Menu

10 Inexplicably Crappy New Power Rangers Toys


header 6) Green Ranger Yellow Zord Vehicle.jpg

?To put it mildly, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers besieged the shores of the United States in 1993. It was like Beatlemania for nerds, as there was no escaping their polychromatic spandexed antics. Be it on TV, at the mall, or on your lunchbox – the show was everywhere, and as these things tend to go, so were the toys, which commonly sold out in stores across the country.

Now that it’s 2010 and fans are circling back to pick up the Zords they never got as kids on eBay for gougetastic prices that would make even the slimiest of Wall Street scamsters blush, Bandai has deployed a whole new fleet of figures to go along with the show’s re-release, much to the cautioned excitement of Ranger fans tired of overpaying for the original toys. But sunny days have grown cloudy for hopeful MMPR fans. What has Bandai included to “remaster” our childhood? A lot of crap, actually. Why have they done this? We have no idea.


10) Action Red Ranger

10) Action Red Ranger.jpg

?The original Power Rangers were about martial arts, teamwork, and perhaps strangely, unfair advantages. Since they were able to combine their overpowered Zords to routinely crotch-drill and chest-sever Rita’s fearsome monsters to oblivion, it was rarely a close battle. In the show, they’d usually fight pretty cleanly and allow for matters to escalate into building-toppling escapades before getting their white-gloved hands dirty and calling on the power of their prehistoric giant robo beasts. For MMPR 2010, the folks at Bandai clearly didn’t feel that the scales were tipped enough in the Rangers’ favor and introduced Zord-like weaponry to their ground arsenal of the not so creatively named Action Rangers. This allows Jason and the gang to not only defeat the Putties, but apparently create excruciating death scenarios for them by biting them in half as well. Power up!


9) Putty Patrol

9) Putty Patrol.jpg

?While only the most rigid of power purists would complain about the Putty figure itself, the strangeness enters play when one examines its included accessories. Not only are they weapons, something that the Putty Patrol isn’t exactly known for using, they’re the Power Rangers‘ weapons. While certainly better than no accessories at all, this doesn’t really make sense as something based on the show in question, “remastered” or otherwise. We could see this working if the line was inspired by some form of bizarre fan fiction, and we’re beginning to wonder if it was.


8) Deluxe Mix & Morph Titanus

8) Deluxe Mix & Morph Titanus.jpg

?Look how happy the kid on the box appears to be. He clearly doesn’t know what he’s missing out on.
The original Titanus was a formidable beast, and the toy had a cool battery powered motor mechanic that allowed it to patrol around desks unassisted. For 2010’s version, this feature has essentially been replaced with the lame-as-hell “Mix & Morph” gimmick, and the original’s sweet chain is also missing, because, y’know, it was cool and that’s not allowed now.


7) Morphin Black Ranger

7) Morphin Black Ranger.jpg

?The new Morphin Black Ranger has the ability to transform into a “cool dragon creature” bird thing just like the show, except not at all. Let’s see here…what should the Black Ranger, who calls on the transformative power of a Mastodon, change into? Got it! A black feather dragon! Perfect.


6) Green Ranger with Yellow Zord Vehicle

6) Green Ranger Yellow Zord Vehicle.jpg

?You read that right – the Zord is actually named “Yellow Zord Vehicle.” Part of the charm of the original toyline was that almost every one of its releases was a decent representation of something actually on the show. But thanks to…well, whatever this is supposed to be, we have a hard time convincing ourselves that anyone making these actually gave much of a damn this time around. Why not give this Zord to the Yellow Ranger? Too close to actually being like the Power Rangers perhaps? Let’s just rename the whole line “Popular 90s Live Action Television Program” and get it over with.

—-


5) White Ranger with White Tiger Dasher

5) White Ranger with White Tiger Dasher.jpg

?Why do some official MMPR 2010 figures look like drugstore knockoffs? If you ask us, the White Ranger was perfectly fine before he got robotic legs and a golden chest mount for the left boob of his fan-dubbed ranger bikini. Is this in preparation for some kind of subtly erotic space chariot battle that he’s almost guaranteed to lose? Has anyone in charge of these things actually watched the show?


4) Alpha 5 & Zordon

4) