Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995) with Carlos Camacho

00:00:00
Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

00:00:16
Speaker 2: Go Go Podcast Rangers, Mighty Morphine Podcast Rangers, and.

00:00:22
Speaker 3: Then we can do really long intros where like I am the podcast cocker Spaniel.

00:00:29
Speaker 2: Here we exactly.

00:00:33
Speaker 3: I do feel like if I was a power Ranger, I would also be a frog. Okay, I think I think, do you what would be your animals? Have you thought about this? I haven't give you've spent time of your one human life thinking about this? No?

00:00:48
Speaker 2: Maybe, like I mean, I love cats and I love red pandas, and I love raccoons. Maybe it would be like the raccoon Power Ranger.

00:00:57
Speaker 3: That would be a cute one. I was I was a frog kid. I was like, I think I think I would stick with what works for me.

00:01:05
Speaker 2: Tracks for you, Jamie.

00:01:07
Speaker 3: What is that?

00:01:07
Speaker 2: What do you mean when you say that it's a compliment?

00:01:11
Speaker 3: Fucking freak there. No, It's just like every time I've told someone, uh, I played the Obo in high school, They've been like, yeah, that makes sense to me.

00:01:20
Speaker 2: You're like sounds about rede.

00:01:22
Speaker 3: Fuck you, that's a loser instrument. And we both know everyone knows it. All right, all right, all right, I can't get triggered. At the top of the Power Rangers episode, Uh, we are covering Muddy morphin Sunny Sorry, Sonny's Barque at the Wall. Okay, We are covering nineteen ninety fives Mighty morphin Power Rangers du movie.

00:01:48
Speaker 2: Yes. Also, we are the Bechdel Cast. And my name's Caitlin. I don't think we've done that yet.

00:01:52
Speaker 3: My name's Jamie Loftus. And this is our podcast where we take a look at your favorite ooze covered movies and discovered that there's actually quite a bit to talk about with regards to intersectional feminism. Oohs and all.

00:02:07
Speaker 2: And we have an incredible returning guest joining us. He's got a PhD in sociology okay and.

00:02:16
Speaker 3: Being a teenager with attitude.

00:02:19
Speaker 2: True. He's host of the Horror Agenda podcast, an aspiring screenwriter. And you know him from our episode on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Secret of the Ooze. It's Carlos Camacho.

00:02:34
Speaker 4: Hello, Hi, I'm not gonna take it personally, I'm back for two Ooh's episodes.

00:02:40
Speaker 2: Hey, you're our gooiest guest, Resident Ooz movie expert.

00:02:47
Speaker 3: Resident Ooz is a good title for a movie.

00:02:49
Speaker 2: Also, that's good.

00:02:50
Speaker 4: Shut that down.

00:02:52
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, let's let's write that.

00:02:55
Speaker 5: Bob.

00:02:55
Speaker 3: Thank you for returning to the show to unpack the Power Rangers for us.

00:03:02
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:03:03
Speaker 3: Again, just like, there's so much to talk about with this movie and also with this franchise, So let's let's just get right in. Yeah, what is your history with the Power Rangers franchise?

00:03:19
Speaker 4: Who? It's been central to my life for most of my life at this point, literally grew up watching the show. Saw I'm assuming I saw this movie in theaters. I definitely saw Turbo in theaters and I was so wrapped that my family ate like all the popcorn and I was like, oh is there food? And they're like, you didn't eat? And I was like, I was watching the movie. I was distracted. I was focused. This is what you wanted.

00:03:47
Speaker 3: Were none of you locked in?

00:03:50
Speaker 4: They weren't. They weren't locked in. But yeah, I collected the toys dressed up as a Power Ranger for Halloween. I had the gloves that made a noise that you hear so often in this movie, and I still have it. I was telling Caitlin off Mike, I have a bookshelf. I have a bookshelf with all of my PhD books, race, sexuality, gender, all that stuff. And then on the top is my Power Ranger shrine where I have the original Megazord, the flip top head, Power Rangers, toys from the movie, stuff from comic con are I'm that guy in my friend group, They're like, turtles are Power Rangers. We know how to pluck the nostalgia buttons of this guy.

00:04:36
Speaker 3: I feel like everyone, everyone should have their comfort nostalgia property that you're like, is it flawed? Sure, but it's fine. It's fine. Okay, so you know the lore this is. This is going to be a fun one. I'm excited.

00:04:52
Speaker 4: I'm so excited.

00:04:53
Speaker 3: Kitlin was your history with the Power Rangers.

00:04:57
Speaker 2: So I was a big fan of the show. I wasn't sure if I had seen this movie or not. I was like, well, I'll watch it and I will see if anything is familiar. Turns out it wasn't. As I was prepping for this episode, so I was like, okay, I have not seen this movie, but I've probably seen every episode of the show, because my afternoons when I got home from school as a kid were watching Power Rangers and then VR Troopers. If anyone remembers that.

00:05:25
Speaker 6: Show, No, what is that?

00:05:27
Speaker 2: It's a similar show made by the same horrendous zionist.

00:05:33
Speaker 3: Oh boy, we'll.

00:05:35
Speaker 2: Talk about it. But I think it's three Virtual Reality Troopers versus the six Power Rangers. But they just they do similar things. They're like teens or young adults who fight inter dimensional beings and stuff, and they have suits and all that fun stuff.

00:05:54
Speaker 3: I was really enjoying I found, of course, I found a Power Rangers YouTuber. This is their lifecraft and they were making fun of I guess an observation I had also made. But I was like, oh, maybe it's different than the TV show where he was like, so they're teenagers with attitude, except they really don't have attitude, and they really don't really transgress in any way. They're always nice. They are not teenagers with attitude at all.

00:06:23
Speaker 2: They don't have distinct personalities either, really at.

00:06:26
Speaker 3: Least, which I think is for all of these reasons that I didn't realize that are really interesting, where you're like, we can't really have a character if we're constantly cutting to a different person, possibly a decade ago, in a suit. It's fascinating.

00:06:45
Speaker 2: Okay, So my favorite parts of the show were Bulk and Skull because the comic relief that they provided was top notch when I was, you know, seven or whatever, and I loved all the five the little robot assistant. Those were the characters that I remembered the most. I couldn't tell you a single plot line of any of the episodes. I didn't even remember, like what the Rangers' names were or anything like that. But I was like, Bulkan, Skull, they're getting into some goofy little high jinks. They're having fun, and then the little robot guy is going beeboop, and I thought that stuff was awesome.

00:07:29
Speaker 3: When I was a kid, I was like, the robot I was calling in my notes definitely not C three Po who works for definitely not the worzard of Oz who when he gets sick, is definitely not nice Palpatine. You're like, there's so many random visual references. I loved it.

00:07:48
Speaker 2: Yes, Jamie, what is your relationship with Power Rangers?

00:07:53
Speaker 3: So I figured I would be a little different here so I remember The Power Rangers being around, but as a little too young to actually watch it. I remember my older cousins who were really into it. I remember them watching it. It was like I have, for some reason associate Power Rangers with the WWE, because it was something my older cousins could watch that I couldn't and it involved fighting. So much of what I knew about The Power Rangers was like secondhand information. They were sort of forbidden to me, and then by the time I was old enough to watch, they weren't really popular anymore. And I think I just watched The Powerpuff Girls, which is weirdly a similar premise where it's like superhero children who work for a weird old man become a premise as old as time. That's also Charlie's Angels, except their grown ups anyways. So the only thing I really remember outside of their like existence and like seeing the toys around and stuff, was I remember, for some reason, Rita Rapulsea had a really strong icon effect on me. I both so it was such like a weird childhood sense memory where I remember being like, she's so cool, but she she and maybe this is me just projecting my like her tagline, but I was like, but I remember it was like, well oop, I associate her with having a headache because her voice is very annoying but also her but also her like catchphrases, I have a headache, which is so I don't know if I don't know what it was, but yeah, I don't. I didn't have deep lore knowledge at all, and so I I guess it's like I had some fun and I also just learned a lot prepping for this episode, because there really is just like Caitlin, you alluded to a huge reveal that I didn't know because I was like, Sabon could have meant absolutely anything in the world to me. We'll talk about the creator, we'll talk about I mean, there's just I feel like part of this movie is first of all iconic, Like the bad guys are thrown against a wall, they exploded to purple calm. You're like yeah, You're like, yeah, You're like exactly. I love that. I love when the random definitely not zena Warrior princess character is like it's every every character in this movie is definitely not another very popular character, but when she is, like it's the thing of ultimate power. And then just points to a gigantic like penis shaped rock and you're like, yeah, the big throbbing cock of power, and then they get that, like I just it was we're gonna talk about all the controversies. And also I was laughing so much like it's it's it's so like it's low rent in the best way where they're like we're animals and then they hike on foot the entire way like it's so silly. I love it.

00:10:45
Speaker 2: The budget was fifteen million dollars, and I'm like, did you mean fifteen dollars? Because where did the money go?

00:10:52
Speaker 3: I think it was to pay I think a lot of it went to that the soundtrack. The soundtrack was very expensive. And also I would guess I don't know, but I bet that those like very now very dated, like screensaver, PlayStation one effects at the end. We're expensive at the time, even though it does look like PS one.

00:11:12
Speaker 2: It was great. Yes, indeed, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap.

00:11:19
Speaker 6: Let's do it.

00:11:30
Speaker 2: It's morph in time.

00:11:31
Speaker 3: We're back, all right.

00:11:34
Speaker 5: So.

00:11:36
Speaker 3: Right, we panicked, we thought there was more, Okay, we power now it's time.

00:11:44
Speaker 2: I like that, like they'll be fighting in a battle for so long and then finally they're like, Okay, let's bust out our special powers. And it's like you had these the whole time, Like why didn't you do it sooner?

00:11:56
Speaker 3: I am very reasons, right, I'm I'm so fascinated by like how Yeah, it just seems like by design and it seems like merchandising by the design, and also because of like how these adaptations had to work, Like these characters cannot really have person or they can only have personalities to a very specific point, and so I was like, Okay, my robot chicken pitch for this is like what do these kids talk about on the long Hike? I literally cannot imagine a conversation about them that is not strictly like okay, we're at the big penis what do we do now? Like that's like they I would I would love to know what they're what they're chatting about. I guess they do. It seems like they do on the TV show, right, Do they have parents?

00:12:38
Speaker 4: Like yes, from what I remember from the show, the parents are very much not involved. Like you have a guest episode where I think it's Halloween and the parents get kidnapped into some like alternate dimension. There's an episode in I think the first season when the original cast was still there where Treeny's uncle comes by and bonds with Billy over like science and nerd stuff because he's like really good at martial arts like Trainy, but then also good at like brainiac things like Billy, and so there's sort of like a meeting of the minds there. But yeah, this is very much kids with no adults around other than like they have a home to go back to, but their parents are never concerned about them skipping school, doing anything or perhaps appearing on the news involved in shenanigans, just like don't care.

