History of the Power Rangers: Time Force part 1

Image via Wikipedia

It’s the first HOPR of the new year. Or rather mine, as Linkara’s first will be Ninja Storm, fittingly Disney’s first fully-owned story. I, on the other hand, continue to play catch-up with my favorite of the Power Rangers series, Time Force. Why is it my favorite? Stay tuned and you will find out, but let’s start with the best opening Linkara’s done for this show.

Right from the start is a rather big change. Vernon Wells’s character, Ransik, is not from the original Future Task Force Timeranger but is original to this series. And getting Vernon Wells, considering his acting credits, is already a feather in the cap of this series. The man’s been in Mad Max! He was in some of the biggest TV shows in the 80’s, and here is in a Power Rangers show and being my second favorite Ranger villain (Lord Zedd being the first and oddly Lothor of Ninja Storm as #3). That’s pretty good.

• Personally I prefer the redone opening better, even if it is a lie, but we’ll get into that later.
• I like the Cyclobots. They’re like a combination of the Quantrons and Cogs (mostly the Cogs). Something about the robot henchmen just makes me prefer them to the monster ones.
• Oh, and the frog guy in the clips is Gluto, who’s Japanese counterpart is actually the guy in charge, Don Dolnero, who sound pretty thought out as a villain compared to Gluto. Then again, so is Ransik. In this series, Gluto has a crush on Nadira and serves as one of the flunky roles. Surprised he’s not really discussed even if doesn’t do a heck of a lot.
• Speaking of higher-tier actors that you’d expect from a daily kids show, Edward Albert, son of actor Eddie Albert and he’s acted all over the place in both kids programming (including cartoon voice actor) and adult-targeted fare. Sadly he died in 2006 from lung cancer.
• The Time Force morph: probably not one of the higher ranking morphs sequences on my list, but not bad.
• I don’t think that’s a part of the first monster’s body that gets cut off. To me it looked more like a badge. Maybe it keeps his mutated DNA in check so he doesn’t become a giant monster. I’m not sure.
• Yeah, it looks like the original Timeranger liked to rip off the Matrix Trilogy, doesn’t it? 🙂
• Personal interest: the Time Shadow’s name in the original? Shadow Winger. No relation, and I was already using “ShadowWing” on the internet at the time. 😀
• Eric the Quantum Ranger: probably goes through the most development of the Rangers. I hated him at first, but watching him talk with the little girl next door (who likes visiting his pet bird) and the more we get to know him the more I learned to like him.
• “Movie Madness”: the source for the updated intro I linked to earlier. I agree with Lewis in not understanding why Katie got such a lame movie world, but the episode was a lot of fun, and I think the cast liked it, too.
• The sub-plot with Dr. Fericks/Frax is one of the better in the franchise and even better than the backstory of his Japanese counterpart. Probably goes through the most development of the villains. Both used the “worst criminals of the bunch” vault in their respective series to pursue their goals.
• The scene with Wells/Ransik and Albert/Mr. Collins was one of the best moments in Power Rangers.

Next time: new Ranger team-up, time endangered, more on the Wes/Jen/Alex triangle, and why I consider this my favorite Power Rangers series.