In addition to the eternal question "Zvezda or Partizan", another dilemma faced young people in Serbia during the nineties.
"Red, blue, black, yellow or pink ranger?"
The first episode of Power Rangers (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) was broadcast in America on the Fox Kids channel on August 28, 1993.
Although the Power Rangers arrived in Serbia two years later, the frenzy among the youngest viewers was similar to that around the world.
The choice of the color of the costume, and thus the dinosaur zord that would accompany it, became an integral part of discussions in the school classrooms.
As well as the pictures that were exchanged in the school corridors.
After 29 years and as many seasons, three movies and hundreds of millions of toys sold, Power Rangers is one of the most powerful franchises of all time.
Taking into account such success, the Rangers in America deserved their own day, a big holiday that is celebrated every August 28.
It's more than a good reason for a story about a mega-popular franchise that took more than thirty years to find its way to an international audience.
But as soon as the first episode aired, everything was clear - It's morphin time!
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First attempt
In order to tell the story of Power Rangers, we have to go back almost half a century in the past, to Japan in the late seventies.
In Japan at that time, the live-action TV adaptation of Spider-Man, made in cooperation between the Toei company and Marvel, was popular.
However, Toei also produced the mega-successful Super Sentai series, about Japanese superheroes.
The Japanese word sentai means squad or squadron. And the squad of these heroes in colorful costumes represents the forerunner of the Power Rangers.
Marvel comics legend Stan Lee really liked what the Japanese did with Spider-Man.
However, he also liked the Super Sentai series and thought it could be a big hit in the American market as well.
He proposed the project to his boss at the time, Margaret Lesh, who enthusiastically agreed.
They dubbed the first episode into English and offered the series to several television companies.
They all rejected them, mostly laughing in their faces.
The heads of the TV companies thought that Super Sentai looked funny, at times too violent, but also that children in America are too used to animation, so they would not find animated series interesting.
So Stan Lee's dream to bring Japanese superheroes to America failed.
Second chance
Although they didn't make it to the American market, Super Sentai continued to grow in their native Japan.
During his stay in Tokyo in 1984, Haim Saban was delighted with the television program there.
This composer of opening credits for cartoons - his work includes songs from cult series such as Inspector Gadget and He-Man - sat in a hotel room, mesmerized by the Super Sentai series.
Just like Stan Lee ten years earlier, Saban thought that the American audience would really like this series, but he knew that dubbing, as well as subtitling, would not go over very well.
But then he noticed one thing - during the action scenes, the actors' faces are not visible behind the helmets at all.
"I figured I could shoot the American segments and then paste in the original Japanese action scenes," Saban said in the Netflix documentary. The Toys That Made Us, in an episode dedicated to Power Rangers.
He immediately scheduled a meeting with the leaders of the Toei company and presented them with a business idea.
He acquired the rights to distribute Super Sentai worldwide, excluding the Asian market, as well as all rights to toys.
Renaming the series Biomen, Saban pitched the project to various television stations.
He tried again and again to sell it for the next eight years.
A fateful meeting and the birth of the Power Rangers
Saban's luck changed when he met Margeret Lesh in 1992, who at that time had already been the director of the Fox Kids channel for two years.
He played Super Sentai for her and she said enthusiastically.
"Well, I know these characters. I adore these characters," Lesh recalls in the documentary The Toys That Made Us.
Saban almost passed out.
Lesh immediately wanted 52 episodes, but her superiors were not so optimistic.
They gave her money for the pilot episode, with the promise that if it was successful, she would shoot a full season.
Saban's production concept was the same. American actors for the scenes with dialogues, the story is completely adapted to the affinities of the local audience, while only the fight scenes in costumes are taken from the Japanese.
Saban bought the rights to the latest Sentai series called Djurenđa (Zyuranger).
They filmed the pilot episode and then showed it to the harshest critics - children.
The rating system was simple - if they liked it, the kids should turn the stick to the right.
