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Description
20: Once A Ranger, Part One

The Rangers confront Kamdor, Miratrix and a new monster after a heist. They get back the ruby they stole.
Flurious meanwhile is handed an odd little box by Norg. He opens it, and a message plays. A mysterious voice tells him they can help obtain the jewels of the Corona Aurora. The box has a somewhat familiar look to it...
Kamdor receives a mysterious message as well. It's the same box Flurious has, and it teleports him and Miratrix to an ominously lit room. Flurious, Norg, Moltor and the Fearcats are there too.
They don't know who brought them all together.
Just then, someone walks in. It's the one who's voice they all heard in their messages. He has a strange face, scarred, with a permanent scowl. Horns protrude from either side of his head, and he wears what appears to be scavenged armor. He is Thrax, Miratrix knows of him.
Thrax explains that he battled the Sentinel Knight, and was imprisoned in a space dumpster, and eventually broke out on the moon.
He proposes a temporary alliance between the villains. Together they can defeat the Rangers.
Thrax sends an ultimatum to the Rangers, challenging them to a confrontation. It's here he states who he is, the son of Rita and Zedd!
The villains combine their power to launch an attack at the Rangers that severs their connection to the Morphin Grid! They lose their powers, but luckily, Sentinel Knight appears and teleports the Rangers to safety. Sentinel Knight leaves to guard the jewels.
At the mansion, Mr Hartford can't figure out how to repair the Morphers.
Reports come in from around the world, the villains are all over searching for the jewels. The Rangers can't morph, but they still have their civilian powers. They go to stop the first two bad guys, Kamdor and Mig, who are at Stonehenge.
After an intense battle, the Rangers are nearly beaten, when suddenly vines blast out of the ground and encircle Mig! Kamdor jumps out of the way and looks around, he sees a Power Ranger! Xander of Mystic Force! He prepares to fight, but is knocked back by blaster fire. He looks up to see the Red SPD Ranger! Mig breaks out of the vines, only to immediately be brought down by the Yellow Dino Thunder Ranger, Kira! Kamdor is then disoriented by the Blue Ninja Storm Ranger, Tori! Kamdor and Mig fall back, only to be thrown by an explosion! We then see the source, it's the Power Axe of the Black Mighty Morphin Ranger, Adam!
Kamdor and Mig retreat, and the newly arrived Rangers demorph. We see who was in the Red SPD suit, it was Bridge!
Sentinel Knight appears once again and takes everyone to the mansion.
The past Rangers all introduce themselves. Bridge explains that he's from the future. The Overdrive team is confused, except for Dax.
Sentinel Knight explains that he was able to use his own power to restore the powers of these Rangers.
Later, the Overdrive Rangers are feeling neglected.
Without their powers, they can't help the others.
Adam leads the team into battle against Flurious.
After, he helps out Mr Hartford with the Morphers. Adam thinks he knows someone who can help.
Thrax meanwhile, introduces a new monster, Vulturus.
At the mansion, the Rangers go to Mr Hartford and tell him they want to quit Operation Overdrive and return to their normal lives.

This episode is very impressive, but at the same time a bit of a letdown.
The strong point here is definitely the direction, in particular the fight scenes. They're all extremely well done, even the stuff before the veteran Rangers show up.
One absolutely bizarre thing that's always bugged me and many other fans, is the choice of music for Adam's entrance. Everyone else gets a piece of their season's theme, but Adam gets generic rock music. It's cool music, but it's not his season's theme song, any of them. Why was this choice made?
The common answer is "rights issues". Saban still owned the theme, which at first sounds reasonable, until you remember Legacy of Power used several pieces of music with zero issue at all. That episode was routinely rerun and got a dvd release from Disney, and the music was never altered or edited.
Another thing to point out with the Mighty Morphin theme, if Disney wasn't allowed to use it suddenly, how were they able to George Lucas thirty two whole episodes of the actual show in 2010? They can't use the theme of a show they own and regularly air on another show they own, but they can edit and heavily alter the show?
All I can guess is some crew behind the scenes changed. Maybe when Legacy of Power was made, they has a legal team in place to clear any licensing issues, logos, music and whatever. Back then, they looked at the recycled music and determined it was all fine to use, but maybe that team isn't there, and the new team wasn't aware and decided they couldn't use the music, or even recreate it.
