TV

Ranger Ranker! #12 – Power Rangers Ninja Storm

The One With Disney’s Three Ninjas

Welcome back to Ranger Ranker! Journey back with me: It’s 2003 and we’ve only got three Rangers this time, at least to start with. But first we need to address the enormous mouse in the room:

Let’s Talk About Disney

So halfway through Power Rangers Wild Force, Fox Family was bought by Disney, and with it went Saban and Power Rangers. As a result, the future of the Power Rangers franchise was thrown into jeopardy. Disney was prepared to let the show lapse and run the existing 10 seasons in syndication while finding a cheaper way to produce the show, but when it was suggested to move production to Aotearoa,1 where Disney had already produced a number of original movies, Disney promptly fired nearly everyone, took the show non-union, and pulled up stakes to fly production halfway around the world to Aotearoa. Some past Power Rangers producers2 who were at Disney at the time were brought back to the series, bringing back some of the levity and lightness of the earlier seasons that had been overshadowed by the more plot and drama-heavy recent seasons. 

But all of this leaves the question: what could have been? Disney gaining control of the series was a major wrench in the works, and throwing the series halfway around the globe wasn’t exactly a smooth transition. Ninja Storm essentially represents a hard break in series continuity at a time when the franchise had been building up a serious legacy. For the past few seasons, annual team-up episodes had become the norm and after the 10-year anniversary special was a major high-point of last season, Forever Red, there was a real feeling of history behind the series, with a solid force of momentum that Ninja Storm puts a stop to, with the characters in the first episode even wondering whether Power Rangers are real or just comic book characters.3 This along with the major tone shift makes you wonder – what if Disney hadn’t come along? What if Power Rangers had kept going in the continuity-heavy, legacy-embracing, universe-building direction that it had been going? Well, if all had gone perfectly, we would have gotten Power Rangers: Hexagon.

Let’s Talk About Hexagon

Hexagon would have been a season conceived by Scorpion Rain and Forever Red creator Amit Bhaumik building on the legacy of the Power Rangers franchise and centering around The Hexagon,4 a fictional government organization themed after The Pentagon5 and tasked with the defense of the planet Earth and the unification of the various Power Rangers teams across the globe.6 The Hexagon organization would have been helmed by none other than Tommy Oliver, who had already been seen in Forever Red as a leader among leaders in the Ranger community. Based in a giant, well-defended facility, The Hexagon would handle a wide range of threats across historic Power Rangers locations, from Angel Grove to Silver Hills to Mirinoi, all of which conveniently resemble California, particularly the area nearby Los Angeles. The villains too would have been plucked from the Power Rangers legacy, bringing back undefeated favorites like Archerina, Scorpina, and Lokar. The three main Ninja Rangers would have obtained their Ninja powers from MMPR’s Ninjor, and Sky Cowboy Joel Rawlings would have returned as their transporter in a special stealth copter. Tommy Oliver would even eventually suit up again as the Green Ranger, as there was a convenient Green Ranger analogue in the series that even had chest armor that could call-back to the original Green Ranger’s Dragon Shield.

Old favorites!

The Hexagon wouldn’t be operating unopposed though – due to the Japanese Hurricaneger’s unique premise, there would be a rival team of rogue Rangers7 mentored by a rebellious legacy Ranger with attitude: Jason Scott, who had been portrayed as a dark cool-guy biker type in Zeo and Forever Red. The conflict between the two teams would have been the focus of the season, with an explicit “Whose Side Are You On?” theme being a major message, and past Rangers choosing sides with or against The Hexagon and its growing, possibly overreaching, authority.

Elements of old seasons would have been brought back and loose ends tied up – the mystery of the Phantom Ranger’s identity, the unexplained leap in technological advancement that led to Terra Venture, and the return of numerous legacy Rangers. It was meant to be a true embrace of the 10-year legacy of Power Rangers, celebrating old fans and encouraging new fans to learn more about the incredible universe that the franchise had built over its many seasons. Of course, all of this is merely planning – it’s easy to say that you’re going to do all of these things before you actually have to do them. Actor availability, budget, and time constraints all set in at some point, and any or all of these plans could have been scrapped or changed if any of it actually had to happen in real life. Hexagon sounds incredible in theory, but executing on it would have been a huge challenge in practice and in reality, it probably wouldn’t have lived up to whatever amazing season you’re probably imagining right now.

In the end, Disney’s push for a new start and the move to Aotearoa crushed the Hexagon plans before they even had a chance to begin, and the opportunity for something like that to ever happen again is pretty slim. Apart from the specificity of the “rival Ranger teams” idea to the Hurricaneger adaptation, it was an idea that was extremely of-the-moment, when the history of the series was in that sweet-spot of being long enough to make a legacy, but short enough that it was still manageable and the actors were still relatively young. The themes of government overreach and anti-authoritarianism were pretty timely too, with America still in the early Bush years and predating Marvel’s original Civil War tackling some of the same hero vs. hero plotlines. While there are a number of fan-made interpretations of imagined Hexagon seasons out there, it’s extremely unlikely that we’ll ever see the like of Power Rangers: Hexagon in real life, especially with the future of the franchise and its legacy up in the air with the upcoming hard reboot of the series.

