Monster Crap Inductee: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)

Monster Crap Inductee: Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie
Ivan’s Gonna Ooze All Over This Movie

1995

It may come to a shock with some people, but I was once a child. Besides watching monster movies, there was a show that were must views in the late 80s and early 90s. The late 80s show as you know was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Because Of Course It Was

And the other show in the early 90s was a little show by a studio called Saban and that show was Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.

It had everything a little kid like me would want. Cool teenagers, fighting, and monster fighting. And while most people might have been put off by the monster fighting being so low budget with people in suits fighting in a fake city, that did not bother me because as many of you know, I LOVED THAT SHIT.

So let’s talk some history here. Back in the 70s, Japan had a show about people who transform into “rangers” and have robots that combine into one giant robot to fight a monster of the day brought to the city by the bad guys. In 1992, the third series called Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger was made and it was that third series with many of the bad guys (Rita Repulsa and later Lord Zed) and robots being dinosaurs that attracted the attention of a little known company at the time named Saban Entertainment. As you all know, all any studio needs is one giant hit to make their name in the business. Saban Entertainment saw something in this Super Sentai show, but knew to reach an American audience (we were very picky in the early 90s) so we had to change the whole team to a bunch of teenagers “with attitude” with plenty of stuff that teenagers do and only use the sentai footage during the monster battles, fight with the bad guy cronies, and bad guy footage, with dubbing of course. We’d have these teenagers be two white guys (Jason the Red Ranger and Billy the Blue Ranger), one white girl (Kimberly The Pink Ranger), a black guy (Zack the Black Ranger), and an Asian girl (Trini the Yellow Ranger). They also added a mentor named Zordon (which is why the robots the kids control are called Zords) and an assistant to the mentor named Alpha 5. The show called Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers was a huge hit despite having some some weird moments.

Like When They Turn Into Rangers And The Pink And Yellow Ranger Obviously Show To Be Guys In The Suits Because In The Sentai Footage, It Was 5 Guys That Were The Rangers.

However, the show came to a mini series where there was going to be an evil power ranger that the bad guys create and he possesses a teenager who is also good at fighting. In Power Rangers, they chose a young guy with long hair who just came to the school named Tommy and he was the Green Ranger. With his own zord named The Dragon Zord that he summoned with a dagger flute. He was obviously more powerful than the other Power Rangers, but eventually he was defeated and eventually turned good to hang with the Power Rangers. Tommy became very popular and he was able to survive being the Green Ranger since in the original Sentai series, the Green Ranger dies. To circumvent this, they ultimately had Tommy lose his Green Ranger powers and later get the White Ranger powers (which in the Sentai, was a little kid who gets to become an adult to be the White Ranger).

Something That Turbo Would Try To Make Up For, With Horrible Results

But when revealing who the rangers were, some of you may have noticed a bit of racism there with a black guy being the Black Ranger and an Asian woman being the Yellow Ranger. Even though it was revealed later that originally, a Latina woman was going to be the Yellow Ranger, but the actress quit and the actress who ended up being the Yellow Ranger was the best available on a short notice, the racism looked really bad. Saban however only changed that mistake when the actors playing Jason, Trini, and Zack all decided to leave because of pay. Saban then decided to let them leave via Peace Conference that would have Zack, Trini, and Jason leave the Power Rangers and they would be replaced by another white guy in Rocky (the new Red Ranger), a black woman in Aisha (the new Yellow Ranger) and an Asian guy named Adam (the new Black Ranger).

So we come time for Saban Entertainment to make a Power Rangers movie to go along with the still running show and that is where we are here, but before we begin, we do have some Monster Crap alumni here. Robert Simper was one of the hunters in Howling III: The Marsupials

Now let’s get to the movie.

We begin with Star Wars like prologue crawl with a narration.

After that, a lightning bolt strikes the screen to reveal our title card.

For Some Reason, No “Mighty Morphin’” On There, But Oh Well.

An explosion then brings us into the movie proper with our Power Rangers (Rocky, Kimberly, Tommy, Adam, Billy, and Aisha)  getting ready to do some sky diving.

