"Power Rangers Cosmic Fury" Talkback (Spoilers)

[veemonjosh]

After 30 years, it's Morphin Time one last time...

When Lord Zedd returns more powerful than ever, Team Cosmic Fury takes to the cosmos to battle the emperor of evil - and save the universe as we know it.

An mostly original production, utilizing footage from Super Sentai 41, Uchu Sentai Kyuranger, Power Rangers Cosmic Fury is exclusive to Netflix.

Previous Power Rangers Premiere Talkbacks:
Dino Charge - Season 1/Season 2
Ninja Steel - Season 1/Season 2
Beast Morphers - Season 1 / Season 2
Dino Fury - Season 1 / Season 2
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At last, here it is. The 30th season, the third season of Dino Fury, the final season to be filmed in New Zealand, and (for the foreseeable future) the last season of Power Rangers.

The episode titles are as follows:

1. Lightning Strikes
2. Beyond Repair
3. Off Grid
4. Team Work
5. Rock Out
6. Take Off
7. Operation Seasoning
8. Changing Sides
9. Master Plan
10. The End

With this coming hiatus, and the looming possibility of a hard reboot to the franchise, I'm going to take this moment to announce that after nearly 15 years (!), I'll be retiring from posting Power Rangers talkbacks with this thread. There's been ups, there's been sharp downs, but with the future uncertain, the time has finally come to hang up my morpher and move on. Thank you to those who participated over the years, from RPM to Cosmic Fury.

May the power protect you.

 

[Neo Ultra Mike]

Here are some quick thoughts on these episodes.

"Lightning Strikes" - I get this is only a 10 episode season but still you can tell the beginning of this one is super rushed not only to squeeze in a big fight but also give a lot of exposition on what's happening. Granted on the heroes side it doesn't really need much considering this directly picks up from the ending of Dino Fury but feels super rushed introducing Bajillia and her whole organization. I did kind of think "okay even for Power Rangers her just handing the reins to Zedd does feel a bit odd I get hyping the guy up but how much but kissing can the series itself do for this guy" but it actually had a point that paid off later which I will give props to. I also give props that the whole "oh only a morphing master can open up this lock carefully" wouldn't lead to actual consequences but yeah they actually had Javi loose an arm and that be like a thing he never gets back. Granted he gets a robot arm but that is not only a whole arc but... yeah that would NEVER have been done in the earlier seasons so giving massive props for showing these sort of consequences for actions from our hero. And speaking of that...

"Beyond Repair" - I know especially with like sequel seasons you really in these first episodes amp up the tension for our characters but not only having Zedd destroy the statues connecting the Dino Fury powers, not give an easy fix for Ollie's evilization but also force the entire team to transport to the farthes point away to not be blasted apart by Zedd's forces really does set up the stakes rather well for how sort of screwed over their heads the rest of the teams are. This does make me realize having seen the whole season the "Izzy and Fern excited about going to college" isn't really paid off but I guess that's more a "eh they went after this was just to establish them more as a couple" which yeah so glad is another thing Power Rangers is doing better now then you got in the 90's. I also dig this showing moments of the civilian team with their folks trying to act more normal before you know having to spent most of the season so far away just as the earth is being invaded.

"Off Grid" - I gotta say though there is an issue I do have with this season I'll get into a bit I am glad that this show trying long format storytelling does result in breaking traditional ranger formula. Like year there is a major morph at the end to show off the new forms (and after teases of it in SPD and Samurai it is nice to finally have a full on female red power ranger. Plus one whose growth we've seen a lot with Ameila who stepped up as a leader well last time and continues doing so) but I appreciate how there really isn't a lot of action in this episode and it's more about characters and their relationships. Like I guess there's sort of a goofy fight to show off those worm creatures but even then it's about Aiyon trying to focus on cooking due to him still being bummed not knowing about Zayto and again how desperate the team is without their morphing powers. I do wish Billy had a reference about how he's worked with finding new powers before and knows how it's an adjustment to reference the whole mighty morphin to zeo transition but honestly this works plus on a pure aesthetic level unless you were told would you guess that these power rangers forms don't fit with other sentai teams? Like yeah they stepped up in making these look as authentic to the source with their own spin (I dig on how they have to throw the morphing ball in the air and it spin into the gun to transform) and it works really well in the grand ranger tradition.