In case they didn't like it, they would turn the bat in the opposite direction.
The episode began, the bat was turned to the right and remained so for the next 22 minutes.
Saban and Lesh had everything, a series, and a contract for the whole season, only they didn't have a catchy name.
Power Rangers
Like everything good in the world, the name of the series came spontaneously from someone from a toy factory.
Since Bandai produced the original Sentai toys in Japan, it was logical that Bandai USA would do the same for the American market.
Although Bandai USA's most successful product was ordinary asphalt chalk.
In order to Americanize the toys, they had to rename them, so someone from the company suggested Power Rangers (Power Rangers).
Purchased. But they needed something more than that, something that would indicate that the Rangers were transforming.
"Metamorphosis is a great word," Trish Stewart, former head of marketing at Bandai USA, told the documentary.
"So we decided to use it morph."
But they wanted to have the same number of expressions in the name as a very popular children's franchise - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
And so, following the example of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were born.
Needless to say, the series has become…
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instant hit
Immediately after the premiere, on Sunday, August 28, 1993 at half past eight in the morning, Power Rangers fever followed.
All the children watched the series and all the children wanted the toys.
Bandai USA made nearly a billion dollars on Power Rangers in 1993 alone.
The factory in America used the same toy mold as in Japan, with some minor changes.
Daggers had to be blunt, as safety standards in America were stricter, and they also patented toys with the ability to rotate heads.
My first meeting
When I entered the first grade in 1998, the first challenge that awaited me as soon as I walked into the classroom and met my friends with whom I would share the desk for the next eight years, was to choose a Power Ranger.
As the first five seasons were broadcast on multiple occasions on the then still young Pink TV, I started watching Power Rangers from the very beginning.
Not really from the first episode, because it took me a while to find the right channel, but from the first season.
We didn't have Pink on the TV at home, so I watched Power Rangers every day after school at my grandparents' house, who got the channel through the antenna.
Power Rangers was the first feature TV series I watched, the first program I followed passionately and regularly.
In addition to the inevitable fight and acrobatic scenes, which presented to the younger audience of the nineties the Pantheon of coolness served up through television screens, and humor, Power Rangers also had a system of values that every child should follow.
Power Rangers:
- They never use power for personal needs
- They never start a battle, but only act in the case of defending the planet
- They keep their identity a secret
Aside from the superpowers, the dressing of the main characters was also quite a powerful part, and I don't mean costumes with helmets.
Power Rangers is the first TV series that influenced my identity.
And the first TV series that awakened a celebrity crush in me, as well as in others at school.
Always the same concept, and so indefinitely
By 1996, Power Rangers was broadcast in 80 countries around the world.
The production plan did not change. American actors - Japanese fight scenes.
The episodes would be similar to each other - the Rangers fight the villain, often use robot Zords, and when the situation calls for it, they would form the Megazord.
Zordon would send them on missions and Alpha 5 would assist them at the computer.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers lasted four seasons, and when the Đurenđeri got a new team, and therefore new costumes, Saban came up with another genius idea.
If they changed the team in Japan, they would also change it in America. The title of Power Rangers would thus be passed down, like a baton, from generation to generation of teenagers.
Thus, on April 17, 1996, the last episode of the fourth season was broadcast Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers.
And already on April 20 of the same year, the fifth season began under the name Power Rangers Zeo.
Then power rangers turbo next year, well Power Rangers in Space 1998
And so on.
Airplanes, trucks, and even trains?
However, it was not always easy to adapt the original Japanese stories.
Even though they had completely separate stories in America, they still had to fit them in with the Japanese fight scenes and the Zords.
So in the Turbo season, the Rangers drove cars that would transform into robots.
The audience did not react well to it, because the concept reminded them too much of the well-known Transformers.
And the poor response of the audience meant less sales of toys
The seasons in space picked things up a bit, but then it was her turn Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue the season when the rangers operate the trains.
