REVIEW: Power Rangers Ninja Steel 1 & 2
Well, the new season of Power Rangers has begun. Beyond my mild disappointment that the acronym is going to become confusing in the future (is it Ninja Storm or Ninja Steel? Can’t even specify by saying PRNSt, because that’s also both of them) I have a bit of a mixed reception to the premiere. Even though this wasn’t really a two-parter, I’m going to treat it as such since it introduced us to the main characters in two parts and honestly needed both parts to set up the premise. So, here we go, the official good-bad-weird breakdown:
First off, the good. I’m actually a bit of a fan of how the Galaxy Warriors game show seems to work, as well as Galvanax’s plan to get monsters to serve him. While this doesn’t, strictly speaking, expand the known universe of Power Rangers as a whole--it’s made pretty clear in Episode 2 that Power Rangers are new to Earth at the very least--it at least makes the universe of Ninja Steel seem broader than the few marauders who come to Earth for reasons. I also find the Rangers to be rootable main characters, much like in Dino Charge. Brody is thoughtful without being overly broody, Preston is funny without going into goofiness, and Sarah is smart without being the stereotypical nerd. Additionally, I think the dynamic of having a team-within-a-team to start off with is an interesting one to explore. This of course refers to the fact that Hayley and Calvin are already a couple in their introduction, which is kind of new ground for Power Rangers. Seeing Kelson Henderson again is oddly enough a pleasant surprise, now that we’ve had many seasons without him, and he’s definitely gotten the quirky ally role down pat.
The premiere does a good job of setting up some of the plot threads we’ll likely see this year. Unlike last year, I don’t think we’ll get a “surprise here’s Brody’s father and he’s the Gold Ranger” reveal. I’m fairly certain that he’s dead. However, the conspicuously missing but mentioned brother Aiden seems to be a good candidate for the Gold Ninja Star. I will say I was impressed with the zag when a zig was expected of having Madame Odius in possession of the Gold Star; does this mean that she kidnapped the person who was worthy, or that she was somehow worthy herself due to a situation like Fury last year (or the Magna Defender before him for the older fans like me), and Aiden’s essence is actually inside of her? These are all questions, and I’m actually looking forward to finding out the answers.
As for the bad...well, I really don’t like most of the monster voices this year. For some reason it stands out to me more now than in years past, but the generic rumbling snarls of almost every single monster makes them sound more goofy and demented than scary. I get that it’s a kids’ show, but that doesn’t mean that the bad guys can’t have an ounce of menace. But perhaps the thing I find most annoying is how the Rangers seem to call attention to the fact that they’re essentially inventing their own legend on the fly. For some odd years, Power Rangers have had some sort of inherent sense of the bounds of their power, and they’ve been led by sage figures who have lots of knowledge about their world. But for whatever reason, the Rangers over-exposit how weird it is that they know how to use their powers, and then Mick under-exposits regarding how he just happens to know world-building elements or how to create stuff like their Zords. Not to be nitpicky, but it pulls me out of the narrative every time it happens in both directions.
Now for the weird. I’m not exactly sure why the outfit for Ressha Sentai ToQger’s Baron Nero was deemed usable for Cosmo Royale, the MC of Galaxy Warriors, but his face was not. For those who did not watch that season of Sentai, it’s a completely different villain set with more of a steampunk theme to go with the train theme of that season of Sentai. Perhaps it’s something in line with the goofy-voiced monsters in that they felt that the new smiley face was less scary than Nero’s face--admittedly styled after a plague doctor’s mask, one of the most inherently scary designs in existence--but it also means they can’t use any Sentai footage of him gesticulating or reacting or piloting a giant robot. It’s understandable that they wouldn’t use fight footage of him, but still. In their defense, the new face they gave him is scary in an adult fear kind of way, and it matches the outfit surprisingly well; someone unfamiliar with ToQger would not realize just by looking that the face and the outfit were not made simultaneously.
Speaking of giant robots, the zords being based off of random crap is very random. I kind of wish that the zords were actually the things they are based off of, like if Calvin’s car had turned into his zord, or Redbot had actually become Brody’s zord. Furthermore, Sarah’s zord is a train, and her line about trains in the premiere probably was meant to foreshadow this, but she uses the train line as a simile. There’s no...actual train that her zord resembles; it mostly looks like her hoverboard (which is obviously intended to resemble the zord from a behind-the-scenes perspective). I get why they did it that way, but it’s still a bit off; given the others, one would think her zord would be more likely to be a hoverboard. I can forgive Preston’s zord being a dragon on the basis that a dragon costume zord would probably not look much different from a dragon zord. Also, I am once again not a fan of the zords seeming to have no collective name. Henceforth I will be referring to them as the Steelerzords, which is completely unrelated to me living in Pittsburgh and in no way reflects a bias on my part.
Having finished Return of the Prism and Forged in Steel, I think the best way to put it is that I’m whelmed. Not over-, not under-, just plain whelmed. I guess there’s some fatigue from last year’s finale, which sapped a lot of my excitement for the series as a whole going forward. So I guess this season has its work cut out for it. Maybe I’ll be a fan; having low or no expectations means I’m more likely, on balance, to be pleasantly surprised. These episodes didn’t really do anything wrong, and they didn’t take any risks either. Just a pair of episodes, so let’s see what happens next.
