Power Rangers. Kamen Rider, Sentai, suits and monsters

[Oniya]

The question is, what does it take to access the 'morphing grid'?  Is it something purely technological, or is there some sort of personality 'test' involved?  Or is it maybe some sort of paranormal energy matrix requiring the right kind of 'heart'?

[Sabby]

The question is, what does it take to access the 'morphing grid'?  Is it something purely technological, or is there some sort of personality 'test' involved?  Or is it maybe some sort of paranormal energy matrix requiring the right kind of 'heart'?

This is something that's been debated by fans since season 2, I think, and it's not been helped by the shows stand alone direction after the Zordon Era. The Morphing Grid itself was just something come up with randomly because it 'sounded cool', just like 'Zords'. It was never meant to have any higher meaning or deep explanation, then Lord Zedd gave a passing mention to it that suggested more, and then with each season having a totally different set of writers with different views on the Grid and completely different themes, its gotten very convoluted. Power Rangers is a lot like comic books like that.

The Morphing Grid can be described as The Force, really, but whether its something physical, ephemeral, technological, mystical, or even sentient, no one can tell, and I'm pretty sure its been hinted to be each one of those at some point.

Morphers themselves are just as variable, some encoding DNA, making a Ranger permanently bonded, some able to Morph anyone, some able to instill combat instincts, and all have varying levels of power. Can you see how this may be confusing to link all seasons together or write up canon for the Grid and Morphers? Theres so many ways it could be done, and all are plausible, like saying that 'Light Magic' in Mystic Force is the same energy that powered Zordons technology, but it's controlled with will and only uses a technological device as a conduit. It works, but its anyones guess, really. I do have my own theories, most swinging towards the Grid having some form of sentience that varies on what intelligent life it interacts with, which explains why Grid devices are different wherever they pop up, but it would just be that, a suggestion for how it could be written.

Remember, Zordon never made the original Power Coins, he only found them, and even he didn't completely understand them. The exact origins of the coins and the nature of the Grid is a complete mystery.

Yeah, Power Rangers and comic books can be very confusing.

[Wolfy]

Soooo.....you're saying the Morphing Grid is basically the Omnitrix from Ben 10.

...Sweet.

[Sabby]

Haven't seen Ben 10, but I'll try and remember what I can of the Grid that is actually canon. Zordon and Rita were at war but one of the two proposed a game, where the loser would be sealed away. The game involved the Power Coins. I'm not sure who provided them, but I don't think either one realized what exactly they had. Rita lost and was sealed on the Planet Nemesis. Not the moon, a rogue planet that passes through our system now and then, basically Niberu from the 2012 stuff. Creepy, huh? Anyway, she cursed Zordon, which is why he is as he is, and in that time he started to find out the power these Coins had.

They're relics from a time and people they don't know of, probably not even of this galaxy, and I'm guessing they were one of the many trinkets left in Rita's Tower, which, like the Coins, was only found, its origins are unknown. Everything connected to these friggen Coins is like a Prothean relic Dx all they could determine from these Coins is that they either housed or channeled a vast amount of power, and the Morphers were only supposed to house them and draw that energy, the Morphers themselves are actually useless.

But there are all sorts of Morphers that achieve what Zordon's has done without those super rare relics, and all I can think of is that the creators of that technology have a better understanding thanks to Zordon and can replicate the effect. Hell, Lightspeed Rescue reverse engineered its Morphers from fossilized technology from the Jurassic Period, so Morpher's have been around before Zordon got the Coins. Whether they're from another reverse engineering attempt of the time or are from the original owners of the Coins, no one can say.

Confusing, amirite? Dx

[dana eleanor]

I liked the pink power ranger. I was obsessed with that show when I was little.

[Jmorty33]

When I was a kid my favorite for the last two season of Might Morphin, Zeo, and the early half of Turbo was Adam. He was always sort of the shy guy so I could relate to him, plus Johnny Yong Bosch is a badass!

[Sabby]

You'd like Once A Ranger then. Adam comes back and fights Zedd's son.

[Sabby]

Morty, for you :)

Once A Ranger Adam

[Jmorty33]

Damn he's good. Actually when Johnny came back to do those episodes for Overdrive he actually asked what had Adam had been doing hoping they would say nothing so he could write in that he's been off doing adventures and stuff, but Disney decided to write in that all Adam did was run a dojo which he didn't like so in his head he imagined that the dojo was a front and he did all these crazy adventures. Why? Because he's that awesome!

[Sabby]

Sounds like Steven Seagal xD

[Jmorty33]

Never saw any of his movies, well actually i watched like five minutes of Under Siege, I thought it was ok. Anyway me knowing that information just makes me think that I'm into Power Rangers a little too much.

[Sabby]

He rewrites scripts to make himself more badass, and his definition of badass is wailing on bad guys in extremely one side fights with stupid Indian sageness in between. Though Adam actually does his own stunts, Steven doesn't even show up to his own films half the time. A lot of it is body doubles and dubs.

[Jmorty33]

Yeah Johnny is actually an accomplished martial artist, hence why he got the job and actually all of the cast wanted to do their own stunts, but after a day of it they took the body doubles, but Johnny did his own stunts out of the Ranger suit, but he went to a double for the helmet Head stuff and he just did the dubbing for the suits. Johnny just wanted that little thing to make the job a little more fun, but he ended up taking what Disney gave him and had some of his own fun with it.