Another Dino Thunder episode, Fighting Spirit attempted to recreate the Dragon Dagger theme, personally, I hate the new music but the intention was clear, they were trying to recreate a similar sound. With Adam's entrance, the music is nothing like the Mighty Morphin theme. The closest it ever gets is the electric guitar buzzes, which sound more reminiscent of one of Ron Wasserman's insert songs than the theme.
Very unusual situation. The issue of music would only get muddier and muddier in the future. When Saban reaquired the franchise, he definitely didn't shy away from using the Mighty Morphin theme, recreating it in some way or another for nearly every project. The original theme though, never came back until the 30th anniversary special Once and Always. To be clear, it was still technically a recreation, but with Ron Wasserman back performing it so it's the closest we ever got.
The 2017 movie used the theme from the 1995 movie. Maybe when Ron Wasserman returned for SPD, he was given back rights to his music. When he left after, perhaps those rights left with him, and that's why Legacy of Power exists as a bizarre anomaly of being able to reuse old music no problem.
Well. That was alot.
Moving on.
Thrax is a character I'm conflicted on. His look is fine, but his face I feel is too busy. He bizarrely has a bit of Grimlord in his face, was Grimlord a relative of Rita or Zedd? The red skin is obviously supposed to be like Zedd, but there's a pattern of indents on his forehead that resemble Master Vile. Also like Vile, he has protrusions on either side of his head, though, unlike his grandfather they're small, thin, curved horns. Bits of brown material are wrapped around them, reminiscent of the wrapping around his mother's hair. One eye is covered by some kind of armor. Part of his mouth also has armor, similar to his father's. Was that something he was born with or something? The other side of his mouth has an exterior skeletal jaw. Very weird, but similar to his uncle Rito.
His body is far less detailed. He has his father's red skin, but no metal exoskeleton or tubing pumping liquid throughout him. He wears bits of mismatched armor, making me think he must've put it together from things he found.
An odd thing with Thrax that had perplexed fans for years, is when he was born. In this episode, it's established he was locked away by Sentinel Knight.
Sentinel has been stated as losing his physical body many years ago, so the battle between him and Thrax must have been long ago. How could Thrax then be Rita and Zedd's son? They only got together in the mid-90s. Fans have thrown out all kinds of theories, some extremely convoluted. I have my own theory, I feel it works, and isn't overly complicated.
Rita and Zedd were mysteriously absent during Turbo, despite them blowing up the Machine Empire royal family. Maybe this was when Thrax was being born!
Maybe Thrax liked to go for walks out on the Moon's surface. Maybe he came across Rita's dumpster and climbed inside, just as a portal opened overhead. The Blue Senturion would've been flying through a time portal, maybe it sucked up the dumpster with Thrax still inside.
Thrax eventually landed in the past, and was trained to be a warrior. He grew up to be powerful, and his name was well known. Sentinel Knight locks him away in his own dumpster and places him on the moon, and here we are.
I figured Zedd would name his son after some ancient evil warrior, maybe Thrax! He's his own namesake.
It relies on magic aging a little, but this is the origin I like the best for him.
The villain alliance is achieved surprisingly easily, I guess Thrax is a really good speaker.
The returning Rangers are all good choices. (Though, I can't imagine being disappointed with any potential lineup)
We have one Ranger from each preceding Disney season, and Adam. I would've liked if there could've been another Ranger or two, from the old Saban seasons. Or Chip, Nic Sampson is present, but only as the voice of Sentinel Knight.
Adam only uses his Black Ranger powers, but not his Ninja, Zeo or Turbo powers. Going from the show alone, the Zeo powers were never lost. Then again, Adam risks his life morphing with a damaged Morpher in Always A Chance, so it's safe to assume the Zeo powers weren't available to him then. Maybe the Zeo powers were indeed lost or weakened between Zeo and the Turbo movie.
The only other returning Ranger to talk about is Bridge. He's a Red Ranger now, and he explains pretty clearly what the circumstances leading to that were. At least, they're clear if you've watched SPD. Or were Dax.
