Why I Think The Power Rangers Timeline Is Tearing Itself Out

The 30th anniversary of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers is on August 28. However, I felt like writing this one since Power Rangers released a reunion movie called Once and Always. Robo Rita was created as a result of Rita's evil personality getting manifested in a robot body. Meanwhile, Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger seems to joke that Rita Kanisuka is actually the daughter of Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa - something that might make more sense than Thrax or that Emperor Zetto in Ressha Sentai ToQGer must be her big brother. I did write a post where I addressed Super Sentai's use of self-contained continuities vs. trying to use a timeline. Any Power Rangers fan who still argues that Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger would fit all Super Sentai series should just STOP.

Power Rangers has been operating mostly on a singular timeline. I guess I can give credit to Power Rangers Dino Charge for how the show takes place in another dimension. I could always praise Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger and Dino Charge for their effort in the fight scenes. Both shows deserve some praise for actually taking place in another dimension. Overall, I dislike them both for personal reasons and nothing more. Meanwhile, I'll always hate how Kyoryuger had that ultimately messy crossover with Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters. Even worse, that messy crossover was carried over into Power Rangers Beast Morphers. 

I soon found this discussion on Reddit about how Power Rangers may have contradicted itself:

You shouldn’t think about continuity in a show like Power Rangers. But I’ve decided it would be fun to point the errors out anyway.

1. After a certain point in the series, people start talking about the Power Rangers as legends, despite them being at the forefront of the news in Mighty Morphin. Megaforce especially is bad at this.
2. SPD takes place in 2025. It is 2018, and aliens living in peace thing still hasn’t been addressed.
3. There is a giant space colony traveling to another solar system in 1999. After Lightspeed, technology has advanced really slowly despite them building a giant space colony.
4. Zordon’s death caused the vanquishing of all evil in the universe. One year later a scorpion person shows up looking for mystical sabers. (I have my theory on this one.)
5. Based on what we know about the power coins, how did Rita get the green coin?
6. Not really a continuity error, but if Rita knows who the Rangers are then why doesn’t she just blow up their houses?
7. Once again, not really a continuity error, but why is Tommy Oliver considered the “greatest” Ranger ever when many others have done much more than he ever did?
8. Megaforce. The whole season is a continuity error.

What others can you name?

Technically, this discussion can happen for Super Sentai IF you try to do the following:

• Fit all the VS. Movies together (which are pretty much like most of the Dragon Ball Z movies) when there are so many contradictions per film. Technically, most Super Sentai series pretty much establish self-contained continuities and Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger is pretty much like Super Robot Wars. 
• Trying to reconcile all the ways that dinosaurs perished when different seasons have DIFFERENT explanations. A good example is how Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger and Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger both established different explanations. Gougou Sentai Boukenger and Engine Sentai Go-onger gave totally different explanations. The only explanation for that is most Super Sentai series are totally self-contained. 
• Some series do seem to suggest that all Super Sentai belong to one continuity. However, certain seasons are meant to be "part of that VS. Universe" while most of them are obviously not. Why try to force them all in? 
• Trying to fit the whole era of the late Noboru Sugimura of Super Sentai into one timeline can be, "I've got such a headache" because:

• Making Bandora from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger related to both Prince Jr. and Great Demon King from Ninja Sentai Kakuranger will just cause a huge time gap.
• Notice how the series don't directly link to each other. It can be fun to link them but you know... plot can't fit in either!

From someone referred to as "Deleted" - this can also be mentioned:

i always figured the "legends" thing, beyond just being a lame buzzword probably meant to invoke the legacy toys and the legendary war, was just how people would refer to superheroes, same way we do now for the proverbial sports legends. and keep in mind, a lot of ranger-related rivalries and incursions were isolated to specific west coast cities for maybe a year or less at a time—and predominately angel grove alone—years before there were really camera phones or anything like that. people had written off an "alien expert" like prof. phenomenus as a quack when there were CLEARLY alien attacks in angel grove for years at that point. only real way to explain it is you have to assume there's some kind of coverup going on simultaneously to avoid global panic, and the only guys dialed into the truth about power rangers are the rangers themselves, government types (like NASADA), and their independent offshoots (like lightspeed). we've seen from cassidy and devin's work how hard it can be to catch the rangers in action—granted, they were teenagers and devin didn't actually care, but it took them a whole year to even get close to their identities.

i agree that not enough references are made to terra venture, the mirinoi colony, other space humans (KO-35) and global progress toward the SPD status quo. i thought it was a wasted opportunity to make orion be from yet another new, depressing planet when he could've been from literally any of the ones we've already heard about. and ideally one previously saved by rangers and/or the z-wave.

it can be argued that despite zordon's wisdom and inherent goodness, he's still one guy, and it was ridiculous to have expected the z-wave to eliminate all evil in the universe. my headcanon is that it took out most evil within a certain (admittedly large) radius. didn't reach onyx, didn't reach wherever more recent guys like sledge and malkor were, didn't reach lothor, didn't affect digitally stored evil like the psycho rangers, and so on. and that's fine. zordon did more than enough good. can't expect him to solve all the problems in the universe.

as for my own continuity concerns, thrax is the big one for me. his existence poses all kinds of questions about the timeline, and that it was sentinel knight who fought and imprisoned him complicates it even more. it requires thrax to have been conceived and grown to adulthood before SK was too weak to do anything besides send other people on goofy corona quests, but after zedd could stand to be around rita—and that is impossible. not to mention miratrix somehow knew who he was, but adam didn't. a lot of the rest of PR's issues can be explained by apathy/desensitization (monsters and space stuff is so normal it doesn't come up) or miscalculation (zordon thinking the z-wave would heal everything), but thrax is maybe the most slapdash retcon i've ever seen this side of a soap opera.