But let’s get back to the non-hypothetical and tackle the real, actual, semi-soft reboot that we did get:

Power Rangers Ninja Storm! Now 1000% more X-treme! Sports, that is! We’re really into Xtreme Sports this season, and this time, it’s not just scuba. Let’s get into it!

Adaptation

As mentioned above, Power Rangers Ninja Storm is essentially an entirely new production thanks to the acquisition by Disney. In addition to most of the production team being replaced,8 the whole show was moved to Aotearoa, making a noticeable change in scenery in the non-Japanese footage. It also might just be me, but there seems to be a change in the overall visual look of the show – it seems more saturated and the colors seem richer, to my eye, at least. As an adaptation of Ninpu Sentai Hurricaneger, it inherits some unique elements. Rather than the usual 5-person team, Ninja Storm starts off with a 3-person team, and are later joined  by a rival faction of Rangers in the form of the Thunder Rangers. They also made the decision not to gender-swap the Yellow Ranger like they had in past seasons, resulting in the first male Yellow Ranger alongside the first female Blue Ranger. 

Plot

Shane Clark, Tori Hanson, and Dustin Brooks are some radical teens into a variety of cool sports, but they have a secret: they’re also the worst students at a secret ninja academy deep in the mountains. The Wind Ninja Academy is one of several institutions around the world that train our “future protectors”. To what end is left somewhat unclear, because it doesn’t seem like they actually do anything after graduating, but I guess that’s the point of the whole “secret” part of the thing. When evil space ninjas attack, led by the evilest space ninja, Lothor, every ninja student is abducted and the sensei of the academy is attacked, and due to some non-explanation about energy fields, is left stuck as a CGI guinea pig. Our three heroes manage to avoid being captured due to being late for class, and as the last remaining ninja students are recruited to become Power Rangers.9

As the new Rangers begin to oppose Lothor, they are confronted by two “dark” Rangers. Literally “dark” because their colors are just dark red10 and dark blue.11 It turns out that these are the Thunder Rangers – Rangers from another Ninja Academy that Lothor had wiped out, but were now working for Lothor because they believed that the Wind Rangers’ Sensei had killed their parents. When it turns out that their parents were actually killed by Lothor, who had been lying to them this whole time, they switch sides and become good, which seems like it was a pretty fragile plan on Lothor’s part.12 

The now unified teams of Rangers would also be joined by a sixth Ranger, Cam, who is Sensei’s son and had been forbidden from training as a ninja due to the dying wishes of his mother or something, but he travels back in time and gets implicit permission from her to take on Samurai powers and become the Green Samurai Ranger.13 During his time adventure, he also discovers that Lothor is Sensei’s twin brother, but was expelled/exiled from Ninja Academy and also from Earth.

Lothor ultimately reveals that his whole evil plan had been dictated to him by an ancient Scroll of Destiny, wherein he would sacrifice an army of evil space ninjas in order to fill and then open The Abyss of Evil, thus releasing their evil spirits or whatever and blah blah destroy the world. But there was a piece of the scroll missing and it of course turns out that the missing piece was the most important piece, because it depicted the ones who would oppose and ultimately thwart his plan: our three favorite Teens With Attitude, Shane, Tori, and Dustin. And those other Rangers are also present I guess. They don’t get to be destined or whatever though.

An interesting quirk of this season is that it’s quite a bit more serialized than recent seasons, with 7 different sets of multi-part episodes – numbers similar to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.14 The second Thunder Rangers multipart is even four episodes long, just one shy of Mighty Morphin’s classic five-parter, Green With Evil. This isn’t to say that the overall plot is any more or less continuous in comparison, just a weird thing that I noticed and am inflicting on you, my captiveloyal audience.

+2563 pts

Music

The music for this season shifts to a much more 00’s pop-punk sound. This is especially evident in this season’s theme song, which opens with a vaguely Asian-sounding flute-backed exposition about Secret Ninja Academies Deep in the Mountains before switching to X-treme Sports being performed to rad guitar shredding. The theme itself is fine, just kind of generically 2000’s-y. Still an improvement over Wild Force Access, though, so we’ll call it a win. The musical highlight though is the Talent Show Episode, featuring the two shallow girl villains doing a pop duet about how cool it is to be evil and also ninjas from space. They get technically disqualified for lip syncing, but we all know that they should have gotten a record deal out of the whole thing regardless.

+2004 pts

Fights

Up until this season, fight coordinator and producer Koichi Sakamoto had been a major element of the visual look of Power Rangers’ fights. In the move to Aotearoa, Koichi Sakamoto was kept on as an executive producer, so there is at least some continuity there, but Sakamoto would no longer be doing any directing or choreographing, instead just helping to put together the stunt team and consult new stunt coordinator Mark Harris. In the end though, the fights are actually pretty fun. The addition of ninja abilities keeps things interesting, a major evolution from the camera-trick style ninja abilities of MMPR Season 3. And since the Ninja Rangers are actually Ninjas in the morphed footage too, they get to transfer over to the imported footage too, instead of having to use the weird half-morphed ninja outfits of MMPR. One fun concept taken from the Hurricaneger footage is the Shadow Battle ability, where a shoji screen covers the action and the Rangers attack the monster in silhouette.