Hopefully Bridge doesn't have to erase his memory this time.
Curiously, a few of these old Rangers have met before. Tori met Kira in Thunderstorm, Kira met Bridge twice, but had her memory erased both times. Bridge had his memory of her erased one of those two times. Kira would still have memory of the SPD Rangers though from that Before it Began Hidden Episode thing. Xander is the only one who's never met another Ranger. Adam has met many Rangers, but none here.
The Sentinel Knight says he used his own energy to restore the Rangers' powers. I wonder why he didn't just restore the Overdrive team's powers but whatever...
It must've been easy for Bridge and Xander, since they never lost their powers.
There's some cute banter with the Rangers, they all feel just like their old selves. No one feels out of character...well... At least not the old Rangers.
The major weak point of the episode is definitely the Overdrive Rangers just giving up and dropping everything to quit. Last episode had Will way too ready to give up, and this one sextuples that. ("sextuple" means to consist of six)
It's very strange at this point. We're over halfway through the season, the Rangers have not been shown to be so willing to quit before last episode. They should be more determined than ever.
What's Tyzonn going to do anyway? He's not even from Earth. Will he go back to...saving people...without powers...like he could do just as well here...?
Mack already lives at the mansion, so he's going to be around regardless.
Rose is a genius, shouldn't she want to stick around to try and repair the Morphers? Really, only Dax and Ronny feel like they have lives to return to. Will is a professional thief, not quite normal, but I guess he could return to that.
So, yeah. Great teamup for the old Rangers, not the best for the Overdrive Rangers. It's unfortunate an otherwise competent teamup was so hampered by a rushed ending just to have a cliffhanger.
Maybe this should have been just a completely separate special about a group of old Rangers teaming up.
Thrax is a cool concept but he really has no relevance at all to the current teams. Only Xander kinda has a connection. I'm surprised Mystic Mother is just completely ignored. Some offhand line from Xander about knowing who Rita is might've been nice. I would say I think she'll show up next episode, but I'm very familiar with these episodes and I know she never gets referenced again until Beast Morphers.
(Also I know, I forgot to finish coloring in Bridge)

Description
20: Once A Ranger, Part One

The Rangers confront Kamdor, Miratrix and a new monster after a heist. They get back the ruby they stole.
Flurious meanwhile is handed an odd little box by Norg. He opens it, and a message plays. A mysterious voice tells him they can help obtain the jewels of the Corona Aurora. The box has a somewhat familiar look to it...
Kamdor receives a mysterious message as well. It's the same box Flurious has, and it teleports him and Miratrix to an ominously lit room. Flurious, Norg, Moltor and the Fearcats are there too.
They don't know who brought them all together.
Just then, someone walks in. It's the one who's voice they all heard in their messages. He has a strange face, scarred, with a permanent scowl. Horns protrude from either side of his head, and he wears what appears to be scavenged armor. He is Thrax, Miratrix knows of him.
Thrax explains that he battled the Sentinel Knight, and was imprisoned in a space dumpster, and eventually broke out on the moon.
He proposes a temporary alliance between the villains. Together they can defeat the Rangers.
Thrax sends an ultimatum to the Rangers, challenging them to a confrontation. It's here he states who he is, the son of Rita and Zedd!
The villains combine their power to launch an attack at the Rangers that severs their connection to the Morphin Grid! They lose their powers, but luckily, Sentinel Knight appears and teleports the Rangers to safety. Sentinel Knight leaves to guard the jewels.
At the mansion, Mr Hartford can't figure out how to repair the Morphers.
Reports come in from around the world, the villains are all over searching for the jewels. The Rangers can't morph, but they still have their civilian powers. They go to stop the first two bad guys, Kamdor and Mig, who are at Stonehenge.
After an intense battle, the Rangers are nearly beaten, when suddenly vines blast out of the ground and encircle Mig! Kamdor jumps out of the way and looks around, he sees a Power Ranger! Xander of Mystic Force! He prepares to fight, but is knocked back by blaster fire. He looks up to see the Red SPD Ranger! Mig breaks out of the vines, only to immediately be brought down by the Yellow Dino Thunder Ranger, Kira! Kamdor is then disoriented by the Blue Ninja Storm Ranger, Tori! Kamdor and Mig fall back, only to be thrown by an explosion! We then see the source, it's the Power Axe of the Black Mighty Morphin Ranger, Adam!
