Power Rangers
Power Rangers is an American media franchise, built around a superhero television series. The first Power Rangers entry, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, produced by Saban Entertainment, debuted on August 28, 1993. It became a hit in ratings and toy sales, establishing the franchise into pop culture.
The Power Rangers television series adapts characters and footage from the Japanese tokusatsu franchise Super Sentai for Western audiences, while also incorporating its own stories and characters. The original series ran for 30 seasons, which aired from 1993 to 2023, and it has expanded into other media, including theatrical films, comic books, novels and video games. A franchise reboot is currently in the works.
Despite initial criticism that its action violence targeted child audiences, the franchise has been commercially successful. By 2001, the media franchise had generated over $6 billion in toy sales.
In 2018, Bandai parted ways with Power Rangers, and the franchise was subsequently acquired by American toy company Hasbro. Toei Company handles the brand in certain Asian markets, including Japan.
Premise
Since Power Rangers derives most of its footage from the Super Sentai series, it features many hallmarks that distinguish it from other superhero series. Each series revolves around a team of youths recruited and trained by a mentor to morph into the eponymous Power Rangers, able to use special powers and pilot immense assault machines, called Zords, to overcome the periodic antagonists. In the original series Mighty Morphin, the wizard Zordon recruits "teenagers with attitude" against Rita Repulsa.When "morphed," the rangers become powerful superheroes wearing color-coded skin-tight spandex suits and helmets with opaque visors; identical except in individual rangers' color, helmet design, and minor styling such as incorporating a skirt. Morphed Rangers generally possess enhanced strength, durability, agility and combat prowess. Some possess superhuman or psychic abilities such as super-speed, element manipulation, extra-sensory perception or invisibility. In addition, each individual ranger has a unique weapon, as well as common weaponry used for ground fighting.
Rangers teams operate in teams of three to five, with more Rangers joining the team later. Each team of Rangers, with a few exceptions, obeys a general set of conventions, outlined at the beginning of Mighty Morphin and implied by mentors throughout many of the other series: Power Rangers may not use their Ranger powers for personal gain or for escalating a fight, nor may the Power Rangers disclose their identities to the general public. The penalty for disobeying these rules is the loss of their power.
As in Super Sentai, the color palette of each Power Rangers team changes every series. Only Red and Blue appear in every Ranger team. Other colors and designations also appear throughout the series. A Rangers' color designation also influences their wardrobe throughout the series: civilian clothing often matches Ranger color.
History
Adapting the ''Super Sentai'' series
The idea of adapting Sentai series for America emerged in the late 1970s after the agreement between Toei Company and Marvel Comics to exchange concepts to adapt them to their respective audiences. Toei, with Marvel Productions, created the Japanese Spider-Man television series, and produced three Super Sentai series, which had great success in Japan. Marvel and Stan Lee tried to sell the Sun Vulcan series to American television stations including HBO, but found no buyers and the agreement ended.Several years later, another idea to adapt Super Sentai began in the 1980s when Haim Saban made a business trip to Japan, in which, during his stay at the hotel, the only thing that was being transmitted on his television was the Japanese series Choudenshi Bioman. At the time, Saban was fascinated by the concept of five people masked in spandex suits fighting monsters, so in 1985, he produced the pilot episode of Bio-Man, an American adaptation of Choudenshi Bioman, which was rejected by several of the largest American television stations. His idea only took off in 1992, as Saban came to Fox Kids, whose president Margaret Loesch had previously helmed Marvel Productions and thus was familiar with Super Sentai.
Production of Power Rangers episodes involves extensive localization of and revision of original Super Sentai source material to incorporate American culture and conform to American television standards. Rather than making an English dub or translation of the Japanese footage, Power Rangers programs consist of scenes featuring English-speaking actors spliced with scenes featuring either Japanese actors dubbed into English or the action scenes from the Super Sentai Series featuring the Rangers fighting monsters or the giant robot battles with English dubbing. In some series, original fight scenes are filmed to incorporate characters or items unique to the Power Rangers production.
Like many of Saban Entertainment previous ventures in localizing Japanese television for a Western audience, the plot, character names, and other names usually differ greatly from the source footage, though a few seasons have stayed close to the story of the original Super Sentai season. The American arm of Bandai, who co-produced the Sentai shows and manufactured its toys, worked with the adaptation of the Japanese names.
