It's Morphin' Time: Cultural Changes Over 20 Years of Power Rangers

Because Technology

That brings us to technological advances made in the production of the show itself. Speaking of metamorphosis, whenever the Angel Grove teenagers transformed into Power Rangers, one aspect of the show was made especially evident: the fact that the clips from Japan looked completely different.

The amalgamation of Asian- and American-made sequences within the same program was noteworthy on its own, taking into account the differing cultural characteristics and international production considerations. In fact, Zyuranger was the first Super Sentai series to produce footage especially for the American show. But the most jarring feature of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, aside from its inexplicable writing and remarkably cheesy soundtrack, was the obvious technical contrast between the Super Sentai and Saban Entertainment scenes. The splicing was far from seamless, the video quality of the Japanese footage was lower, and the setting would clearly change from, you know, Southern California to Tokyo. The Power Rangers’ half-hearted proclamations of teleportation didn’t quite suffice.

As a bonus continuity challenge, Trini’s Yellow Warrior counterpart was played by a male actor (a discrepancy made very detectable, thanks to Spandex).

Latter-day Power Rangers is not a prime example of first-rate television production (and I’m being generous), but there is, naturally, room for improvement over two decades. Newer seasons look better than their predecessors, partly because the aesthetic properties of Super Sentai have also improved slightly, but mostly because of advanced special effects, which have become far more accessible to lower-budget productions. They employ far more CGI than Mighty Morphin, which used craftier means such as miniatures.

Furthermore, the current cinematography is finer; for example, there appears to be more thought placed on shooting different fields-of-view. Crowd shots, outdoor scenes, and fight sequences still make the switches to Japanese footage painfully obvious―but that particular shortcoming has really become one of the most classic, charming aspects of the series. It wouldn’t be the same without it.