Kamdor and Mig retreat, and the newly arrived Rangers demorph. We see who was in the Red SPD suit, it was Bridge!
Sentinel Knight appears once again and takes everyone to the mansion.
The past Rangers all introduce themselves. Bridge explains that he's from the future. The Overdrive team is confused, except for Dax.
Sentinel Knight explains that he was able to use his own power to restore the powers of these Rangers.
Later, the Overdrive Rangers are feeling neglected.
Without their powers, they can't help the others.
Adam leads the team into battle against Flurious.
After, he helps out Mr Hartford with the Morphers. Adam thinks he knows someone who can help.
Thrax meanwhile, introduces a new monster, Vulturus.
At the mansion, the Rangers go to Mr Hartford and tell him they want to quit Operation Overdrive and return to their normal lives.

This episode is very impressive, but at the same time a bit of a letdown.
The strong point here is definitely the direction, in particular the fight scenes. They're all extremely well done, even the stuff before the veteran Rangers show up.
One absolutely bizarre thing that's always bugged me and many other fans, is the choice of music for Adam's entrance. Everyone else gets a piece of their season's theme, but Adam gets generic rock music. It's cool music, but it's not his season's theme song, any of them. Why was this choice made?
The common answer is "rights issues". Saban still owned the theme, which at first sounds reasonable, until you remember Legacy of Power used several pieces of music with zero issue at all. That episode was routinely rerun and got a dvd release from Disney, and the music was never altered or edited.
Another thing to point out with the Mighty Morphin theme, if Disney wasn't allowed to use it suddenly, how were they able to George Lucas thirty two whole episodes of the actual show in 2010? They can't use the theme of a show they own and regularly air on another show they own, but they can edit and heavily alter the show?
All I can guess is some crew behind the scenes changed. Maybe when Legacy of Power was made, they has a legal team in place to clear any licensing issues, logos, music and whatever. Back then, they looked at the recycled music and determined it was all fine to use, but maybe that team isn't there, and the new team wasn't aware and decided they couldn't use the music, or even recreate it.
Another Dino Thunder episode, Fighting Spirit attempted to recreate the Dragon Dagger theme, personally, I hate the new music but the intention was clear, they were trying to recreate a similar sound. With Adam's entrance, the music is nothing like the Mighty Morphin theme. The closest it ever gets is the electric guitar buzzes, which sound more reminiscent of one of Ron Wasserman's insert songs than the theme.
Very unusual situation. The issue of music would only get muddier and muddier in the future. When Saban reaquired the franchise, he definitely didn't shy away from using the Mighty Morphin theme, recreating it in some way or another for nearly every project. The original theme though, never came back until the 30th anniversary special Once and Always. To be clear, it was still technically a recreation, but with Ron Wasserman back performing it so it's the closest we ever got.
The 2017 movie used the theme from the 1995 movie. Maybe when Ron Wasserman returned for SPD, he was given back rights to his music. When he left after, perhaps those rights left with him, and that's why Legacy of Power exists as a bizarre anomaly of being able to reuse old music no problem.
Well. That was alot.
Moving on.
Thrax is a character I'm conflicted on. His look is fine, but his face I feel is too busy. He bizarrely has a bit of Grimlord in his face, was Grimlord a relative of Rita or Zedd? The red skin is obviously supposed to be like Zedd, but there's a pattern of indents on his forehead that resemble Master Vile. Also like Vile, he has protrusions on either side of his head, though, unlike his grandfather they're small, thin, curved horns. Bits of brown material are wrapped around them, reminiscent of the wrapping around his mother's hair. One eye is covered by some kind of armor. Part of his mouth also has armor, similar to his father's. Was that something he was born with or something? The other side of his mouth has an exterior skeletal jaw. Very weird, but similar to his uncle Rito.
His body is far less detailed. He has his father's red skin, but no metal exoskeleton or tubing pumping liquid throughout him. He wears bits of mismatched armor, making me think he must've put it together from things he found.