Not very attractive Zords compared to dinosaurs and spaceships, right?
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Rangers in the hands of Disney
Saban, meanwhile, has grown into a global media empire, merging with the Fox Family channels.
In 2001, the Disney company bought the Fox Family channels, thus obtaining the rights to Power Rangers.
However, Disney didn't quite know what to do with the rangers. The seasons, like the toys, did not fare well.
Which is why the company decided to sell Power Rangers.
"As was the case with the Power Rangers before, nobody was interested," Saban said.
Nobody but himself. Disney sold the rights back to Saban in 2010.
In 2018, Saban ended cooperation with the Bandai company, while Hasbro received the official license for the production of toys.
It was soon announced that Hasbro had bought the rights to the entire franchise for $522 million.
New generations of rangers and spectators
Years have passed and I can't say I've forgotten about Power Rangers, but I've put them out of my mind.
Other, bigger, pop culture franchises just came along. I outgrew the rangers, and I had no time for them anymore.
However, when I was visiting my parents three years ago, I noticed that my then seven-year-old younger brother was watching Power Rangers.
It was that Power Rangers Beast Morphers, the 26th season that aired on the Nickelodeon channel.
The Rangers were different, in different costumes, with better special effects and fully dubbed in Serbian, yet somehow the same, familiar.
And incredibly fun, I must admit.
I had never mentioned Power Rangers to my little brother before, and he was already obsessed.
He held Devon Daniels, the red Ranger, firmly in his hand and enjoyed the series.
"He is still my favorite ranger, because he is the leader of the whole group," says Sava Dimitrijević, ten years old today.
I asked him what drew him to the show, expecting that, like me at his age, he was most drawn to the fight and transformation scenes.
However, I got a slightly more mature answer.
"I like the goals that the Rangers are fighting for. How they never attack first and use power to defend the planet."
When we next met, he already had all the rangers in his collection.
Well, I also contributed a little to that collection.
And three years after he first encountered them, he still watches Power Rangers.
Just another setting, of course, how else.
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Power Rangers on the big screen and in other formats
What the Rangers did well on the small screen was unfortunately not successfully transferred to the big screen.
Three feature films have been shot so far: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995) Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997) and Power Rangers Ribut (2017)
None of the films did well with audiences and critics.
The 2017 reboot, with Bryan Cranston (Pure Chemistry) as Zordon and Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things), was supposed to kick off the entire series, but the box office results were not the best.
However, in addition to television and cinema, the Power Rangers have been successfully living in comics for years.
From the nineties until today, the adventures of the rangers were published by Marvel, DC, Image Comics, Boom and others, and on the pages of those comics they met the Ninja Turtles and the Justice League.
From 1994 until today, as many as 25 Power Rangers video games have been released for various platforms.
Power Rangers today
Since the franchise is in the hands of Hasbro, the Rangers are in a new phase.
Which cannot officially start, but it was announced a long time ago.
There are more and more indications that they will stop relying on Super Sentai material entirely.
This is already noticeable in the last two series Power Rangers Beast Morphers and Power Rangers Dino Fury.
In an interview for the portal The Illuminerdi, Russell Curry, a member of the series' newest lineup of rangers dino fury, stated that they are using less and less Japanese material.
"We are certainly going in that direction. It's really good to see how our stunt team works and creates these amazing action scenes," said Kari.
There are rumors that Paramount is working on a new Power Rangers movie set in the XNUMXs.
Until then, all you have to do is watch old Power Rangers seasons, which is also the perfect way to mark this holiday.
If you're wondering which one to watch, well, you have 29 seasons to choose from, and it's best to watch the one that got you hooked on the franchise.
For me, they are original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from 1993.
I watched the first episode and now, 30 years after it originally aired, as much as I like the plot, I see various other problems.
However, regardless of everything, the Rangers carry an incredible tinge of nostalgia.
And that's all I need today.
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