something. You are wasting your golden years.
Alpha brings the four non-Red Rangers into the Command Center. They're left asking where Jason is and worry that he may have been lost in the Dimension of Doom. The show wastes a few seconds pretending Jason is in danger before he abruptly appears and the crisis nobody was concerned with is resolved.
Speaking of things nobody cares about, Alpha manages to locate Tommy on the Viewing Globe. Hey Kimberly, maybe instead of going on a road trip and getting kidnapped by Goldar you could have asked your robot slave where he is. Just an FYI for next time.
The Ranger Teens watch as Tommy appears in the Viewing Globe, writing a letter for Jason. In case you didn't know what the contents of this letter were, Tommy helpfully reads what he's writing out loud. Instead of this scene using a voice-over we have Tommy awkwardly reading his own letter to nobody in particular. While this could possibly be the result of nonsensical production decisions (a particularly callous assertion), I'd prefer to believe this is the only way Tommy is capable of writing something due to his crippling case of "Too Stupid to Read Syndrome."
Tommy's letter amounts to "It's cool you didn't save my powers, please go be good at karate now." Jason takes these kind words to heart and heads off to the Youth Center to win some golden pipes or whatever. Jason shows up to Ernie's with the other Ranger Teens, excluding Trini. She was busy doing something the writers didn't feel like including because she was in the middle of disputing her contract, so let's just say she went fishing this week.
Bulk and Skull stop the 4 Ranger Teens to brag about their photographic evidence of being close to the Power Rangers. Unfortunately for the bullies, it turns out the camera was only able to capture a moment of Skull knocking over a bird's nest earlier. Phew! I was really concerned that Bulk and Skull would have a picture of the Power Rangers, and that would…be bad because I guess…Um…
So Jason joins the tournament and performs some good old-fashioned white guy karate. Not in a fight with anyone of course, but all alone on a shoddy blue gym mat. Why do all of the karate tournaments on this show act like people do karate the same way I masturbate? Even though the karate isn't getting busted on any pipe-faced monsters, we do get some cool poses from Jason.
Is Ernie doing a one handed cheer?
Apparently Jason did really impressive poses because everyone in the crowd cheers for him. In a stunning upset sure to shock the entire audience watching at home, Jason somehow manages to win the Golden Pipe tournament. Upon receiving his trophy, Jason dedicates this victory to Tommy. It's also dedicated to his lifelong fan Goldar who has dedicated his entire life to Jason's improvement. Goldar watches from outside the Youth Center window and sheds a tear of pride while massaging his golden pipe.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Hulk Hogan
Personal Thoughts
While this episode has a genuinely strong premise behind it, I can't help but feel underwhelmed. Jason feeling guilt for Tommy's lost power is handled pretty intelligently, and we get a return to white guy karate in what feels like the first time in months. This episode should be a genuinely strong Jason focus, but when every line he has while morphed sounds like a dying grandfather it becomes much harder to enjoy. The attempt at shooting a ground battle with Pipebrain is okay, but when you cut all of the monster's fighting moves, you make him look really underwhelming. Not to mention there is some weak ass Bulk and Skull material this week. Oh wow, eggs fell on them. What else is on?
I also briefly mentioned Trini's absence, which means she has joined Zack and Jason's ranks as an actor who is sick of this dumbass show and has stopped showing up for filming. I wanted to mention it previously when they replaced her dialogue with previous season's lines, but she has so little to say it's near impossible to tell. Just know that from here on out any morphed dialogue from Trini, Jason, or Zack will either be performed by a terrible sounding stand-in, or use recycled lines from previous episodes. Don't worry though, I'm sure Haim Saban will handle this private matter with dignity and grace and keep his actors well taken care of.
So Pipebrain! He's the first monster we're going to be getting from Dairanger footage, and the first monster who appeared in Dairanger at all. His presence signals a change in Season 2 that I'm not too keen on. For the majority of Season 2, all the new monsters that show up are going to appear near exclusively in Sentai footage. While that wouldn't necessarily be a problem for Season 1, there's a bit more to it now.
I often mentioned in Season 1 how uncommon it was for the production staff to have monster costumes to film new scenes with. This wasn't a giant issue in Season 1 since the show could use the majority of the Sentai footage to fill in any gaps in storytelling.
The problem is that during Season 2, the production didn't seem to have more than half a dozen of the Dairanger monster costumes. So without being able to shoot new footage of the monsters, the show can only use what was already shot for use in Dairanger and repurpose it in Power Rangers. This would mean that the only footage that can be used of the Dairanger villains are scenes of the monsters standing alone somewhere while gesturing, scenes where they attack something off-screen and then cutting to our Rangers reeling from a hit, or scenes of the monsters in giant size. Anything where they're in frame with the Japanese Rangers or the foot soldiers would be unusable for use in Power Rangers. Including scenes such as these.
Dairanger's strength was in its gratuitous testicle abuse.
What makes this even worse is that Dairanger's highlights are unquestionably in its ground fights. The Zord fights are often not much to write home about, so what we get in Season 2 is a bare bones watered down Dairanger experience. Don't misinterpret that as whining about Power Rangers disrespecting the original source material. It's more that Power Rangers is cutting the crusts off their sandwich before tossing the sandwich in the trash before chowing on raw crust.
From here on out Season 2 hits some strange territory. What follows are a lot of Putty fights, a lot of monsters folding their arms, and our lord and savior descending from the heavens to sell us more toys. Maybe I'm just testy because I miss Zyu2 stuff, or maybe I'm just being a big old grump. I report, you decide!
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jan 15, 2016 15:02:51 GMT
MMPR Season 2 Episode 15: Orchestral Maneuvers in the Park
Power Rangers Assaulted by Monstrous Lepers Alcoholic Tofu Trumpet Besieges Teenagers
Every once in a while I feel like I enjoy episodes of Power Rangers for very superficial reasons. I liked Life's A Masquerade because the Rangers get savagely beaten by a tough monster, I enjoyed The Trouble With Shellshock because it's out and out silly, and I loved A Star Is Born because Bulk took his shirt off.
This week's episode is one I enjoy on a similarly sketchy foundation, but at the same time this show isn't exactly modern art. I don't know if it's possible to like an episode of Power Rangers for reasons other than "This guy blew up real bad", or "It was fun when Billy invent a science."
Well this week kicks off with something that nobody in the key demographic would possibly be excited for: A jazz concert headlined by everyone's favorite new character Curtis. Trini tells Curtis she had no idea he played an instrument, and he responds by telling her he didn't know she existed.
Tragically for Curtis, his horn is stuck on a moving van out in St. Louis and he doesn't have anything to play at the concert. Do any of you musicians out there sign up for concerts when you aren't positive you'll have instruments to play during the show? What's he going to do if the horn isn't there by the time he's supposed to perform? Stand up there and juggle while whistling? Who am I kidding? The losers in Angel Grove would go nuts for gimmicky trash like that.
Curtis asks Zack if he still has access to their famous Uncle Ed's horn. Zack has trepidations since this trumpet did belong to the world famous jazz musician Uncle Ed. Zack goes on to talk about how great his uncle was at playing music and ignoring casual racism from a bunch of middle-class crackers. As Zack talks about his long deceased Uncle Fred or whoever, Richie pops in to remind the audience that he's still on this show and won't be disappearing no matter how many times the viewers forget he's there.
Zedd takes personal interest in Curtis' jazz concert. Not because he's a fan of ancillary characters being given traits, but because that trumpet will be the catalyst for his newest and most diabolical spell yet. Once the Ranger Teens hear the haunted trumpet, they'll be subjected to illusions of some of the most powerful monsters from the past. Or at least the monsters whose costumes held up best in storage.
Zack, Billy, and Kimberly head through the park with Uncle Ed's horn safely in tow. Billy asserts that he has always enjoyed the rhythmic patterns of jazz; a sentence which instinctively made me punch my computer monitor. Kimberly whines that Tommy isn't here and she isn't able to have a character without a man around to lord over her. Well at least with Tommy gone we can see what Kimberly's fashion sense looks like as a single woman.
Kim's everything is on fleek.
Kimberly moans about Tommy not being around some more so the kids at home don't forget he existed two episodes ago. Before Zack can tell Kim exactly where she can shove Uncle Ed's world-famous trumpet, Bulk and Skull show up with another stupid plan that isn't going to work before humiliating them in front of the audience for comic effect. This week's certainly treading new ground, I'll give it that.
After the morons depart with a wheelbarrow full of corpse burying supplies, Zedd dispatches a Putty squadron to distract the Rangers and steal that trumpet. Zack, Kim, and Billy battle the Z-Putties near a conveniently placed set of playground equipment. It's a solid looking Putty fight, which is saying a lot considering how often these scenes blend together.
As the fight rages on, one of the Putties sneaks away and finds Uncle Ed's discarded horn. The lone Putty sprinkles some magic dust atop the trumpet, which is going to allow the Rangers see some crazy shit. If Zedd wanted the Rangers to hallucinate during a jazz concert why didn't he send down a Putty masquerading as a human to offer them some sweet sweet Jazz Cigarettes?
The Teens regroup after finishing off the Z-Putties and grab the trumpet. Zack and company hoof it back to the Youth Center and provide Curtis with Uncle Ed's trumpet just before he blows his brains out in front of an audience of jazz enthusiasts.
Back in the park, Bulk unveils his latest scheme to Skull. Bulk has located the last known sighting of the Power Rangers, and will slather that location in plaster. Once the Rangers come back and stomp all over it, they'll have a plaster cast of the Rangers' footprints. Then all they need to do is find the feet that match the cast and they'll be in business. Bulk says it's just like the story of Cinderella, and Skull earnestly responds, "I love that story."
Maybe someday we can spend a week with these guys and not waste our time on some dumbass jazz concert.
Bulk passes all the work off to Skull as he hustles away. Usually this wouldn't be worth bringing up, but Bulk walks with such an illustrious swagger that I couldn't help but show you kind readers.
John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer enjoy an afternoon in the park.
Back at the Youth Center, we jump right into Curtis' jazz performance. He plays Uncle Ed's trumpet while three complete nobodies join him with backing accompaniment. This is a great scene for those of you out there who get a real kick out of watching a bunch of white extras bob their heads along to a music track that was plucked right out of 1958.