An odd thing with Thrax that had perplexed fans for years, is when he was born. In this episode, it's established he was locked away by Sentinel Knight.
Sentinel has been stated as losing his physical body many years ago, so the battle between him and Thrax must have been long ago. How could Thrax then be Rita and Zedd's son? They only got together in the mid-90s. Fans have thrown out all kinds of theories, some extremely convoluted. I have my own theory, I feel it works, and isn't overly complicated.
Rita and Zedd were mysteriously absent during Turbo, despite them blowing up the Machine Empire royal family. Maybe this was when Thrax was being born!
Maybe Thrax liked to go for walks out on the Moon's surface. Maybe he came across Rita's dumpster and climbed inside, just as a portal opened overhead. The Blue Senturion would've been flying through a time portal, maybe it sucked up the dumpster with Thrax still inside.
Thrax eventually landed in the past, and was trained to be a warrior. He grew up to be powerful, and his name was well known. Sentinel Knight locks him away in his own dumpster and places him on the moon, and here we are.
I figured Zedd would name his son after some ancient evil warrior, maybe Thrax! He's his own namesake.
It relies on magic aging a little, but this is the origin I like the best for him.
The villain alliance is achieved surprisingly easily, I guess Thrax is a really good speaker.
The returning Rangers are all good choices. (Though, I can't imagine being disappointed with any potential lineup)
We have one Ranger from each preceding Disney season, and Adam. I would've liked if there could've been another Ranger or two, from the old Saban seasons. Or Chip, Nic Sampson is present, but only as the voice of Sentinel Knight.
Adam only uses his Black Ranger powers, but not his Ninja, Zeo or Turbo powers. Going from the show alone, the Zeo powers were never lost. Then again, Adam risks his life morphing with a damaged Morpher in Always A Chance, so it's safe to assume the Zeo powers weren't available to him then. Maybe the Zeo powers were indeed lost or weakened between Zeo and the Turbo movie.
The only other returning Ranger to talk about is Bridge. He's a Red Ranger now, and he explains pretty clearly what the circumstances leading to that were. At least, they're clear if you've watched SPD. Or were Dax.
Hopefully Bridge doesn't have to erase his memory this time.
Curiously, a few of these old Rangers have met before. Tori met Kira in Thunderstorm, Kira met Bridge twice, but had her memory erased both times. Bridge had his memory of her erased one of those two times. Kira would still have memory of the SPD Rangers though from that Before it Began Hidden Episode thing. Xander is the only one who's never met another Ranger. Adam has met many Rangers, but none here.
The Sentinel Knight says he used his own energy to restore the Rangers' powers. I wonder why he didn't just restore the Overdrive team's powers but whatever...
It must've been easy for Bridge and Xander, since they never lost their powers.
There's some cute banter with the Rangers, they all feel just like their old selves. No one feels out of character...well... At least not the old Rangers.
The major weak point of the episode is definitely the Overdrive Rangers just giving up and dropping everything to quit. Last episode had Will way too ready to give up, and this one sextuples that. ("sextuple" means to consist of six)
It's very strange at this point. We're over halfway through the season, the Rangers have not been shown to be so willing to quit before last episode. They should be more determined than ever.
What's Tyzonn going to do anyway? He's not even from Earth. Will he go back to...saving people...without powers...like he could do just as well here...?
Mack already lives at the mansion, so he's going to be around regardless.
Rose is a genius, shouldn't she want to stick around to try and repair the Morphers? Really, only Dax and Ronny feel like they have lives to return to. Will is a professional thief, not quite normal, but I guess he could return to that.
So, yeah. Great teamup for the old Rangers, not the best for the Overdrive Rangers. It's unfortunate an otherwise competent teamup was so hampered by a rushed ending just to have a cliffhanger.
Maybe this should have been just a completely separate special about a group of old Rangers teaming up.
Thrax is a cool concept but he really has no relevance at all to the current teams. Only Xander kinda has a connection. I'm surprised Mystic Mother is just completely ignored. Some offhand line from Xander about knowing who Rita is might've been nice. I would say I think she'll show up next episode, but I'm very familiar with these episodes and I know she never gets referenced again until Beast Morphers.
(Also I know, I forgot to finish coloring in Bridge)