[Wolfy]

Let's discuss something, specifically how the hell the Power Rangers Timeline works out. o3o.

Assuming they are all one universe and one earth, then where the hell do all the series fall? Some of them have call backs and cross overs with the seasons before, so it's obvious that they are all pretty much part of the same timeline, but where does everything fit?

Now, the thing that got me thinking about this is RPM, where the world is basically a wasteland/apocalyptic place. Now, does that fall at the end, then the future from Time Force happens? Or does that happen THEN RPM? *flails*

[Sabby]

RPM is an alternate reality, so it stands alone. I can try and string the rest along.


Time travelers from Time Force fail their mission and leave important technology in the past.

Zordon Era is pretty simple, ending with Zordons death and the defeat of The Alliance of Evil.

Tommy leaves for Reefside, California, to study the technology of the Rangers, ends up creating Mesogog by accident, who tries to restore Dinosaur dominance. He becomes a teacher at the local highschool and recruits three students to be Dino Thunder Rangers.

During this period, Earth faced some issues which must have been pretty severe (climate change, population boom, lack of resources) and Tera Venture was created to seek out a new planet for colonization. Tera Venture was most likely reverse engineered from Dark Specters ship which was left on Earth. The planet Miranoi (no idea of the proper spelling) was colonized.

The issues on Earth, which were never explained, weren't so bad now, once again, no explanation (you'll be hearing that a lot) and the US military digs up technology from the Jurassic period that is either Zordon's or very similar, and reverse engineer that to create the Lightspeed Rescue team.

Some time after that was resolved, a conflict in another dimension spills over into our world near the town of Briarwood, and the Mystic Rangers come into play. With magical creatures later accepted into Briarwood, it becomes the perfect trial city for alien immigration as seen in SPD, and I assume it's also the same city that the Time Force are situated in, but much further in the future.

Around the same time that Briarwood and the Mystic Rangers were happening, the Ord, demons, were coming up in another part of the world, which had been sealed in the same conflict 3000 years prior of Lost Galaxy. They try to polute the world to make it unliveable to all except for Ord. Gaia, basically Mother Earth, recruits Rangers to stop them.

Ninja Storm and Jungle Fury are at least in the same general period, though I'm not sure where they are in relation to the Briarwood and Lightspeed Rescue general era. It can't be too far off, since it's still in modern day, but Mystic, Lightspeed, Dino Thunder, Wild Force, Jungle Fury and the past timeline of Time Force all seem to happen at roughly the same time after Miranoi's colonization, just on seperate parts of the world.

After that, Operation Overdrive would start somewhere not too far, showing humanity getting an increasingly firm hold on the technology Zordon brought to Earth, with SPD coming to Briarwood first and spreading across Earth, then Time Force, then the failed time travel experiments which leave Ranger tech in the past for Lightspeed Rescue to find.

RPM is the only season that is not in canon, and some people refuse to count anything Disney did as part of Power Rangers canon. I say fuck those guys. Its confusing, yes, I tried to stream line it as much as I could, but it fits well enough, even if theres plenty of small inconsistencies, and areas where ya just have to believe whatever it drops in front of you. Like Gaia having magic that is similar to Ranger's technology. Yeah, yeah, Galactibeasts weren't Gaia's, they could have brought technology with them and adapted it, that ones at least semi-plausible, but I just try not to think too much on other inconsistencies.

[Oniya]

Wasn't there a link to some sort of time-line posted earlier in this thread?

EDIT:  Found it!

http://timeline.rovang.org/#1993-94

[Sabby]

Yes, it's impossible to follow, and I have an atrocious migraine at the moment, so just looking at that link is making my brain swell uncomfortably against my skull.

[Wolfy]

Ya know, RPM certainly has some of the best Characters that I've seen...the characters are all flawed (Especially Ziggy) in ways that make them human.

It's really good.

[Sabby]

I take it you just started, then. Where you up to?

[Inkidu]

Ya know, RPM certainly has some of the best Characters that I've seen...the characters are all flawed (Especially Ziggy) in ways that make them human.

It's really good.

I think it's only natural that people understand there is an understood, "for the Power Rangers" After that sentence.

The Mighty Morphing Power Ranger Movie came on one of the Encore channels and I was tempted to watch it so badly.
I just think it's wrong that I know the first five seasons of Power Rangers, but don't know all the state capitals.

[Wolfy]

I take it you just started, then. Where you up to?

Ranger Yellow: Part 2.

Interesting back stories for Characters.

Also..

"Why the spandex?"

lawls...I saw on TV tropes this season was very particular in hanging lampshades on many things in the series, including the costumes and explosions.

[Sabby]

You mean the 'residual energy runoff?' xD

[Wolfy]

You mean the 'residual energy runoff?' xD

Exactly.

[Sabby]

It's another one of those things that makes me want to understand The Morphing Grid more. I still think it's a semi-sentient energy like The Force, but for there to be 'residual energy' building up while unmorphed, it's gotta come from somewhere, be going somewhere, stored somewhere, and have limitations for how much can be stored, how fast it builds, what is considered dangerous levels, what happens when you exceed critical levels, what happens when you Morph too much or too little.

This isn't something I would worry about in the Zordon Era, for instance, where saying 'it's magic, deal with it' was the usual writing, but like with my Calling Bullshit thread, when they start answering questions, they open the floodgates.

[Sabby]

Power Rangers RPM: Devour (It's Your Final Hour!)

That was amazing.