There Are Our Power Rangers In Obviously Color Code Sky Diving Suits So We Know Which Ranger Is Which Later.

And Bulk & Skull Are Here As Well

For those who never watched Power Rangers, Bulk (the big guy) and Skull (the skinny guy) were kind of nincompoop bullies who were comic foils for the Power Rangers. They were characters that were mostly made to be kind of hated, but they did shenanigans that normally failed and they eventually got people liking them, and if you watched all the way to Power Rangers In Space (which was the end of the Power Ranger shows being one long story before each new season then after would introduce new abilities and new characters in a complete fresh start), these two apparently got a complete arc where they were very important in helping the Power Rangers save the day. One memorable behind the scenes spot (that sometimes happened after a Power Rangers episode) showed the actor who played Bulk (Paul Schrier in gear that Bulk would normally wear) watching over his nephew at the playground, which shocked some Power Rangers fans as (not understanding reality from fiction (different time)) didn’t realize he had actual family and he explains everything and explains how great it is to be an uncle. I cant find footage of it, but I most certainly remember it happening.

Bulk and Skull talk like they are so ready to sky dive, but when Aisha offers to let them lead the way. They are scared by how high they are up and Kimberly has to remind them that they have to put their parachutes on. As they go to get their parachutes, the rest go down without them.

This Scene Of Them Sky Diving Is Kind Of Awesome And Huge Props Go To The Camera Crew That Had To Skydive With Them To Get This Scene. But I Have To Mention That This Was Kind Of Dangerous So If You See The Faces Of The Characters During These Scenes, They Are On A Green Screen (Because You Would Be Freaking Nuts To Have Your Actual Actors Freaking Do This For A Movie) And For The Real Sky Diving Shots, You Had Stunt Doubles.

Apparently, this is all part of a Jump-A-Thon contest which is part of an event to save the old observatory, which might be bulldozed over.

Oh And The DJ For This Contest Who You Only Hear In This Scene Was The Director Of Hell Comes To Frogtown

We then meet a kid named Fred Kelman and his dad.

Apparently The Dad Chickened Out Here And Is Getting Guff For It

Fred and his dad talk to Tommy and the dad reveals that because of this, the observatory was not shut down. By the way, Bulk and Skull eventually jump. We then go to our kids who are the Power Rangers doing some roller blading.

They arrive to the place with some construction and we see Bulk and Skull land there.

Definitely Missed The Target

They try to talk their way out of trouble, but there is no time to give them consequences as the construction crew found something odd.

I Wouldn’t Open That As Last Time Humans Opened One Of Those, We Got Rita Repulsa

And That One Was On The Freaking Moon

Oh By The Way, The Guy On The Left With Blonde Hair Would Later Become Agent Brown, One Of Agent Smith’s Pals In The First Matrix Movie

Of course the dumbasses decide to open it.

Either That Is A Purple Egg Or Because Of The Hand, Samus Better Get In Here And Get That Power Up To Do Some New Stuff In The Metroid Game

As the Power Rangers are about to head to the café they always hang out at the show (they actually did in deleted scenes), they get a call from Alpha Five That Zordon wants to talk to them. They go somewhere no one can see them and teleport to the Power Rangers command center.

Gotta go on another rant. As a kid and an adult, I was heard that Alpha Five was kind of useless and was annoying character that wasn’t needed. Let’s just hope you don’t blame any of that on the voice actor because I know that for most times, voice actors just say the lines that are written and Richard Wood (later Richard Steven Horvitz) was just doing the best he can with what he was given. And considering the popularity of the show, if we did not have to deal with Alpha Five…

We Do Not Get Daggett Beaver From The Angry Beavers

We Do Not Get Billy From The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy

We Do Not Get Zim From Invader Zim

We Do Not Get Raz From The Psychonauts Video Games

And We Do Not Get Moxxie From Helluva Boss

Back to the movie again as we also get to see Zordon.

