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crack_van2010-08-01 09:34 am
second-batgirl.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2010-08-01 09:34 am
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Fandom Overview: Power Rangers
Hi! I'm TSB, and I volunteered to rec Power Rangers this month. I'll be trying to give a pretty broad overview of the first 4 1/2 seasons but knowing me, a bunch of the recs will probably center around Adam.
So!
Power Rangers. A bunch of teenagers in spandex fighting aliens. You probably watched it, admit it. And then [insert Ranger here] left the show and you quit watching.
Well, it ran for seventeen seasons, and season 18 starts filming soon. There are nearly 100 major characters, and each season brings us at least five additional Rangers. And it all (pretty much) shares the same continuity. I'm mostly going to concentrate on the first four 1/2 seasons, but expect spoilers for all of the Zordon era (first six seasons), Forever Red (the 10th anniversary team-up), Dino Thunder (season 12, also starring Tommy), and Once a Ranger (the 15th anniversary team-up).
(Image heavy overview under the cut)
The backstory
Rita. Space Sorceress. Sealed in a can for 10,000 years. Trying to conquer Earth. Has a lot of headaches.
Zordon. Giant floating head. Also sealed in a tube. Recruits team of teenagers to fight Rita.
The Rangers
Jason
The first Red Ranger and leader of the team. Jason is a jock, martial arts instructor, and also has really nice arms. As he is a Red Ranger, he loses his shirt a lot. He leaves the Rangers midway through season 2 tojoin Torchwood go to the World Peace Conference. He later returns during Zeo (season 4) as the Gold Ranger. He loses his powers again, and then is briefly turned evil in the Turbo movie. We last see him in Forever Red, where he is snarking at the newbies. Jason is shipped with everyone, but mostly Tommy, Billy or Kat.
Actor note: It was at one point rumored that his actor had been in gay porn. This rumor turned out to be false, but it is one of the things that most people bring up when you mention you watch Power Rangers.
Trini
The first yellow Ranger. Trini actually had the weakest characterization of all the original Rangers. We know she's a peacemaker and an enviromentalist, and she's smart enough to translate Billy. That's... about all, so people feel free to write her as they will, often as the glue that holds them all together. She also leaves for the Peace Conference. We never see her again. She is mostly shipped with Billy.
Billy
Billy is the geek and blue Ranger. He's smart, speaks with such a large and high level vocabulary that he needs Trini to translate him, and builds most of the Rangers' tech. He starts by getting beaten up a lot, but gains confidence (and a better wardrobe) as the series progresses. He loses his powers at the end of season 3, but stays on through most of season 4 as just the tech guy, before moving to marry a fish alien, even though he is scared of fish. No, really. He is most often shipped with Trini or Jason.
Kimberly
Kim is my favorite of the original Rangers. The first Pink Ranger is a gymnast, and a bit of a girly girl. She loves shopping and dancing, and she kicks so much ass. She's the first Ranger to defeat a monster on their own. She sadly starts dating Tommy and then loses most of her awesome, being reduced to damsel in distress and fainting a lot. She leaves the Rangers midway through season 3 to follow her dreams of competing in theOlympics Pan Globals. She then dumps Tommy in a letter, but comes back briefly during the Turbo movie to be evil. We never see her again.
Zack
Zack is the first Black Ranger. He loves music and dance and created his own form of martial arts called hip hop kido. Zack tries to be a ladies man, and has an on and off again love interest named Angela. He's also into magic, and is scared of bugs and snakes. He leaves for the World Peace Conference and we never hear from him again. He is most often shipped with Jason.
Actor note: He went on to be on Space Cases.
Tommy
If you remember a Ranger, you probably remember Tommy. Tommy started off as the Evil Green Ranger, and he was awesome at it, nearly destroying the Rangers. They managed to break the spell on him, and he turned good, and began to date Kimberly. However, Rita put a spell on him (the Green Candle) that sapped his powers, causing him to lose them entirely. (Twice.) He then returned as the White Ranger, and then when they switched to Zeo he became the Red Ranger, and then the Red Turbo Ranger.