00:13:27
Speaker 3: Again, one of the iconic things where they're like, no one can know, but then it's like everyone knows, including Fred. The child's the most nineties kid to ever nineties It's true.

00:13:43
Speaker 2: Okay, here is the recap. It is one of the shortest recaps I've ever written, because there is because there's almost no plot to this movie.

00:13:50
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, but so much happens. Yeah, yes, they're like I guess it is mostly and then they're fighting these guys, and then they're fighting these guys, and then they there's a secret dinosaur bone that kills the dinosaur.

00:14:06
Speaker 2: It's a lot of like characters showing up somewhere and then fighting, yeah, and then moving to a second location and then fighting some more. But at the beginning we get a very Star Warsian opening exposition crawl and we learn about an interdimensional being named Zordon who came to the city of Angel Grove, California question mark, I think so and established a command center where he his assistant Alpha five, the little robot guy who I love, and a group of six teenagers work together to fight evil. And these teens called the Mighty Morphine Power Rangers can transform into these or I don't know. I don't think it's them transforming, but they're able to like summon these like planes and other machinery.

00:15:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, Carlos you how does how does it work?

00:15:12
Speaker 4: So there's a well, first off, the film is non canonical to the show, like you find it right in that like exposition dump because in the original series, Zordam picks five teenagers. The sixth teenager is a surprise and he's initially evil and his arc is where the Green Ranger comes tries to destroy them, becomes a good guy and loses his powers because he's like tied to Rita's green candle. It's a whole thing.

00:15:40
Speaker 3: So it's like, ok, and we all know Rita's grain candle. I really enjoyed. I watched a bunch of like you know, those like cannon summary videos and the Green I mean, the Green Ranger story is compelling.

00:15:54
Speaker 4: It's real good.

00:15:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, so is that Tommy And then he becomes the White Ranger. Mm hmm Okay.

00:16:00
Speaker 4: So Alpha and zord On work in their basement. They have a secret lab where they build the White Ranger so that they can bring a new footage because, like Jamie was saying, the show is originally spiced with like very little US footage and a lot of like taking Japanese footage. So it's like, oh, we ran out of Super Sentai, Judah and Jef footage. Now we have to switch to a different show. Because in the Super Sentai version, which is like Japanese Power Rangers, each season was in and of itself. It was like a one shot season, so it's like the Power Rangers, then the Ninja Rangers, then the spin like it was all different. In the US, they like sewed it together because they're like they're not gonna get rid of these guys and watch a new show with all new people, which they eventually did later on, where it's like, you've got the Mystic Rangers, You've got the dyno Oh what is it? Dinoh Thunder comes back? Like there's so many different seasons of Power Rangers only decades.

00:16:54
Speaker 3: Brother, watch Dino Thunder. I think, okay, yeah, So for listeners who aren't aware, because I did not know this, this Power Rangers is a licensed adaptation, because I was also worried that they just stole shit, but they so. It is a licensed adaptation of a Javit show called supercent Tie that goes back to the seventies that super villain, real life supervillain Carl Saban had wanted to adapt in the West, I think pretty early on into that series. Also, stan Lee wanted to adapt it at some point, like damn, that would have been cool, but wasn't able to get it off the ground until the nineties. And so and then what you said, Carlos, so much of the early series is just the American teenagers taking off the helmet and having a plot and then putting the helmet back on, and then cut into footage from supercent Tie that could be from god knows when kind.

00:17:48
Speaker 4: Of right, yeah, and sometimes you can see that it doesn't add up, like it's like very clearly filmed differently because it's like film versus like whatever technology they were using. It's just like are two different people.

00:18:01
Speaker 3: It is so wild to think, yeah, like it's like intercutting a movie from today with a movie from like two thousand and seven. Like it's just bizarre.

00:18:10
Speaker 2: Well, you know, who didn't notice me, my seven year old ass brain?

00:18:14
Speaker 3: Oh what I mean? Of course not. I think that Unfortunately, you know, the producers of this show took a risk on maybe kids are not media literate and they don't give a fuck.

00:18:27
Speaker 2: And and that risk paid off.

00:18:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so interesting thinking about this like time of like really aggressively I mean it still happens obviously, but like really aggressively merchandised shows where the content is like there's not much going on. It's just like we just need enough plot to justify selling a toy, and it worked. That was like the entire eighties and nineties, it felt like.

00:18:53
Speaker 2: Anyway, so we get all this exposition about the Power Rangers and their machines called zoos love it.

00:19:02
Speaker 3: I wonder what it's a reference to.

00:19:06
Speaker 2: Then we meet the Power Rangers as they're jumping out of a plane and skydiving and then later rollerblading.

00:19:15
Speaker 3: No explanation. Well, I guess there is an explanation. I love this, just the Power Rangers and their bullies.

00:19:21
Speaker 2: In the other they're hanging out to his friends almost but we meet Billy the Blue Power Ranger, Kimberly the Pink One, Adam the Black One, Aisha the Yellow One, Rocky the Red One, and Tommy the White one, and he seems to be kind of the leader of the group.

00:19:42
Speaker 3: We know that because he's in the middle of the poster and Fred says hey Tommy, and you're like, okay, got it.

00:19:51
Speaker 2: Also, there are the two bullies from the show, Bulk and Skull.

00:19:57
Speaker 3: Iconic, and they do their bullies are like thirty five yes, love it.

00:20:04
Speaker 2: They're also completely inconsequential to the plot of the movie. Yeah, to the point where you're like, why are they even on screen?

00:20:12
Speaker 3: But how dare you? I thought, I'm a fan.

00:20:16
Speaker 2: I love so anyway we see them doing, you know, extreme sports, the Power Rangers. Meanwhile, a large glowing orb egg thing is discovered at a construction site, and it seems to give off this evil energy, which Zordon is able to sense using all of his evil sensing equipment at the command center, so he summons the Power Rangers. They I forgot this that they're able to teleport. They have teleportation technology. Wow, And so they teleport to the command center and Zordon, who is this like large disembodied Wizard of Oz's head.

00:21:03
Speaker 3: But nice, like he's the Wizard of Oz but nice and Palpatine but.

00:21:07
Speaker 2: Nice, and yes he looks like Palpatine. And he tells them that an evil interdimensional being named ivan Ooz has returned after many millennia And.

00:21:22
Speaker 3: Just checking Carlos, is this a new character at the time? Okay, I didn't know if ivan Ooz was already Cannon. I just know that I love him.

00:21:31
Speaker 2: Ooz is new.

00:21:32
Speaker 4: Mordant, the guy like the pig man who's hanging out with Goldar, is new because some of the characters from the original series are like face characters in the Japanese footage, so they can't necessarily translate them in the same way. I guess do you get Rita and Z coming back? Goldar comes back, but everybody else is like, there's no Finster, no Squat, no Baboo, no Scorpoena, and then more dant is there.

00:21:59
Speaker 2: Yes that we all no one loves O favorites.

00:22:03
Speaker 3: I do, I do never read. I was glad Rita was there, and then I was so sad that she was instantly banished.

00:22:10
Speaker 2: So rude. Yeah, okay. So Goldar is he this sort of like gargoyle looking.

00:22:16
Speaker 3: Like winged oh, the golden golden armor.

00:22:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, that makes sense.

00:22:22
Speaker 3: Yeah. I guess that the operating thing here is don't think too hard and you'll probably get it right right.

00:22:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay.

00:22:30
Speaker 2: So back at the construction site, the main villains of the Power Rangers, Rita, Rapulsa, and lord Z show up with Goldar and then mister pig Man and they open this egg and outcomes I've an ooze.

00:22:49
Speaker 3: Oh and we're cheering. I love. It's too bad he's not a canonical care and he never comes back.

00:22:58
Speaker 4: No, no, there's even a link up of all of the villains in the show when it'll become relevant later when Jordan dies in the TV show and Ooz is never there. The teng Goo are they Tenga or tango? Because they change the name between the movie they're Tenga on the show, they're tengu in the movie they come back, but none no Ooz or the Uzi creature Purple guys.

00:23:23
Speaker 3: That's too bad. I hate to hear that, because what a character.

00:23:27
Speaker 4: He's so great. He's probably one of the best parts of the film. Like the standout.

00:23:32
Speaker 3: I mean talk about let's let's just give not to shout out a man right from the drum, but like, yeah.

00:23:40
Speaker 4: I didn't say that.

00:23:42
Speaker 3: We got a shout out mister Paul Freeman, who's just like leaving it all on the field. Like it's who I guess was most famous for playing Renee Bellock in Raiders of the Lost Arc.

00:23:54
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, that's him.

00:23:56
Speaker 3: Which I haven't well, I have seen, but I don't really remember very well. But yeah, that's I figured you would like that.

00:24:02
Speaker 2: I was just like, there's no way Ivan Ooze is played by any actor who I would ever recognize from anything, So I didn't even bother looking it up.

00:24:11
Speaker 3: But he did such a good job. He really like, I was taken. It's it's I think, far and away the best performance in the movie by all, and it's not even close. These kids couldn't see ivan Ooze with it with the Hubble telescope. It's ridiculous.

00:24:28
Speaker 4: And there's a telescope in the movie that's very very young.

00:24:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, okay, I am shook to my core. I can't believe he plays Belloch.

00:24:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's wild, it's range, it's range. I also love that this movie was there. Oh there's like one shot because it's just so like sloppy and funny. This happens a lot and lost as well. Where this movie was shot in Australia and so sometimes people are randomly Australian and your there's like this the I think it's like a security guard who morphs in ivan Ooze and he's like Hallia power right, and you're like, really the fuck are we and then he just turns into Ivanues and then you forget.

00:25:06
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Okay, So we meet ivan oohs and Lord z instructs him to kill Zordan and he's like happy to do it. The Power Rangers then show up and deal with the minions that ivan Ooze conjures before he fucks off to somewhere else, and the Power Rangers are outnumbered, so they invoke their mighty morphine powers and fight these uze minions, and there's a lot of karate or some similar type of martial art. There's a lot of goofy sound effects. There's a lot of horrible puns. They have gadgets. They have like Batman like gadgets that they're using.

00:25:55
Speaker 3: Usually which I and correct me if I'm right. It becomes a trend that usually Kimberly, Ayisha and sometimes Billy are like damseled at some point in the fight, and then it ends up being fine and they get to kick someone before the end of the fight. But I feel like Kimberly and Aysha in particular, you see them be like, oh no, and then Tommy comes in or the other one. I'm honestly shocked. I remember that many names.

00:26:25
Speaker 4: Like why is that you should trapped here? Why is I should trapped again? Kimberly screaming again? Why are we doing this?

00:26:31
Speaker 2: We'll talk about it.

