Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - The Movie - Part 1

[second_batgirl]

I... don't think there are enough words to express how much I love this movie. I saw it in theatres. Twice. And I clearly remember forcing my parents to tape the Access Hollywood segment about the movie. (At least I think that was what it was? Whichever one of those shows covered it.) I owned this movie on VHS. It fills me with glee. So, yeah. (I

Comments

[manwe_iluvendil]

1) I would very happily ship Justin with Nico (from Turbo). The Fred/Justin age similarity never occurred to me, though. Hmm...

2) Don't you love the completely random Australian accents in this movie? Especially like how Fred doesn't have one but hid dad does. Maybe he picked it up from shagging that police officer at the construction site?

3) Billy getting a "stega-stinger" is completely fail, and to answer your question, I totally did imagine a Stegosaurus Ranger in the days before Tommy showed up, because in a show about fucking DINOSAURS, I'm sorry, but I didn't see a dragon coming, and I don't think that's my fault. For the record, Stegosaurus Ranger's color was orange. Why orange (a color I pretty much hated up until 2006... don't ask) occurred to me before green is anyone's guess.

4) I could not possibly be gayer, and I absolutely love Dulcea's outfit due to the fact that she looks fuckin' kick-ASS. Only when accessorizing with the staff, though.

5) While I don't use the "ninjetti" motif, my backstory on the destruction of the Nathadian Temple on Phaedos is pretty bad-ass. Details available upon request.

6) No. Rocky is dumb. This was just a case of the writers deciding he's "smart" so he has a characteristic that can fit his new totem animal. Not that it's a strike against Rocky. You have to have one slightly less intelligent character, a handful of average intelligence characters, a smart character, and then there's the genius. It's all for the sake of variety. Rocky doesn't have to be smart for him to be lovable and a valuable member of the team. He's essential. Thick and a bit slow, but essential.

7) In my own head, before Rocky and Adam hook up, Adam had an unrequited thing for Tommy. Why? After Dulcea says "handsome prince", Adam casts a furtive glance to his right and all but blushes. Who's standing to his right? The winged lord of his ass... dyeh, the skies.

[queenriley]

6) Actually, it's canon in the series as well that Rocky is SMART. He may be lacking common sense, sure, but in the whopping 3 character development episodes he gets, we are told (because when does this show ever SHOW something?) that Rocky is smart. He spends an afternoon studying with Billy for their ADVANCED math test. As in, Rocky is not being tutored by Billy in hopes of catching up in remedial or on-level math... they are studying together for their mutual advanced math class. And Billy, super-genius-when-convenient, is sure Rocky will ace it. You can't ace an advanced math test if you aren't at least a little bit smart, no matter how much you study.

Once you get to season 3, you've got Teacher For a Day. Sure he doesn't do so well on the chemistry, but he's thrown into the teaching role on a day they start a NEW section in chemistry. Can you teach something you've never learned no matter how well you've done in the class beforehand? I sure couldn't, and I'm no dummy.

The very next episode does seem to forget that character development a bit, but Rocky isn't shown to be STUPID, just unobservant.

I hate that fandom has made Rocky the idiot of the team when canon has specifically said otherwise. He's not dumb. He's unobservant. He's lacking common sense. Yes, I'll give you all that. But he's not the stupid one of the team.

[manwe_iluvendil]

I dunno. I kind of find that Rocky's academic moments are two-fold bullshit.

1) It smacks terribly of informed ability. The only time Rocky is smart is when the writers need him to be smart at that moment in time. I don't think Rocky is a moron. He just always struck me as the street-smart type. Given the way he behaves in like EVERY OTHER EPISODE, the ones where the audience is told to accept that he could keep up with Billy... I just have to laugh. In the entire canon of Power Rangers, there is one character that I think could believably share a class with Billy, and that's Trini. Technically Justin too, but you ask me that's a character feature that should never have been.

2) I really never understood why every single member of the team has to be a well-rounded person. Not a well-rounded character. There's a difference. I'm all for a character having more than one dimension to them. I love that Cordelia Chase does very well on standardized testing, for instance. But it just strikes me as saccharine and gross that every single one of the teens has to have, like, an A-minus average at least. If they're all so fucking smart and Billy is still in high school, what pray tell places him so far above the rest of them in terms of intellect?

I dunno. I just don't see what the harm is in having a character be slightly below average intelligence. It's not enough that Rocky is noble, streetwise, strong, and quick on his feet? He's got to be a member of Mensa too?

[queenriley]

The only time Rocky is shown to be, well, anything at all other than a person to stand there in red is in those three episodes. He gets no development, no plot points, no characteristics, nothing at all outside of those episodes, except a few poorly acted one liners. I can't say it's fair to base a character's entire personality on a few poorly acted one liners and not the minuscule amount of actual developmental episodes said character gets.

I see nothing wrong with some characters being less intelligent than others, or showing that average is a good thing and nothing to be ashamed of. It's all okay and I think it would have been great to show some of them, any of them, struggling with academics. It would have done the show a world of good to have actual C averages, tutoring sessions, or somebody discussing difficulty with learning a new subject. However the show did not choose Rocky to be this character (didn't choose anyone to be this character, really), so fandom forcing him into that role irks me.

As for it striking you as two-fold bullshit, do you also call this for Jason, Zack, Kim, Tommy, Aisha, Adam, Kat, and Tanya? Because they are only shown to be smart when the show wants them to be, and they supposedly keep up with Billy in all his classes, yet fandom rarely ever calls them out as being "the dumb ones". For some reason, this mantle goes to Rocky and Rocky alone, despite the others getting far more character development in various directions, where Rocky's only development shows his intelligence.

[manwe_iluvendil]

I see your point, and I agree that it is unfair for Rocky to be shunted into that position without a lot of just cause. I guess the groove most people get is from him not having a lot of personality and reading it as not a lot going on upstairs. I do see your point. It is the only development we really get on him.

But for the record, yes, I do feel it's equally unrealistic for all those characters to even be in the same classes as Billy, unless it was something like wood shop, music, or home economics: some class where book learning doesn't guarantee success, and thus it wouldn't be an automatic score for Little Boy Blue.

If some of the smarter characters were in honors classes for their year, while Billy was taking honors classes a grade or two above his... that I'd buy. But then again, we're talking about a public school where six kids have EVERY SINGLE CLASS together, so I guess hoping for realism is kinda stupid of me in and of itself.

[second_batgirl]

I would actually that it's perfectly realistic for them to choose the Rangers of above average intelligence - Zordon wants the best. (He ends up with Tommy, but nobody is perfect.)

The thing that's ridiculous is that Bulk and Skull are in the class.

Rocky may be a goof, but he's still smart, and I'd say that the episodes have shown him to be so. He might not be the most intelligent member of the team, but he's smart. Besides, there are multiple intelligences and while Rocky isn't Billy (and neither is anyone else on the team) he's still one of the top students at Angel Grove.

(I can agree with the Adam having a crush on Tommy thing.)

[_bellisima]

7) In my own head, before Rocky and Adam hook up, Adam had an unrequited thing for Tommy. Why? After Dulcea says "handsome prince", Adam casts a furtive glance to his right and all but blushes. Who's standing to his right? The winged lord of his ass... dyeh, the skies.

and this right here totally seals my desire to re-watch this now.