If that wasn't enough, he shows up as Red Zeo in Forever Red, and THEN he returned for all of season 12 (Dino Thunder) as Dr. Tommy Oliver, high school science teacher who accidentally created his own team of Rangers. He picked up a fourth color, as the Black Ranger. He gets made fun of for this in fic. A lot. (Also, for cutting his hair. He looks way better with short hair, but YMMV.) Tommy has had two canonical relationships (Pink Rangers Kimberly and Kat, the ship wars were epic), and is also shipped with Jason and Dino Thunder tech Hayley. There is also a growing Tommy/Adam fanbase.
A lot of the show revolved around Tommy for a long time. YMMV on whether or not this was a good thing.
Actor note: He's currently doing mixed martial arts fights. Also, Jason David Frank had his real life twin brother written into the show as Tommy's twin brother. They kept claiming they looked identical. They really don't.
Adam
Adam is my favorite. Adam was the second Black Ranger, and then Green Zeo and Green Turbo. He's very shy, and a writer. He also does stunt work, and is one of the better martial artists to ever be on the show. He's one of the longest serving Rangers, and has serious self esteem issues. He leaves midway through Turbo, although he briefly comes back during Power Rangers in Space (season 6) where he uses a broken morpher that he knows will kill him in an attempt to save the Black Space Ranger. I have *thoughts* on this episode. After that he isn't seen again until the season 15 team-up, where he leads a team of Veteran Rangers against the son of Rita and Zedd. He is most often shipped with Rocky, Tanya, and Aisha, and various combinations of them.
Actor note: Johnny Yong Bosch does a lot of anime voicework, and also has a band called Eyeshine. He also did all his own stunt work, because he is that awesome.
Rocky
The 2nd Red Ranger, and then Blue Zeo. Rocky didn't receive a lot of development, and a lot of the fanbase seems to think of him as a bottomless pit who only cares about fun. However, Rocky is pretty smart, and the only cares about fun and bottomless pit parts were the result of spells, so YMMV. He leaves at the beginning of Turbo, due to an injury. He is mostly shipped with Adam or Aisha.
Aisha
Aisha is the 2nd Yellow Ranger. She's pretty bossy, and has the need to do things herself. She loves animals, and ends up leaving for Africa to stop a plague at the end of season 3. (Don't ask. Seriously.) Aisha is mostly shipped with Adam, Rocky, or Kim.
Kat
Kat started out under a spell and evil, out to break up Tommy and Kimberly. She later ends up dating Tommy after Kim dumps him in a letter. She breaks the spell on herself and becomes the second Pink Ranger, taking over for Kimberly. After Kimberly breaks up with Tommy, Kat begins to date him. She then becomes Pink Zeo and Pink Turbo, sticking through to the midpoint in Turbo. She's a former Olympic level diver, but she also does ballet. Kat got stuck with the worst of Pink Ranger syndrome - a lot of screaming for Tommy to rescue her, but she's pretty awesome. She's mostly shipped with Tommy or Jason.
Tanya
Tanya replaced Aisha after she moved to Africa. Tanya is a kickass baseball player, a singer, and she dates Adam. I love her a lot. She also dated a jerk named Sean who didn't respect her and hated that she struck him out in baseball. She dumped him because she doesn't put up with that nonsense. My personal fanon is that she ends up a ridiculously famous singer. She becomes the Yellow Zeo Ranger and the first Yellow Turbo. She's mostly shipped with Adam and Kat.
Justin
At the start of Turbo, someone thought it would be a great idea to replace Rocky with a 12-year-old. Justin is very smart, skips into high school, and much of the fandom finds him very annoying. He grew up to be really hot.
Bulk and Skull
Starting off as comic relief bullies, these two ended up with more character development than anyone else in the series. They began as bullies (although the Rangers gave as good as they got) and then went on a quest to figure out the identities of the Power Rangers. Later, they joined the Junior Police Patrol, became private detectives, and got turned into monkeys. They also saved the Rangers a few times, and at the end of Power Rangers in Space they got the biggest big damn hero moment in the series so far. Bulk eventually goes off on the space colony Terra Venture while Skull stays behind on Earth. However, they appear to be running a resort together on Earth in Forever Red.