I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on music, if it ain't Daft Punk I don't really give a rat's ass, but I get the impression none of these actors are playing the song that we're supposed to believe they are. I base that mostly on the fact that Curtis is diddling away on the trumpet, but every three seconds or so we cut away to reaction shots of the Ranger Teens in the crowd. Perhaps I'm just being cynical, but that doesn't sound like the way you would frame someone who's competently playing an instrument. That means that so far, all the guy who plays Curtis can do is kind of sort of break-dance. He sure as shit can't act or play the trumpet. Boy howdy I'd be so excited if he got to become a Power Ranger!
Curtis' HAUNTED trumpet spews black colored energy on the Ranger Teens. Our heroes briefly look uncomfortable, which might have something to do with the fact they're listening to jazz, so they ignore this odd sensation and applaud as Curtis finishes up his set. Everyone politely congratulates Curtis for how well he could pretend to play an instrument. While the cast fellates this dweeb that's getting shoved down the audience's throats, a Putty drops by and proves that every character in this show is fucking blind.
Curtis' one weakness is that he has no peripheral vision.
Just in case you were wondering, Jason, Trini, Kimberly, and Billy were all standing in front of Curtis and somehow didn't notice that Putty appearing or nabbing the trumpet. You can chalk that up to careless filming, or you can assume the other Ranger Teens don't give a shit about Curtis or his terrible jazz performance. Whatever canon helps you sleep better at night.
Curtis and Zack lose their shit when they see Uncle Ed's trumpet has been pilfered, and Zack says his parents are going to be furious with him. That horn is the only thing left of Uncle Ed, outside of the waves of illegitimate children trying to claim his fortune.
While the Ranger Teens fan out to search for the trumpet, Zedd's stealthy Z-Putty appears in the middle of the woods and places the trumpet down for his master. In order to complete this circuitous plan, Zedd turns Uncle Ed's trumpet into his newest creature, Trumpet Top.
What was Uncle Ed doing with that trumpet to make it turn out like that?
Since we've had to waste time being bored at some trash-ass jazz concert the last few minutes, Power Rangers tosses the audience a bone with a nice little nugget of Bulk and Skull interaction. Bulk finds some choice footprints of the Power Rangers they can create a cast of at the bottom of a hill, and Skull rolls his wheelbarrow of plaster down towards him. I'll let you fill in the blanks of how Bulk gets humiliated, but it's still fun to watch no matter how far away you see it coming from.
The Ranger Teens wander around in the park looking for Uncle Ed's critically acclaimed trumpet. Trumpet Top, from off-screen, spews forth some magical dust to bring forth an "old friend." Trumpet Top's magic sparkles create the image of the evil Grumble Bee in the park, who growls at the Power Rangers. They become astounded that Lord Zedd has resorted to busting out old monsters to fight them, but they morph regardless.
The Rangers battle Grumble Bee on a sandy beach, which was certainly right next to the park they were just at. Grumble Bee mutters about having unfinished bee-suiness with the Rangers before everyone with ears starts vomiting. When Grumble Bee fails to provide a sufficient challenge for all five Rangers, Trumpet Top decides to add a little more fuel to the fire. Using his magical sparkles, he summons forth the images of Saliguana and Fighting Flea. The trio of monsters combine their forces to battle the Ranger Teens, and Grumble Bee shows that he hasn't been doing well in his off-time.
Grumble Bee GIF You could probably keep that back in place with some Bees Wax.
Seeing that his ally Grumble Bee is falling apart, Soccadillo arrives and probably says something about soccer. I don't know. Black Ranger takes on Grumble Bee atop a tall lifeguard tower, which is a far more interesting set-piece than I'd expect this show to use. Zack subdues the buzzing loser by kicking him off the tower, but is soon assaulted by even more monsters, Rhinoblaster and Mantis. Zack, in his dubbed over voice, wonders where these monsters keep coming from. Occam's Razor would dictate the simplest solution is most likely, so if I had to guess I would chalk this one up to a magic trumpet creature creating hallucinogenic monsters.
Kim and Trini combat the Saliguana before knocking him right onto his scaly ass. They aren't out of the woods yet though, as Slippery Shark and Stag Beetle charge into the battle.
In case you couldn't guess why I like this episode so much, maybe it's become a bit more apparent in the last few minutes. I can't help but get a real kick out of all the old monsters showing up and wreaking havoc on the Rangers all at once. Even though the monsters aren't firing energy blasts or using weapons against the Rangers, you still get some pretty solid choreography from the U.S. stunt crew in making this monster mash look pretty cool.
Zack confronts the charging Rhinoblaster by grappling his horn and kicking him down the ramp of the lifeguard tower. This moment reveals the tragedy that Rhinoblaster had attempted to hide his entire life, a prolapsed asshole.
Rhinoblaster GIF Rhinoblaster just gave birth to a beautiful Jim Carrey.
Trumpet Top giggles himself silly over how goddamned dumb the Power Rangers are that they're exhausting themselves in a fight with imaginary monsters, even though he's always going to be off-screen from the Rangers so he may as well not exist either. Not only that, the illusions of monsters still seem to be wearing the Rangers out, so at what point can we say these guys aren't actually real? If the effect they have on everyone is real then you can't really call them imaginary can you? You know what? I'm probably thinking about this too much.
Mantis hurls Black Ranger off of the lifeguard tower while Blue runs up to try and stop the monster and its massive bug hard-on from doing more damage. Trini knocks out the Stag Beetle before she and Kim take on Slippery Shark, who is portrayed as a gibbering goofball this week. For anyone out there who actually knows that's inaccurate to the monster's character, I'm sorry you've wasted your life as much as I have.
The monster brigade smack the Rangers around a bit more before getting all five Rangers grouped together. All of the monster illusions form a huge circle around the Rangers while taunting them and laughing at their prey. Oh sorry, all of the monsters except for Grumble Bee. He had to go get his wings taped back on.
Zordon demands to know why his dumbass fighting losers are sending an emergency signal in the middle of the day. Alpha 5 reiterates that there shouldn't be any problems, because his scanners don't sense any monsters in the city at all. Nope. Not a one. Particularly not one with trumpet ears that's hopping around like a horse's ass and giggling. Nice thorough scan Alpha, you clown. Zordon says this scenario is exactly what he's feared. It's finally the very special episode where he has to talk to the Rangers about experimenting with recreational drugs at rinky-dink jazz concerts. If they don't, then haunted trumpet drunks will throw lizards and sharks at them until they die cold and alone on the beach.
Bulk and Skull wander onto the scene and witness the five Rangers battling what appears to be nothing. Skull ponders if the Rangers have been out in the sun too long, and provokes a genuine laugh from my cold dead heart. Bulk reminds his stupid associate that this is exactly what they've been waiting for. Once the Rangers leave, he and Skull will be able to get all those fresh juicy footprints for their collection. Then they can shove a bunch of civilian's feet into their plaster cast until the police arrest them for being total fucking creeps.
Zordon and Alpha bring the Rangers back to the base and inform them they've been hornswoggled by one of Zedd's evil spells. As a matter of fact, there were no monsters at all. Alpha then tells the Red Ranger, "No Jason, you are the monsters." And then Jason was a Grumble Bee.
Zordon directs the Rangers to the Viewing Globe where he shows them the image of Trumpet Top posing at nobody in particular. The only way for the Rangers to break this spell and stop seeing monsters they've already beaten is by destroying the Trumpet Top monster. This task won't be easy though, as Zedd has just made the monster grow! What a coincidence, that means the Rangers won't need to have a poorly edited fight with him on the ground.
The Thunder Megazord is summoned to battle Trumpet Top, and all that shit about monster illusions is promptly forgotten. We only have four minutes left, what could we possibly do with that premise anymore? The two giants square off as Trumpet Top weirdly refers to his opponents as "Power Pansies." I get the feeling that line might not go over so well outside of the 90's.
Trumpet Top spews a blast of fire from his mouth that causes the mighty Zord to fling its saber into the air. T-Top grabs the weapon and turns it on its master. While a lot of these Dairanger Zord battles aren't too impressive, there's something really cool about seeing a Zord's weapon used against it. It makes Trumpet Top look less like a giggling dumbass and more like a force to be reckoned with. For about 20 seconds.
Thunder Megazord: Master of pulling out bullshit to win fights
After getting zapped, Trumpet Top reels in pain before the Thunder Megazord finishes him off with its blade. Lord Zedd blames his incompetent henchmen for botching this ingenious plan of his. He would be ruler of Earth by now if those goddamned Rangers had just kept fighting some ghosts! Squatt pipes up to ask Zedd why none of the monsters he's been summoning lately have done anything other than stand around in Japanese footage while flailing around like idiots. In response, Zedd sentences Squatt to ten million spankings, to which the blue ogre responds by sporting a tiny smile.
Back at the Youth Center, Curtis sulks and pouts. The Ranger Teens ask what's got him down, and if it has anything to do with the fact that he's a forgettable character whose actor will fade into obscurity the second he's fired from this karate baby show. Curtis says those are some unfortunate realities he'll soon have to face, but what's got his panties in a bunch right now is that he's lost Uncle Ed's trumpet.
But wait just a darn second here Curtis. Did you forget what show you're on? This is Power Rangers. As soon as something bad seems like it's going to happen, plot contrivances will kick in and make sure all the good guys get out of trouble without a speck of dust on their shoes. The Ranger Teens present Uncle Ed's trumpet back to Curtis. Even though Zack's the one who needed it back in the first place, but fuck him, Curtis is the character everyone likes now.
Now that we're at the zero hour, Bulk and Skull stumble into the Youth Center holding a huge plaster mold that's littered with footprints. The gruesome twosome demand everyone in the Youth Center place their feet inside this gross massive slab of concrete, and then let Skull massage their feet after that. Zack decides they should humiliate these chumps with a little more music, so he has Richie pop in a CD filled with some brand spankin' new generic rock tunes.
A bunch of extras come out to shake their groove thing to uninteresting sounding music as they bump into Bulk and Skull, who try desperately to hold onto their million dollar slab. Though Bulk's in possession of the slab, he manages to avoid suffering it's curse, as he barely manages to hang on to the concrete as the rest of the dancing youths pass him by. Though Bulk breathes a sigh of relief, Skull good-naturedly pats him on the back to congratulate him, and causes him to drop the footprint block. It shatters into pieces as Bulk looks aghast, and I'm left genuinely amused that a show like Power Rangers just managed to pull off a successful bait-and-switch gag. Now once you get that editing thing down you'll be ready for the Emmy's in no time!