+759 pts

Miscellany

I know I mentioned it already, but there really is A Lot of Xtreme Sports in this season. They work at an extreme sports store, they talk about it all the time, it’s basically their whole personality. The big final battle happens at the Big Extreme Sport Festival or whatever. Now I know that Xtreme Sports and the X-Games and whatever were big in the early 00’s, but this seems a little excessive, right? I know that technically everyone has their own separate Sport Interest,15 but it does lead to all the Rangers kind of feeling same-y after a while. I guess Cam is different at least. He “Does Machines.”16

Cumulative Score: 3510 pts!

The Good Guys

This time, the Rangers aren’t exactly “normal” civilians to begin with. They are all students of secret ninja academies hidden deep in the mountains, training to protect Earth in some unspecified manner. Just Ninja Things. But they are also special among the students of these schools because they received Morphers from their senseis when Lothor attacked Earth, making them Ninja Rangers.

The Rangers

Shane Clarke (Pua Magasiva)  

Skater. The risk-taker, adrenaline guy. Secret talent: Singing.

  • Color: Red
  • Zord: Hawk
  • Signature Weapon: Hawk Blaster
  • Strength: 21
  • Smarts: 4
  • Coolness factor: 5

Shane is strong and macho, with a competitive streak and a bit of a chip on his shoulder. Ostensibly the leader as the Red Ranger, he has a bit of an ego and really wants to be the hero. Also as a child, he may or may not have metaphorically/non-metaphorically rescued an alien from a spiderweb and/or bounty hunter, leading her to come back when she was ready to shed her physical/mortal form and grant Shane her lifeforce, in the form of this season’s Red Battlizer. So that’s fun.

Tori Hanson (Sally Martin)  

Surfer. The logical, reliable one. Secret talent: Dancing.

  • Color: Blue
  • Zord: Dolphin
  • Signature Weapon: Sonic Fin17
  • Strength: 15
  • Smarts: 15
  • Coolness factor: 4

The lone female Ranger of this season, Tori tends to veer wildly from tomboyish to feminine depending on the needs of the episode. Regardless, she’s usually the smartest one in the room, except when Cam is around, in which case she and Cam tie for smartest in everything non-technological. She also has a bit of a romantic subplot with Blake, but it doesn’t really advance past extremely light flirting, because Disney decided that kids don’t want any kissing in their fighty transforming heroes show, leading to a complete lack of kissing for like 28 years since Tommy and Kimberly got to have lakeside smooching.

Dustin Brooks (Glenn McMillan)  

Motorbiker. The mellow, reflective dude. Secret talent: Saxophone.

  • Color: Yellow
  • Zord: Lion
  • Signature Weapon: Lion Hammer
  • Strength: 10
  • Smarts: 1
  • Coolness factor: 3

Dustin is relegated to being the silly/stupid one, but he makes up for it by having a lot of heart or something. Which is to say that he’s incredibly trusting, often to his detriment, but also leading to one of the female villains developing a crush on him that doesn’t really go anywhere. He just keeps ending up being the super-charismatic one, ending up in this one episode where he, as the Yellow Ranger, accidentally becomes a celebrity, which leads to the reveal that there are online Power Rangers fansites in-universe, which I think is pretty great.

Hunter Bradley (Adam Tuominen)  

Motorbiker. The angry, impulsive one. Secret talent: Rapping.

  • Color: Crimson
  • Zord: Rhinoceros Beetle
  • Signature Weapon: Crimson Blaster
  • Strength: 20
  • Smarts: 1
  • Coolness factor: 1

Hunter is strong and macho, with a competitive streak and a chip on his shoulder. And if that sounds familiar, it’s because he’s basically the second Red Ranger of the season. But DARK.18 He’s basically a grumpier, darker version of Shane. But he also does motocross! Like Dustin! Except that his motocross bike’s number is higher than Dustin’s meaning that it’s more powerful or something. Honestly there’s a lot of motocross jargon in this season that just goes completely unexplained. It’s a choice, I guess.

Blake Bradley (Jorgito Vargas, Jr.)  

Motorbiker also. The chill, intense one. Secret talent: Mixing.19

  • Color: Navy
  • Zord: Stag Beetle
  • Signature Weapon: Navy Antlers
  • Strength: 19
  • Smarts: 10
  • Coolness factor: 10

Blake is basically Hunter’s shadow. Technically the younger of the two twins,20 which ends up meaning that Blake gets treated as secondary in pretty much every way. Blake’s cool with it though. He’s pretty much cool with everything, even though he admits that Hunter basically never needed him despite Hunter being the most important person in his life. Over the course of the series though, Blake ends up finding his own place and even surpassing Hunter in a couple ways, so that’s nice for him.

Cam Watanabe (Jason Chan)  

Hacker. The smart, techy one. Secret talent: Guitar.

  • Color: Green
  • Zord: Swallow/Helicopter
  • Signature Weapon: Samurai Saber
  • Strength: 10
  • Smarts: 50
  • Coolness factor: 7

Cam is the son of the Wind Ninja Academy’s Sensei, but he was never allowed to train as a ninja because it’s too dangerous and his father promised his mother that he would never allow it. Cam is pretty peeved about this because it means he’s stuck in the Ninja Hideout doing tech stuff while the three idiots Ninja Rangers are out fighting evil and presumably having a great time. Cam does all the computer stuff for the Rangers, which mainly consists of hitting the big red button that he had custom installed on his keyboard for dramatic button-pushing reasons. Eventually, Cam convinces his father to let him use the Scroll of Time to travel back in time to meet his mother and gain the Samurai Amulet from her, which turns out to be the source of the Green Samurai Ranger powers, letting him become the sixth Ranger without technically training as a ninja. But he’s still kind of a ninja.