The Story
When Rita escaped, Zordon recruited five teens from the city of Angel Grove (Jason, Trini, Billy, Kim and Zack) to fight her. They fought a variety of monsters (footsoldiers - the Putties, recurring villains Goldar & Scorpina, and the monster of the week) using martial arts, power weapons, and giant mechanical zords. Things went well until the arrival of the Green Ranger, Tommy, who was evil, lost his powers, and gained new powers. Rita was later replaced by Lord Zedd, but then came back to marry him.
Halfway through season 2, Jason, Zack and Trini left for the World Peace Conference, where they were replaced by three teen ninjas from Stone Canyon - Rocky, Adam and Aisha. Along the way the Rangers lost and gained a variety of powers, moving to the Ninja Rangers, where they met new ally Ninjor. Kimberly then left for the Pan Globals, where she was replaced by formerly evil Kat, and after Kimberly dumped Tommy via The Letter, Kat began to date Tommy as well. After a mini-series at the end of season 3 involving Alien Rangers, the Rangers became the Zeo Team, with color shifts, Aisha leaving, and Tanya joining the team. Rita and Zedd also left as the primary villains, instead introducing the Machine Empire. After one season (and Jason briefly coming back) the Rangers lost Rocky, gained Justin, and Divatox took over as primary villain.
Midway through Turbo almost the entire cast (Adam, Tanya, Tommy and Kat) were replaced by some new Rangers. They went on (minus Justin, plus Andros) to become the Power Rangers in Space, in what is widely considered to be one of the best seasons of Power Rangers.
(From left to right - Carlos, Cassie, Andros, Ashley, TJ)
The Space Rangers brought the era (the Zordon era) to a close, but there were still eleven more season to go, and it's still going on.
Resources:
Most of the fic is still on fanfiction.net or messageboards, but there's a growing fandom on livejournal.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spandex_report is the newsletter, which rounds up fic/art/news and message board discussions.
ranger_recaps (run by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
queenriley and myself) is slowly going through and recapping all 700 episodes of the show.
Linkara is also doing a series on the history of Power Rangers
prslash and prfanfiction are your two biggest resources for fic on LJ.
So!
Power Rangers. A bunch of teenagers in spandex fighting aliens. You probably watched it, admit it. And then [insert Ranger here] left the show and you quit watching.
Well, it ran for seventeen seasons, and season 18 starts filming soon. There are nearly 100 major characters, and each season brings us at least five additional Rangers. And it all (pretty much) shares the same continuity. I'm mostly going to concentrate on the first four 1/2 seasons, but expect spoilers for all of the Zordon era (first six seasons), Forever Red (the 10th anniversary team-up), Dino Thunder (season 12, also starring Tommy), and Once a Ranger (the 15th anniversary team-up).
(Image heavy overview under the cut)
The backstory
Rita. Space Sorceress. Sealed in a can for 10,000 years. Trying to conquer Earth. Has a lot of headaches.
Zordon. Giant floating head. Also sealed in a tube. Recruits team of teenagers to fight Rita.
The Rangers
Jason
The first Red Ranger and leader of the team. Jason is a jock, martial arts instructor, and also has really nice arms. As he is a Red Ranger, he loses his shirt a lot. He leaves the Rangers midway through season 2 to
Actor note: It was at one point rumored that his actor had been in gay porn. This rumor turned out to be false, but it is one of the things that most people bring up when you mention you watch Power Rangers.
Trini
The first yellow Ranger. Trini actually had the weakest characterization of all the original Rangers. We know she's a peacemaker and an enviromentalist, and she's smart enough to translate Billy. That's... about all, so people feel free to write her as they will, often as the glue that holds them all together. She also leaves for the Peace Conference. We never see her again. She is mostly shipped with Billy.
Billy
Billy is the geek and blue Ranger. He's smart, speaks with such a large and high level vocabulary that he needs Trini to translate him, and builds most of the Rangers' tech. He starts by getting beaten up a lot, but gains confidence (and a better wardrobe) as the series progresses. He loses his powers at the end of season 3, but stays on through most of season 4 as just the tech guy, before moving to marry a fish alien, even though he is scared of fish. No, really. He is most often shipped with Trini or Jason.