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Uncle Ed's Haunted Trumpet
Personal Thoughts
I can't help myself, I like this episode. It's not groundbreaking material, but when you bombard me with a bunch of old monsters battling the Rangers all at once, I can't help but be charmed. The only problem I really have with this episode is the time we have to spend on a waste of a character like Curtis. He's a complete non-entity who only exists to be a replacement Zack. I don't mind spending time at a jazz concert with uncomfortable looking white people, but I'd rather we spend time fleshing out actual characters instead of Zack Jr.
The Bulk and Skull material this week is pretty enjoyable, and skirts the line between being dumb in a self-aware manner, and just plain dumb. It's also great that after Bulk gets splattered with plaster, he doesn't even bother cleaning it off of his face for the remainder of the episode. He knows his only reason for existing is to get covered in goop, so why even bother cleaning up?
I was also impressed with Trumpet Top, believe it or not. He's not a lot to write home about, but the fact that Power Rangers turns him into a spellcaster monster softens the blow that we don't see him in a direct fight with the Rangers. Making it so that his primary strength is perplexing the Rangers with illusions makes his off-screen antics much more plausible than a lot of the other Season 2 monsters who will be dropping by. I also can't deny that his pilfering of the Thunder Saber is a pretty smooth move coming from some dipshit with horns for ears.
I mentioned previously that all of the Zyu2 monster costumes were shipped to the U.S. production crew for Power Rangers. What this meant was that every one of these monsters could have new footage filmed with its suit. Since these suits hadn't been used for very much filming, they would be in decent enough quality to shoot unique fight scenes like in today's episode. Though it sure seems that monster costumes like Grumble Bee and Rhinoblaster weren't doing quite as good as the show was hoping.
Another really cool thing that Power Rangers did with these returning monsters is that, for the most part, their original voice actors portrayed them in this episode. Except for Saliguana, who's been given some weird breathy Spanish voice, and Slippery Shark who's been given Peckster's voice. Even with those two missteps that's still 6 monsters who had their voices reprised. I don't know if the ADR department took pride in which stupid looking animal monster they got to do the voice of, but it's still impressive that someone behind the scenes of this show took the time to give a shit about continuity.
One last thing I wanted to mention was that Trumpet Top's counterpart in Dairanger wasn't intended to be a trumpet at all, but rather a tofu monster. Which simply couldn't work in America because only total power pansies eat tofu. Even stranger than his tofu theme is that his battle gimmick was drunken fist martial arts, and Trumpet Top spent a lot of his screen time boozing up. Which also explains a few scenes in Power Rangers where we zoom in on Trumpet Top's bizarrely bloodshot eye.
I mention this mostly to give an explanation as to why Trumpet Top spends so much of his footage dancing around like a total clod. Because he's supposed to be drunk on his tofu chewin' ass and doesn't know what he's doing. It's actually an entertainingly goofy episode to watch on its own merits, so I'd say give it a look-see!
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jan 15, 2016 15:03:35 GMT
MMPR Season 2 Episode 16: Beauty and the Beast
Evil Space Aliens Kidnap High School Student, Imprison Her in Fuck Dungeon Fortune Teller Provides Bulk with Tips for a Healthy Diet
This week's episode is going to be pretty tough to write about. Not because of its content, but because it's one of very few Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers episodes I have next to no memory of. I remember the monster (because of course I do), I know the general idea behind the plot, and I know one line reading that I'll discuss later, but beyond that I'm going in blind.
Even the episodes I didn't see as a kid I would watch by downloading some trash VHS transfers. I downloaded a lot of episodes that didn't even sound that good, so why did I exempt "Beauty and the Beast" from my rotation? Even I don't know for sure. I'm kind of concerned this episode is going to be so shitty that I'll end up slitting my wrists in the tub before the fat bully sings.
Well just to make sure my concerns are well founded, this dumbass episode's very first line is Billy saying "Sure is quiet around here without Tommy." Ah yes, the guy who wouldn't stop making a nuisance of himself and was always causing a ruckus. That's what I remember about Tommy. It's not like he was "Jason but wore green", but a fully developed character that the audience can feel the absence of.
Actually, we really can feel his absence. You know why? Because none of these characters will stop fucking talking about him.
Tommy hasn't been on the team for three weeks now, maybe we could spend some time with any of the other named characters that we're paying money to be in front of the camera. We could focus on Jason, Billy, Kimberly, Zack, or somebody else. Maybe we could spend some time doing something that isn't talking about how great Tommy is just in case kids didn't have time to buy a third Dragon Dagger yet. Maybe you could move some more product if you made any of these other characters more fucking engaging.
Billy and Kimberly spend the time they aren't reminiscing about Tommy discussing a weird looking mirror Kimberly has. A mirror that Tommy won for her at a carnival. Imagine the look on my face when I thought the episode was done doting on Tommy, only for it to swerve right back into Tommy Town.
Lord Zedd eavesdrops on Billy and Kimberly's tedious conversation while Goldar slobbers his knob. Zedd decides he should try to succeed more than twice in a season and sets his sights on Kimberly. So he's going to drain her power and weaken the Rangers even more? No way, he has something much different planned for her. Seeing the Pink Ranger's fiery spirit, Lord Zedd believes she would make an exquisite queen.
Oh I didn't know my DVD's were mislabeled. This is quite clearly the fan-favorite episode "Agony In Pink."
So before we get any further into the episode, let's keep track of our main plot points so far. Billy and Kim miss Tommy, and Zedd is going to turn Kimberly into his fuck-pillow. Looks like I remembered incorrectly, this episode sounds like a real slam dunk.
As Kimberly sobs that she'll never be able to see Tommy again for another two episodes the rest of her life, Billy offers his beefy nerd arm to her and says he wishes he knew a way to help. Kimberly offers him absolutely zero response, which is her cordial way of informing Billy he will never get all up in these guts. Billy takes this uncomfortable rebuking in stride and instead charts out a series of very elaborate masturbation sessions through the month.
Luckily, Kimberly has found the answer to her prayers. She notices an ad in the newspaper for a fortune teller by the name of Madam Swampy. Billy responds by saying this dame wouldn't know science if it bit her on the clit, so Kim would just be wasting her time. Kimberly disagrees though, as Madam Swampy could potentially know something about the Tommy's future.
Kim, what in the world do you want this lady to tell you? Are you worried about Tommy? Well here's a wacky idea. Why don’t you pick up your phone and give him a little ring-a-ding-ding? He's on a goddamn vacation lady, he'll be back in like a week. Why don't you get off the guy's nuts for four minutes and be your own person.
Not to mention, what do you actually expect a fortune teller to tell you? Best case scenario is she's totally on the up and up, which sounds quite reasonable considering her name is Madam Swampy. You want her to delve into Tommy's future and inform Kim he's going to break up with her to start dating Ronda Rousey? It's not like Tommy has cancer, he's 60 miles away hanging out with his uncle. Who gives a shit about his future?
"Beauty and the Beast", presenting us with new developments more boring than the last!
Thank God, the one thing I needed has finally arrived. As Billy and Kimberly depart, Bulk and Skull drop into the Youth Center discussing how they're feeling pretty frisky and need hella milkshakes in their maws. Skull especially, as he demonstrates here.
Only two actors have ever made that face: Jason Narvy and Gianna Michaels.
Bulk conveniently stumbles upon the ad for Madam Swampy's trash hut and decides this would be the perfect way to uncover the Power Rangers' identities. Because if two mentally deficient silent-film comedians can't figure it out, their next best bet would be some Romani lady wearing a towel.
Ignoring the fact that Kimberly and Billy came across this ad first, we immediately transition to a scene of Bulk and Skull visiting Madam Swampy's garbage dump. As they walk in and appear amazed at all the kitschy and tacky garbage in her tent, she demands that they pay five dollars for her services. I appreciate this episode of a children's television show airing its grievances with one of society's greatest ills: Fraudulent fortune tellers.
It was nice of Kathy Kinney to guest star in this episode.
Well as it turns out, Bulk and Skull are low on funds. They spent every cent they own on gimmicky props that led to a series of scenes with varied amounts of comical merit. They plead with this evil harlot who dares to charge money for her services to help them out for free just this one time. She sneers at them with her evil pseudo-foreigner glare, and offers them a janky looking piece of paper that she assures them is a treasure map. A treasure map!? That reminds me of another one of my favorite Power Rangers episodes, "The Rockstar." Things are getting better already.
Lord Zedd commands Goldar to go out and do his bidding yet again this week, as he must lure Pink Ranger to the dark side where she'll have no choice but to abandon her friends. Goldar specifically informs his master that he will "train her well", because this episode is gross and doesn't realize it.
Kimberly finds her way to the Swamp Shack, where she can meet an ogre with a heart of gold that tests the public's patience for Mike Meyers through three tedious sequels. Before she can get her fortune told, Goldar and some Z-Putties appear in front of her. Goldar promises Kimberly will enjoy her new life as Lord Zedd's queen, and grapples with her as she struggles against him for an uncomfortably long time. Kimberly isn't given a chance to morph or defend herself, instead she's left to be groped by Goldar while she demands he let her go. Thanks everyone, that's exactly what I want to see when I tune into this children's karate program.
When Kimberly refuses, Goldar exclaims he'll need to be more persuasive. My eyes go wide as I grip my chair. I don't want to know where this is going, and I want this episode to transition to Bulk and Skull looking for treasure right this instant.
As it turns out, Goldar's method of persuasion is throwing a handful of glitter in Kimberly's face. This glitter serves as some incredibly powerful space dust that knocks Kimberly out as soon as it hits her. Goldar then grabs her unconscious body and teleports away with it while laughing.
HEY GUYS? IS CURTIS PLAYING A JAZZ CONCERT THIS WEEK? THAT'D MAKE FOR A PRETTY COOL EPISODE MAYBE WE COULD WATCH THAT INSTEAD. PLEASE?
Lord Zedd zeroes in on Kimberly's discarded backpack and finds that shitty mirror Tommy won for her on the ground. He decides this mirror will create the ideal creature to give the other Rangers a reflection of what's to come. Booooooooo. Whatever. He makes the Mirror Maniac monster.
-10 points for not naming him Glass Jaw.
