For over 25 years, Power Rangers has taken footage from Japanese series Super Sentai wholesale.
Here’s a season by season look at how.
For any of you not in the know,Power Rangersis not a wholly original show.
Dont go off into the Desert of Despair… let me explain.
Power Rangerstakes much of its battle footage from a Japanese program calledSuper Sentai.
Sometimes the adaptation works and sometimes… well.
Well just get right into it.
Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1
MMPRthrewZyurangerto the wind.
This was the whole premise behind adapting footage fromSentai.
It was a cost cutting measure.
Cut out anything too Japanese, remove any excessive violence or just plain weirdness.
Even if you might see a Japanese kid in the background.
This lead to the odd distinction of theZyurangersuits piloting theDairangermecha.
A little boy who could grow into a full sized white ranger.
Who ended up being Tommy.
One interesting aspect was that this season they actually hacked the footage completely backward.
The Ninja Zords were actually introduced in the second half ofKakurangerwhile what became the Shogun Zords were introduced earlier.
This was to become the standard.
Choriki Sentai Ohranger Power Rangers Zeo
For the first time, Saban finally made the big switch.
They completely ditched theZyurangeroutfits so they could finally take full advantage of theSentaifights.
Besides this, however, the adapting was still business as usual.
They even adapted a child ranger into an adult once again with the Gold Ranger.
Credit needs to be given to the writers for not missing a beat with the transition between seasons.
This first half is one of the reasonsTurbois often hated by much of the fanbase.
Denji Sentai Megaranger Power Rangers In Space
This is where things get interesting.
Toei, the production company behindSentai, created the video game seasonMegaranger.
Undeterred by this the American producers pressed on with a space centered concept.
The budget did finally catch up with them, which is where the overrated Psycho Ranger arc came from.
This was the first real instance of burning throughSentaifootage, and it would not be the last.
Seijuu Sentai Gingaman Power Rangers Lost Galaxy.
This is where things get wild.
With the success ofIn Spacethe writers were given an edict.
Were going to space again!
The only problem?Gingamanwas a natureSentai.
Where one of the main characters wasa tree.
WhileLightspeeddidnt wholly copyGoGoV, it certainly used a lot of its aesthetics.
The main arc of the show was nearly directly translated in most cases.
In their place we were given Ransik, a formidable opponent played byMad Maxveteran Vernon Wells.
That was whatTime Forcedid best with theSentai.
Its just translating theSentaiwith barely any original thought in it.
When it does decide to care, its actually some of the bestPower Rangersout there.
Its just watered downGaoranger, and that wasnt a fan-favoriteSentaito begin with.
They were saddled with aSentaiseason about ninjas.
A season that featured a lot of ninja-like imagery wasnt going to be as easy to get around asZyuranger.
Rather than reshoot it, the crew behindNinja Stormjust went with it.
The main characters were students at a ninja academy.
As much as they were trying to capture the lightning in a bottle thatMMPRhad?
The ninja aesthetic meant they couldnt quite get to that level.
Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger Power Rangers Dino Thunder
This is where they finally got it right.
It was likeMighty MorphinSeason 1 all over again, but modernized!
One of the sad casualties of the season was the Triassic Ranger.
That right there sums up a lot ofPower Rangers dealings withSentaifootage.
Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger Power Rangers S.P.D.
Sloan and Austen left the show and under Bruce Kalish a new style was adopted for dealing withSentai.
Create a US-exclusive overall plot for the season but mostly adapt the individualSentaiepisodes.
This caused a lot of problems when Rangers would start acting way out of character.S.P.D.suffered from this greatly.
Thankfully, veteran producer Greg Aronowitz was also part of the creative process.
Sadly he was only present for this season.
Mahou Sentai Magiranger Power Rangers Mystic Force
Oh,Mystic Force.
The pacing was all over the place and the stories suffered.
None worse than the Ten Terrors arc.Magirangerhad ten monster generals.
Again, they didnt know how to work the footage.
So once more we were stuck with a decent American over plot saddled withSentaiplots sloppily translated.
The awkward cropping and squishing of the footage made some of the fights borderline unwatchable.
It took out anything too Japanese and just kept going.
The 2007-2008 writers strike didnt impact the story quality and the season just shuffled through the major beats ofGekiranger.
Even being the highlight of the season, the middle of their three-episode arc had a randomSentaiplot thrown in.
Thanks, scab writers!
By this pointPRhad fallen into a rut.
It was the same thing every year.
The most original use ofSentaifootage in years perhaps took it a bit too far.
They did lampshade all of the wackier aspects ofGo-ongerfairly well, but it was still an uphill battle.
The end result more or less worked and its still regarded as one of the series best.
Samurai Sentai Shinkenger Power Rangers Samurai/Super Samurai
SamuraiandSuper Samuraiare likeWild Forcewithout the caring.
They areShinkenger, through and through.
It lead to awkward translated dialogue such as, we became impatient!
The show was watered downShinkenger.
Not the most triumphant return to the franchise for Saban.
Tensou Sentai Goseiger Power Rangers Megaforce
The Goseigers were angels.
Clearly this would be gone fromMegaforce.
Instead the rangers are back in high school and we thankfully got some originality back into the show.
The pacing was horrific.
Battles would last for 85% of the episode.
Villains are introduced and quickly disposed of.
Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger Power Rangers Super Megaforce
Gokaigerwas a love letter to fans ofSuper Sentai.
It was filled cameos from every single season and had a damn great cast to boot.
To this day its still beloved by fans.
While it got a few of the anniversery elements down right most of the episodes were pretty forgetable.
The characters really never got to develop and even the final episode featuring tons of cameos felt rushed.
Oh yeah, they also used a bunch of suits forSentaithat had been made intoPower Rangers.
Both groups of enemies are after power sources in giant towers to!
Now that takes some serious talent.
Fans assumed all elements of it would be dropped likeGo-Busters.
At least one element did make it through, a villain suit.
InToQger, Baron Nero was one of the main villain generals.
InNinja Steelhes the host of the intergaltic series, Galaxy Warriors.
His face has also been slightly altered, becoming much softer.
Very few plots fromNinningermake their way intoNinja Steel.