00:26:32
Speaker 3: Aysha is always alone. I'm like she's fighting by herself in every scene.

00:26:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, well that's what that's what we'll talk about.

00:26:41
Speaker 3: We're here for, Yeah, we come to this place.

00:26:44
Speaker 4: Yes.

00:26:45
Speaker 2: Also, the song that's happening on the soundtrack during this fight scene, it's like action boy now Action Girl, Now.

00:26:53
Speaker 3: We should start playing that, Like that should be added to everyone's like gym playlist, like yes, I was, I was hived.

00:27:01
Speaker 2: It was awesome. And eventually the Power Rangers defeat the US Minions, but oh no, they're special powers and suits vanish because ivan Ooze has gone to the command Center and he trashes the place and he nearly kills Zordan. So the Power Rangers return to the Command Center and discover that Jordon is dying and that he needs some sort of vague great power to keep him alive.

00:27:35
Speaker 3: Which is contained in the Penis Rock, which we don't know yet. He creates the coin from the Penis Rock. Obviously, I have another canon question for you, Carlos. Is there any reason why Kimberley in particular is like Zordan's like my father, I was like what uh.

00:27:56
Speaker 4: No, okay, now that I can recall other then he is the only adult person that like engages with them outside of their principal who's useless, their teachers who don't really seem engaged or concerned that like Bulk and skullar like bullies TM in the school, like none of the adults are functional. So it's just like I guess this is the closest thing I have to a dad who's like sending me on dangerous missions to go fight bad guys, but it gave me powers to do it. I guess.

00:28:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so wild. Yeah I was, because Zordan is like such an amalgamation of other characters. You're like, wow, every mentor character is just ultimately sending a child to do their dirty work for them, And the Wizard of Oz is the only character who's ever like appropriately called out for it and.

00:28:43
Speaker 4: Ooh says it. He's like, oh, Zordan's still using a bunch of teenagers to do his dirty work. It's like, imagine if you picked adults who are not from the same high school, like six adults from around the world who maybe would have more skills and talents to like do this work. It's no teenagers, it's bad.

00:29:02
Speaker 3: It's yeah, kids. I mean you could say the same of one, uh what's his name, Dumbledore? Like they all these mentor characters that are like, you might die, but you'll definitely learn a lesson. You're like, I don't know, it.

00:29:15
Speaker 2: Is weird anyway. The Rangers return to the command center. Zordon is dying, so Alpha five is like, well, I can send you to this distant planet and retrieve a great power that I'm pretty sure is there. So Alpha five teleports them to the planet of Fatos. Meanwhile, i've an Ooz stages a coup against Rita, Rapulsa and Lord Z and traps them in a snow globe. Yeah, okay, pretty iconic. And then he makes more US minions. These ones look like birds.

00:29:57
Speaker 3: This is another ripoff from the Wizard of Us. This is the director awesome. I'm not saying that as a criticism, you know, it's it's homage qustionion work. Yeah.

00:30:10
Speaker 4: Well, the tengu are like Japanese folkloric, like it's derived from a thing. Yeah. I don't know in depth about it. I just know that because they end up coming back for the TV show, because they are in the Japanese franchise, because they are part of like the folklore. Though I don't know if it's exactly the same style of look, but like the winged fighter is a thing, okay, right, because.

00:30:34
Speaker 2: They look very different than the first Uzminians that he conjures out of his blob of uz. Come, what is it?

00:30:43
Speaker 3: What is the thing? He said? There's just so many great I've in oohze line reads where he's like meat my kids like.

00:30:51
Speaker 4: He's got some of the best line reads.

00:30:52
Speaker 3: It's great, he's really I love when like a character actor just fully commits to being a kid's I was thinking a lot of I don't expect either of you to have seen this. I watch it with my kniece last year Elmo's Adventures in Grouchland. Mandy Patankin is the villain in that, and he is unbelievable, like just again leaving it all in the field and did not have to love it.

00:31:20
Speaker 2: That rocks In any case, ivan Uz tells the bird Us monsters to fly to the planet of Fatos and destroy the Power Rangers. Then we cut to Fatos. The Power Rangers begin their search for the great the very specific great power that we know exactly what they're talking about. But then the bird monsters show up. What are they called again, Tengo tengu They show up, but the teens don't have their mighty more powers anymore since Zordon is dying and he's the one who gives them their powers. So the powers are gone, so they're not very good at fighting. But then this deis X woman in a green bikini shows up and wards off the tengu This is Dulcia, who is like, oh yeah, me and Zordon go way back, so I'll help you guys.

00:32:29
Speaker 3: And also I feel like there is heavily implied sexual tension between her and Tommy, which to and maybe I'm projecting, but like he he keeps I mean, also, it's one of those CW you know issues, where like these characters are canonically fifteen, but they're visibly twenty five, so you're like, canonically, I have an issue. Obviously these actors are probably the same age h. But he kept being like, what do you mean, and she's like, be pale, Like I don't know. I was just I was sensing a little bit of a like domb vibe from her, which is fine if they're both twenty five, but canonically they're not.

00:33:05
Speaker 2: Right. Well, also, they so heavily sexualize her in her costuming. Oh so I don't think you're necessarily like reading too far into that, So.

00:33:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess everything she's doing is sexualized, right.

00:33:20
Speaker 4: She was initially I'm sure this is in your notes for later, Jamie, but was like a Marishka hargatea FROMU was originally supposed to play Dulcia Oh my.

00:33:30
Speaker 3: God, which wasn't been a weird because her mom is Jane Mansfield. It feels like a weird like continuation. But yeah, I read that she got she because there's pictures of her in costume, and then she got fired for and this gets into the whole world of Power Rangers labor issue expanded universe. She was fired because she took off Christmas in New Year's was what I read.

00:33:56
Speaker 4: They basically had her on hold for a while where she was just like there but not really doing anything. So she's like, it's the holidays, I'm going home to be with my family. I'll be back and then she's like, oh, I'm ready, and they're like, we don't need you. You've been let go, and it's just like what what. There's a clip of her on I think fellon one of the late night shows talking about it and showing the pictures to the audience.

00:34:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, she the pictures are great. I mean, and the actor who ended up doing the part is also great. I'm just like, I guess she didn't get to see her family over the holidays, Like they're like, leave your family celebration. You're playing dull, dull, dull. Se'll see, they'll see, Yes.

00:34:42
Speaker 2: And she shows the Power Rangers this monolith in the distance aka Penis Power Rock.

00:34:51
Speaker 3: The big Penis in the distance.

00:34:52
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, because that's where this great power is. But she says that no one who has ever tried to obtain the power has survived, but maybe the Power Rangers will, and that she gives them new like animal spirit powers, which come with costumes that happen to be the same colors as their Power Ranger suits, which.

00:35:20
Speaker 3: Means more toys every time they change outfits. You're like, okay, got it, more toys, more toye yes.

00:35:27
Speaker 2: Also, I did not write down who gets which animal because it's again completely inconsequential to the plot, except for maybe Adam, who gets the frog because he's insecure about it.

00:35:42
Speaker 3: What a small arc for him. I liked it. Yeah there. I mean, I do think that the animals that they're given also sort of speak to the broad stereotypes applied to the characters, to where especially with Kimberly, who is like always like given quote unquote the most feminine thing of the crane, like the I think like they'll see us as like the graceful crane and you know the agility of the crane.

00:36:13
Speaker 4: Light is a feather. Yes, she got any light.

00:36:17
Speaker 3: To be clear, she's skinny like you're like.

00:36:20
Speaker 2: Okay, we get it.

00:36:22
Speaker 3: Sure, we'll circle.

00:36:26
Speaker 2: Yes. Meanwhile on Earth, Ivan Ooze wants to build an army of mindless drones to do his bidding. So and bear with me for this plan. He goes to a factory to make a bunch of evil ooze, then gives it out to kids at a carnival. And he's also disguised himself as this like purple wizard man, and he gives out the ooze. The ooze feels very ghack coated.

00:36:57
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I bet they saw the ooze? Did I saw that? They had to have solved the ooze.

00:37:03
Speaker 4: But I don't remember having it at all.

00:37:06
Speaker 3: Listeners, did any of you have the ooze? Yeah?

00:37:09
Speaker 2: Let us know. And so he distributes ooze to the kids so that the kids will bring the ooze home and their parents will open it and be brainwashed to do the work that Ivan Ooh's once done, such as dig up his giant evil robots from underground. And somehow this plan works exactly as intended.

00:37:37
Speaker 3: Instantly, And this is where I was, and this is morbid. But this does, to me anyways, turn into kind of a Jonestown scenario for with with Ivan Ooze as Jim Jones, because this is also escalating to mass everyone's gonna just walk off a cliff. It feels very kool Aid coded, where you're like, did he have to do? Like he's like, you will all do my bidding and then then you're gonna die and.

00:38:09
Speaker 2: You're gonna die. Well, they drank the kool aid. They drank the ooze.

00:38:13
Speaker 3: Almost if Fred hadn't blasted them with that purple come stuff, they would have. But also, I'm not even sure if that's true. I don't know. We'll talk about.

00:38:22
Speaker 2: It, right. So this kid, Fred realizes that something weird is happening with all the parents in town, so he goes to like start investigating. Back on Fatos, the Power Rangers set off toward the monolith. They have to traverse a big forest where some dinosaur skelling tins come to life and attack them, so they have to fight off the dinosaur. Then they reach the monolith, which is guarded by these big scary rock monsters with spiky weapons, so there's another fight scene and then the monolith opens and the great power within is unleashed, and it gives the Power Arrangers News suits and Zords, and that allows them to teleport back to Earth. But oh no, ivan UZ's giant robots are wreaking havoc in the streets of Angel Grove. So the Power Rangers summon their new Zords to fight the giant robots.

00:39:34
Speaker 3: And this is kind of like a Star Wars y kind of thing where they're in these little like battle fighter It was cool. I liked it. They look like shit, it's not.

00:39:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, the CGI is horrible here, and they're fighting individually in their little like ships at first, but then eventually they come together into the Megazord.

00:39:57
Speaker 3: And it's definitely not a Transformer.

00:40:00
Speaker 2: Definitely not, definitely not. Meanwhile, that kuld Fred is trying to rally all of the other children who are partying and rolling on ooze. They're rolling on ooze to see and he's like, we have to come together and save our parents because the parents are, as you alluded to, Jamie, are about to jump into a pit to their deaths.

00:40:28
Speaker 3: Which seems extreme. Surely ivan News kind have found use for them elsewhere.

00:40:34
Speaker 4: You would think something.

00:40:37
Speaker 2: So the Power Rangers. Meanwhile, lure ivan Ooze, who has transformed himself or like entered one of the robots and so now he's a huge evil robot. They lure him into space and into the path of a comet which hits ivan Ooze and kill him. And that's the big climax, I guess, yeah. And then the Power Rangers head to the command center to save zord On, but they're too late. Oh he's dead.