While their teammate is being taught how to service a space leather daddy, Zack and Billy enjoy a nice day of rollerblading in the park. They're not joined by anyone else because Trini doesn't technically exist anymore, and Jason is in the mountains fishing with his uncle. Or he refused to be on set until they stopped writing lines in his script about how his ostensible replacement is so much cooler than him.
Though Zack and Billy didn't think they would be alone today. Richie and Curtis were supposed to meet them for rollerblading but they were total no-shows. Great. On top of being complete non-entities of characters they can't even be punctual. Zack says Curtis must have met a beautiful lady on the way and got distracted. Oh goodie, another character trait for Curtis. I'm sure it'll pay off soon before he's promptly banished into the Forbidden Zone.
In news unrelated to Curtis, shockingly, Zordon contacts Zack and Billy and tells them to get to the Command Center lickity split. The boys teleport in as Alpha buzzes Trini to join them from parts unknown. As soon as the trio of Rangers are present, Zordon gives them the bad news. Kimberly has been placed under a spell by Goldar that makes her unable to escape his grasp by her own accord. That's not a spell you windbag, that's Stockholm Syndrome. Just another issue I was hoping we would get a babyfied version of this week.
Due to plot convenience, Zordon is unable to locate where Kimberly is being held, so her transformation into Zedd's queen will likely go off without a hitch. It's at this point I realize exactly what is missing from this episode. No, it's not Tommy if you can believe that. It's that at no point does someone hear that Zedd plans on turning Kimberly into his wife and responds by saying something to the effect of "Ew, that's really fucking gross."
They treat this like it's a totally reasonable plan, no different than "Make Kimberly jealous of Trini to divide their teamwork", or "Confuse the Rangers with a shape-shifting monster." This is a plan where Lord Zedd is planning on fucking a high school student on the Moon, can we get one of these goddamned characters to utter out a single "Yuck"?
Speaking of yuck, Curtis and Richie are rollerblading through the park without a care in the world, At least not until they're antagonized by half a dozen Z-Putties. This gives the boys an opportunity to show off their community theater acting skills.
What the fuck is Richie wearing?
While Billy tries to locate Kimberly's Sex Dungeon, Zordon alerts the Rangers that those two losers who nobody gives a shit about are being assaulted by Putties in the park. Zack tells Billy and Trini to take care of Kimberly for now, and he'll go to save Curtis and Richie in the park. Jason will remain off-screen because there was no way in Hell we would be getting him to show up this week. Try as he might, Zordon cannot triangulate the coordinates of a middle ground in Austin St. John's contractual dispute.
Blue and Yellow morph and instantly locate the cave where Kimberly is being held hostage. It's guarded by a Putty platoon, which tragically means this episode is going to go on for a few minutes longer. Zack also confronts the Putties who are harassing Richie and Curtis, which leads to a pretty respectable unmorphed fight with Zack and the Putties on some gym equipment. I keep expecting to get bored of the choreographers using jungle gyms as set pieces for fights, but I'm proven wrong every time.
Blue Ranger and Fake Voice Yellow Ranger beat the rest of the Z-Putties to death and resume their mission. Billy says they need to find Kimberly before abruptly stopping to pose right in front of a cave entrance. The camera cuts awkwardly back to the Rangers, and they declare Kimberly must be inside that cave they're in front of. The one they teleported to because Billy said it's where she was. Thank you for eating up that necessary nine seconds before continuing this dumbass episode.
Zack makes sure Curtis and Richie are okay, but all Curtis wants to know is who those slobberknocker morons were that were chasing him. Richie informs him those creatures are known as Putties, and they're on the news all the time. For what? Does the news use footage of them to brighten people's moods after they report on the mass shooting of the day? I understand the news can't report on Zedd's monsters since they're all in Japan, but there's got to be something more interesting to report on than those jackass Putties.
Back in the Cave of Sexual Degenerates, Goldar demands that Kimberly wake up. Then we pan out to see that Goldar isn't the only person in the cave with Kimberly. Nope, he also decided to bring along Squatt and Baboo for the ride. Just in case you wanted to pretend this was an innocent plot and not a creepy fuck barn, look at those two and try to tell me otherwise.
Goldar assures Kimberly she'll soon be made into their glorious new queen. Now she just needs to dress like a Moon queen in order to fit the bill. This leads to…oh great.
Some women just can't pull off a Madonna bra.
In case the viewers are morons, which is a safe bet if they're still watching this episode, Baboo says that Kimberly looks like Rita. Kimberly quietly mumbles to herself that Goldar's spell didn't actually work, so now she needs to figure out a way to get herself out of this predicament. The reason his spell didn't work is never clarified, but it still caused her to pass out when he used it so it's entirely possible Kim is a narcoleptic and Goldar got really lucky.
Oh before we get too far, Goldar informs us the actual name of this cave: The Cave of Fantasy. Barf.
Kimberly, decked out in Rita robes, decides to show Goldar she means business by affecting a Rita impression and berating the three space aliens. In case you wanted to watch an actor imitate someone doing a purposefully shrill and obnoxious voice, you are in luck this week.
Kimberly SCREAMS about how these three are giving her a headache, and boy howdy can I relate to that shit. God love Amy Jo Johnson, she's one of the best actors in this goofball show, but when you tell her to be grating then you better believe she's going to deliver on that. The problem is that I'm not tuning into this show to see someone bellowing and screeching at people. When Rita was around, her voice only got shrill and piercing when she was beyond pissed. That voice is all that Kim is doing this entire time and it makes me want to drill my eardrums out.
Goldar, having lost all desire to sexually subjugate this high-schooler, wonders if this plan was really worth considering at all. The Blue and Yellow Rangers appear inside Fuck Mountain to rescue Kimberly, who has apparently not needed any rescuing this entire time because she wasn't under a spell at all, but then we wouldn't have had an excuse to dress her up as Rita and yell at Squatt and Baboo. When it gets right down to it, why even have an episode without that?
With Kimberly rescued, Zedd becomes furious at his subordinates' failure. Zedd warns Goldar that he's going to be fucking someone tonight, so he better be prepared. Oh and also Zedd is going to use that Mirror Maniac monster that hasn't mattered for more than half the episode.
Zedd's lame-ass mirror thing runs around making mirror puns before firing a beam from his face at a building. Instead of causing the building to explode or do anything that would imply a threat, the building gently vibrates while the monster laughs. In hindsight it should have been obvious this monster was made from a carnival prize, absolutely nothing it's supposed to do works.
Alpha alerts Blue, Yellow, and Pink that Jason and Zack are already at the park to fight Mirror Maniac, so they will need to morph and join them. How about that, we didn't have to see Jason unmorphed once in this whole episode, what a coinky-dink. The five Rangers regroup in Angel Grove Park where the Mirror Maniac is waiting for them off-screen. He commands a squad of Z-Putties to bring the Rangers to him. Unless that means that the Putties would have to be on-screen with him, in which case don't do that.
The Rangers decimate the Putty squad as Mirror Maniac decides to run away. Way to go you fucking jobber, what have you done so far? You made a building jiggle and told some Putties to do your dirty work. You want me to show you a real chickenshit loser of a monster? Let me just hold up this mirror.
Zedd realizes this episode isn't ever going to end unless he gets this plot moving and makes his Mirror Maniac grow. That's all well and good, but for absolutely no reason the monster's face appears broken as soon as he grows. It's not explained why or how, but we're almost to the finish line so stop asking questions. It's none of your business.
When will my reflection show who I am inside?
Old Man Voice Jason summons the Thunder Megazord to fight Mirror Maniac. Once the Megazord is formed, Mirror Maniac unsuccessfully tries hurling energy balls at the Megazord to stop its charge. Surprisingly, this total chump of a monster isn't able to hurt the Megazord and is summarily slashed by the Thunder Saber. Thus concludes this impressive monster who stood around for three minutes before summarily dying.
Kim, Billy, and Zack enjoy some R and R back at the Juice Bar where Kimberly says how thankful she is that Goldar's dust didn't work on her. Yeah that would have been a shame, and also given this plot some stakes, but why do that? It's easier to script a scene of someone yelling at space goblins.
Kimberly becomes distracted that she can't find Tommy's mirror anywhere, and has not yet connected the dots that maybe the mirror monster they were fighting may have been related to that identical looking mirror Kim owns. Curtis rolls up much to nobody's chagrin and asks if anyone dropped an ugly looking piece of shit mirror in the park. Kimberly nabs it and thanks him for saving the only thing she has left of Tommy ever since he died in Da Nang, and he responds by telling her he'd do anything for a pretty lady. But he won't do that.
Bulk and Skull stomp into the Juice Bar to declare they've finally found the location of the Power Rangers due to Madam Swampy's treasure map. Wait just a second here, they're in the Youth Center, and only the Ranger Teens are there. It appears that woman who bilked people out of money to tell them completely nonsensical fortunes wasn't on the up-and-up at all!
Skull chucks the treasure map to the ground where Billy reclaims it and sees that it was hardly a treasure map at all. All that paper had on it was a promotion for Ernie's Juice Bar, promising a free protein muffin to shared customers. Ernie informs the idiots that Madam Swampy is a friend of his and came up with the lamest way possible to advertise his shithole rink-a-dink shack to people stupid enough to fork cash over to her.
Bulk and Skull claim their free protein muffins and take a bite, only for Richie to inform them that the muffins only come free after buying a lunch. Sadly the boys are all out of money after giving their last dime and spider carcass to Madam Swampy, so they have no way to pay for the single bite they each took out of their muffins. Ernie tosses them both aprons and tells them they'll need to do dishes to pay for those. Yeah you'll have to wash dishes to pay off as much of that muffin as you ate, a whole third of an inch of one plate, what an unfortunate predicament these boys have gotten themselves into.
Suck my dick.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: The Cave of Fantasy
Personal Thoughts
Don't watch this episode.
Alright now that I've gotten all that out of the way, let me get into some behind the scenes shenanigans. This is something I've wanted to mention ever since I started writing these reviews so hold on to your hats.
I talked briefly about how Black Ranger and Red Ranger had their voices dubbed over in previous episodes because of behind the scenes issues with their actors, and I had also alluded to Trini's actress Thuy Trang being on screen less often. In this very episode you'll notice she only shows up in the Command Center very briefly and isn't seen with the others when they're reminiscing about Tommy.