The Team

There are really three different sets of suits this season – the Wind Rangers, the Thunder Rangers, and the Samurai Ranger. The Wind suits are pretty simplistic, consisting of mainly solid colors with metallic accents and chest emblems for the animals representing each Ranger. The Thunder suits also have chest emblems with beetle imagery, plus shoulder armor and beetle accents for their helmets. The Samurai suit has removable chest armor and a shuriken motif with a swallow motif underneath the armor when it is removed for Super Samurai mode. I don’t love the chest emblems, honestly. I never liked when they got added to the MMPR designs, and with Wild Force having done them as well as they could be done last season, I feel like the emblems coming back this season just blandly centered in the otherwise solid-colored uniforms just doesn’t do it for me. As for the Thunder Ranger suits, I feel like they’re trying too hard to be the “dark, cool” Rangers with the shoulder armor. It’s just a bit much. The Samurai suit is honestly pretty cool, and the reversible helmet for the Super Samurai mode is a cool touch. Even the swallow emblem is better than the regular suits because it’s a whole motif, not just a plain circle. 

The team dynamic this time is an interesting one, as there are basically two “teams” of Rangers. They end up working together after only a miniseries or two, but they still function as separate groups a lot of the time. By the time Cam suits up, the team cohesion is pretty stable though, and after that they function pretty much as any 6-Ranger team would. There still ends up being a lot more internal conflict than I think usually shows up in the show, just a lot of rivalries and secrets and Feelings. Sensei often ends up having to act as the surrogate parent and tell all these teenagers with attitudes to, like, totally chill out or whatever.

Ranger Ranker:

  1. Cam – If this season has an overarching theme it is that Cam is always right. +3519 pts
  2. Tori – If Cam is not right, it is because Tori is right. +3207 pts
  3. Blake – Do people still say woobie? Blake is the woobie. +2762 pts
  4. Dustin – He’s an idiot, but generally a harmless idiot, which is more than can be said for some of the idiots on this show. +1710 pts
  5. Shane – I know I said last season that “teamwork” isn’t a rule, but maybe it should be for Shane. +982 pts
  6. Hunter – He’s just so… Hunter. +503 pts

The team dynamic of this season is just so weird, with the 3+2+1 format that it takes. I’m so used to the 5+1 format that it takes a little getting used to. That said, the brotherly bond between Blake and Hunter is nice, even if Hunter kind of keeps getting the better end of that relationship. And Cam going from tech support to Ranger is a really great development. All-in-all, the chemistry of the team is good – there’s a camaraderie that comes from being students together that we haven’t seen since the Rangers were actually in high school way back in the Mighty Morphin’ era.

“_____ Storm, Ranger Form”

Again, since there are three different sources of powers for this season, there are three distinct morphing sequences. The Ninja and Thunder sequences are pretty similar, the unmorphed Rangers stand in the middle of a desolate CGI land/water/airscape and their uniforms just kind of appear on them. The Thunder Rangers are a little interesting in that their morphers fly up like beetles and land on their faces to form their helmets/masks. Cam’s Samurai morph is actually pretty unique in that he’s sitting in his morph sequence. It’s still a pretty bland cgi background – a dojo, this time – but the pose is at least unique. Pretty boring though, and despite the rhyme, Ranger “Form” kind of rubs me the wrong way. Not sure why, it just feels like it kind of downplays the coolness of morphing into a Ranger to just call it a “form.”

Overall Team Score: 2539 pts!

Gear

Tsunami Cycles

Did I mention that this season is all about extreme sports? Because it is! Everyone21 rides motorbikes, and I’m not just talking about the three Rangers for whom “Riding Motorbikes” is their whole “thing.” There’s even a whole thing where the plans for the fancy Tsunami Cycles are on a CD that gets stolen and hacked so that the Thunder Rangers can get their own Tsunami Cycles even while they’re being all brainwashed and evil.22

+200 pts

Ninja Glider Cycle

Since Hunter is technically a Red Ranger, just, you know, like a dark red, he gets his own special Red Ranger Power-Up: his friendship with a genius mechanic grants him said mechanic’s fancy new invention, the Ninja Glider Cycle – a motorcycle that also turns into a flying hang-glider suit complete with big fancy lasers and such. And all it took was some involuntary brain/energy draining during a monster-possessed kidnapping situation!

+202 pts

Tri-Battlized Armor

Of course, Shane is the real Red Ranger, so he gets a Real Red Ranger Power-Up in the form of a Battlizer mode. Shane’s Battlizer is granted to him by Skyla, a Karmanian who Shane somehow non-metaphorically met and saved as a child, as revealed to him in his dreams where he released a glowing light from a spiderweb. You know, the usual way. As a Karmanian, Skyla’s time in the material world is ending,[footnote]but she’s not dying, just moving on to another form of existence, it just sounds a whole lot like she’s dying and everybody treats it that way, but she’s not dying, I swear but her lifeforce is powerful and can be passed on to the being of her choosing. She obviously chooses Shane, and the form her power takes is the Tri-Battlized Armor. It’s got abs and punchy fists and it can grow wings and fly and shoot lasers and the usual Battleizer stuff, but honestly I’m still stuck on the whole lifeforce thing. Pretty wild, right?