"Team Work" - I will say I did like the idea of Evil Ollie having gotten this team of screw ups from Bajilla's forces more interested in dancing around and fighting without thinking through anything resulting in them being colossal screw ups he's annoyed with. However he also bungles up after actually smartly using the vines to actually trap the rangers to then just... let them go and continue on to try and find Zayato. Which maybe if there was like a good Ollie trying to fight off the evil Ollie infection would work but for someone supposed to be so smart and calculated but now just on the dark side that felt like the wrong move. And speaking of wrong move much as it does make sense to show off the team's new weapons and abilities with a victory... honestly a big problem with a lot of the rest of the season is how sans maybe the last two episodes there isn't really a sense of danger and a bit too much forward momentum for them. I get this is a kids show still and it would probably be too drab if they were constantly on the back end but I feel like there should be a better balance. Also they probably found Zayto a bit too quickly IMHO. Yeah he is one of the main character and he does have an arc so setting that up here makes sense but for one of the big losses the team suffered at the start feels a bit too early for me personally to have him back.

"Rock Out" - This is probably easily the silliest episode of the entire run "let's dress up as a monster band in order to infiltrate this planet to get this dragon zord" (which BTW is it me or did it look a bit like Serpentera? Felt they could have referenced that some since this is trying to drive references to older PR stuff though I guess they couldn't do much due to the zord footage being from the sentai they had to work with) but I don't mind this as this is the kind of silly that makes sense within a Power Rangers team. Plus though some songs in this franchise are pretty bleh I did actually like the ones here... well yeah mostly Javi's first anti Zedd song. Plus I do appreciate how this is a built up on the "Fern wants to help but is sort of powerless in these greater battles thus why Izzy doesn't want her involved" little story. Felt that wrapped up a bit too early in the next episode but I guess also not much they could have done that wouldn't have made Izzy kind of look like too much of a jerk though hey speaking of the next episode let's get to that shall we?

"Take Off" - Admittedly it's only in the next episode where's there a moment that really makes me a fan of Solon but I get the idea of why the team would so obviously want to save her and again feeds into that whole Izzy/Fern subplot that finally gets wrapped up with Fern going to try and save Solon and winding up becoming the Orange ranger. Which yeah don't think there has been an orange ranger before but I don't have a problem with orange finally getting some representation and her coming out of the cave to kill that critter was a good showcase for the others seeing her powers. And I will say I do love how this is a Power Rangers team who can not only constantly shift different zords but can also shift whose piloting them so sometimes you'll get "The girls squad" or just the two Raftkonian guys piloting. I also appreciate this one showing Zedd (BTW him taking over Eltar just as a big F U to Zordon is a nice sadistic twist) having bigger aims then just taking over earth and having this whole big thing on power which I do appreciate coming around again in a unique way at the end.

"Operation Seasoning" - Though I do wish we got some more of the other ranger teams (seeing them in Megazords in the final battle at the end is cool but yeah wish there was more of the actual rangers. I guess they only wanted specific people though for this season so far enough) I do appreciate how it's pointed out the big reason that the other teams were taken out is Lord Zedd having found a way to send a signal throughout earth to dampen the megazords and likely after throwing them around having the other rangers depowered by the forces and thrown in jail. And I appreciate to after Heckyl is acutally found as a fake and dealt with by Squillia the same thing happens to the regular ranger team with only Zayato and Aiyon uncaptured and really the only reason they stand a chance sans the resistance plan (and Solon having that cool "oh I always wanted to be this giant dinosaur" and trying to stomp on the other foot soldiers) is Zayto using his morphing master powers. I don't know if we needed the "oh you need to keep it a secret from everyone else" but I am glad they set this up as a sacrifice that yeah they would actually fully stick with him just not coming back as a mortal by the end. Admittedly having the entire team mostly captured but then get out 10 minutes later again feels like too much a victory here but i guess by this point there should be some more changing of the tides.