Usually when Trini was morphed, her dialogue was replaced with some very simplistic and awkward sounding lines from Season 1. This episode was the first time she had to be dubbed over by an extra to provide new lines specific to this plot. Jason's dubbed voice sounds like an insulting old man, and Zack's dubbed voice was the guy who played Curtis poorly imitating Walter Jones, so what did Trini's dubbed voice sound like?
Well that depends. The original airing on Fox Kids was what I downloaded and heard for the first time, and the dubbed voice present there is most definitely not what's on this DVD. Some kind soul has made a Youtube video detailing the differences in Trini's voice that I'll share with you good people now. Specifically please refer to the scene at 4 seconds, which is the version on the DVD release, and the comparison of the scene at 7 seconds which was initially aired on Fox Kids.
So what made me remember the original voice over this one? Just the fact that it was really fucking racist.
Like holy shit. You listen to Thuy Trang talk and she has a little bit of an accent I suppose. Whatever. That dubbed voice sounds like they hired an extra from "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips." It isn't even kind of close to how Trini has ever sounded. Apparently this Mickey Rooney voice is also present on the Netflix release, so if anyone wants to get some racism in their veins then check it out and let me know if that's true.
Judging by the comments on that video, the not-racist version aired later, but that awful pee-pee in Coke voice was used to send the episode out initially before the corrected version would air in syndication. Here's an idea, have someone talk like a normal human being. She already doesn't sound like Trini, why are you sending someone in a booth and saying "Yeah just talk like a World War 2 propaganda film for a few lines"? Ew.
Well I guess we may as well talk about Mirror Maniac, which won't take long because there's not much to say about him. He was the first boss in one of the SNES Power Rangers games that I'm being coy about mentioning as it spoils a few things we haven't gotten to yet. You know me, always hesitant to spoil details to 20 year old franchises.
Last thing worth mentioning was his mirror face breaking. Usually when you encounter discrepancies like these in Power Rangers, it's a product of the Japanese show having a monster becoming damaged in a scene that could not have been adapted in the US version. Honestly? That's not really the case here.
The initial shot of the Green Dairanger hitting his mirror face couldn't be used, but why not take this shot, and put in the Power Blaster stock footage before it? Just cut from the beam firing to the gif above. That would explain why the monster's face is broken, it would add some kind of ground battle with Mirror Maniac as opposed to the nothing we get here, and it would provide some level of interaction with a Dairanger monster that we'll be getting so very little of in this season.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jan 15, 2016 15:04:09 GMT
MMPR Season 2 Episode 17: White Light Part 1
Attempted Surprise Party Results in Electrocution and Kidnapping Cult Formed Around Flying Space Dumpster
Before we get going with today's episode I wanted to plug a really cool event happening tomorrow evening. Phil from Noiseless Chatter will be hosting a stream of 7 awful Christmas specials. Meanwhile, you in the audience will get to make fun of how goddamned terrible they are. You'll also have an opportunity to donate to the Trevor Project, a charity that helps at-risk LGBTQ youths. I can't put into words how much of a good time it is, so see for yourself! Just go to Noiseless Chatter a little before 8 PM EST tomorrow night and you'll get all the hot deets to enjoy yourselves one heck of a Christmas stream. Good luck. We're all counting on you.
I hope you good people are ready, because this is when Season 2 starts to shake things up. While last week's episode was filled to the brim with questionable content, this week is going to rectify that by putting what you want front and center. Just to put your mind at ease and remind yourself that you're tuning into this show for a reason.
Because the very first scene is one with Bulk and Skull. That's how you let people know you mean business.
Our story begins with Bulk and Skull storming into the Youth Center and demanding to know where their sandwiches are. Skull snaps his fingers at nobody in particular as if that would speed up the process and get him his meal as soon as sandwichly possible. Trini asks what these two human-pig hybrids get out of being so goddamned rude. Billy takes her by the collar and reminds her that she's the one who has the gall to loudly interrupt anyone and everyone with her ceaseless prattling and he's had just about enough of her goddamned yammering.
Bulk informs Billy and Trini that he and Skull are going to discover who the Power Rangers really are this season, in case they managed to forget that the last 15 times they were told. Billy then rubs Trini's shoulder and says it's nice to see a couple going out and having a beautiful afternoon together. Trini gently adjusts her shoulder to knock Billy's hand off as she tells Richie he's looking handsome today. Billy solemnly sighs and decides it's time to invent a fleshlight.
Richie gives Bulk and Skull some sandwiches, topped off with a nice batch of saliva sauce. Forget those bozos though, Kimberly comes running in and says she has fantastic news. Oh gee, what do you think Kimberly "Tommy" Hart has to be excited about today? Is it that she did some gymnastics thing? Is it that her parents are still divorced? No of course not, it's that Tommy mailed her a letter and said he's coming home at the end of the week. Oh boy, I can't stop feverishly jerking off at this exciting news. It feels like it's only been three episodes since we last saw Tommy, and only one episode since we last mentioned him. I was really starting to get antsy.
Lord Zedd eavesdrops on the Ranger Teens and cackles when he learns they're planning a surprise party for Tommy. Well he's got a surprise in store too; he's going to give the former Green Ranger his final moments. It's embarrassing how badly this show is bending over backwards to make Tommy the focal point when Lord Zedd, the guy with a sworn vendetta against the Power Rangers, is pinpointing someone who is no longer a Ranger. You know what undercuts the big dramatic moment where Tommy loses all of his powers? Acting like he's still the key component holding together your Ranger team.
In Angel Grove Park, Zack and Jason play football with Curtis. Not because they want to, but because the only thing Haim Saban could get Austin St. John and Walter Jones to film was a friendly game of ball on a beautiful day in the park. Kimberly, Trini, and Billy come up to the guys and tell them Tommy's coming home soon so they better get ready to be shoved in the background again. Zack offers up an unenthusiastic and clearly dubbed-in "Yeah!" It appears Walter Jones was just as happy as I am that the show will continue to be focusing on Tommy and his karate escapades.
Inside of the Command Center, Zordon and Alpha 5 discuss a secret mission they must soon embark on, and that this silence in Angel Grove would indicate it's a perfect time to do so. While I'd usually assume Zordon is working on a top-secret cake for Tommy's surprise party, that can't be the case since Zordon has no working arms. So whatever they actually have planned must really be special.
Instead, Zordon and Alpha transport themselves into some kind of hidden chamber as the rest of the Command Center shuts itself off completely. This probably isn't something you'd want to do when you're the leader of a squadron of teenage death merchants who routinely slaughter aliens in your name. It might not have hurt to leave a note, that's all I'm saying.
Back at Zedd's palace, the big red cheese senses there's a weakness in the "Morphing Grid." A concept that even a turbonerd like me still doesn't grasp fully. Thank God I've rectified that by not giving a shit about the slapdash lore that barely stitches together this mishmash of a baby karate show. Which is why I've decided to obsessively compile information about it week after week all while ignoring interaction with real-life human beings.
Zedd describes the Morphing Grid as a constant struggle in the balance between himself and Zordon. A conceit that is essentially begging to be made untrue with later seasons. Also a fact that implies whoever writes this show has seen Star Wars a couple of times. It's a pretty cool idea that helps explain why the Power Rangers get to bust out new toys whenever some villain is trashing them hardcore, though at this point I'm more surprised Zedd hasn't been awarded some sympathy wins for how bad his side is losing this fight.
Sensing that Zordon's presence in the Morphing Grid has weakened, Zedd declares this the moment he's going to claim victory. He'll nab Tommy and finish off the Rangers by creating a monster the likes they've never seen before. Oh let me guess, is it going to be themed around an inanimate object and created from a statue?
Does a fist count as inanimate? Judges?
Zedd promises this fist thing is going to blow everybody's mind, but until then he needs to prep Tommy to become the heir to his evil throne. Ugh. Of course. Because Tommy is so extra special to everyone, even the fucking villain who spent the first two weeks of this season wiping that little green booger off the map. At least in Season 1 the other Rangers got to do something. Now that we're in Season 2 everyone has to stand around asking each other "Where's Tommy?"
Thankfully, the only people who aren't obsessing over Tommy are enjoying each other's company. Bulk and Skull are sitting out in the park scoping out clues for Ranger related activity. Bulk's highly sophisticated method of observation for the supernatural is as follows: Hold up a telescope and rotate your head 45 degrees and back every couple of seconds. I don't know if I'm asking too much, but at some point I really want a scene of Bulk and Skull detailing how they expect these schemes to pan out. I want Bulk to excitedly explain how he expects to uncover the Ranger's secret identities' with a robotic pig snout.
Skull tempts fate and allows for lazy writing by asking his heterosexual life-partner why they can't just receive some sign to let them know they're on the right track. Two seconds after making this statement, a small orb of yellow energy strikes the Earth and causes an explosion roughly thirty feet from the boys. God willing it's not some kind of gentle alien like ALF, cause if Bulk and Skull find one of those things it's getting beaten to death before it can tell anyone about how much it loves eating cats.
Curtis and all the characters you actually tune in to watch and also Trini hear the explosion as well, to which Curtis poorly recites a line in an attempt to endear himself to the viewers who will forget him as soon as he's out of frame. Billy and Jason tell everyone not to worry about the sounds of intergalactic explosions and to resume playing football while they take a look at what's going on.
Before any of the characters get a chance to see what's landed, we in the audience see the crash site. At its epicenter lies a familiar looking trash can, and just as you connect the pieces in your own mind, we get to see just who's waiting inside.
Rita's only way to cope with her fate was hotboxing across the galaxy.
Bulk and Skull rush over to the dumpster and immediately assume that this piece of flying space debris is a clear sign that they're about to find the Power Rangers. Skull tells Bulk this thing looks less like an artifact from the furthest reaches of the galaxy, and more like the place his foster parents found him. Bulk tells him to clam up as Skull puts his ear on the dumpster, causing the young man to recoil as it burns his ear. Of all the times I expected Power Rangers to include a drop of realism in its space physics, I never imagined it would be in a scene with the comic relief bullies handling a shooting star dumpster.
To cope with the horrific heat caused by untold speeds of blazing hot space travel, Skull picks up the trash bin with his gloves and bingo. Problem solved. The flesh searing heat caused by the dumpster hurtling through space just needed some gloves to pick it up. It's exactly like getting a pizza out of the oven, you really need some kind of cooling pad when handling your trash from deep out in the cosmos.