+3 pts

Zords

Wind Ninjazords

Interestingly, due to the unique team setup of this season, there are only three Zords in this season’s main Megazord. They are CGI again, but it’s less obtrusive since they’re not trying to look like real animals. They do still have an animal theme, but it skews more mechanical than biological. The Zords are summoned via “holographic portals” from their underground hangar, which means that they somehow materialize in the space where a similar object23 used to be. You know, ancient ninja holograms. Part of the Zord system this time are Power Spheres: big capsule-toy balls that pop out of the Megazord’s chest and open up and have animal-themed weaponry inside them. I’m not enumerating all of them because I don’t want to, but it’s an interesting way to keep the Zord fights fresh and interesting without changing out the entire set of Zords and bringing in new ones like in other seasons. For better or worse, we are stuck with these 3 Zords the whole season.

ORB

The Storm Megazord also has a power-up mode – Lightning Mode. When activated, the Megazord becomes more “athletic,” with parts of its body literally miniaturizing to make a more svelte form, and it starts bouncing around like a dancing boxer. It’s much stronger and faster in this form, but it only lasts for 60 seconds before it needs to power down and revert to its regular form. 

I like the very mechanical transformation sequence of the Storm Megazord, with the see-through shots of gears and robot arms and such. It’s a much better use of CGI than making stretchy roaring faces. The spinning gear motifs of the Lion and Dolphin are fun too. It’s interesting seeing a Megazord made up of only three Zords, but it does feel like the Lion Zord is carrying a lot of weight, literally and figuratively.24 Lightning Mode is a fun addition though – it’s really novel to see a Megazord moving around with agility similar to a real person, rather than stomping around weightily.

Coolness of Animal

  1. Dolphin – Dolphins are great! As long as you don’t listen to any of the reasons why dolphins are terrible.
  2. Lion – The lion is holographically summoned via a ferris wheel and a rollercoaster, with the wheel forming the mane. That’s pretty cool. Or possibly I just like spinny things.
  3. Hawk – Hot Take: Hawks are just boring falcons. Also I don’t trust its big friendly eyes.

Storm Megazord

Primary Weapon: Serpent Sword25

Finishing Move: Triple Strike – The Megazord splits into three copies of itself via Ninja Trickery and slashes the enemy three times at once while the screen goes all letterbox-y.

Lightning Mode

Primary Weapon: Twin Blades

Finishing Move: Ramp Attack – The Megazord uses its curved Twin Blades to become a wheel, then summons a big ramp that it rolls down and runs down the enemy.

Total (group) score: +999 pts

Thunder Ninjazords

The Thunder Ninjazords are both Beetle themed,26 and as mentioned above, form their own separate Megazord, this one made up of only 2 Zords, a number unseen since the Astro Megazord, depending on whether you count the Astro Megashuttle as a Zord. Which I don’t. In line with their more radical personas, the Thunder Ninjazords are more X-treme in theming, modeled after a tank and a monster truck. Like the Storm Megazord, the Thunder Megazord uses Power Spheres, and can even steal them from the other Megazord when Cam sends them through the computer using his Big Red Button.

The Thunder Megazord has the distinct honor of being the second best Megazord named Thunder Megazord. It’s not that it’s a bad Megazord, but it is definitely secondary both to the Megazord that shares its name and the one that it has to share the screen with. The Storm Megazord is the “real” Megazord and the Thunder Megazord just gets to tag along in fights until it combines with the other Zords.

Coolness of Beetle

  1. Stag Beetle – Those are some mandibles, huh? *chomp chomp chomp*
  2. Rhinoceros Beetle – Nothing against actual rhinoceros beetles, but the Zord kind of looks like an elephant with a bunch of stuff sticking out. 

Thunder Megazord

Primary Weapon: Spin Blade27

Finishing Move: Spin Blade Slash – The Thunder Megazord slashes with the Spin Blade and it repeats a couple times and explodes the enemy.

Total (group) score: +802 pts

Minizord

I said that I wasn’t going to talk about the Power Spheres, but here I am talking about the Minizord because it does have Zord in the name after all. It comes in two parts, top-half and bottom-half, each contained in a separate Power Sphere. When summoned together, the two halves combine into Minizord! And it talks! And then pretty immediately splits back into its separate halves to form the head/fists of the Thunderstorm Megazord, enabling the combination of the five main Zords.

Coolness of Mini…man?

I don’t… he’s… he’s just a little guy…

Thunderstorm Megazord

pew pew pew pew pew

I like the gear/rotor motif of the lion’s head and the dolphin cannon on this. It really adds the the mechanical nature of these Megazords. Apart from that, it’s a little chunky and topheavy, but the tank tread feet from the Crimson Insectizord is a nice touch.