Better Version Of Zordon Than We Normally Get As They Have A Bigger Budget

Zordon and Alpha Five warn the Rangers that the machines are picking up some strong evil energy and that the evil energy is from a being named Ivan Ooze that they need to stop from being released completely (he is in the egg). He is an evil unlike any the Rangers have dealt apparently so they better hurry.

They are of course too late because the regular show baddies show up to the same place.

Rita Repulsa, Mordant, Goldar, and Lord Zedd

They knock out the security guards and break the egg.

It’s Ivan Ooze

First, let’s talk about the dated CGI. This sadly was at the time a necessary evil for Saban because there is NO SENTAI FOOTAGE for this movie as this movie is just a Power Rangers thing. Because of that, any giant monster footage, zord action, or small things like transforming slime are sadly done with this dated CGI because while they did have a bigger budget than what the show had, it still wasn’t enough to make their own city sets or any transformation. In fact, because of the budget for this film, the second season of the TV show had some issues so this was a money bleeder as it was being made (thankfully they made that money back, but the damage in the second season was done). Trust me that I better get this out of the way now before later stuff happens.

Secondly, Ivan Ooze is played by Paul Freeman. Fox and Saban tried for bigger names like Christopher Walken, Rowan Atkinson, Tim Curry, Danny Devito, Christopher Lloyd, and heck even Phil Collins to be Ooze, but for one reason or another, Freeman was the one who got the role. Now that’s not to say Freeman is a bad choice, in fact….he is great as Ivan Ooze. It also isn’t to put down Mr. Freeman’s accomplishments as an actor as well as he does have experience being a hated villain as he was rival of Indiana Jones named Belloq in Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

Back once again to the movie, we immediately find out that Ooze has some bad blood with Zordon as even the mention of his name causes Ooze to yell and shoot lightning in the air in pure anger. Ooze says he will not only destroy Zordon, but he will obliterate his entire legacy, which is great for Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa as Zordon and the Rangers have stopped the two from conquering Earth. The other bad guys leave Ooze on his own to weave his evil schemes when our teenage heroes arrive.

Man, We’re Too Late To Stop Ivan Ooze From Being Released. I Told You We Should Have Taken A Left At Albequerque

Ooze shows up and Kimberly calls him ugly.

Hey, Don’t Call Him That. That Was Some Really Painful Prosthetics Paul Had To Put On To Be Ivan Ooze.

Ooze then decides to unleash a bunch of Oozelings on them.

The teenagers fight the Oozelings and it was definitely awesome to see on the big screen back in the day and it is still a fun fight scene even today. The teenagers then have to morph into the Power Rangers.

Pterodactyl!!!

Triceratops!!!

Tyrannosaurus!!!

Mastodon!!!

Sabretooth Tiger!!!

White Tiger!!!

With a remixed version of “Go Go Power Rangers” playing, the Power Rangers are about to fight, but the Oozelings disappear.

Good Because For The Most Part, The Sentai Footage Did Most Of The Lifting With The Power Ranger Battles, These Suits Were Quite Heavy To Actually Move Around In For The Actors And Both Amy Jo Johnson And Karan Ashley Both Had Massive Back Pains Because Of That. The Sacrifices You Go Through For Your Craft.

Bad news for the Power Rangers was this momentary distraction with these goons allowed Ivan Ooze to go to the command center.

The Face You Make When You Let Out A “Silent But Deadly” Fart That No One Knows Is Coming

Alpha Five tries to stop Ivan, but even Ivan finds this foolish.

Are You For Real Here?

Ivan Ooze short circuits his ass.

Ivan talks about how much of a pain it was being locked away and Zordon tells him that he wont get away with this. Ooze then decides to start destroying shit and Zordon.

He talks about all the things he missed like The Black Plague, The Spanish Inquisition, and The Brady Bunch Reunion. Of course, that was an adlibbed line that everyone felt was funny when he considers that an atrocity. Back with the Power Rangers, the fight with the Oozlings continues.

Man, Better Music Would Have Really Helped This Fight Instead Of The Generic Music They Chose Here

SUPER KICK PARTY!!!!