A brainstorming among executives led to "Power Rangers", and for the specific show that would be made, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, evoking the transformation sequences. The meeting also brought up the term "Zord" for the giant robots, to invoke both the sword that the Megazord carried, and the dinosaurs that were the team's theme.
Along with adapting the villains from the Super Sentai counterparts, most Power Rangers series also feature villains with no Sentai counterpart. Generally, the primary antagonist of a Power Rangers series are not adapted from the Sentai. Exceptions to this includes Zeo, Lightspeed Rescue and a few others which only use villains adapted from the Japanese shows.
The franchise began with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which began broadcasting as part of the Fox Broadcasting Company's Fox Kids programming block.
In honour of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers broadcast premiere, Hasbro announced "National Power Rangers Day" to be celebrated annually on August 28, 2018.
Broadcast and production
1993–2010
produced and distributed Power Rangers from 1993 until the end of 2001, with Fox Kids broadcasting the series in the United States until the Fall of 2002. The Walt Disney Company acquired the franchise as part of a larger buyout of Fox Family Worldwide that took place in 2001. Fox Family Worldwide subsequently became ABC Family Worldwide Inc. This buyout also saw Saban Entertainment become BVS Entertainment in 2002, from News Corporation, Fox's parent company, and Haim Saban.From September 2002, Power Rangers had aired on various Disney-owned networks, including the ABC Kids program block on ABC, the ABC Family and Toon Disney cable networks, and Jetix-branded outlets worldwide. Disney moved production of the franchise from Los Angeles to Studio West in New Zealand after Wild Force ended. Several ABC affiliate broadcasting groups, including Hearst Television, declined to air the series due to the lack of FCC-compliant educational and informational content.
2008's Power Rangers Jungle Fury was originally set to be the final season, but due to obligations with Bandai, Disney would produce 2009's Power Rangers RPM. An article in The New Zealand Herald published on March 7, 2009, identified RPM as the last season of the Power Rangers run. Production manager Sally Campbell stated in an interview, "...at this stage we will not be shooting another season." A September 1, 2009, revision to Disney A to Z: The Official Encyclopedia by Disney's head archivist Dave Smith states that "production of new episodes ceased in 2009". Production of Power Rangers ceased and the series by BVS Entertainment, RPM, ended on December 26, 2009.
On October 1, 2009, Bandai released a press release stating that Disney would re-broadcast Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in January 2010 on ABC Kids in lieu of producing a new season. A new toy line accompanied the broadcast and appeared in stores in the later part of 2009.
2011–2021
On May 12, 2010, Haim Saban bought back the Power Rangers franchise from Disney for $43 million and announced plans to produce a new season of the television series. Beginning with the eighteenth season, Samurai the series would be produced under Saban Capital Group's new Saban Brands subsidiary and premiere on Nickelodeon on February 7, 2011. Reruns of previous seasons and episodes would also begin airing on sister channel Nicktoons later that year. In addition to Samurai, Saban announced plans to make a new Power Rangers film.On July 2, 2012, Saban Brands announced that would it launch a new Saturday morning cartoon block on The CW, called Vortexx, on August 25, 2012, with reruns of Power Rangers Lost Galaxy to air on the block.
On October 1, 2013, Saban Brands announced that it had extended agreements for the franchise with Nickelodeon and Bandai America Incorporated through 2016. In January 2016, Saban and Nickelodeon extended their broadcast partnership through 2018. In February 2018, it was announced that Power Rangers would continue airing on Nickelodeon through 2021. That same month, Saban Brands appointed Hasbro as the global master toy licensee for Power Rangers in April 2019 with a future option to purchase the franchise. On May 1, 2018, Saban would agree to sell Power Rangers and other entertainment assets to Hasbro for US$522 million in cash and stock. The Saban Brands subsidiary ended operations upon the closure of the deal on July 2, 2018.
The twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh seasons, Power Rangers Beast Morphers, would be produced by Hasbro's Allspark studio. Beginning with the twenty-eighth season, Power Rangers Dino Fury, the series is being produced by Entertainment One.