While Bulk and Skull take Rita's space dumpster to Skull Sr.'s "workshop", Billy and Jason show up just in time to see the point of impact. Billy tries fiddling with the crater that was left by Rita's dumpster, as it's the closest hole he's been able to get his fingers next to in months. Billy lightly burns his hand as he approaches the crater, as the young scientist comes to terms with the fact that there is a God, and his entire existence is dedicated to cockblocking him. In a world filled with floating heads, cyborg slaves, dinosaur robots, dog monsters, and juice bars, there is an omnipotent being who will guarantee Billy dies fuckless.
Zack continues playing football with his pals, only for the ball to land right underneath that fist statue Zedd zapped earlier. Zack notices something appears to be slightly off with the statue, primarily the fact it's doing this.
That's why you don't make your statues out of GAK.
Upon seeing this disgusting secret of the ooze, Zack's only response is "Huh. Major funky." That's how black people talk right? Well I already wrote it on the script so it's not going anywhere. Fuck you.
Zack calls off the football game and takes Trini and Kimberly to see Lord Zedd's shitty science project. Trini asks why the Sentinel Statue looks like it's vomiting up its own innards, as we in the audience see a small face-like protrusion growing out of the back of the statue. Zack hedges his bets and assumes this statue sweating green pus might not be on the up and up, so he buzzes Zordon and asks what the hell is going on. Unfortunately Zordon is busy hanging up banners for Tommy's surprise party or whatever, so he doesn't have time to help his indentured servants with Zedd's devil magic. Sorry guys, you'll have to figure out "The Mystery of the Melting Statue" on your own.
Zack tells Billy and Jason to teleport to the statue pronto. Before Billy is able to look over the statue in further detail, Zedd sends down some Z-Putties to keep them from nosing around in his business. The Putties descend on our heroes and attack while we get some Ron Wasserman rock to highlight their clay-asses getting beat. Good thing it's playing too, because it helps distract from Jason, Zack, and Trini's obvious stand-in voice actors dubbing their battle grunts. Thankfully Trini's voice isn't quite as racist as before, but it still sounds like your grandmother attempting to imitate Mulan. It's gross, but not Jeff Dunham gross.
While a lot of these Putty fights blend together, this one feels a little more special. It seems like it's been ages since all five unmorphed Ranger Teens fought together. Either Trini is off with her grandmother, Jason is fishing with his uncle, or Zack is demanding to know who wrote the line "major funky" into his script. It's nice to see all five of them together, and it's a shame that's become so rare lately. A selling point of the show should be all the heroes fighting side by side. Instead we have to keep our fingers crossed we'll get more than half the team to show up. It's also nice to see Zack bust out moves like this during the fight.
Zack Power Rangers gif Or he might just have a bug on his shoulder.
The Ranger Teens put down the Putties before coming to the absurd conclusion that something fishy appears to be going on. Zordon and Alpha are MIA, a statue is leaking sludge, and nobody has mentioned Tommy in the last 16 seconds. Clearly the work of space goblins is afoot.
Meanwhile, Bulk and Skull take Rita's dumpster into Skull Sr.'s shop, which is filled to the brim with assorted tools, candles, clamps, ball gags, human pony harnesses, fisting slings, and wrenches. Anything that you would find in 50 Shades of Goldar really. The two living, breathing examples of schadenfreude believe that the minute they open this space garbage can, the secrets of the Power Rangers will be revealed to them at long last.
Now far be it from me to question the intelligence of two towering intellects such as Bulk and Skull, but why are they assuming a literal piece of space trash is going to answer their burning questions? For all you know that thing could be filled with intergalactic horse porn some Martian didn't want the space-feds snooping around. You two clowns should stop reading The Secret and take a class in probability.
The Ranger Teens become concerned that mack daddy Z isn't returning any of their calls, so they teleport into the Command Center instead of examining the Sentinel Statue any further. Not that big of a deal though, there isn't anything suspicious they would find on that oozing fist statue anyway.
Unless they were looking for glowing Halloween masks
For as interesting as all of this stuff is, I'm sure we all have a burning question right now. Just where is Tommy and what is he up to? Don't you worry dear readers, Power Rangers anticipated your ludicrous attention span and jammed in a scene of him for just such an occasion. We get to watch Tommy swimming, or as he calls it, "Water Karate" out in a lake somewhere. As soon as he gets out of the water and runs on shore, he's struck by a surge of bad special effects electricity. Tommy grunts and struggles before he vanishes in a beam of white light. HEY! THAT'S THE NAME OF THE EPISODE!!!
As the Ranger Teens transport into the Command Center, they find that it's completely pitch-black with no sign of Alpha 5 or Zordon. This close to Christmas it's entirely possible Alpha is busy kidnapping children and forcing them to sing with him in some slave labor camps, but that doesn't explain why all the lights are off. The teens are perplexed as to why their owners would ditch town without notifying them first, and assume maybe Zordon finally got nailed for his collection of intergalactic horse porn.
Billy tells everyone he's the only character that can make sense of this vague nonsense, so they'll need to reconvene at his lab to analyze the Command Center's data. Also when they get there Trini has to sit in the chair across from him, and she has to have her hair so close he could smell it too. Cause if she doesn't then the science won't work right.
Inside of his garage, Billy tries to analyze data with his computer the same way everyone did in the 90's; by awkwardly slapping his fingers against all of the keys while hoping nobody in the audience knows how to use a keyboard. Billy explains that the Command Center data indicates a hidden door of light somewhere inside, which is likely where Alpha and Zordon disappeared to. I mean if that hidden door shit doesn't pan out then it's probably not going to be too tricky to find Zordon. Ask anybody if they've seen a giant head being wheelbarrowed around by his robotic slave.
Zedd realizes there's only five minutes left in the episode and fires energy at the Sentinel Statue to finalize the creation of his monster: Nimrod the Scarlet Sentinel. Nimrod's advent shakes the Ranger Teens inside of Billy's lab, and they realize it's time to get dangerous. Zordon or no Zordon. The Rangers Teens morph and find themselves face to face with Nimrod.
Was this bitch made out of a hot dog bun?
Nimrod appears and informs the Rangers that they don't stand a chance against her. Well of course they don't, she's over in Dairanger footage where they can't lay a finger on her. She blasts the Rangers with energy from her staff and leaves them ready to get their asses fried on the mountainside.
With our heroes on the ropes, Lord Zedd tosses Nimrod one of his Growth Bombs. The Rangers call upon their Thunderzords to battle Nimrod, only for the monster to summon two other creatures she refers to as AC and DC. This Nimrod chick is a cheating fuck, monster's don't get to summon more monsters. What a crock of shit.
Gun to my head I could not tell you which is AC and which is DC
The three monsters fire multiple energy blasts that easily overwhelm the Thunder Megazord. It's an incredibly lame blue-ball of a fight to be honest. All of that super cool Thunderzord formation and the Megazord gets blasted into submission in about 15 seconds. It's almost like this whole fight scene was abruptly done to cover up the fact that Nimrod doesn't have any footage where she battles the Thunder Megazord. But that's…no wait…that sounds about right.
While the Thunder Megazord is swarmed with energy blasts, Billy tells his comrades he's hightailing it back to the Command Center. He offers no explanation why, or justification for his action, he just does it. It's not like Zordon's there to ask for help, what do you think you're going to find there Billy? Oh right, you're going to find a safe haven where you won't get murdered by monsters. Way to be a team player. Asshole.
During the Ranger's danger, Bulk and Skull continue to try their best to open up Rita's dumpster. What would normally be a throwaway scene of these two hammering on some piece of shit prop is somehow handled much more professionally than anything else on this show. First and foremost, Bulk and Skull are given a bit of comical filth on their clothing and faces to imply they've been trying to bust Rita out for a while now.
What also makes me laugh is Bulk's choice of tool to open up Rita's canister. This is only the second time we as the audience have seen them attempting to break it open, and Bulk has gone from a drill to a chainsaw to hack open that goddamned thing. Say what you want about these two, but when it comes to mindlessly wrecking something they do their job well.
Another nice touch is while the boys are drilling into the dumpster, we occasionally cut to the inside of the can where Rita is holding her ears and freaking the fuck out. Usually that doesn't seem like it'd be that entertaining, but there's something charming about this galactic empress being put into a miserable situation because of how stupid Bulk and Skull are.
Now that Billy is safely out of the way of any and all danger, he wanders around the Command Center. Billy looks for Alpha and Zordon, ready to give them the bad news that the other four Rangers died in battle after he heroically escaped from Nimrod. Billy says out-loud to the nobody that's there, "I know you must have a good reason for disappearing like this." Jesus. That is some textbook "fell into the doorknob" rationalization Billy. Cut your losses and realize these two don't give a shit about you.
Billy fiddles with a control panel, which manifests the door of light that Alpha walked through earlier. As Billy walks into the light, he tumbles and falls through a ridiculous looking void of white lights. Upon landing, Billy hears Alpha and Zordon's voices somewhere nearby as they babble about a bunch of meaningless made-up science jargon. Naturally Billy can't keep himself away from made-up science bullshit, so he sneaks forward to find a grate in the floor. Once Billy peers inside, he discovers Zordon and Alpha 5 are working on something a bit more intricate than a pin the tail on the donkey game for Tommy's party.
Well fuck my mouth.
TO BE CONTINUED
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: GAK
Personal Thoughts
I gotta say this is a damn fine episode. While that new Ranger reveal is shoehorned in literally last minute for a cliffhanger ending, I can't deny it's a charming way to entice viewers to tune in next week. There really isn't one piece of this episode that doesn't fit, and everything feels like it's building to some kind of mystery. It's pretty exciting stuff for a show this simple.
I find the sub-plot with Rita's dumpster crash landing on Earth to be pretty interesting. It seems like the writers knew they wanted to keep her around in the minds of the audience even if they weren't entirely sure what to do with her yet. I appreciate that the Power Rangers didn't toss the concept of Rita Repulsa in the garbage when they threw her character in there. This is the first indication that we're not quite done with her, and that's a welcome change.