SIDE BICYCLE KICK!!!

The White Ranger ultimately ends this with his dagger cutting a giant metal piece that falls on the bad guys, squishing them into ooze.

They are about to go find Ivan, but their Power Ranger suits disappear.

Billy tries to call Alpha, but there is no response. They get to the command center and realize that Ivan Ooze was there. They enter and see the place has been destroyed.

They then see Zordon is very weak and out of his tube. Outside of that tube that is a time warp, he is dying.

Zordon says that Ivan has won while Alpha tells them that there may be a power that can save Zordon, but they have to go to the distant planet of Phaedos. Alpha says that he has enough power to teleport them there and he does so.

Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd are pissed that Ivan Ooze let the Rangers teleport away. He shows up and she keeps insulting him so he throws ooze to shut her up.

Ooze then decides that Rita and Zedd deserve a vacation and traps them into a snow globe.

Merry Christmas, Everybody

He then asks where Goldar and Mordant’s allegiances are and they both decide to swear allegiances to him instead of their former bosses. Ivan then summons Tengus and has them go after the Power Rangers.

The Rangers finally arrive on Phaedos and while walking around looking for the Great Power, we see that they are being followed.

Meanwhile, Ivan heads to a chemical plant and decides that he is going to create more ooze and enact whatever his plan is here.

As they continue searching, we see Tommy and Kimberly have a romantic moment.

Unfortunately, This Really Isnt Going To Go Far Into The Show Because Pretty Soon Into The Next Season (With A Whole New Backstory About How The Rangers Lose Their Old Zords And Get Their New Zords Because None Of This Is Canon), Kimberly Is Written Out Of The Show And Replaced With Katherine.

All of this gets interrupted when the Tengus show up.

Without the Power Rangers power, the Rangers are vastly outnumbered and seem to be overpowered by the enemy. Eventually the cloaked person makes their presence known and attack the Tengus.

Meet Dulcea.

This might shock you, but even her appearance in this movie is a mess. You see, the actress Gabrielle Fitzpatrick is the original actress who got the role, but a bit into shooting, she had to leave due to the fact that she had an ovarian cyst that needed to be removed immediately. So they had to hire a replacement actress in Mariska Hargitay.

Yes, The Same Mariska Hargitay From Law & Order: SVU

Unfortunately for her, the filmmakers didn’t feel she was working out so on the holidays with her family, she was told that she didn’t need to come back as she was fired. They then brought back Gabrielle as at that point, she had recovered from the removal of the ovarian cyst and that’s where we are now.

She is able to repel the Tengus and goes to check on the Rangers. She is pissed that they are here and tells them to go back to where they came from. The Rangers explain their situation and with the fact that they are here to help Zordon, she decides to help them. Then we get to see Ivan Ooze’s plans.

Giving His Ooze To Kids

Yes, Ivan gives bottles of his ooze to kids, who flock to it as it is like Nickelodeon’s Gak.

We Were Weird Kids In The 90s

Dulcea takes the Rangers to show them the Monolith.

Inside the Monolith is the Great Power, but it is very much guarded and no one has survived in their pursuit of it. She makes them call upon the sacred animals of Ninjetti to help. Back on Earth, Fred’s dad finds the ooze that his son got and we get to see the true purpose for Ivan giving away ooze.

To Hypnotize The Adults To Do His Bidding

Back on Phaedos, Dulcea turns the Rangers into ninjas with animals they represent.

Each get their own animal.

Aisha Is The Bear

Rocky Is The Ape

Billy Is The Wolf

Kimberly Is The Crane

Adam Is The Frog (In A Bit Of Adlib, Adam Seems Upset By Being A Frog, But She Basically Says “Like The One You Kiss, To Be A Handsome Prince”)

And Tommy Is The Falcon

These powers will help them out as for the Ninjetti, “Anything is possible”. Dulcea then turns into an owl.