Score: +560 pts

Samurai Star Chopper

As Sixth Ranger, Cam gets his own Zord/Megazord all to himself. The Samurai Star Chopper is kind of a mishmash of themes. It’s themed like a ninja star, but also a samurai and there’s a barely detectable bird theme too, sure. The Samurai Star Chopper can combine with either of the Megazords of the season, along with turning into its own Megazord. Which kind of seems like Megazord inflation, honestly. The Red Dragon Thunderzord didn’t get to be called a Megazord when it transformed into its own stand-alone person-shaped Zord. Later in the season, Cam makes autonomous drone versions of the Samurai Star Chopper, allowing all of the Megazord combinations to be formed at the same time. This also feels like kind of a cheat, but I guess Cam is a supergenius engineer or whatever.

Coolness of Helicopter? Swallow, I Guess?

It’s not the best-looking Zord honestly. It’s kind of doing too many things at once. And it’s got those big friendly eyes, which I remain not a fan of.

Samurai Star Megazord

A deadly bee weapon? Bees. My god.

When it transforms alone, the Samurai Star Chopper’s rear propellers turn into legs that it can use to hover and the shuriken-shaped main rotor turns into a big chest piece that it can also throw.

Primary Weapon: Arm Blades

Finishing Move: N/A28

Score: +777 pts

Samurai Storm Megazord

The Samurai Star Chopper replaces the Dolphinzord as the Megazord’s right arm. Honestly there’s barely any transformation involved, so now the Samurai Storm Megazord just has a big helicopter for an arm.

Primary Weapon: Propeller Arm(s)

Finishing move: Samurai Storm – All the propellers start spinning, along with the Lionzord’s rotor, causing a huge whirlwind. Then the secondary propellers of the Samurai Star Chopper fire a big wind blast at the enemy, exploding it.

Score: +544 pts

Samurai Thunder Megazord

In this formation, the Samurai Star Chopper attaches to the back of the Thunder Megazord, with the two rear propellers of the Chopper mounting on each shoulder of the Megazord to form big cannons. Also some more cannons appear at the Megazord’s hips. The Samurai Star Chopper’s main propeller can deploy like a backpack to allow the Samurai Thunder Megazord to fly.

Primary Weapon: Many Cannons

Finishing Move: MANY CANNONS – The Samurai Thunder Megazord fires all its cannons, exploding the enemy.

Score: +298 pts

Hurricane Megazord

All of the Zords! Together! Also the Ninja Firebird, which is a combination of Power Spheres like the Minizord, but we’re still Not Talking about that.

Primary Weapon: Shuriken Sword

Finishing Move: Typhoon Power – The Samurai Star Chopper’s propeller on the Megazord’s chest draws power from every Zord in an X-Ray shot, then spins, creating a huge tornado that shoots at the enemy.

Score: +1001 pts

Mammothzord

The Mammothzord is summoned by the Lightning Riff Blaster, which is a big green electric shamisenguitar. It shoots Power Spheres from its trunk, just like a real elephantmammoth! Like Titanus and Tor before it, the Mammothzord is a Carrierzord, which means that it can form Ultrazords by letting the Megazord stand on its back and shooting a lot of lasers.29

Coolness of Animal

I forget, are Mammoths different from Mastodons?

Thunderstorm Ultrazord

It’s just the Thunderstorm Megazord riding the Mammothzord.

Score: +100 pts

Hurricane Ultrazord

It’s just the Hurricane Megazord riding the Mammothzord! It doesn’t even have the Dolphinzord!

Score: +99 pts

Mentors/Allies

Sensei Watanabe

Sensei Watanabe is the head of the Wind Ninja Academy and Cam’s father and he spends most of the show’s duration turned into a guinea pig because… ninja reasons? He’s wise and serene and full of helpful fortune cookie insights. He also makes terrible decisions regarding his family. When Cam takes a trip into the past and secretly meets his father, it’s revealed that he’s also kinda sexist and underestimates Mia, Cam’s future mother when she arrives at the Wind Ninja Academy as a transfer ninja from… samurai school or something.

+100 pts

Cyber Cam

After Cam becomes a Ranger, he determines that he still needs someone to run the technology in Ninja Ops, because Sensei is useless when it comes to technology. Therefore he uses the advanced holographic and robotic technology of Ninja Ops to create a “virtual replicant” of himself, Cyber Cam. Cyber Cam is super cool and good at everything and also completely insufferable. But in, like, an intentional way, I think? That might be worse, I’m not sure.

+404 pts

Random Citizens Lightning Round!

Kelly

Kelly is the owner of Storm Chargers, the extreme sports store where Shane and Dustin30 work. She also coaches/sponsors/manages the Rangers in their civilian extreme sports “careers.” Honestly every time motocross comes up, my brain kind of glazes over, but I think she’s good at managering the Storm Chargers motocross team? Which may or may not include Blake and Hunter sometimes. Look, this season is asking me to care a lot more about extreme sports than I think it ever earns.

+360 pts

Shane’s Brother

Shane’s Brother just wants what’s best for Shane, and what’s best for Shane is Suits and Business and Adulting, until he finds out that Shane is a Power Ranger and that’s ok too.

-10 pts

Hunter’s Character Development Child

So Kapri and Marah sell the Evil Monster Summoning Device for hijinks, then this kid somehow buys it on the internet? But it turns out that Hunter is volunteering to look after this kid for some reason and he teaches/learns a valuable lesson about… not buying stuff on the internet or something? I wasn’t really paying attention because it was a Hunter episode.