00:41:14
Speaker 3: This is one of my favorite and like, with all due respect to the actors playing the Power Rangers, there this scene they I don't know why they kept this shot. It's like it's a pan of all the kids when they when they're like, it's too late zord instead. And then you see each actor, one by one try to cry and fail. It's all of them being like and then they just close their eyes like what. And then the last one, I think, Jason, he doesn't even react. He just stands there. You're just like, God, we got to help these twenty five year old children.

00:41:48
Speaker 2: You know what's hilarious. There is not a Power Ranger named Jason.

00:41:52
Speaker 3: Oh wait, is there there? Maybe was there on the show or something. I don't know his real.

00:41:56
Speaker 4: Life name Tommy is Jason David Frank.

00:41:59
Speaker 3: Maybe that's what i've so it's the actor.

00:42:01
Speaker 4: And Jason was the original Red Ranger.

00:42:03
Speaker 3: Okay, I was definitely thinking about one of those guys. Let's go with that.

00:42:11
Speaker 4: You were talking about the actor and not the character.

00:42:13
Speaker 3: Sorry, I just know so much about Power Rangers. My wires are getting crossed.

00:42:18
Speaker 2: So anyway, so they discover that Zordon has died, but then they put their great animal spirit powers together and it brings Zordan back to life and they rejoice, and then the movie ends with a big celebration in Angel Grove and everyone's like thanks Power Rangers. Fireworks, fireworks, and that's the end. So let's take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss.

00:43:03
Speaker 3: And we're back. Isn't the last song it's like a van Halen song that yeah, I think so, just to go through the nineties, noess of this. There's the Power Rangers orchestra. So that's let's leave that alone. Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band called Shampoo question Mark.

00:43:23
Speaker 4: Yes, they're the ones who do Oh We're in trouble when the kids are partying.

00:43:28
Speaker 3: I know that song. Okay, Divo snap exclamation point fun Thomas featuring Carl Douglas. Don't know, of course, Van Halen, they might be giants. Like there's just so many, Like you were saying earlier, Caitlin, the had to have been an expensive soundtrack for sure, Carlos, Where would you like to start the discussion here?

00:43:56
Speaker 4: Oh my god, there's so much good luck? Oh goodness, I guess this is the Bechdel cast. Let's talk about how Aisha and Kimberly keep getting like the short end of the stick in their fights. They're like equally power rangers. Kimberly's one of the ogs, and it's like, we need to yell for help, like, what what's happening here?

00:44:21
Speaker 3: Repeatedly it stinks. I'm curious how much this character through the show. I'm like, it's the nineties, so I'm assuming it does. But but yeah, I mean, it's like we have these sort of five featureless teenagers. Personality wise, they're they're all basically the same person, and so I feel like a lot of what we have to go off of with them are these like broad character stereotypes where you can tell this even if you don't watch the show. But like Kimberly is like the hyper feminine white girl and.

00:44:54
Speaker 2: Her costume's pink.

00:44:55
Speaker 3: Her costumes pink, and she's a girl girl TM and so we're going to give her love interests, of course we are. And it's Tommy and he's gonna be saving her a lot. So there's her. And then I think it's like also equally important to talk about who is not in this movie and why so this movie and Carlo's correct me as our resident expert, because I'm new, I'm new to the culture here, but there are three original Power Rangers who are missing from this movie. Because so the original US series went from ninety two to ninety six. This came out in ninety five, So the original Yellow, Black, and Red Ranger I think are all gone at this point, whoo okay, And the reason that is is because of a pretty serious labor dispute that really foreshadows we'll be talking about the extensive villainy of Zionist millionaire heim Saban, but he's also been added labor wise for a long time. The original characters are who are not there are Trainy Kwan played by actor Tui Trag, who played the Yellow Ranger, the only Asian cast member. Certainly nothing going on there. In a similar fashion, we have Zach Taylor played by actor Walter Emmanuel Jones, the only black cast member of the original Power Rangers, playing the Black Ranger. He has said that this was like a choice that he made and that he's not bothered by it, but it's been talked about extensively. And then the Red Ranger who was played who is a character named Jason Lee Scott played by a guy named Austin Saint John. Three names really challenging. But these three characters are missing because so this show, as we've talked about, is an amalgamation of old footage from Japan and contemporary footage at the time from the US. So the kids are shooting a lot, but they're not necessarily performing everything, which is at the heart of this labor dispute. So the like Mighty Worphinpower Rangers becomes really successful right away in the US, primarily in merchandising and toys, and like this is disputes we've talked about over the years where like Star Wars is the most famous one, where like Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill, like they weren't cut in on merchandising and lost out on god knows how much money by not having that in their contracts. Similar issue going on here is that none of the young actors are cut into merchandising. And I think what Carl Sabon and Ko say is, well, you're not even doing the stunts and people like the suits, they don't like you.

00:47:44
Speaker 2: Sorry, is his name Carl ham Seon?

00:47:48
Speaker 3: I don't know why I called them Carl Saban. Let's be on. I think it's let's focus on the names that I got right, which is amazing, and let's just why am I any.

00:48:00
Speaker 2: Are you thinking of Carl Sagan?

00:48:02
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of Carl Sagan, honestly don't know. Okay, so I'm Sebon. It's been Carl in my head for days now for some reason.

00:48:14
Speaker 2: Oh wow, well again he's an evil, heinous piece of shit.

00:48:18
Speaker 3: So cure if I get it. But on the labor piece of shit side. So, these are non union actors at the time, which if you're which basically means you can pay non unit uian actors anything they'll agree to. Most people start non union while they build a resume, and then they join SAG and are in a union, get a standard rate and have people to help them negotiate their contracts. So this started as a non union show became extremely successful, and then half of the cast, who are all represented by the same manager at the time, they're red, yellow, black Rangers, go to Sabon and Co. At the you know, beginning of this season, I guess, and they're like, hey, we want a cut of merchandising. And the thing that's like really wild to me is like they're like, we want to become union actors and they say, no, fuck you. I am not exactly sure. I know that the actor who played Kimberly. Let's see, let's see if I get Amy Joe Johnson. Everyone in the nineties had three names. Amy Jo Johnson later expressed regret for not having doing this because it seems like the all the kids were or the young actors were given the same bad deal, but only three of them fought against it. And I think because they weren't a united front, or maybe it would have gone this way. Anyways, We'll never know. So Bond was like, we are going to bank on.

00:49:43
Speaker 5: The fact that kids care more about the suits than they care about you, and they just did away with the characters entirely, so, you know, not only is this like a massive labor issue, And as Amy Jo Johnson has said, this means that the remaining cast members, sure they're still on Power Rangers, but they're still making like shitty wages and being put in unsafe conditions constantly, and they're not protected by a union.

00:50:10
Speaker 3: Like Amy Jo Johnson said, she was almost electrocuted on the set of this movie. And like, you know, just there were all of these malpractice issues because it wasn't an above board set because they weren't union. So not only left the remaining cast members in this very vulnerable place, it got these other actors, you know, cast out of this very successful franchise just for advocating for basic, basic, basic labor rights. And also you lose two people of color in the primary cast. So that is where how we get the new characters of Aisha who oh my god, there's so many names. Who is played by the actor helped.

00:50:52
Speaker 2: Me out, Karen Ashley, I think.

00:50:56
Speaker 3: Karen Ashley, Yes, so she comes in and take except the Yellow Ranger role as Ayisha, and then we get a different Black Ranger.

00:51:08
Speaker 4: Frog Johnny Young Bosh.

00:51:09
Speaker 3: Yes, the Frog, and a different Red Ranger. But like this was all very recent like around the time that this movie was being made, like those decisions had sort of just happened, and they're you know, not that you would expect someone of Heimsiban's character to ever express remorse over having done this. It just shows like from moment one, this was a business endeavor and that even the people who you would think you would want to treat well and pay over they were making sixty thousand dollars a year, maybe they were making six hundred dollars an episode on like the most popular children's franchise like in the West. Like it's just it was ridiculous. So that is like whatever. I just wanted to give context for who these characters are and that like half of this cast is sort of new to the kids watching it.

00:52:03
Speaker 2: I'd also like to dive just a little bit deeper into the racial component here, because the conversation about the original Black Ranger being played by a black actor the original Yellow Ranger being played by an Asian actor, that's a conversation that has been happening since the nineties. It's like and so you so, you know, it's bad if people were noticing it in the.

00:52:29
Speaker 3: Nineties, particularly because I mean, and it's just like it's just shows the aggressive racism of the makers of this franchise, the American franchise specifically, because this is taken from an Asian franchise, right, and it is still extremely anti Asian in its portrayal of its only Asian character, who unfortunately died very young, Tui Tray, died in a car crash when she was only twenty seven. The racial components. I know that it's been like you're saying, like debated since the nineties, and Walter Emmanuel Jones has said, like, it doesn't bother me, and I'm like, great, but I think it is a valid critique regardless.

00:53:09
Speaker 4: For sure.

00:53:10
Speaker 2: Well, I was curious to see if anyone from the cast and or crew has said anything about this over the years, and so I'm pulling from a Variety article from earlier this year. So this is about the series quote. Head writer Tony Oliver said that none of us were thinking stereotypes when these casting decisions were originally made, which is why the show ran for two seasons with the black character the Black Ranger and the Asian character the Yellow Ranger. It wasn't until my assistant pointed out in a meeting one day that Oliver realized these castings were upholding stereotypes. Oliver added, it was such a mistake. The piece goes on to say, quote co creator Shuki Levy previously told Complex that Jones and try casting wasn't intentional at all. At that time. Haim Saban and I were new to this country. We didn't grow up in the same environment that exists in America with regard to skin color. We grew up in Israel, where being a black person is like being any kind of color. It's not something we talked about all the time. It wasn't a big issue, unquote.

00:54:22
Speaker 3: So first of all, so many layers of yeah, it's like word to begin Yeah, famously tolerant and non racist, fake ass country of Israel, Like are you fucking serious?

00:54:33
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:54:34
Speaker 2: Second, just like the privilege of not thinking about or not having to think about race, or not noticing the racist implications behind casting choices, Like I.

00:54:45
Speaker 3: Also just like, don't believe it. I think that they stopped casting Asian and black actors in these roles because they were criticized for it, not because they were like, oh we someone brought up a gentle like someone gently told me, and I was like I didn't, no, because it's like, not only is that privilege, I don't believe that that's how they why they stopped doing that. I'm guessing they stopped doing that because they've got in trouble for it, right, And Saban is just a fucking monster. I mean, like, to this day he is still with us and still aggressively pouring money into pro Israel causes. To this day, he's been denounced by the Arab American Institute. In the last year, he is has well over two billion dollars from I'm assuming merchandising that he stole from these actors, as well as different investments that he's made that I didn't honestly look into because I didn't want to know anything else about him.