Don’t You Dare Try Putting Me In A Harry Potter Movie

Fred comes home and sees his dad isn’t around, but the ooze is out and on the counter. We then see why Ivan Ooze had to kidnap the parents. Basically, he wants them to work in digging up his Ecto-Morphicons Scorpitron and Hornitor.

He Even Has One Of Them Dance For Him

The Tengus return and upon hearing of their failure and Dulcea (who he also knows of), Ivan Ooze destroys them.

Ivan then says that his Ecto-Morphicons must be dug up by sundown. Meanwhile, we see Fred has found out that the parents have been under mind control.

He also hears all of Ivan Ooze’s plan.

We then see the Power Rangers journey to the Monolith. While seeing the bones of giant monsters, Adam makes a “Welcome to Jurassic Park” joke. But it turns out that those monsters bones don’t mean the monsters are dead.

After a lot of running from it, Tommy does some rodeo on the monster to save Kimberly.

Tommy sees a neckbone that attaches to the head and rips it out, which kills the monster.

DECAPITATION!!!!

We then see that there also mind controlled adults working to build the Ecto-Morphicons back up and making more Ooze. Ivan says that with all this done, the parents will go back to the construction site and leap to their doom. They leave and Morphant puts the ooze into the Ecto-Morphicons.

Oh The CGI Of These Ecto-Morphicons Are Really Bad.

The Power Rangers arrive outside of the Monolith and are attacked by guardians.

They defeat them by having one fall into acid pool that looks like water, one get toppled by a giant boulders, having one accidentally cut in half the other, and kicking one into the door to disintegrate it.

I See Someone Played Dragon’s Lair On The NES

With the guardians defeated, the doors open and the Power Rangers get the Great Power.

They are now Power Rangers once again, but with new zords.

They teleport out of Phaedos and back to Earth and not a moment too soon as both Scorpitron and Hornitor are causing issues.

Apparently, Angel Grove has never seen monsters this bad (despite all the other times they have had Rita and Zedd send monsters on them). The Power Rangers arrive and have a fight with Scorpitron and Hornitor, using their new Ninjazords.

Meanwhile, we see Fred get all the kids and Bulk & Skull to help him save the adults of Angel Grove.

The battle continues and while this happening, Ivan Ooze does not like being touched.

Ivan Ooze: Touch Me Again And You’ll Be Chicken Wings In The Morning.

They also talk about the Pink Ranger being kind of cute and Goldar?

I Hope Your Wife And Kid In The Actual Sentai Don’t Know About Your Philandering Feelings. Yeah, In The Sentai, Goldar And Scorpina (Known As Griffonzer And Nami) Actually Got Married And Had A Kid.

They actually destroy Scorpitron with Tommy’s White Falcon Ninjazord dealing the final blow

Ooze is pissed and decides that he is going to fuse himself with Hornitor.

CGI So Dated That We Can't Even Get The Mouth To Move When He Speaks

Ooze destroys the bridge, which is really bad as the kids are using the Monorail to go and get to their parents in time to save them. But first, the Rangers need to form the Ninja Megazord without the White Falcon Ninjazord since he is going to take care of the monorail.

That’s A Goofy Head

So they fight while Tommy saves the kids.

Unfortunately, the Ninja Megazord without Tommy is still weak against Ooze Hornitor. So Tommy comes into to join and the Ninja Megazord is complete.

Basically It Just Got Wings

They lure Ooze Hornitor into space where they continue the fight.

The kids get to their parents and can only try and delay their parents from jumping to their doom while Fred, Bulk, and Skull go off to do something else with vehicles. The vehicles are used to spray water on the parents.

And The Kids’ Backs

The Ninja Megazord and Ooze Hornitor fight and we remember that there had been throughout the film a mention of Ryan’s Comet that is going to be passing by Earth. After several minutes, the Ninja Megazord throws Ooze Hornitor into the comet’s path.

Did I Say Throw? I Mean Knee Ivan Hornitor’s Privates So He Lets Go And Heads Towards The Comet. Didn’t Know Ooze Or Hornitor Had Privates, But There You Go.