Kimberly
Kim is my favorite of the original Rangers. The first Pink Ranger is a gymnast, and a bit of a girly girl. She loves shopping and dancing, and she kicks so much ass. She's the first Ranger to defeat a monster on their own. She sadly starts dating Tommy and then loses most of her awesome, being reduced to damsel in distress and fainting a lot. She leaves the Rangers midway through season 3 to follow her dreams of competing in the
Zack
Zack is the first Black Ranger. He loves music and dance and created his own form of martial arts called hip hop kido. Zack tries to be a ladies man, and has an on and off again love interest named Angela. He's also into magic, and is scared of bugs and snakes. He leaves for the World Peace Conference and we never hear from him again. He is most often shipped with Jason.
Actor note: He went on to be on Space Cases.
Tommy
If you remember a Ranger, you probably remember Tommy. Tommy started off as the Evil Green Ranger, and he was awesome at it, nearly destroying the Rangers. They managed to break the spell on him, and he turned good, and began to date Kimberly. However, Rita put a spell on him (the Green Candle) that sapped his powers, causing him to lose them entirely. (Twice.) He then returned as the White Ranger, and then when they switched to Zeo he became the Red Ranger, and then the Red Turbo Ranger.
If that wasn't enough, he shows up as Red Zeo in Forever Red, and THEN he returned for all of season 12 (Dino Thunder) as Dr. Tommy Oliver, high school science teacher who accidentally created his own team of Rangers. He picked up a fourth color, as the Black Ranger. He gets made fun of for this in fic. A lot. (Also, for cutting his hair. He looks way better with short hair, but YMMV.) Tommy has had two canonical relationships (Pink Rangers Kimberly and Kat, the ship wars were epic), and is also shipped with Jason and Dino Thunder tech Hayley. There is also a growing Tommy/Adam fanbase.
A lot of the show revolved around Tommy for a long time. YMMV on whether or not this was a good thing.
Actor note: He's currently doing mixed martial arts fights. Also, Jason David Frank had his real life twin brother written into the show as Tommy's twin brother. They kept claiming they looked identical. They really don't.
Adam
Adam is my favorite. Adam was the second Black Ranger, and then Green Zeo and Green Turbo. He's very shy, and a writer. He also does stunt work, and is one of the better martial artists to ever be on the show. He's one of the longest serving Rangers, and has serious self esteem issues. He leaves midway through Turbo, although he briefly comes back during Power Rangers in Space (season 6) where he uses a broken morpher that he knows will kill him in an attempt to save the Black Space Ranger. I have *thoughts* on this episode. After that he isn't seen again until the season 15 team-up, where he leads a team of Veteran Rangers against the son of Rita and Zedd. He is most often shipped with Rocky, Tanya, and Aisha, and various combinations of them.
Actor note: Johnny Yong Bosch does a lot of anime voicework, and also has a band called Eyeshine. He also did all his own stunt work, because he is that awesome.
Rocky
The 2nd Red Ranger, and then Blue Zeo. Rocky didn't receive a lot of development, and a lot of the fanbase seems to think of him as a bottomless pit who only cares about fun. However, Rocky is pretty smart, and the only cares about fun and bottomless pit parts were the result of spells, so YMMV. He leaves at the beginning of Turbo, due to an injury. He is mostly shipped with Adam or Aisha.
Aisha
Aisha is the 2nd Yellow Ranger. She's pretty bossy, and has the need to do things herself. She loves animals, and ends up leaving for Africa to stop a plague at the end of season 3. (Don't ask. Seriously.) Aisha is mostly shipped with Adam, Rocky, or Kim.
Kat
Kat started out under a spell and evil, out to break up Tommy and Kimberly. She later ends up dating Tommy after Kim dumps him in a letter. She breaks the spell on herself and becomes the second Pink Ranger, taking over for Kimberly. After Kimberly breaks up with Tommy, Kat begins to date him. She then becomes Pink Zeo and Pink Turbo, sticking through to the midpoint in Turbo. She's a former Olympic level diver, but she also does ballet. Kat got stuck with the worst of Pink Ranger syndrome - a lot of screaming for Tommy to rescue her, but she's pretty awesome. She's mostly shipped with Tommy or Jason.
