High Five, Teamwork and A Pressing Engagement Review

Hi all, I know its been over a week since I last posted, but I've had little chance to actually type up reviews, so please forgive me! Now on with the reviews of these three episodes:


High Five starts off with a nice scene at the juice bar, which shows off Jasons atheltic ability. Billy comes along and gives them their communicators, which have the famous bleep sound.You see Rita scheming, then sending a space shuttle to open a time trap to put the rangers in. It's good to see that she's actually trying to get rid of the rangers, which is something that will change in future episodes.Putties are sent, and Kimberly says to morph, which Jason denies, showing another reason he is leader; he actually listened to the rules of being a ranger that Zordon told them. Billy runs off and gets into a spot of bother, causing Trini to deal with her fear of heights to save them. There's some interesting fighting techniques used by Jason, Zack and Kimberly to finish off the putties, before Rita sends down her monster. They easily defeat the monster of the day, before Jason takes him on using the Tyranozord alone. Either this is a weak monster, or they just liked to use overkill in other episodes. All in all this is a decent filler episode that helps develop Trini, who becomes one of my favourite rangers.


Teamwork starts off with Trini and Kimberly campaining against a dumpsite. This is good as it shows the reason why Zordon chose them to become rangers since they are selfless, and want the best for other people. The others come along and see what they're up to, but turn down helping. The girls visit the dumpsite and Rita sends putties to ambush them. We then see Zack trying to teach apha to dance. Why Zordon allows this I'll never know. Rita sends the monster of the day and the male rangers go to fight him. Zords are callerd but they are pretty much innefective. Then Zordon calls the rangers back and gives them their power weapons (power axe, power bow, power daggers, power lance, power sword) and they finish the MOTD off with the combined blast. The male rangers then decide to help out with the petition, showing off their teamwork. The episode serves as a good introduction to their power weapons, which are shown to be powerful. I think they isolated the female rangers from the male to help draw female viewers in, since there were two female centric episodes straight after the pilot.


A Pressing Engagement is a Jason centric episode. It begins with him trying to break the bench press record, but prevented by a mishap with Kimberly and Zack. The three then go to fight one of the more famous Monster of the Day, King Sphinx. He flaps his wings (no literally) and sends Zack and Kimberly away so he can fight Jason alone. Zordon then releases the power crystals (which we have already seen them use in Zords somehow) so the other Rangers can find and help Jason. Then there is a big Megazord fight with King Sphinx and Goldar (he just loves it big) where we see that the Megazord mode is now  better than the Tank mode, which I'm putting down to the Power Crystals. To end the episode we see Jason being cheered on by his friends as he beats Bulk's record. I think this episode is the best so far, with a good plot to introduce the Power Crystals.

Power Rangers Samurai Megazord Review

I know that I said I would do the episodes, but I'm currently without the internet, so I can't watch them. So I thuoght I'd give you all a review of a toy instead!


In the box comes the Lion Folding Zord, Dragon Folding Zord, Bear Folding Zord, Ape Folding Zord, Turtle Folding Zord, the Samurai Sword, and a DVD with the first two epiosodes of MMPR on.


I will do a short review of each of the individual zords first, then an overall review of the megazord.

Lion Folding Zord

This zord is probably the best out of the bunch. Has good articulation for a simple zord, and the head is hidden quite well on his back. Looks badass.

Dragon Folding Zord

This is my least favourite. Has very limited articulation. The body just looks clunky and doesn't look very dragon-like or the picture above. The helmet for the Megazord is hidden away quite well. Also, when it is turned into the Megazords leg, it cannot stand on its own, needing the support of the rest of the Megazord, unlike the...

Bear Folding Zord

This zord has quite a charm, although it hasn't got much articulation, it still feels a really good zord. Like I previously mentioned, when it is a leg for the Megazord, this one can stand on its own in it's 'leg mode'.

Ape Folding Zord

I have indifferent feelings about this zord, I want to like it, but ultimately it has only arm movement, but looks good.