And The Comet And Ooze Hornitor Are Both Destroyed

With Ooze down for the count, the parents are out of their hypnosis and everyone celebrates.

The Power Rangers teleport back to HQ and Alpha has to break the news that Zordon is dead. However, this is a kid’s show and we aren’t going to let that happen.

I Mean, We Saw What Happened In Transformers: The Movie When They Actually Killed Off Optimus Prime.

So instead, the Rangers use some of the Great Power to bring Zordon back to life.

With that, everything at the control center is put back in place and Zordon is back in the tube.

Zordon thanks the Rangers for saving him and saving the world from Ivan Ooze. Meanwhile, the kids and everyone are at a fireworks party.

You might be wondering how they got all these people to that place and not have to pay insane extra money. Well, they advertised that people could hang with the Power Rangers at a fireworks festival in Australia and they filmed them then….without the people knowing about it.

The Cheek Of These Bastards

It seems the movie’s over, but there is one more thing to take care of as we have a mid-credits scene. Back at the villains’ HQ, Goldar is sitting on the throne while Mordant is serving him.

That doesn’t last long because with Ooze dead, Rita and Zedd are free from their snow globe prison.

And They Are Not Happy The Two Lackies Turned On Them.

And that is the end of the movie.

This might shock literally no one, but this movie was a huge hit in theaters (making $66.4 million on a $15 million budget) and was a great Christmas present when it came out on home video that holiday season. The original Power Rangers run ended after the third season with the cast being in the sequel series Power Rangers Zeo, the third series Power Rangers Turbo, and the fourth series Power Rangers In Space with only a few changes. While I had stopped watching when Turbo happened (because Turbo sucked), Power Rangers In Space was actually the end of the Zordon era with everything supposedly wrapped up nicely. After that, Power Rangers is still going strong with every new series having a different cast and different zords.

One of the only reasons this may be still a thing as it is really the only one thing Saban has worked on that actually succeeded as shit like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation were terrible and other stuff like that attempted Sailor Moon USA series were so bad, they couldn’t even get passed a pilot that had been buried for years before someone freaking found it THIS YEAR. Saban tried to make a Power Rangers movie a few years ago to basically remake the original Power Rangers story with Rita and Zordon, but that bombed as well despite a decent cast. If you want to know more about the Power Rangers, you can look up Linkara’s History Of Power Rangers videos that have of course been put through the ringer by Youtube for various bullshit copyright claims.

Most of the cast has done other things, but sadly….some people have since passed away. Robert Manahan (who was the voice of Zordon for most of the series and this movie) passed away in 2000 at the age of 43 from a heart aneurysm. Richard Gennelle (who was Ernie in a deleted scene) died in 2008 at the age of 47 from a heart attack. Kerry Casey (who was in the Goldar suit for this movie) died in 2015 at the age of 61 from cancer. Robert Axelrod (who did the voice of Lord Zedd) left this mortal coil in 2019 at the age of 70.

And now for probably the reason you all guessed why this is being inducted here, Jason David Frank (who played Tommy the White Ranger) committed suicide in November of this year at the age of 49. Despite loving the series and showing up many times as a cameo in many things, he sadly suffered from depression and is now the second person of the original Power Rangers to die (Thuy Trang (who played Trini The Original Yellow Ranger) died in a car accident on her way to a wedding in 2001 at the age of 27). If you are considering suicide, please call the suicide prevention line or talk to someone because suicide is never the answer and you are not the only person who will suffer from your suicide.

Now with that hard shit out of the way, let’s talk about my opinions of the movie. And there is a reason I chose to induct this movie first before I inducted Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie as I still in many ways enjoy this movie. Sure the acting isn’t the greatest, it’s corny as hell, and honestly, the CGI does not hold up today. But many of the other stuff like the practical effects, the fighting, and so much of it still holds up today as a fun popcorn flick that always reminds you of when you were a kid and would be still good for kids today. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers is still worth a watch for those who remember the past. While I may be stretching to call this crap, this is fun crap.

And with that out of the way and 2022 nearing a close, may I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

You Filthy Animals