Keeping Rita around makes the universe of Power Rangers feel a lot more dynamic than it would if she was promptly ignored forever after Lord Zedd took command. Also interesting to note is this wasn't the first time Rita was supposed to reappear in Season 2. There was a scene scripted in "Putty on the Brain" where Zordon and Alpha would see Rita flying around on the Viewing Globe. Personally I'm glad that was excised in favor of saving her return for this episode. It would feel weird to see her banished by Zedd only to have her reappear two episodes later.
Today's monster is an exercise on how to make a limited amount of footage work for your television program for infants. We don't spend a lot of time on Nimrod blowing shit up, but instead make a big deal about the process of her creation. We get cool scenes like her face emerging from the back of the statue, slime chunks falling off of the statue, and that hilarious moment where her eyes open from underneath that mask. Shit looks like they took it from a Goosebumps episode. Though I will admit, that shitty looking alien mask looks close enough to Nimrod's actual face to pass. Not bad guys, for real this time.
There's also a nice bit of footage editing when Zedd completes Nimrod. He blasts the Sentinel Statue in U.S. footage with energy, and the editor superimposes a Dairanger shot of Nimrod on top of the statue to indicate her emergence. It doesn't look flawless by any means, but it's serviceable enough that it gets the job done.
Another impressive thing that the Power Rangers crew managed to pull off was staging a rather acceptable battle with Nimrod and the Rangers. I constantly mention how bad the Dairanger splice battles look, but this week's fight was done a little more intelligently. By no means am I going to say it looked great, but the editor gave us some kind of fight to enjoy.
All I want is for them to try and make a fight scene happen. Is that so much to ask? I'll even tolerate it if it looks like this.
Where'd that Blade Blaster come from Zack?
The only tragedy is that Nimrod's Zord fight is so fucking awful. It's her and her comrades firing energy balls looped a couple times before the Thunder Megazord falls over. That is some lamegator nonsense. Thankfully the Zord fight doesn't last long enough to overstay its shitty welcome, and we get a decent enough ground battle to counterbalance it.
That's all for this week, but I wanted to thank you all very much for reading. Whether you've read from the first post to now or you're just joining me, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Please have a beautiful holiday and spend that time with those you love most. Also if they remember Power Rangers you can read this to them. If not then you should get them a quilt or something instead.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jan 15, 2016 15:04:35 GMT
MMPR Season 2 Episode 18: White Light Part 2
Talking Sword Provides Insufficient Backup Other Five Characters Stop Mattering For Remainder of Series
On last week's episode of Power Rangers, Zordon ditched town and left the Ranger Teens on their own to fight Lord Zedd's Nimrod monster. While the Rangers were swiftly beaten, Bulk and Skull discovered the space dumpster containing Rita Repulsa and were trying desperately to open it. After Nimrod blasted the Thunder Megazord, Billy retreated back to the Command Center and stumbled upon Zordon secretly creating a new Ranger. Hopefully it's one that keeps their nose out of other people's goddamn business.
Billy continues looking at this new Ranger with googly-eyes and decides it's time to go see what his teammates are up to. Oh they're probably where you left 'em Billy. Getting electrocuted to death by a giant hot dog space monster.
Lord Zedd gloats to Goldar that Nimrod is decimating the Rangers, but Goldar informs his master that the Rangers have retreated off-screen. What a stunning conclusion to a hook from last week's episode. "Oh no! The Rangers are in danger. The monster will surely end their lives and destroy the heroes this planet holds dear without a second though. Wait, they're safe now. Nevermind." Way to keep the kids on their feet Power Rangers.
The Ranger Teens regroup at Billy's garage where Billy blathers endlessly about the technical details it took to find Zordon's secret magic door. Kimberly, acting as a surrogate for the audience, asks Billy if he could stop speaking thesaurus and cut to the chase. Billy stutters and cums when he realizes a woman just talked to him, but he somehow manages to stammer out the words "new Ranger."
Jason utters out a flat "What", because this show won't fork over a couple extra bucks so that's the best they're getting out of One-Take St. John. The rest of the Ranger Teens ask Billy rapid-fire questions about this new Ranger, but Billy tells them he doesn't know anything more about the situation outside of made-up science bullshit. Kimberly pointedly asks if Billy knows who this new Ranger is, and if his name rhymes with Salami. She starts whining that this new Ranger deserves to be Tommy, because she likes him and her character is the one who says the word "Tommy" then ceases speaking. Unlike a certain blabbermouth on the team.
Jason tells his friends to chill out, because Zordon would never yank them around just to be a dick. I mean he wouldn't do that again, after all those times he did it before. Billy thinks that a new Ranger is exactly what their team needs. He claims Lord Zedd's monsters have been significantly stronger than Rita's, which will become true if we keep saying it instead of showcasing impressive monsters.
While some new loser is added to a team of other losers, the world's biggest two losers are trying to open a big trash can. Bulk sobs that he and Skull have tried everything, but they can't get this damn thing open. Skull says he's got a plan that's so stupid, it's guaranteed to work. The two rush off to Ernie's Juice Bar to ask for one of his most profitable investments: A group of Dominican laborers who work for blankets and fruit.
Inside of the Command Center, Alpha brings the power back on and summons the Ranger Teens. As soon as they arrive, Zordon announces that today promises an exciting new change for the Power Rangers. Oh boy! I hope another boring white guy is going to be joining our team!
Zordon reminds us for the fourth consecutive week since it's happened that the Green Ranger's powers were exhausted in his battles with Lord Zedd. After those powers were depleted, a candidate was selected in order to fill the void that he had left, and take on the mantle of the newest Ranger. Now introducing: The White Ranger.
White Ranger GIF Subtle
Zordon declares that the White Ranger may now take this opportunity to reveal his identity. In an admittedly well-shot scene, the White Ranger unbuckles his helmet and shows himself to the onlooking Ranger Teens. All the audience can see before we cut to commercial are the Ranger Teens reactions, ending in Kimberly fainting.
So who is it? Who could this brand new White Ranger possibly be? Could it be Richie? The guy I've purposefully avoided making images of ever since he first showed up? Is it Curtis? The actor who couldn't convincingly yell the word "Whoa!" when a camera's in front of his face? Is it the one character that we haven't stopped talking about since he last showed up and whose actor hasn't been removed from the opening credits even though he hasn't been on-screen?
You're a good guesser!
The four conscious Ranger Teens applaud Tommy's new suit and become ecstatic to see their old pal back on the team. Tommy smiles and gives them a warm "Guess who's back?" It's a genuinely nice moment where we get to see the Ranger Teens acting like friends towards Tommy. It's significantly more natural seeing friendships acted out on-screen than being reminded of them through repetitive dialogue. It'd been so long since we saw the other Rangers enjoying Tommy's company that I forgot what that looked like. This "show don't tell" stuff is paying off in spades guys, maybe we should keep it up!
Seeing that his girlfriend appears to be bleeding out on the floor from a concussion, Tommy decides to see if she's doing okay. He lifts up the passed-out Kimberly's head and tells her it's time to wake up so he can talk to her about karate. She hugs him tight now that she realizes he'll never leave her, or this franchise, again.
Then all that wind gets sucked directly out of my sails when reality comes knocking.
Zordon proudly inquires if the Rangers are pleased with the new leader of their team. Then the camera cuts to Jason with a big dumb grin on his face as he responds "This is great!" Man good on you Jase, you reacted really well to having your position usurped.
So why is this so annoying? Well I've previously mentioned that Austin St. John, Jason's actor, was having a lot of behind the scenes issues with Saban Productions during filming. He, along with Walter Jones and Thuy Trang, were requesting a pay increase because this show was making infinity dollars. Once those requests weren't met, the actors stopped showing up on set to do additional dialogue recording, which is why we've been getting those obnoxious attempts at people matching these characters' voices during morphed battles.
Zordon's lines, as well as the lines of any costumed character, were performed at a later date than the actual footage we're seeing was filmed. That means that by the time this line was recorded, the show already knew that Zack, Jason, and Trini weren't going to be sticking around much longer. This means that Zordon's lines could be changed from what was scripted or what was originally intended to be said during the Command Center scenes.
Ultimately what this results in is a scene of Zordon saying something that's a total dig at Jason getting replaced by an actor who didn't ask for more money, and Jason's reaction is to excitedly talk about how great that is. It's spitting in Austin St. John's face completely arbitrarily, just because you know he's going to be quitting so fuck him. You may as well have had Zordon say "Tommy is now the new leader of the Power Rangers since the previous leader smells like sweaty balls and dickcheese", and then cut to Jason smiling. It's really petty and lame and totally takes me out of the moment of Tommy's emergence as the White Ranger.
Anyways, Jason's losing 10 grand off his annual paycheck and he couldn't be happier.
The biggest smile minimum wage could buy.
Zordon mumbles out an apology for being secretive, and says he needed to protect from Zedd's interference. Which is the exact same thing he would have said at the Ranger Teens' eulogies if Nimrod had murdered them all. That or it's an attempt to handwave Zordon keeping the Rangers in the dark to increase tension.
Kimberly asks how the only man she would ever bang in front of Billy got his powers back after Zedd sapped them all. Alpha reminds her that only the Green Ranger's powers were gone for good, not Tommy's. Zordon takes some more time to fellate Tommy while explaining that the White Ranger's powers were created by the power of good, and can never be taken away. At least not until other powers prove more profitable.
Alpha announces that Tommy's White Tigerzord is now ready for battle. Tommy's new weapon, an enchanted saber by the name of Saba, will help him pilot this powerful new Zord. Obviously he's going to need help piloting a Zord, Tommy's spent the last season blowing on a flute while a dragon did all the dirty work for him.
Saba If I told you that this thing could talk would you think I was full of shit?
While Tommy gets a bunch of new toys you should go beg your parents to buy you right away, Bulk and Skull uncover their trump card in opening Rita's dumpster; a comically oversized can-opener. What in Christ's name was Ernie using that thing for? Opening giant cans of dog food for his Juice Bar Smoothies? It's literally so big that two adult sized human beings are required to operate it. What does he have this thing sitting around for? Every single answer I can think of ends up in him using it to crack the skulls of nosy members of the FDA.
Zordon alerts the Rangers that Nimrod the Scarlet Sentinel is back in the city causing mayhem. Unfortunately the Thunderzords were heavily damaged in the last battle, apparently. Alpha alerts the Ranger Teens that Bulk and Skull are just about to crack open Rita's dumpster. To which I respond, "So?" What the fuck is she going to do? You think even if Bulk and Skull ask her who the Rangers are she's going to bother answering them? Based on previous experiences with Rita I assume she will say something about having a headache and then loudly scream at them for being losers. Why is the show acting like this is going to be what finally reveals the Rangers' hidden identities?