00:55:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, understandable.

00:55:44
Speaker 1: Yes.

00:55:45
Speaker 2: And then in response to those comments made by the head writer and co creator, this is pulling from another Varieidi article, Walter Emmanuel Jones and the actor who played who originally played the Black Ranger in the series.

00:56:04
Speaker 3: And was also in Brink, I didn't realize one of my childhood faves.

00:56:10
Speaker 2: Apparently there's footage of him from a documentary made about The Power Rangers saying something on set like oh, of course, like the black guy plays the Black Ranger, go figure, so he you know, he was commenting on it at the time. He later says in an Instagram post, I've always believed in focusing on the positive. I understand the impulse to address what might be seen as cultural insensitivity, but calling it a mistake, that's the reference to the head writer Tony Oliver's comment. But calling it a mistake would dismiss the impact it had on countless people around the world who found inspiration and representation in TV's first black superhero morphin into none other than the Black Power Ranger. It wasn't a mistake. It was a milestone. It was an honor unquote. So it's it's a complicated thing, you know, the actor not being particularly bothered by it is that is good.

00:57:13
Speaker 3: I mean, that's good. And it's also like, I mean, and again, we don't know this guy, but I think it is like a very complicated thing. When I believe that Walter, Emmanuel Jones and a lot of these original actors still do work for the franchise, right, so it's like who knows, like it not to cast doubt on the quote, like I hope he feels fine about it. But it's like, if you're still making appearances as a former cast member of the Power Rangers, you probably wouldn't be disparaging the Power Rangers. So true, it's it's a tricky thing. But yeah, I mean, and we've I think we've talked about this in a number of examples of how you know, the characters of Trainy and of Zach meant a lot to a lot of kids, and that like that is for all of this franchise's faults, and there are many like that that still has value too.

00:58:12
Speaker 2: And then as far as the new characters who were brought in.

00:58:16
Speaker 3: For wait, sorry, I'm seeing the link you sent Carlos. Oh my god, another labor layer. Oh, Carlos just put in the chat. The original Yellow Ranger, Audrey du Bois, was originally cast as the Yello Ranger before being replaced by Tuy Trang due to her requesting financial help to move to La to film the series. So another just like this company being an absolute piece of shit and not doing the bare minimum for their actors, come on, ye horrendous.

00:58:47
Speaker 4: They also were like gotten rid of on the show in like the most anti climactic and shitty way. So if we have later when Kimberly leaves the show and gives her powers to the new Pink Power Ranger played by Catherine Sutherland, I believe like she gets to take her power coin, put it in her hand, and like you see the transfer of power from Kimberly to the new Ranger with the original trio, they are seen in the show with like reused footage or they're shot from behind, or somebody's in a wig, or you don't really get to have that same moment of them giving Rocky, Adam and Aisha their powers. It's just like, oh, we're gonna be in a suit and then teleport away. They don't get to say goodbye. There's no sort of conclusion. It's just like you're off the show. Now we've got these new characters who all of a sudden are taking up like half of the episode because we've got to introduce these heroes who care and are worth being the replacements for Jason, Zach and Treney.

00:59:49
Speaker 3: Which is so uh yeah, I saw that like clip that literally it's so clunky. It's like them in silhoette because it's body doubles. It's not actually the actors the actors had already quit, and then voice doubles being like, Hey, we're going to Switzerland. Oh, we're going to the peace conference. And they're like, oh man, we're gonna miss you so much. You're just like okay, and then the final or not maybe I don't know. Another sort of controversy that is around a cast member who is in this movie is David Yost, who plays Billy Cranston, who I was like, wow, that's so close to Brian Kranston. And Brian Kranston also did voices for the original Power Rangers series and he plays I think zored On in the twenty seventeen adaptation, so the Cranston is strong with this franchise for some reason. But that David Yost, who is another actor who is now involved again in the expanded Power Rangers universe. But he didn't talk about this for years, but stopped acting and left the show shortly after or he stayed till nineteen eighty five, so he stayed through the movie and then he stayed on the show for a little bit after that into Power Rangers, Zeo question Mark, but then he left and he said due to extensive homophobic harassment that he received on the side of the show from I honest, I didn't go super deep into it. I read in the interview where he first spoke about it. It sounds like what really plagued him the most is that it was coming from the highest level. It was coming from the producers. He was getting harassment from crew impossibly cast, but like it was also being encouraged, like the cast was being encouraged to interrogate his sexuality by the producers of the show, to the where he felt so uncomfortable. And there's literally like video footage from the nineties. It's just which it's very in passing, but it was a part of the like Power Rangers behind the scenes clip where he's being like flipped off by a crew member and being called Gavid, like to his face in a BTS thing like so it's just, you know, obviously we believe him anyway, but the fact that there's like footage that was released to the public that backs up what he's saying, it just sounded like it was extremely traumatizing and he didn't return to Power Rangers. He weirdly, I was like fascinating. He moved to behind the scenes work. He worked on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for a while as a segment producer, I was like, what a life. And now he's like back involved in the Power Rangers universe as of like a couple of years ago. But he kept it at arm's length for a long time because the homophobic harassment was so severe. As we talked about Amy, Joe Johnson later regretted not encouraging the rest of the cast and herself to stand with the three who ended up getting fired over labor just futes and also almost died on the set of this movie. And she does not fuck with the Power Rangers. Now she's she's an indie film director in Canada, and I love that for her. Oh, good for her.

01:03:14
Speaker 4: So that's understandable.

01:03:16
Speaker 3: I was like, I would also move to Canada and say fuck the Power Rangers. But so that's the context.

01:03:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, So to circle back to the conversation about gender, Oh my.

01:03:31
Speaker 3: Gosh, she has the conversation you started an hour ago.

01:03:33
Speaker 4: Girl, I mean, this is all important, this is all relevant, Like there's intersectionality, it's all layered, it's all in.

01:03:41
Speaker 2: There, indeed. Well, and then to speak to the intersection of gender and race when it comes to Kimberly and Aisha. So Kimberly is white, Ayisha is black, and wouldn't you know, the white character has far more focus, more lines of dialogue, generally more screen time, and just a more prominent character overall.

01:04:06
Speaker 3: She's also given and it's like, I don't even I'm not saying this is a pro, but she has a love interest in Jason, Ayisha does not. I feel like Ayisha is very largely plot wise and often just in the shots by herself, where there are like micro relationships where we're like, oh, Jason and Kimberly like each other, Billie and the Black Ranger, the Frog Ranger or friends or something. But Aisha is just like kind of by herself a lot, which is a shame because I guess in this series and you two actually watched it, but like Kimberly and Triny were best friends, and that was like something that was frequently coming up on the show of like how they were BFFs. And this movie doesn't really have space for any relationship between any of the Power Rangers, but it's like they don't even bother to do the of kind of nice, sort of misogynist thing of oh the two girls are friends, and and the fact that it's I think that we see this a lot with how black women and girls are portrayed on screen. Of like there's a lot of attention drawn to how feminine Kimberly is and in this I think very like white colonial mindset way, And I wouldn't say that, like, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I wouldn't say that like Ayesha is aggressively othered, Like she's given the character of a bear, which is I would say, like comparably strong to what the other power rangers are given in terms of an animal, Like I don't really have an issue with it.

01:05:42
Speaker 2: Certainly stronger than a frog, that's true.

01:05:45
Speaker 3: Frog and crane. I'm like, I don't I'm not so sure about that.

01:05:50
Speaker 2: But the crane seem flimsy to me, no offense to cranes.

01:05:53
Speaker 3: But I don't know. But that also comes up in intersectional feminist masterpiece Killed, so who knows.

01:06:01
Speaker 4: True.

01:06:01
Speaker 3: But I didn't think she was othered. I just feel like she was like neglected pretty severely in this.

01:06:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, to see and then to the point you were just making Jamie about like Kimberly's given a hetero love interest. She's also more sexualized in her costuming because when she's not in the Power Rangers suit she's wearing, she's wearing short shorts and a very form fitting crop top versus Ayisha, who's wearing like a baggy hoodie. And I'm not, you know, advocating for them to be equally sexualized.

01:06:34
Speaker 3: But like right, it's like everyone loses in this scenario, which is true of most subjugations. Like it's just like both of these characters are losing. I think Amy Jo Johnson when they were like Amy, why didn't you come back for the twenty twenty three movies, She's like, because I'm fifty three and I don't want to have to wear spandex for the Power Rangers anymore. As like fuck yeah, fair.

01:06:58
Speaker 4: And I think adding in to injury. It's also the kind of part they'd written for her was like negligible at best. It's like, I'm not coming back to do this thing that has been not great in all of these ways, that has followed me for decades for you not to give me a real part because I watched it. Of course, like Billy's character and Zach's character play a huge role. It's really about them. Everyone else is just kind of in the background, and they mourn Treeny's character because they kill her off in the show because the original actors passed in real life. But it's like, yeah, makes total sense why you wouldn't want to come back for this, Like, I get it, Amy, Amy Joe, I get it.

01:07:37
Speaker 3: You're chilling. You're chilling in Canada. You're like, I'm not gonna.

01:07:40
Speaker 4: I'm making music. Like she's like, oh, making music too. Yeah, she's like an indie pop uh maybe indie folk. I don't know genres, but she like makes music as well.

01:07:50
Speaker 3: Good for her, Good for her. I'm like, I I feel like, yeah, they're because because there are I mean, and this isn't necessarily relevant to the conversation, but there are cast members who did not have as fruitful post careers as Amy Jo Johnson did. I think she probably ended up doing having the most fruitful post Power Rangers career and is suspiciously the only person who refuses to engage now. And also that just worth mentioning that Jason David Frank, who plays Tommy, was very I mean, he was like basically the face of the series. It seems like for years and years and years, very involved in the fan community all this stuff, and then he unfortunately took his own life in twenty twenty two, and so the movie that we were just talking about that Amy Jo Johnson was like, fuck this movie. It is also dedicated to the memory of those two original cast members, Jason David Frank and Thui Tran. Yeah.

01:08:47
Speaker 4: I guess the one thing I'll say about the gender piece that's very clear. When they're calling their zords, everyone gets into their zord and has a cute little moment. Kimberly's is very stereotypical. It's just like, oh, nice stereo. It's just like you were in a giant zord, which is pretty similar to what she says when she gets in the I think the pterodactyl in the original series for the first time. Okay, so I think it's a callback, but I'm like, does an age well, And then we don't see Ayisha say anything when she gets out to her zord, like not a second, Like you literally just have to her to be like, let's kick some butt, let's like do something, like anything anything in the zord.

