Why Does Jetix Cut Credits

As was said earlier, Thuy Trang (Trini) died. I believe she was involved in a car crash in 2002 and died instantly. The next episode to air after her death was dedicated to her.


I think it was in order to bring costs down. Series 1 MMPR was very simple and relatively cheap to make, produced in exactly the same way as it is now. But series 2/3 MMPR was a very expensive format to maintain - you had actors who were carrying on in continuing roles playing characters which had become much more developed than had originally been conceived. Jason David Frank, by 1997, was playing a character in a programme in it's fifth consecutive season and which had spawned two highly succesful movies - of course he was getting much more than he did in 1993.

As well as that, they had to start paying Toei to shoot exclusive 'ranger' footage for them featuring the old costumes (The Japanese version got new costumes every year). When Tommy went white this then led to comissioning Toei to add on an extra ranger and an extra zord which was never part of Zyuranger (which is where the basic MMPR 'loook' comes from), similar things happened in series 3 where Toei had to produce 6-zord footage for Saban when their own version only had 5 (ever wonder why the falconzord locked on to theNinja Megazord separately, rather than during formup? Because the falconzord was a Saban-exclusive) and having to hire a 6th stunt actor when their own version only needed 5.

The big change to Zeo was designed primarily to reign in the spiralling costs of maintaining the format, by just adopting the look of the current Japanese series (which is what was supposed to happen in the first place).

However, the other big issue which needed addressing (and was halfway through Turbo) was the evolving cast. Although the main cast had been replaced over and was well through a second replacement, the fact that there was never a hard switch meant that it was retaining it's audience. That sounds good, but when you started your show with an audience of 9 year olds and were now dealing with them being 14, the writing had to mature. So by season 5 you had the ridiculous situation of the backstory maturing to include situations such as Catherine's anorexia, and at trying to mature the good power rangers vs evil monster-of-the-week on the moon into taking on definate shades of grey, whilst then cutting to Japaenese footage playing out the same simplistic comedy violence that had been around since series 1 and was clearely designed for people of single-digit age.

Shaking up everything each year keeps costs down and ensures that it always has an audience of fresh 9 year olds to peddle itself to. It's nowhere near as good now, but with it's heyday of 10 years ago now well and truly behind it, there's not really any other way it can stay in production.

I have been watching Generations recently and in my opinion have found that each series has good plots and characters (although for some reason I cant get into Lightspeed Rescue) and the latest series SPD is very enjoyable

Indeed, of course there are good points and plots to each series, but by 1996, the original MMPR format had spawned a big budget theatrical film which was phenominally succesful, aswell as Saban launching remakes of two other Sentai shows off the back of Power Rangers' success (remember VR Troopers and Masked Rider?). I'm not saying that modern day Power Rangers doesn't do well (that it's been continuously in production since 1993 demonstrates that), but it's never going to be anywhere near as big, ever again.

Interesting that you say about Masked Ryder and VR Troopers, but what of the Beetleborgs? I'd presume this to also be Sentai, but then again...

EDIT: Something else that I've thought of. Where did they do the live action stuff, such as the American actors? Did they film it in America and have the relevant monsters, and recreate sets such as the Command Center, or just fly the actors over and shoot everything in Japan?

All 'morphed' footage and monster footage was lifted from the Japanese show. All live action footage *was* made in America (it's not any more). Only the vaguest of story concepts were taken from the Japanese, virtually all of the situations (except battle situations) were written specially. Indeed it was fundamentally different in that the Japanese rangers were a specially evolved race of humans, not just 'a group of teenagers with attitude'. The command centre et al was all a Saban Exclusive. The 'bad guys' (Rita/Goldar etc) were taken from the Japanese series - battle footage is directly lifted by footage on the moon was a recreation of the characters in America.

The series is now shot in New Zealand, and is now made by Village Roadshow on behalf BVS Entertainment (Saban and MMPR Productions don't exist any more).

Here you'll find information on how Zyuranger compares to MMPR series 1. Series 2 and 3 are more muddled in that they combined the look of Zyuranger with newer sentai series and original US concepts as I said earlier. The same website shows how the series evolved - Note how the white ranger from Dairanger was bolted on to the American series alongside the old Zyuranger costumes - this was the Japanese footage shot specially for Saban and never used in any Japanese series as I said earlier.

I always thought how all the battle footage used to look cheap, like one of those B moives from the 1950s.

What about sequences when the actors morphed (for example in the park when a monster appeared) and the rangers were in the park, and about to fight the monster.

I'm sure I heard something that Lord Zedd was a US only character.

And would the Command Center have been in the US, with them having the suits. I wonder why they didn't take their helmets off in the command center until Series 2.

I'm not sure how that was done - could have been a substituted background or just suspension of disbelief - the Japanese footage was in a park therefore the American footage was shot in a similar looking park therefore you perceived it as being the same park.. It's also possible that there was some US-shot footage shot of the actors running around in the suits, but not performing any actual fighting.


He was. Rita (albeit with a different name) was taken from Zyuranger, but all footage of her shown (except when she went flying around on her bicycle during battles in season 1) was made in America. Once the white ranger was introduced in series 2, all footage showing all 6 rangers in shot at once was made exclusively for the US series (since the white ranger was taken from another series), allowing them to have much greater control over where battles took place.


The command centre was a US-only invention. I think it was just a creative decision to start removing the helmets from series 2 (aswell as meaning that they had to get the actual actors in to do morphed command centre scenes) in the command centre.

It's important to remember however that we are talking about a kids series, it was never designed to stand up to the level of close examination we're giving it - at the time you didn't necessarily check whether they were fighting in the same place they were morphed just as you never wondered why the ninjazords were always shown running through that same cityscape no matter where the battle took place or why the original dinozords would fight in the infamous 'abandoned warehouse district', then miraculously assemble into the megazord in a barren desert before coming back to the warehouses again to fight!

That's a very good point. It's just interesting to know how it was all put together.

Quite clever really. Well at first. Very strange that they didn't change anything really until Zeo in the US.
It was strange seeing that website with the white ranger with another group of 5 rangers, but it explained his wierd Morpher on his belt.

I wonder why they didn't change any of the rangers costumes, they could have just been classed as different armour (even though those following outfits looked horrible), though I suppose I am glad that they didnt change them.

I didn't realise that the alien rangers were rangers from an actual series. Nice of the US to include them somehow to link the rangers through to Zeo.

Yeah, but the hole in that logic, is that your not geting more programs, just more adverts.

Has anyone noticed that Jetix goes off air a midnight and comes back at 4:00am meaning What's with Andy?, Flint the Time Detective, VR Troopers,The Zack Files, Transformers: Robots in Disguise and The New Adams Family isnt on

Also If I have to see another advert for Suriken School or that Jackie Chan & Totally Spies I'll go crazy they are on constantly why cant they bring back the little PXG clips or even Camera Crack ups

finally does anyone know the reason why the 18:30 Power Rangers Genirations allways Lightspeed rescue