Turtle Folding Zord

This is probably my second favourite. It's really cute despite it's low articulation, and is the only one of the zords that can go into the original kanji.

The Megazord

I think the Megazord is of good quality. It looks almost exactly like in the show, the sword stays in the hands well, and looks cool. My only problem is that the sword is made of the same material as the mega mode ranger weapons, meaning it can easily bend, but the overall quality of the toy is really good.


One more point; the zords (apart from turtle) can no longer turn into their kanji modes. This, for me, doesn't lower the overall quality of the toy because you don't see much of the kanji mode in the show, but if you did see more of it I think I would have a problem with it.




[Images courtesy of The Morphing Grid Wiki]

MMPR Day of the Dumpster

Day of the Dumpster

My Day of the Dumpster review will be a bit longer than the other episodes due to it being the series opener, and storyline heavy compared to other episodes.

First of all, the theme tune; this is one song that almost anyone who was alive in the 90s can recognise, and I can think of only one song that comes close to being as recognisable (the Pokémon theme tune). It has so much energy, I can see why kids loved it so much at the time, there was very little with a rocky soundtrack, the only other show I can think of is X-men, which was another Wasserman creation.

It starts out in space, with the astronauts heading towards the dumpster. This dumpster seems alot easier to open than we will see later, in White Light, but I'll put that down to Zedd putting a lock on it or something before shooting it off that time.

There's not really a motive given for why Rita and crew want to conquer earth, but I suppose, like she says, it's because Earth is the nearest planet and it would just show her power.

We then cut to the rangers. Each shows off their athletic/martial art skills, apart from Billy, who shows his intelligence and quick learning. Then Bulk and Skull come in. Bulk has the best like delivery of the episode so far.

A couple of gripes I have with the episode is that the characters of Billy and Kimberly are both very stereotypical. Billy churns out nonsense that none of the others understand, apart from Trini, who acts as a translator. Kimberly is overly girly, but I suppose since that would appeal to a female audience, that is excusable. 

Also, Zordon asks Alpha to recruit five 'overbearing and over emotional humans'. I've never understood why these qualities were needed, and why he didn't just use the line that he says in the opening 'five teenagers with attitude'.

Rita then decides to attack the rangers as they are leaving the Command Center. Why they don't attack the Command Center head on more often is beyond me. During this scene you can see a shot that is used from the pilot, where they are in different clothes in a long distance shot.

Jason also shows some qualities as a leader in this episode, saying the the rangers are 'going to save the world' during a teleportation scene.

The background music provided by Ron Wasserman is also very apt and, like I said earlier, provides a lot of energy, which helps to engage the viewer more.

In the early episodes, the Zords go into Tank Mode before going into the main Megazord. This seems pointless, because, in this episode at least, the Tank Mode does more damage to Goldar than the Megazord. However, this could be due to the lack of the power crystals at this time (however they are seen when you get a cockpit shot).

Finally Zordon tells them the three commandments of being  a Power Ranger, which include a common criticism of Power Rangers; why don't they just go big straight away? This is because they cannot excede the force Rita uses against them, meaning they can't go into their Megazord straight away.

Overall, I think this is a very good opening episode for the series. The music is spot on, and although the acting leaves a lot to be desired, you can tell the characters are worthy of being Power Rangers.

Introduction

I thought a good way to start this blog would be to write out the things I plan to do with the blog and a little about myself.


I am an eighteen year old male that lives in England. I have been a fan of Power Rangers for as long as I can remember. There's also a very embarassing video of me dancing to the original theme song from my first Christmas.


My first aim is to provide interesting insights on everything to do with Power Rangers. This may extend to Super Sentai also, but since Gokaiger is the first Sentai I have watched, my knowledge is limited. I intend to start this by reviewing season one of MMPR. I will do the reviews in story arcs, or groups of around five episodes at a time. I'll do this to maximise the review of the episodes that contribute to the story, whilst also not leaving out good filler episodes.


And with that, I'll end my first post!


May the power protect you, always.