Zordon sends Billy and Trini to repair the Zords while shipping Jason, Kim, and Zack off to stop Bulk and Skull from unsealing Rita's dumpster. This only leaves Tommy left to combat the Nimrod monster and, conveniently, show off all his cool new gadgets.
The four Rangers morph, as Pink, Red, and Black run into Z-Putties who appear to be searching for Rita as well. As those three prepare to fight, Tommy lands in a quarry and sees Nimrod ready to battle. Saba, out of absolutely nowhere, begins speaking and informs the White Ranger to activate his Tigerzord. Also please don't pay attention to the fact that he's a talking goddamned sword.
White Tigerzord GIF In the world of Power Rangers, a tiger is much cooler than a dragon
While the Tigerzord struts its stuff, we hear a "new" piece of Ron Wasserman music: Go White Ranger. A piece I can't even find on Youtube because it's very obviously just Go Green Ranger with the word Green replaced with White, though I can't deny it remains as catchy as it did the first time we heard it.
Tommy leaps around childishly when he sees his new Zord in motion. Unfortunately since its owner is a dumbass, the Tigerzord leaps into a rock formation, which gives way and causes the massive Zord to topple over and crash. Tommy blames Saba for not informing him that a big thing can't stand on a little thing without falling down. Saba retorts that he's a goddamned talking sword, how the fuck was he supposed to know any of this shit?
Out of nowhere, Tommy leaps onto the Tigerzord and stands atop its head before ordering it to charge into battle. Nimrod blasts at Tommy and the Tigerzord, but the new Zord is too fast and blitzes past her explosions. Realizing that maybe standing in the line of fire isn't such a good idea, Tommy gets inside the Tigerzord's cockpit. Once there, Tommy loads Saba into a slot inside the Tigerzord, which converts it into the Tigerzord Warrior Mode.
White Tigerzord Warrior Mode ....And a person is much cooler than a tiger?
While the White Tiger squares off against Nimrod, the recently demoted Jason kicks Putty ass alongside Zack and Kimberly. Since the Putties aren't particularly intelligent, they try and stop our mighty heroes by throwing cardboard boxes at them. This leads to an impressive display of karate when the Red Ranger kicks a box at a Putty, causing him to fall from a tower. Sometimes you see things in life you never dreamed of, and that's what you needed to see most.
The White Ranger takes a small glass orb from behind him in the Tigerzord cockpit and loads it into his Zord. This orb causes the Tigerzord Warrior Mode to unleash a huge fireball from its chest, which Tommy calls the "White Tiger Thunderbolt." Goes to show you no matter how many fancy suits you put Tommy in, he's still a total fucking dope.
Nimrod refuses to admit defeat and summons forth AC and DC to help her battle this new Zord. The three monsters manhandle the White Tigerzord and bombard it with energy blasts. Nimrod and her companions' attacks send the Tigerzord reeling, and knock Tommy out of the cockpit. Tommy tells Saba to contact Jason right away, which is what any good leader would do. Contact the guy they replaced and beg him for help.
Jason arrives and summons his Red Dragon Thunderzord to help Tommy. The Red Dragon Warrior Mode forms and mounts the White Tigerzord as a steed. Red Dragon thrusts its staff forward and stabs at AC, DC, and Nimrod, sending all three down to the dirt. On the White Ranger's command, Red Dragon dismounts from his Zord. Tigerzord changes back into Warrior Mode before the other four Thunderzords arrive and fuse with his Zord. This creates the Tigerzord in Battle M-oh…oh my mistake. It's actually called the Megatigerzord!
Megatigerzord GIF There's no mightier weapon than a bird stapled to your arm.
Nimrod and her cronies stand in fear of this new set of toys before trying yet again to attack. Their combined energy blasts don't even slow the Megatigerzord's roll as he struts into battle. AC and DC leap off their master's shoulders and attempt to strike the Megatigerzord. The two monsters get smacked backwards right into Nimrod, who immediately complains that they never do anything right. Well no shit they don't, they're lame-ass pseudo monsters that can't even talk. What did you expect them to do lady?
With Nimrod and her pals on the ropes, the Megatigerzord gears up its finishing move and finishes the trio off. What's his finisher? It's fucking awesome that's what it is.
That vector Firebird is the 90'sist thing imaginable.
Back inside Skull Sr.'s garage, the bullies stop trying to open the dumpster before slumping to the floor. They realize that no matter what oversized prop they use on this stupid thing, it ain't opening. Bulk and Skull contemplate suicide after this glorious failure, but before they're able to pull the trigger, Rita escapes from her miniature dungeon and announces herself to the boys.
Bulk and Skull turn around to see Rita bitching at them. As soon as they realize a toy-sized witch is in front of them, they do their best Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy impression and pass out. Rita responds, "Just what I need. A human Squatt and Baboo." Which is easily one of the best lines we've had all Season.
Before Rita can unleash all sorts of unholy microscopic terror, the Power Rangers appear and shove her back in the dumpster. She screams about these same six assholes always ruining her day, but it doesn't matter. She's unceremoniously sealed up once again. Phew. Glad we got rid of that…threat? Whatever.
Tommy, Zack, Billy, and Jason take Rita's dumpster out in the middle of nowhere and Zordon has Alpha zap it with an energy beam. The force from Alpha's beam blasts Rita's can deep into space where she will never be heard from again. Probably. Man this plot stops feeling necessary when you realize it's solved in 25 seconds.
Trini and Kimberly come back to the garage and wake up Bulk and Skull. The two numbskulls beg the girls not to look behind them or they'll get attacked by a spooky little witch. The girls mock them for believing something that actually happened until Bulk and Skull see that both Rita and her dumpster have vanished. Instead of realizing how suspicious this entire scenario is, Bulk and Skull assume this must be a case of their "Stupid as Shit Disorder" flaring up, and accept that their lives are a cosmic joke.
The Ranger Teens celebrate Tommy's return with a round of frosty chocolate milkshakes at the Juice Bar. Tommy thanks them for the surprise party, but Jason says Tommy had a much more impressive surprise. Yeah, it was pretty impressive when Tommy threw a Ranger coup and removed you from power. We let you back on the team for one episode and this is what you do Tommy? Get bent.
Richie and Curtis come in to remind the audience that they're officially done being the shittiest red herrings in history. Richie mentions a karate trophy he won this afternoon, which is a bigger waste of this episode's time than having Billy discuss sub-atomic nuclear fission.
The gang asks Richie to demonstrate some of his karate moves. While Ernie is walking a cake over from the counter, Richie awkwardly spin-kicks it directly out of Ernie's hands and…do you honestly even need me to tell you where it goes? There is not a single goddamned cake in the entire Power Rangers universe that will not end up smashed into the faces of Bulk and Skull. It is physically impossible for these two not to be splattered by some form of desert.
Tommy chuckles as he realizes he lives in a repetitive hellscape from which he will never escape. He will live through the same scenarios with minor differences between them every week until he mercifully dies. Perhaps his color will change, perhaps the monsters will vary, but no matter what, he will never break the shackles of being a Power Ranger. No matter what he wants in his future, Zordon has an iron grip on him. There's no way out. No peace. No happiness. Only karate until his hands bleed and Lord Zedd breaks his neck. If there is a God, he'll let that day be soon.
Your Weekly 90's Nostalgia: Giant Can Openers
Personal Thoughts
We're finally here everyone. The White Ranger. It's a moment I've been waiting for for quite some time because his inclusion in the series changes the whole game of Power Rangers. Is that a good thing? Eh. I guess we'll find out together. Though I apologize if my answer seems a bit premeditated. In the meantime, we can all agree that a new Ranger is still a pretty exciting dynamic. It's also nice that we finally have more ways to kill monsters than the Thunder Saber for the billionth time.
With regards to "White Light Part 2" as an episode, it's rather good. Excusing Power Rangers incredibly lazy resolution of cliffhangers, like the Megazord being damaged off-screen and then fixed off-screen later so don't worry about it. The Tigerzord is a cool new addition to the Rangers' arsenal and it gets an impressive debut against Nimrod. I may have dumped on it a bit, but I got a kick out of the sub-plot with Bulk and Skull unearthing Rita's dumpster. The resolution was lacking, but it was all worth it for "A human Squatt and Baboo." I'm not sure how, but Rita is starting to come around to become a character I actually want to see more of.
I wanted to mention a throwaway line from last week's episode that served as an attempt at a red herring this week. In Part 1, Lord Zedd mentioned bringing Tommy under the forces of evil to serve as an heir to his throne. Obviously nothing like this happened and it was only to keep the audience from realizing that it was Zordon abducting Tommy and not Zedd, but I appreciate that the writers at least tried to make it a mystery who the White Ranger would be. It doesn't really work, and the concept of a Ranger with a secret identity would be done significantly better two seasons down the road, but the fact that Power Rangers tried to keep the audience guessing is good enough for me.
The White Ranger serves as one of the few elements from Dairanger that Power Rangers will retain. In Dairanger, the White Ranger was their sixth Ranger, much like Green Ranger was in Zyuranger last season. The reason Tommy was acting like a giddy little kid when the Tigerzord first emerged was because in the Japanese version, the White Ranger actually was a kid. Not a precocious and interesting kid either, one of those awful kid characters that Japan loves who goes around flipping girls' skirts and grabbing girls' tits. No fucking thanks. For once, I'll stick with Tommy.
Though Nimrod, AC, and DC are gone for good, they were originally going to come back in a later episode where they would challenge the Rangers again. Not because there was anything particularly special about the monsters themselves, but because there were six episodes of footage revolving around these three characters, and we only used about two of 'em. Originally AC and DC had their own fights against the Dairangers, and one of them even fought the Thunder Megazord. None of that was used, likely because the show wanted to hurry up and get to the White Ranger stuff as soon as possible.
I'll conclude with a cool video that number one superhunk Jeff Pruitt posted on his Youtube channel. It features him observing the production of the Japanese episodes that were used to make this one. It's some interesting behind the scenes stuff that shows off how a Super Sentai series is made, and totally worth killing some time on. Enjoy, and see ya next year!
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