01:09:25
Speaker 3: Nothing I kept waiting for, even just like nineties cast off Girl Boss moment of like one of the girls saving the other or something like anything, I'll take anything, and they know it's always one of the guys has to swing in. If it's Kimberly, it's her love interest has to swing in and save her, and she, you know, like it's and going back to your point, Caitlin is Aisha has literally no character that we know of. Kimberly sort of has a character because she's been on the series for a long time. But yeah, the and Ayosha is there is because Trety isn't there for all of these horrible so it just like goes up and up and up and up.

01:10:07
Speaker 2: I will say that I feel like the romantic kind of thing that's going on between Kimberly and oh god, what's his name?

01:10:16
Speaker 3: Tommy Tommy, it's every generic nineties name.

01:10:21
Speaker 5: Yeah.

01:10:21
Speaker 2: Ever, I feel like is not played up so much to the extent that I didn't even totally notice it. And it also could be that I was watching this movie in a fugue state, so maybe it's a me thing, but I, like Loki did not really pick up on it.

01:10:42
Speaker 3: Oh really, yeah, it's I think, I mean, it's definitely there, But I agree it's not like harped on in the way that other franchises would harp on it.

01:10:53
Speaker 2: True, But and this is speaking to something you were saying earlier, Carlos, But the the women are power rangers as well, they are warriors. They have this theoretically the same powers as their male counterparts. But they keep getting the damsel treatment where they're like put into, you know, a tight spot and either have to be saved or the story in that moment is really focused on like, oh my god, look how much danger they're in because they're trying, to the movies, needing ways to heighten the tension, heighten the stakes. How do we do that?

01:11:32
Speaker 3: Oh no, one of.

01:11:32
Speaker 2: The girls is in trouble. So that happens quite a bit. There are a few instances here and there where like one of the boys gets in a sticky situation as well, but it's never really harped upon the way that it is when the teen girls are in a tight spot.

01:11:52
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:11:52
Speaker 2: You mentioned this also, Carlos. Like they're screaming a lot, like anytime a bad guy shows up, they're like, ah, and it's like you're a warrior, You're and sure they're scary, like like the boys aren't screaming, Like it's just all of these very gendered, reductive tropes are happening.

01:12:12
Speaker 4: The dinosaur skeleton fight scenes like the perfect example, you have Rocky the Red Ranger get slammed into a wall and seemingly knocked unconscious, and then almost instantly he's back up, no screaming, no yelling. Meanwhile, Aisha and Kimberly both get cornered different times in the same fight and have to be saved by either Adam or Rocky or Tommy, who then immediately backflips on top of the dinosaur to like decapitate it. It's just like we could have just little tweaks, we could have done little differences there, Like it didn't have to be this.

01:12:40
Speaker 3: It's no, absolutely not. It's also fixable because the plot is so goofy too, like anyone could that Getting back into stuff I liked because we we had we had to spend all I mean, like there is so much to talk about with this, Like, yes, we had to, but getting back into stuff I liked the dinosaur beig the dinosa or See's ending with I think Tommy like yanking just a random bone from it and you literally hear like, and then and then the fight's.

01:13:08
Speaker 4: Over when you're like, it's like a cartoon, Oh.

01:13:10
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, it's kind of adorable. Yeah, I mean this is this is worth of a plot issue where that seems like it's not an issue in the actual TV show, but just the Power Rangers, like what they're fighting for. And then what Fred, who I'm pretty sure is just a movie character. Yes, he's like the randommest character. Like the Power Rangers and Fred, like they're not fighting for the same thing. The Power Rangers seem like not invest This is why I was like, do they have do they even have parents? Because they're so like kind of keeping the whole, like all of the parents are gonna walk off a cliff in I think their hometown. They're like not worried about that at all, to the point where I think it's like the Frog Power Ranger saves the kids from this random almost train accident, and then the kids are like, oh, we're gonna make it, We're gonna go save our parents, and the Frog Power Ragers like good luck. Kids, almost like do you not care your parents live there? And then so then I spiraled out, I'm like, do they not have parents. Is that why they don't care what happens in the city where they live.

01:14:18
Speaker 2: I would still care, well, Zordan is their daddy?

01:14:22
Speaker 3: Yeah there?

01:14:23
Speaker 4: Or maybe their parents didn't get oozed because they didn't bring home the ooze.

01:14:27
Speaker 2: So like the perfect plan, distribute oohs to the children, and the children will bring it to their parents. The parents will obviously open the ooze.

01:14:36
Speaker 3: I mean, and that dad with three brain cells to his name was and.

01:14:40
Speaker 4: He dug in.

01:14:41
Speaker 3: He's like, he was like, my son's not home. I guess my parents gack. Honestly, I'm like, I'm laughing, and yet I'm like, hmm, well, if my here's the thing. If I was a parent, and I hope to be one che if my kid brought home oohs, I would want to touch it, but I would be like, kids are dirty. I'm not touching theirs. I'm going to go to this story. Get my own, your own, my own oose.

01:15:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, good clean ooze, get not contaminated oohz. Yeah. Well, for the Fred subplot, I was like, well, every movie has to be about fathers and sons, so we need to wedge of fathers and sons thing in here. Yeah, the thing that I thought was hilarious about this is toward the end, Fred goes to the construction site where the parents are all about to like jump off of a cliff or into the pit or whatever.

01:15:39
Speaker 3: The pit. You're just like, ooh ooh. That is just it reminded me of just as I was researching how the American version, in one of the few instances where I'm like siding with the American version of Supercentai, that they would change a lot of plot points because the original Supercentai was so gruesome where I guess there would be children regularly just like murdered in cold blood, and the American version was like, we're kind of we're going to not include those parts, and I'm you know, in a show for five year olds, I'm pro that, But but then you get the little senses of it of like, no, we're okay if we jonestown these random characters adults.

01:16:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, well okay, So the adults are about to jump in the pit. Fred gets hold of some huge water nozzle and there are also children who are trying to like physically push the parents away from jumping into the pit. Fred starts spraying the water to try to again also push the parents back, but he ends up just like blasting the children with the water rather than any of the adults. It's just like it's like a fire.

01:16:55
Speaker 3: Hose, yeah, full of like purple ghack, And no, I.

01:16:59
Speaker 2: Think it was just water.

01:17:01
Speaker 4: I think it might just be the color of like the quarry is, like it's colored in an odd way. But I think it's just supposed to be water.

01:17:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, So clearly I misigressed on what was happening there. It also felt like he thinks that him doing that is what saves them, when in fact it is the power Rangers blowing up the villain is what saves them. But I think that Fred spends the rest of his life being like, who if I hadn't blasted our parents with a fire hose, they all would have died. Like yeah, wait, there's a really good Ivan oohs line. I wanted to shout out.

01:17:30
Speaker 2: Oh please, I have a few lines I enjoy as well.

01:17:33
Speaker 3: Oh Aysha a big moment for Ayisha. Her spaceship kicks Ivan oohz in the balls. So that's yes, that's fun. That's fun.

01:17:41
Speaker 4: We like that that line passes the BECHDL test. You have what are you doing taking care of business.

01:17:47
Speaker 3: Yes, it is a very funny pass. But yeah when says now I'm starting to get really angry, and then he just stretches out and like he enters a robot in a way that I wouldn't say is unsexual, and then he says, I feel big again? What do you mean again?

01:18:13
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah? My favorite lines were I think this is Billy during one of the early fights in the movies when he's like punching one of the Ooze minions and then he goes, you oose, you lose. Okay, that's good writing. And then my other favorite, like what the fuck who wrote this thing? Is so the Power Rangers they arrive on Planet Fatos and they keep talking about how urgent it is that they get the power so that they can save Jordan. Jordon is actively dying. Like the sense of urgency is talked about a lot, but they are moving so fucking slowly. They these kids, there's no urgency in their movement.

01:18:58
Speaker 3: These kids need to be in school, Like, I don't understand what is going on in these kids' brains. They're they're given these like because even if they are not able to do these animal powers for whatever reason I would I at least want to see them. Wonder why the fact that they're like, all right, cool, we went to the big we like made it to the the thingy and Zena was there and she gave us these powers. But uh, but we can't use them and we're not gonna try, and we're just gonna travel on foot and we're gonna walk to the We're gonna walk.

01:19:35
Speaker 4: To the penis and like set up, it's set up. She turns into an owl. So it's like, if that's her power, why didn't we turn into a wolf?

01:19:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can literally see her do it. Wow.

01:19:46
Speaker 4: So it's like plant never never never payoff And so they get the zords. I guess technically would be the payoff. But it's like that's too She wasn't an owl zord. She was an.

01:19:57
Speaker 3: Owl, right. Yeah, she didn't turn into a spaceship, although I wouldn't have hated if she did. Her character cracked me up? Is she and other stuff?

01:20:07
Speaker 4: Nope?

01:20:08
Speaker 3: Oh good.

01:20:08
Speaker 4: So there's this YouTuber called miss stare Fusion who actually, for the thirtieth anniversary of the movie's release, did a comparison between the movie and how the TV show handles the transition because this was the transition from like one set of powers to the ninja powers, and so in the TV show, the way they did this was different with Turbo later the movie is canon, So like the movie is the transition, and here there's a guy named Ninjor who's like a Dudley do Right kind of character, who's in a blue suit. He's basically a Zord that turns into a bigger Zord and comes back later to help the Rangers. But like they have to go through like four episodes to get the powers to like reclaim them, get the same suits, fight the Tenga, and then get the powers to come back because Tommy technically destroys their powers in the TV show, Alfa's like, you're pushing the zords too much. You're going to like overthrow the powers. And then he's like, we gotta do whatever it takes. Immediately the swords explode, they lose their powers, they fall out of their swords. There's a bit more meat for the movie.

01:21:23
Speaker 3: These kids are a mess. These kids are a mess. I love them. Yeah, it is like I don't know it is so whatever, just like speak you to like and I would love both of your feelings on this too, because I was trying to put a little time, like putting this franchise into a larger context around like merchandise heavy franchises, international franchises, the like exchange of entertainment culture between the US and Japan, which is a very complicated subject. And because it is just like it's it's so silly, but it's also like it's it's a rich text, these these power Rangers and its history with Super Sentai, and which I kept I'm immature, so I kept accidentally saying Hentai and then going he he, and then saying sorry, Sentai. But because it didn't occur to me until I was like doing some just like kind of basic background research that this is sort of similar to how Godzilla became popular in the US, is by showing original footage from Japan and then just throwing in a couple American actors and releasing it as if it's completely original content. It's just very it's very interesting, and I know we don't really have the bandwidth within this episode to fully get into international relations, but just because like the US and Japan, there is still such an intense cultural exchange today, it's just like a very particular moment, and I just had a lot of fun watching the like the original cuts, which I feel like as a grown up, you're like, oh, yeah, that's a different person twenty years ago, but it still somehow kind of works. Like it works Rita Repulsa, Like it's very badly dubbs, but it works. I wish that's my main note for this movie at the end of the day. I know it's been an hour and a half, but Rita Repulsa, get her out of the snow globe. Get her out.

