14 out of 20 people on a recent poll on the Power Rangers Union blog said that MMPR is overrated. I personally couldn't disagree more with the results and still think that MMPR S1 is the best among all Power Ranger seasons (season 2 was somewhat good, season 3 was so-so).
I can see why some Power Ranger fans tend to think that MMPR is overrated. The fact is that the majority of all Power Ranger fans are either hardcore MMPR fans or MMPR related fans (Tommy fans and Zordon Era fans). Most of the rest of the Power Ranger fanbase is made up of people who either like the first Saban era as a whole or the entire franchise. Some of these fans feel that MMPR's popularity takes away or overshadows the rest of the franchise. MMPR does admittedly overshadow the franchise as a whole (which has plenty of good series other than MMPR), so this is understandable. These are also the most likely fans who would visit Power Rangers Union blog as well. With that said, here's why I think MMPR S1 is still the best season ever in Power Rangers history (In Space comes in at a close second).
1. The Cast- Still, to this day, MMPR S1 and the first half of MMPR S2 has the best and most likable cast in the franchise history. Tommy is imo and many others, still the best ranger of all time. But Tommy tends to overshadow some of the other cast members on not just MMPR S1, but every series he's played in as well, including Dino Thunder. Jason, Zack, Kimberly, Trini, and Billy are all among the most favored rangers as well. In season 2, the MMPR staff didn't do enough to develop the new cast early on, except for Adam, who was the most popular of the new cast members. Saban would learn from this mistake and later on in Turbo, they made it a point to develop an almost entirely new cast early on.
2. The Zords- Saban really has Zyuranger to thank for this, but the zords in MMPR S1, as well as MMPR S3, are among the coolest zords in the franchise history.
3. The Music- Although the first half of season 1 consisted of basically only two songs, Go Go Power Rangers short version and Zords, the second half of season 1 as well as season 2 added some of the best songs in the franchise history, all of which were sung and composed by Ron A. Wasserman, a.k.a. The Mighty Raw. No other series matches up with MMPR's music, and most (but not all) of the good theme songs in the later years are by Wasserman.
4. MMPR set the franchise- If it wasn't for the popularity of MMPR, the series would never be what it is now. A near 20 year long franchise, which is hugely successful. Many shows can't even reach 2 years, let alone 18 with the new season coming up. Also, MMPR as has been mentioned many times on Power Rangers Union, was the gateway for many Americans as well as other people around the world to Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, exc.
Now admittedly, there are some weaknesses in MMPR. Season 1 still lags behind In Space and practically the entire Judd Lynn era in story writing. Season 2 as mentioned above didn't properly develop the new cast, and season 3 ditched a lot of elements that were largely successful in season's 1 and 2. But MMPR is still, among the best in the franchise history.
I am a big fan of Power Rangers, and I hate the 90's seasons with a passion.
ReplyDeleteHating the 90 seasons is like hating the best seasons in PR's history.
ReplyDeleteTime force and RPM aired in the 90's?
DeleteThe only really best series from the 90's was In Space maybe Zeo as well. MMPR is so-so. it's not terrible but it's not great either and only highlights Saban's inexperience in making the show.
But they're so campy!
ReplyDeleteSo are a lot of 2000's Power Ranger series, like Ninja Storm and Dino Thunder. There was still a lot of serious PR seasons during the 1990's (like In Space, Lost Galaxy). And to me, being campy doesn't make it a bad show.
ReplyDeleteMMPR while fun to watch was heavily flawed and barely had a story the characters were one dimensional stereotypical teenagers and the as I said their was't much to the plot . Plus the editing in some episodes made it so blatantly obvious they were splicing multiple Zyuranger episodes together especially "A Star is Born" in comparison The episode of Super samurai "Trust me did an excellent job of splicing two episodes together into one. If I didn't know better I wouldn't know it spliced two episodes together. Even not seeing the original episodes of Zyuranger that "a Star is Born" used I was able to tell they spliced the episode mainly from two different Zyuranger episodes.
ReplyDeleteSo I agree that MMPR is over rated because in my opinion it is not the best and given all the people who say the series is the best makes it over rated in my opinion I can think of several seasons that are that are better than MMPR and some of them are among the best. In Space, Time Force, Dino thunder (not by much still had one dimensional stereotypical teenagers, but it had a much more complex story than MMPR.) RPM even Jungle Fury had a better story than MMPR.
the characters in MMPR as likable as they are aren't all that complex and likable characters and cool Zords don't make up for an almost coexistent story.
Overall MMPR isn't the worst in my opinion but not the best either.