Tanya
Tanya replaced Aisha after she moved to Africa. Tanya is a kickass baseball player, a singer, and she dates Adam. I love her a lot. She also dated a jerk named Sean who didn't respect her and hated that she struck him out in baseball. She dumped him because she doesn't put up with that nonsense. My personal fanon is that she ends up a ridiculously famous singer. She becomes the Yellow Zeo Ranger and the first Yellow Turbo. She's mostly shipped with Adam and Kat.
Justin
At the start of Turbo, someone thought it would be a great idea to replace Rocky with a 12-year-old. Justin is very smart, skips into high school, and much of the fandom finds him very annoying. He grew up to be really hot.
Bulk and Skull
Starting off as comic relief bullies, these two ended up with more character development than anyone else in the series. They began as bullies (although the Rangers gave as good as they got) and then went on a quest to figure out the identities of the Power Rangers. Later, they joined the Junior Police Patrol, became private detectives, and got turned into monkeys. They also saved the Rangers a few times, and at the end of Power Rangers in Space they got the biggest big damn hero moment in the series so far. Bulk eventually goes off on the space colony Terra Venture while Skull stays behind on Earth. However, they appear to be running a resort together on Earth in Forever Red.
The Story
When Rita escaped, Zordon recruited five teens from the city of Angel Grove (Jason, Trini, Billy, Kim and Zack) to fight her. They fought a variety of monsters (footsoldiers - the Putties, recurring villains Goldar & Scorpina, and the monster of the week) using martial arts, power weapons, and giant mechanical zords. Things went well until the arrival of the Green Ranger, Tommy, who was evil, lost his powers, and gained new powers. Rita was later replaced by Lord Zedd, but then came back to marry him.
Halfway through season 2, Jason, Zack and Trini left for the World Peace Conference, where they were replaced by three teen ninjas from Stone Canyon - Rocky, Adam and Aisha. Along the way the Rangers lost and gained a variety of powers, moving to the Ninja Rangers, where they met new ally Ninjor. Kimberly then left for the Pan Globals, where she was replaced by formerly evil Kat, and after Kimberly dumped Tommy via The Letter, Kat began to date Tommy as well. After a mini-series at the end of season 3 involving Alien Rangers, the Rangers became the Zeo Team, with color shifts, Aisha leaving, and Tanya joining the team. Rita and Zedd also left as the primary villains, instead introducing the Machine Empire. After one season (and Jason briefly coming back) the Rangers lost Rocky, gained Justin, and Divatox took over as primary villain.
Midway through Turbo almost the entire cast (Adam, Tanya, Tommy and Kat) were replaced by some new Rangers. They went on (minus Justin, plus Andros) to become the Power Rangers in Space, in what is widely considered to be one of the best seasons of Power Rangers.
(From left to right - Carlos, Cassie, Andros, Ashley, TJ)
The Space Rangers brought the era (the Zordon era) to a close, but there were still eleven more season to go, and it's still going on.
Resources:
Most of the fic is still on fanfiction.net or messageboards, but there's a growing fandom on livejournal.
spandex_report is the newsletter, which rounds up fic/art/news and message board discussions.ranger_recaps (run by queenriley and myself) is slowly going through and recapping all 700 episodes of the show.Linkara is also doing a series on the history of Power Rangers
prslash and prfanfiction are your two biggest resources for fic on LJ.
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You took a very (very very very) long show with a huge cast and made it understandable!
Also love the use of pics and actor's notes.
Excellent job!
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PR was my very first fandom, before I even knew there was such a thing, and I used to read fics like crazy! Cant wait to see what you'll rec this month!
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I'm planning on doing a mix of older and newer fics, so hopefully there will be something you're interested in!
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Thanks. You can snag it if you want.
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So very true *big grin*.
Thanks for the nice overview!!!
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Very true!
Very funny overview, I obviously watched the show at some point in my wild youth but didn't know it was still very active (though it doesn't surprise me). It was interesting to read!
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Neverending, really. They just finished casting season 18 this week. And the fandom is still pretty active, although the amount of fic you will find really depends on the season you want.
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Trini there, I remember I was channel flipping and I caught the ending of a newer power ranger episode and it said 'In Rememberance Thuy Trang' and couldn't help but think the name was familiar. Looked it up and I was so sad to hear she had passed away. It was in 2001, a couple of weeks after 9/11, car crash. :(
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Yeah. :( At morphicon last year all the actors teared up when they spoke about it.