01:23:26
Speaker 2: Because she's such a prominent character in the series, I was expecting her to be something in the movie, but I.

01:23:35
Speaker 3: Kept waiting for her to like join forces with ivan Ooze at least. I'm like, don't get rid of Ivanoze. I love ivan Nees, but you know, talk about silencing women, putting readA Repulsa in a snow globe come on.

01:23:47
Speaker 4: After throwing goo on her mouth to shut her up, and Z so happy about it, Like, no, she's so important. That voice is iconic. It's so sad she does come out at the end.

01:24:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's well, she's rooting. She and lord Z are rooting for the Power Rangers because they hate iven Ouz so much that they're like, I hope they kick his ass, and then they do by throwing him into a comment, and that's awesome worth mentioning. I think again. I got to talk about Bulk and Skull now, the fat character's name being Bulk. First of all, there's also a part where Skull asks Bulk, are you hungry and Bulk says always so, just casual fat phobia present in the Bulk character. I really wanted them to be a larger part of the movie as well, but they are like barely even tertiary characters, Like they get nothing.

01:24:55
Speaker 3: It really does just feel like random fan service of like they're on the show and they jump out of a plane, see yam. It's too bad. I would say a whole movie about those guys.

01:25:05
Speaker 4: They have more of a role in Turbo, but they similarly have nothing to do with the main plot and the TV transition between seasons. But it's also the fat phobia is so much worse. It's like they're the bully TM characters, but like rewatching Power Rangers as an adult, you're like, you guys are doing too much to these so called bullies, Like you're really bullying them, Like there's moments where it's just like, are you guys the good guys? I'm having my doubts you should go to an anti bullying seminar.

01:25:36
Speaker 3: I think about that with I don't know why this example like just jumped right to my mind, but there was a similar thing with the bully on Boy Meets World where there was just a lot I vividly remember to the point where it like occurred to me as a child that I'm like, they're being really mean to him. They're like making these like fat phobic comments. I think maybe there's one episode where it's like that hurt my feelings the so I guess maybe they called it out at some point and then continued to do it. But yeah, this this franchise is especially and it always like sticks out even more when that's one of the characters few moments on screen at all, Like it's just stating the broad cruel stereotype. And then we don't even see them again.

01:26:22
Speaker 4: That you flew out, Like yeah, as members that they did not fly out, you flew out Bulkan Skull for what to have them play second fiddle to Fred who we never see again, who nobody knows just because you insert like the hell, yeah.

01:26:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bulkan's skull could fill. I mean, no offense to that kid, but you're like, who fuck is it?

01:26:44
Speaker 4: That is?

01:26:44
Speaker 3: Like I'm not convinced that that wasn't like AI like that the most generic ass kids in the entire world. I wanted to say this while I was thinking of it because I went into deep A Repulsal lore because I was like, damn, oh, she's so cool that her original first of all, her grievance is very valid because here's how she enters the show in the pilot. Pulling from scholarly journal Wikipedia here, Rita Repulsa is an evil space which bent on ruling the universe. Being a powerful sorceress, Rita has conquered many worlds a master large collection of monsters and putty patrollers to do her bidding. Origin story. Imprisoned in a space dumpster by Zordon, Rita was cast into space, where she would float for ten thousand years before arcing back to the Moon in nineteen ninety three. Once freed by two astronauts, she and her minions reclaimed their headquarters and started a second campaign on Earth to defeat Zordan and take the planet for Lord z now the Lord z thing. I don't know what that means, but she is right to be hell bent on destroying Zordon. He imprisoned her at a space dumpster for ten thousand years.

01:27:55
Speaker 2: That was rude. He should not have done that.

01:27:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, I also hate there's something like I reject Zordon. I don't like him.

01:28:02
Speaker 2: No, he freaked me out.

01:28:03
Speaker 3: I think that Zordon is kind of Heimsibon coded in that he's a creepy weirdo who doesn't do anything, and his whole thing is I do not compensate these young people for their labor, but they do my bidding. Well, I just fucking hang out in a room and collect wealth that is not mine. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't I'm is Zordan canonically a Zionist?

01:28:29
Speaker 4: I don't know, no, But this is the thing that becomes even worse for the continuity of the show if you follow him movie canon. So in later seasons there are a bunch of other villains that come together. Zordan has one of the Power Rangers spoilers for I guess Power Rangers in Space has the Red New Red Ranger destroy his tube, and when he does, he explodes in like an essence of good Ray that like turns Rita into a normal human, turns the Lord Zet into a normal human, arguably eliminates all evil from the universe because he exploded, And I'm like, that didn't happen in the movie, Like in the movie when his tube exploded, he just died, but like he self sacrifices to save the universe for what because I somehow evil comes back to the universe later when they start to like cross different timelines and play with different show continuities later. But yeah, Jordan seems to be a like typical bad mentor where it's like, you must do this for the greater good. Don't go be a gymnast because then you can't be a power ranger. You can teleport. Why can't she go do her routine on the balance beam and then come back to Angel Grove? Why does he only attack Angel Grove? Like the adult questions you ask, it's just like why Angel Grove? Why the us?

01:29:48
Speaker 2: Why because it's hell Mouse or something.

01:29:52
Speaker 3: You're like, why is this villain only attacking Burbank, which.

01:29:58
Speaker 4: Has been referenced in like newer more meta commentaryan movies where it's like, yeah, he seems to only attack Japan in like a Godzilla movie or in some other thing. It's just like, yeah, but like there's a whole world. Why did Jordan have ivan Ooze buried near his ectomorphicons near his lab instead of on Fatos, on Aquatar, on El Tar, literally anywhere else. It's like bad planning, my guy, what if this fail?

01:30:26
Speaker 3: I gotta be honest, None of this occurred to me, none of it at all. Wow, No, you're totally right.

01:30:33
Speaker 4: I watched this and rewatched this way too often, so I'm like, deep, deep deep into lore. No.

01:30:40
Speaker 2: Good, thank you. That's why you're here.

01:30:42
Speaker 3: We need you.

01:30:44
Speaker 2: Does anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about?

01:30:49
Speaker 3: I'm sure I do, but I'm gonna stop myself.

01:30:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, I joke with my friends. I'm like, this is a horror movie. Given how bad the CGI has aged in this movie, Like the footage from the show is so much better age because it's like a person in a like suit. I think still in this season they haven't gone to like animation yet. So just there's some ways that this is not hold up, but it's still a fun, little nostalgic tickle in the brain.

01:31:22
Speaker 3: True. Yeah, I felt like the bad effects. At this point, I feel kind of nostalgic for this kind of bad effect. It doesn't really bump me because you're just like, this is I do believe this is the best they could do at the time.

01:31:37
Speaker 4: I've turned around.

01:31:38
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the technology just wasn't really there in ninety five.

01:31:42
Speaker 3: It's just teenagers sitting inside of a screensaver, and I celebrate that beautiful.

01:31:49
Speaker 2: Does the movie past the Bechdel test?

01:31:51
Speaker 3: Yeah?

01:31:51
Speaker 2: It does, with the what are you doing taking care of business? Me to the not sack of the eye of an uh'ze giant robot.

01:32:01
Speaker 4: Which is plot relevant.

01:32:03
Speaker 3: Yes, it was like a very plot relevant nineties girl Power pass.

01:32:11
Speaker 2: True. Do they talk to each other aside from that though?

01:32:15
Speaker 4: No, But they talked to Dulcia y and then but the context is about Zordan and it's like our leader Zordan said, you know Zordan, it's just like, can we talk about something like the powers? Can we talk? And then they go into ivan ooze and then the boys jump in and so yeah, I don't think Aisha and Kim talk to each other at all.

01:32:34
Speaker 3: No, which again is just like they're not even doing the bare minimum that they were doing in the show by making the only two girls BFFs, and I was reading I don't know. I was like reading some synopsies about Kimberly and Triney from the original show, and it's so nineties and goofy, where it's like Trainy and Kimberly both start after school clubs and Trainee is more popular, and so Kimberly gets possessed by the jealousy monster. Like you know, it's like all very you know, goofy kind of stuff, but it's it's something where I'm like that that seed particularly drove me up a wall because you're, first of all, you're like waiting for it to maybe pass the Buckfel test and then it doesn't. But I'm like, you guys are standing right next to each other, please just turn your head and speak like it's just it. I don't know. I'm glad that it wasn't really like this in the show, but in the movie it really does feel like these kids are complete strangers to each other.

01:33:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, one of your favorite people actually had something to say about that. I'm gonna try to find it. I opened up the tab. Give me one second.

01:33:39
Speaker 3: What if Alfred Molina was like, I have to say something.

01:33:42
Speaker 4: About, oh no, this is fully sarcastic your favorite person.

01:33:45
Speaker 3: Oh oh even better. So there's a Roger Ebert review on this fil Okay, you know what, I at least he covered it. At least he covered it.

01:33:56
Speaker 4: He gives it half a star, and he starts it mighty morphim power readers. The movie is about as close as you can get to absolute nothing and still have a product to project on the screen. The movie is like those synthetic foods that have no fat, no sugar, no vitamins, and no calories, but they come in bright packages and you can chew them. And he goes on to like comment like we did about how there's no real character because I imagine they anticipated, you're gonna watch the show, You're gonna see the movie. You know these characters, so this is like another adventure there on rather than catering to a new audience that's like who is Tommy, Who is Kimberly, Who is Adam, Aisha Rocky, et cetera.

01:34:33
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, it was like, it is interesting that I was at least happy to see that there are technically characters that are established in the show, But it really this movie is really assuming that you either don't care if there's characters or you already watch the show, which I guess in nineteen ninety five was a reasonable guess, but it makes it very confusing to watch thirty years later.

01:34:57
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, like when you watch the for example, Ninja Turtles movies, those characters are still very distinct from each other and very well defined in the movies, so it's not hard to do, especially if you've already established the personalities of those characters, as you've done in the show.

01:35:17
Speaker 3: I would say, and it's like, and I'm if I'm remembering correctly, It's like it really is simple enough with the Turtles for it to be like I'm the blank one, Like that's all you really gotta do, But this movie doesn't even really do that, because I'm like, I don't know which what, Like I guess Tommy's the leader one, Kimberly's the pink one, the other the other three or four. I'm like, I have no idea which one you are or yeah, what you do?

01:35:44
Speaker 4: Yeah? And Billy like it wasn't always the best, but like he was the tech nerd of the group, so he was always like saying very nerdy things, very sciency things, and it's just like you couldn't keep some of that where it's like, oh, we're gonna do something like science like no, even if it's nonsense. Alpha has a bunch of like technological nonsense lines. Billy doesn't get any of that. So it's like the character that was there now he's just boy number five, boy number three, whatever number you want to put him in the order.