-100 pts

This Guy?

This guy shows up in the finale as a civilian who the Rangers try to protect but then he turns up later as a new student at the Wind Ninja Academy in the epilogue. I’m sure nothing else of any relevance happens with him or anyone who looks like him who may or may not claim to be his brother.

+?? pts???

The Baddies

Evil Space Ninjas! From Space! Why are they from space? Unclear! Why are they all ninjas? They have ninjas in space now! Don’t ask so many questions!

The Big Bad: Lothor – Evil Space Ninja

Lothor is secretly31 Sensei’s identical twin brother, Kiya. As a student, Kiya embraced the dark ninja arts and also tried to steal the Samurai amulet from Sensei’s future wife and Cam’s future mother, Miko. In the course of Time Shenanigans, Cam thwarts this, leading to Kiya being banished from the Wind Ninja Academy and also from Earth. Kiya forsakes his family and his name, taking on the name of an ancient warrior of evil, Lothor. Then he gets launched to space in a big glowy orb. 

Lothor is a much more “fun” villain than we’ve seen in a while. He’s a huge ham, he mugs for the camera, and he makes pop culture references constantly. He’s also ruthless and manipulative – he ends up betraying and sacrificing most of his lieutenants, and is ultimately willing to sacrifice his nieces to achieve his own ends. Unlike other evil bosses who betray all of their minions at the first opportunity,32 Lothor has an ultimate plan: to use the defeated evil souls of his generals and monsters to fill the Abyss of Evil, causing it to overflow and explode, releasing the defeated monsters to menace the Earth once again.

Score: +6510 pts

Henches

Kapri

Kapri is Lothor’s niece,33 and is shallow, vain, and not that bright. Or is she? She and Marah end up being part of a convoluted betrayal plot in the back half of the season and it’s not clear how much they’re playing up their stupidity to be underestimated. Though honestly, it’s probably not that much. Kapri has a snake motif going on and is an expert swordswoman in addition to having various Ninja Tricks. She and Marah also have a tendency to dress up in fun34 outfits for the slightest reason.

+500 pts

Marah

Marah is Kapri’s sister and Lothor’s niece. She tends to be the secondary one in the relationship, being treated badly and ending up the butt of the joke pretty often, even being replaced by her more successful best friend, Beevil, for a time. Marah has a fly motif and can cast shields and energy beams. She develops a crush on Dustin that leads to second thoughts about being evil when she fakes her defection from Lothor and Dustin is the only one to trust her, but in the end she chooses evil, until Lothor is defeated and she and Kapri show up at the Wind Ninja Academy to reform for good and enroll as students.

+499 pts

Zurgane

Zurgane is some kind of robot ninja samurai or something.35 He’s generally the “straight man” of the villain team, serious and focused, but he has his silly side and he’s not overly bright. With his two large swords that he draws from his big shoulder balls, he is a master swordsman and is very durable and dangerous. He’s extremely loyal to Lothor, and is the first to be taken out by Vexacus when the latter chooses to betray the former. Zurgane also has a technical side, creating robotic monsters and even his own giant robotic Zurganezords to fight the Rangers’ Megazords.

+300 pts

Choobo

Choobo is the bumbling fool of the villain team. He starts out as a mere lieutenant, but eventually gets promoted to general, much to Zurgane’s frustration. His powers are more magic-focused than the other Space Ninjas, including his magic backpack that contains another dimension that he can use to trap people in. He ends up shrunken down to the size of a puppy for a while, during which he is Marah’s replacement pet for the deceased George the Blowfish, but he ends up restored to normal completely by accident and no one really cares either way.

+603 pts

Vexacus

Vexacus is a shark-themed bounty hunter with an unspecified grudge against Lothor. Despite this, Lothor recruits him as a general, putting him in conflict with Zurgane. When he suddenly and inevitably betrays Lothor, killingdestroying Zurgane and Motodrone, he is tricked by Marah and Kapri, who pretend to betray Lothor as well, only to betray him and set the Rangers on Vexacus.

+331 pts

Motodrone

Motodrone is initially an evil presence overtaking the human mechanic, Perry. During some kind of mad science, Perry is turned into the evil half-man, half-motorcycle Motodrone and fights the Rangers, kidnapping Hunter and stealing his life-energy as part of his ultimate creation: a flying motocross bike. When Motodrone is destroyed, Zurgane gathers his exploded bits and rebuilds him, powering him with the life energy of a sacrificial Kelzak. Motodrone is very loyal to Zurgane and Lothor, but somewhat naive. He’s also got a penchant for spooky, mysterious cloaks, so that’s fun.

+54036 pts

Shimazu

Shimazu is an ancient warlord, brought to life accidentally by a blast from Motodrone. He’s a bit wacky and unhinged, but not particularly effectual after his initial appearance. He sides with Vexacus against Lothor after the former’s betrayal, but is destroyedkilled by Kapri and Marah as part of their double-agent deception of Vexacus.