And I guess there's Thrax too huh?

Definitely, I felt Thrax's existence was probably unaccounted for. It might make more "sense" (but it doesn't) if both Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa managed to start a family sometime after their purification. 1998 would be when Lord Zedd and Rita turned human. 1999 would be the time (sometime during Power Rangers Lost Galaxy) when both of them conceived Thrax. Thrax would still be less than a teenager in 2007 at eight years old. That's unless Thrax got force-grown by some evil force or pulled something like Tranza did in Chojin Sentai Jetman. However, throw away instantaneous growth magic (and time travel, assuming Thrax must be from the future and did time travel) and you'll have Super Sentai characters who can hypothetically fit better as their kids. 

Just some wild imagination that can't happen but...

Ressha Sentai ToQGer presented a curious case of Emperor Zetto. Zetto seems to behave like he's some rebellious teenager who doesn't want to become the Emperor of All Evil. I could imagine that the purification effect of Lord Zedd and Rita created a nearly purified heir. I could imagine the Shadow Line seeking to raise Zetto to be as evil as his parents before the purification. If Zetto was the son of Lord Zedd and Rita - he'd be at least a rebellious 15-year-old teenager. You know the problem of rage hormones and immaturity going on. Emperor Zetto seems to be acting more like a typical teenager than an heir to the throne. I could've imagined people from Shadow Line saying, "Please sir, don't embarrass us like your purified parents did!" His marriage to Grita might be illegal to begin with at that time.

Then maybe we can imagine that Lord Zedd and Rita conceived a daughter (and named her Rita as well) sometime in 2000 or later. In this case, actress Yuzuki Hirakawa is currently 22 years old so let's say that Rita and Zedd sired Rita Kanisuka sometime in 2001. It would still make a little bit more chronological sense to say that Zetto and Rita Kanisuka were born to Lord Zedd and Rita sometime ago than Thrax was simply born in 1999. I could imagine the Mystic Mother having the Snow Prince take care of her daughter sometime in 2006 after losing her son Zetto. Just think that Rita Kanisuka does scream like Rita Repulsa at times. Oh yeah, Rita Kanisuka also has a stuffed yeti too. Hmmmm... did Rita Kanisuka take over Flurious' layer and convert it into Gokkan? Funny impossible situation there!

Just my thoughts to finish this crazy post

It just reminds me of why I ended up agreeing with Dryed Mangoez's finale review. This is pretty much what made me realize Power Rangers Beast Morphers ended up near beautifully pointless:

The basic premise of this episode is actually very sound. It’s a typical finale plotline. Sacrifices are made, everyone is in danger. But with the show being so opposed to a serialized storyline (which doesn’t mean Operation Overdrive-type cliffhangers every week and really only means a clear, season-long plot), there’s never an opportunity to truly bank the emotions and connections necessary to make such a climax meaningful and impactful.

I mentioned it last week with the big Evenjix reveal. And it’s the same here.

I had to go back and check the Go-Busters episode the zord battle is from and confirmed that it was from the climactic Christmas episode. I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t watched. But it was a stunning episode and probably one of my all-time favorites. Knowing what that moment meant and was a climax for, knowing how meaningful it was for the season, it’s hard to then come into Beast Morphers and see those scenes play out here. And again, that’s on me. That’s my problem and preference.

But it’s an example of how amazing scenes and episodes like that can be when there’s a consistent build up and development to really form a strong foundation for such events and climaxes.

Beast Morphers as a whole does not do that. When the endgame has to do more with pandering to the older, rose-colored glasses-wearing fans by referencing a season that is considered today to be one of the best or most “mature” as opposed to a story that is developed over the course of 40 episodes here, it’s just not going to hit the mark.

Like I said in my apathy rant, I’d rather have a well-written, good season with ZERO references to past seasons over a poor season with MANY references to past seasons. I don’t need a history lesson every season. I don’t need random “Ranger Vaults” or “Ranger History” lessons or cameos. I just want a good show. And I think the smarter, more sophisticated children in today’s target demo deserve that as well, if not more so.

It’s not about pleasing us old fans. It’s about recognizing the potential in Power Rangers as a series that can appeal to a wide audience. No, it does not need to be grim!dark. No, it doesn’t have to be the second coming of RPM or Time Force or especially Mighty Morphin.

That's what caused Power Rangers Megaforce to sink. It was trying to become the second coming of Migyhty Morphin'. What made Power Rangers RPM somewhat memorable was it was unafraid to take place somewhere else. The same can go for Dino Charge's other dimension plot. However, the tendency to be, "Let's get back to the Mighty Morphin' hype!" makes me think, "Are we having an overdose of morphine?" 

As said, Power Rangers needs to stop going after the hype. After watching Once and Always, I'd say it's pretty much, "Hey 1990s kids! Relive your childhood!" I'm glad there wasn't a Himitsu Sentai Goranger reunion movie (and one of the main cast members, Baku Hakateyama, did end his life way before Tatsuya Nomi and Jason David Frank, did) at all. That's why I'm skeptical about having an Abaranger reunion movie after 20 years. I even don't like the 10 years after movies - not even Tokosou Sentai Dekaranger's 10 years after movie. I feel Power Rangers is trying to relive the 1990s magic when it's 2023. Isn't it about time that Power Rangers needs to focus more on how to win the present than get stuck in the past?