"Changing Sides" - I will say I actually did wind up liking Squilla as a villain. Her being so bratty and obnoxious and saying stuff like "I don't need school I'm rich" and "they tied me to a poor's person chair" was funny, same with the idea that Bajila was really only interested in saving her daughter for good PR not because she cared. Speaking of villains this is the one where of all characters Slyther and Mucus wind up becoming important. I do like the reveal that they seemingly fully wanted to just live nice normal lives on earth but Mucus hating her human form so Zayto using morphing master power to give Mucus her previosuly form back so they could pretend to be Squilla and "her lawyer" to try and get back in Zedd's good graces was actually well handled. I do appreciate that the Raftkonians do use their mind reading powers to ensure these guys are solid and just general mind reading when they need to learn something so it's not like these guys are portrayed as naively trusting. I also appreciate them all finding about Zayto's condition and resolve to get through it with him still around even though you know that likely won't happen and not being sure if Ollid actually did get turned back good by the end of the episode. Like yeah next one probably makes clear a bit too early but like how it was handled here at least.

"Master Plan" - The first half of this one is fine with the mega zord fights with "the butler" of Squid Inc and the reunion with Good Ollie and Ameila and Zayto's sacrifice which was obivously foreshadowed for most of the season but do like how it was placed here in this general otherwise no win scenario. The seocnd half of this one is where it shone. First off Zedd's Morphing Masters form upgrade looked incredibly cool and I appreciate showing how powerful he is just blasting through the zords. I also like they built up how dangerous and powerful Zedd is and... actually technically never find a way to defeat him head on. Because in this episode we find out he was just being used by Bajilla so he could absorb all that power just so her team could trap him within a container to use him as a NEGATIVE Z Wave. Like that's actually a really cool and awesome idea; Zordon used the Z wave within In Space as a last restort because that could likely only target currently active villains and depower/destroy them (weird how it's not brought up Zedd was depowered from that so had a human self which especially would have made sense with the next episode) which is what Bajilla wants to do for all the active heroes. But the thing is villains are more constant aggressors so though yeah even if you did this plan to wipe out all the heroes now you would eventually get more heroes but there would be a lot of havoc and death between them and there's just something so twisted about that being the big plan. Plus it actually makes sense with Bajilla's corporate like persona to do this as this big TV presentation in front of the rangers plus love the line of her saying "no this is not like the Z wave this kills heroes this is copyrighted me" and it ending on a timer. Obviously you knew they weren't get to 0 there but it does amp up the the tension though yeah thanks to how Netflix does these only for like a minute if you are watching them back to back.

"The End" - I guess Mucus and Slyther saving the day makes more sense but eh felt it would have been more fitting if it was a classic team but again they saved that for all the various zord battles in space and man does the CG look not work for a lot of them but the idea alone was solid. Again what saves this though is them managing to out think the villain; Aiyon getting a representation of a morphing master spirit to help them out resorted that instead of simply having the anti z wave go off in like the morphing grid and disconnect all morphing instead had them actually make a deal with Zedd. And I do like how the deal isn't "you need to be a good guy" but rather "look if you go off as the Anti Z wave you'll die and be left with nothing so agree to part as we are all energy we can only do something if you agree to it and you'll find a way to survive and fight another day." Now here's where the whole "oh we should have brought up the original Zedd was turned human by the the first Z wave" felt like it would have made more sense since yeah if the Morphing Master pointed out Zedd was turned good before or he had found the good that came from Zedd (since this Zedd was brought back from the deal through like time travel magic right?) and attached that to this Zedd so he could go through this character arc but eh the idea of "maybe eventually he'll reform but either way we trapped him here" was a good work around to just finding a way to over power or destroy him. Which does happen with most of these finales so I appreciate the twist on here. Speaking of twists, turns out Cosmic Fury is actually the PREQUEL to "Once And Always". Because the reason that Billy was actually looking into the energy of the Z wave to get back Zordon was because realizing his spirit was still around because of these whole events. So yeah this happened first thus why the yellow ranger in the background was Trini not Minh like how the Power Rangers Wiki seems to think. The rest is a pretty decent epilogue since that song was a pretty good one and though some things weren't fully wrapped up this was still good.

So yeah solid season. I do admit now I want to see if the PR team could handle more of these sort of seasons with only like 10 episodes telling one bigger story then their typical pattern before but eh guess we'll only know if this does really well due to PR being in limbo but even if it did end this or the 30th special are good ways to end the franchise.

 

[Hanshotfirst1138]

Is it true that they’re rebooting after this? That would be heartbreaking, it would be like rebooting Doctor Who! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the show should cater to the needs of older fans by any stretch or have a complicated and difficult-to-follow continuity, but man, 30 years of mythology gone overnight sure would be disappointing. Why not do another multiverse story or something? Ah, well.