+555 pts

Fodder

Kelzaks

In my vast experience of analyzing guys in identical suits menacing supposed teenagers, I have come to the conclusion that a good generic minion needs to be a little bit off putting and inhuman. Not too much – looking at you, Swabbies – but the best minions of Power Rangers have had that bit of weirdness adding to their menace. Piranhatrons and Quantrons are menacing, but ultimately they are just armored goons with sharp objects. It’s the Putties and Batlings and Cyclobots with their weird costumes and jerky movements and curious faces that really make it work. And the Kelzaks definitely have that weirdness. It might be their weird squeaky voices or their silly ponytails or maybe just how stupid and useless they are and how they get thrown out and sacrificed by the villains with utter disregard, but I just really, really like the Kelzaks.

+444 pts

Monsters

It’s not clear where all of the monsters of this season come from. They’re all theoretically Evil Space Ninjas, and it seems like many of them are under the command of Lothor’s various Space Generals. But also it seems like a bunch of them are Just Some Guy I Found, which is a little funny. Space is just full of Guys.

Monsters That Are Good (According to Me)

Amphibidor

His evil plan is to release tadpole robots that steal all our water. That’s just great.

General Trayf

Get it? Because he’s a pig! Like pork? Anyway, he’s from Planet Hamhock, he traps the Thunder Rangers in magical popcorn buckets full of presumably pork-based fake butter, and it’s implied in the stinger that Lothor barbecues and eats him when he fails.

Mr. Ratwell

An evil entertainment rat whose evil scheme is to make Lothor’s evil more acceptable to the masses by stealing the airwaves in the same season that the show is taken over by notoriously rodent-led company, Disney? Coincidence? Yes.

Goldwinger

Goldwinger can use his gold dust to send people to another dimension, where good is bad and bad is good. Monsters are citizens and the Power Rangers are evil jerks. And everyone is kind of stupid. It’s not really clear what the benefit of this is, because when Tori is sent to the other dimension she just blunders her way back into the regular dimension without really learning a lesson or solving a puzzle or anything, but it’s pretty messed up, huh?

THE FINAL SCORE

We now begin the completely transparent scoring system, where I give a value (in Pts) to each of the major elements, and I also get to decide what those are. And also how much they have accrued in Bonus Points(pts) up to now.

  • The Team:  600 Pts 
    • Individual: I really like (most of) the team! Cam and Tori are great and Dustin and Blake are fun but… 800 tPts 
    • Together: The split-teams conceit of the season is kind of weird and the chemistry of the team just feels off because of it. 300 tPts 
    • Leader: Shane kinda suuuuuuuuucks. It’s all about him all the time with this guy. And then we have a second leader too in Hunter and he’s even worse! 200 tPts 
  • The Zords: 250 Pts
    • Individual: The Zords don’t really stand out for me this time. And I know it’s weird to say this about something that’s specifically supposed to be toys, but they’re just a little too Toy. 200 zPts
    • Megazords: The Megazords are fun and I like the Lightning Mode concept. The Power Spheres I could do without. 300 zPts
  • The Villains: 5500 Pts
    • Leader: Lothor is great! A return to villains being snarky and fun! 7000 vPts
    • Henchmen: It feels like there are so many henchmen this season. Motodrone and Shimazu especially feel kind of extraneous. But they’re having a good time and the villain betrayal self-destruction plots are fun. 5000 vPts
    • Fodder: Kelzaks good. No notes. 666 vPts 
  • The Monsters: Very glad to be back to the monsters having silly names. Big fan of silly names. 1000 Pts 
  • Story: As mentioned, there’s a lot of multi-part episodes this season, especially around the Thunder Rangers. 3000 Pts 
Sudden Dramatic Points Right At The End: 

+3000 pts! – In a lot of ways, this season feels like a throwback to the MMPR era. You have a bunch of Cool Teens into Teen Things, if we allow for Xtreme Sports standing in for most of the Teen Things, and you have Evil Space Aliens who are snarky and kind of petty. Sensei is a more Zordon-y Wise Mentor than we’ve had in a while, and there’s a good mix of Lesson Episodes and Story Multiparters. As a New Beginning for the series under Disney, I think it works. It never reaches the highs that other seasons do, but it’s getting its feet under itself under totally new circumstances.

After totalling all the scores for each section and normalizing the results according to the secret formulae that definitely exist and are not a screen to get me out of having to think about scores ever at all:

Power Rangers Ninja Storm: 17,207 Power Points

Let’s see the rankings!

Power Rangers Seasons, Ranked

  1. Power Rangers in Space 37
  2. Power Rangers Time Force 38
  3. Power Rangers Zeo39
  4. Power Rangers Ninja Storm: 17,207 PPs!
  5. Power Rangers Lost Galaxy 40
  6. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 341
  7. Mighty Morphin’ Alien Rangers42
  8. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 243
  9. Power Rangers Turbo44
  10. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 145
  11. Power Rangers Wild Force46
  12. Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue47

A really good showing for a season that I didn’t have high hopes for going in. It’s tough to start over in a new country and with a whole new team, but Ninja Storm really pulls it off. It’s too bad that there wasn’t able to be a team-up episode this time, but all things considered, that might be for the best after all. While we can always look back and wonder What Could Have Been with Hexagon, Ninja Storm is a season that looks forward and is a bright new start for Power Rangers at a time that very well could have been The End for the series. And from where we are now in 2024 at a very uncertain time in Power Rangers history, all I can say is: Here’s to more Power Rangers!

And be sure to come back next time on Ranger Ranker for The One Where Tommy Comes Back!