01:36:16
Speaker 3: Really bizarre. I'm like, all this said, I had a great time watching.

01:36:21
Speaker 4: This is so great. I watched it twice to prepare, revisited the pilot, and watched some of Mister Fusion to to get into the vibe. Great time.

01:36:30
Speaker 2: Oh wow, thank you, I'm all your work.

01:36:33
Speaker 3: And also for listeners, it's it's currently on YouTube for free, like you can. You can. You can check it out if you really need to. Like, I don't know, I just I felt very like it's it's it's exactly. You can tell it's gonna be a good movie because it's exactly ninety minutes long with credits. You're like, oh good, they hit it.

01:36:54
Speaker 2: If you need something to put you in a fugue state, yeah, this will do the trick.

01:36:59
Speaker 3: It is intense, it is an intense movie. I had a really good time watching it. But you know, I don't know. I mean, the Power Ridges they are still around. I feel like they're possibly in the process of trying to do a larger reboot, because they did. I didn't see it, but I know that, like towards the end of like every reboot had to be Christopher Nolan coded, they did a like dark reboot of The Power Edgers, which of like, did you see that, Carlos did?

01:37:27
Speaker 4: I fully saw it in theaters and then immediately went to the Toys Arrests because Toys arrest was still open. Went to the Toys Arrests and bought the magazine because I got copied the consumers.

01:37:39
Speaker 3: It works.

01:37:39
Speaker 4: I had fun with the opens. It was a fun movie.

01:37:43
Speaker 3: It works. I really. As I was watching yesterday as someone with no nostalgia for this series, I'm like, should I get to read a Repulse to action figure like that could be? I mean, yes, yeah, I should. I think I should. I already I already bought a pad My amidalad do all this year. I can't stop humiliating myself. It's getting bad.

01:38:04
Speaker 4: I mean it sounds good to be but yeah, there I think Kitlin and I were talking about this off Mike that they are working on a Disney Plus reboot series of the show. And I think there's talks about like once in Always Arranger the reboot or the the sequel movie with like the original Billy and Zach. I think they're talking about doing another version of that, but that could just be like rumor speculation. But yeah, the Rangers live on, The.

01:38:33
Speaker 3: Rangers Live on, baby, and does Supercenti live on as well?

01:38:37
Speaker 4: Ooh that I don't know.

01:38:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm oh, it's saying nineteen seventy five to present. Oh yeah, wow wow. So there has been a new season of so this is something I found fascinating and I was like, oh, I can't really think of outside of like soaps, like American shows like this. There's been a new season of Supercenti with a new like their antalt Like you're saying, Carl, it's an anthology show with like new characters, new stuff. I think people come back and forth, but like every year since nineteen seventy five, so for over fifty years there has been it is wild. Yeah, and some of them sounded really fun. There's like one season that I watched a like every season of Supercentai explained because I'm really cool, but there was one that was like, there's like one that's like a mystery season, and then I don't know, it just sounds cool. So okay, that's all I have to say.

01:39:33
Speaker 2: I problem, which brings us to the Bechdel Cast nipple scale.

01:39:38
Speaker 3: Oh boy, oh don't make me do this.

01:39:42
Speaker 2: We have to. Uh, this is our scale where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I'll give it one nipple because we see women fighting sometimes question mark, and that's sort of the whole purpose of the show is that these teens are fighting evil and so they let two women do that. Thirty percent of them are girls, so that's nice. But otherwise, with everything we've talked about, this is not an intersexual feminist text, if you can believe it. But I will give it one nipple, and i'll give that nipple to read or pulse the best.

01:40:38
Speaker 3: Character iconic legend, I'll also give it one nipple. I think the best thing you can say is that the Girl Power Rangers are at least presented as being equally important. They are not as women and girls often are presented as strictly sidekicks or love interests. However, they are still subject to a lot of classic nineties tropes with regard to gender. But also, as we've discussed, this franchise is no stranger to severe racial stereotypes and fat phobic stereotypes and behind the scenes homophobia, and is run by a billionaire zionist and so the you know, issues with this franchise run to its core. It's very of its time. But I don't know, I mean, like watching this, I very much understand its appeal, Like it's it is fucking fun. It starts with people jumping out of a plane for really no reason at all, and it continues to make that exact amount of sense for the entire time. So I'm going to give it one nipple because, like you said, Caitlin, girls are there, and I'm gonna give it to I guess I'm going to give it to Ayisha because she needs something.

01:41:56
Speaker 2: I'm like, she is not given much. Yeah, Carlos, how about you?

01:42:01
Speaker 4: Oh, the nostalgia wants to go higher because like I feel like I'm Caitlin's rampometer.

01:42:07
Speaker 3: This is like for me, off the charts this is so.

01:42:13
Speaker 4: Good, so fun. The nostalgia, I want to give this super high, but given the stuff we talked about, I don't think that's fair. As a listener who like listens to every episode, I'm like, why did they rate this so high? Like I understand the nostalgia, but like, and part of me wants to be that person right now.

01:42:35
Speaker 3: You're welcome to me too. You're like, it's no judgment, we do that all the time.

01:42:39
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing. The Nipple scale is the end all be all thit in. If you miss this.

01:42:46
Speaker 3: Up changes the course of history every time.

01:42:51
Speaker 2: So follow your heart.

01:42:53
Speaker 4: I think the best I could do. I'm like edging between like two and a half and three. I think you do have rita sort of sidelined, which is not great. You do have Kimberly and Aisha doing a lot of cool stuff. They get damseled a bunch. There's no real equivalent. I think Rocky's in trouble a couple of times and one of the other guys has to save it, but never one of the girls has to save him, which could have been a fun little twist. You have Dulcia, who on paper Master Warrior fade Us nobody can get to this power. She defends people from like trying to start down the path, saves them from the tengu She becomes an owl, which is dope, etc. But that she's like half undressed, which like she's in a tropical climate. I guess, but like why did we need to do that?

01:43:42
Speaker 3: We did it, But also I mean this is a climate where Ayisha is wearing a hoodie and uh Dulcia is wearing nothing and the owl, well, the owl's completely naked.

01:43:54
Speaker 2: So also if she's like this like warrior, that outfit is not providing very much much protection.

01:44:00
Speaker 3: No, that is not armor, and she's not that powerful because she's like if I leave this room, I will turn into But can the owl leave?

01:44:09
Speaker 4: I don't know, unclear because we see the owl still there.

01:44:13
Speaker 3: And so kind of a useless power when you think about it. If the owl also can't go anywhere.

01:44:19
Speaker 4: It's like you cannot cross this part of the island or the world, Like how does that work? Is like the whole planet this one continent, it's unclear we can keep going.

01:44:29
Speaker 3: I wasn't seeing food there, Like what does she sustain it?

01:44:31
Speaker 6: On?

01:44:32
Speaker 4: What did the rangers eat?

01:44:34
Speaker 2: Well, they ate the dinosaurs, and that's why their skelet tense.

01:44:39
Speaker 3: Exactly.

01:44:41
Speaker 4: I get to be fair. I think I'll end a little lower. I think I'll just go two, two nipples. I'm gonna give one to Aisha because I want to boogie with the bear another pass. I was thinking about what we were raiding when Kimberly is caught in the electromagnetic deadlock from Ooze. He's like, oh my god, I need help. I'm burning up in here. He's just like, girl, use your thrusters, and I'm just like, oh, yes, true, which saves Kimberly's life arguably.

01:45:11
Speaker 3: I'm like, why didn't she remember? I don't know, but her friend was there?

01:45:15
Speaker 4: Yep. So two nipples for one for Asia, and I guess Kimberly, yeah, yeah, oh no, we got to give it to Fred character Kimberly. Kimberly gets a second.

01:45:32
Speaker 3: That would be funny, like.

01:45:35
Speaker 2: Nipple Fred illegal.

01:45:38
Speaker 3: Friend, and then Fred's like, goofy ass, Dad, being like I love you son, and having that be kind of the last thing You're like, who are these people?

01:45:46
Speaker 4: Right after a no Home a moment from Bulk and Skull, because it's nineteen ninety five, like Bulk goes to hugs skull because they're not dead. They saved the day. And then he's like, hand up, shakes his hand.

01:45:57
Speaker 3: I totally. That's so funny that I feel like they're doing some sort of nineteen ninety five Bingo card at the end where they're like, oh, we didn't do a no homo moment. We didn't have a father saying I love you son, like and then and Van Halen song, We're good. There's a time.

01:46:11
Speaker 2: There's also a moment where I've an ooze and then what's the gargoyle looking gold goldar. They're both discussing their crush on a teenage girl. They're like, oh, Kimberly, the pink one's so cute? Am I RIGHTO? You're like, you're like, that is a teenager and you're thousands of years old.

01:46:32
Speaker 3: That said Ivenu's top ten cinema characters I've ever seen.

01:46:40
Speaker 4: Him.

01:46:41
Speaker 3: Yes, he put his whole ivan as into that part. I we didn't deserve the amount of effort that he put into it. I'm glad we got it well.

01:46:56
Speaker 2: Carlos, thank you for joining us for yet another OOZ movie. Come back for more OOZ movies or something else. I guess, but but I was. I found a Reddit thread and me going on Reddit, it's so scary to me.

01:47:13
Speaker 3: Good for you.

01:47:13
Speaker 2: But I found a thread called slime, Sludge and Goo on movies. So there's so many things we could choose from. We've got to come back and discuss. But thank you so much for being here. Tell us where we can follow you and anything you'd like to plug.

01:47:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I love coming on the show, love listening. You've introduced me to so many cool guests over the years. It's been great. Yeah. I'm on Instagram still for the time being metas awful Zuckerbergish trash. But yeah, Carlos creates twenty eighteen on Instagram on Blue Sky. Those are like my two major social media places. I have a podcast called The Horror Agenda where we cover horror movies mainly, but we also cover horror podcast comics, and we do a lot of short films which a lot of people don't give enough love to, which has been really great. And that's The Horror Agenda on Instagram and wherever you get your podcasts.

01:48:21
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for coming back. Yeah, we can't wait to see what you bring us next, there's some there's I have. I want to send me that, send me that, Lin, Kitlin, I want to know the others.

01:48:31
Speaker 2: Movies will do well And we could even include it in the description of this episode.

01:48:37
Speaker 4: What should I come back for?

01:48:39
Speaker 1: Yeah?

01:48:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to start thinking now, all right? Well, uh, we used and we lost, well, Bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced by Me, Jamie Loftus and Meant.

01:49:00
Speaker 2: The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann.

01:49:04
Speaker 3: And edited by Caitlin Durrante. Ever heard of Them? That's me and our logo and merch and all of our artwork, in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever heard of her? Oh My God? And our theme song, by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan.

01:49:19
Speaker 2: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

01:49:22
Speaker 3: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo.

01:49:27
Speaker 2: For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash Spectel Cast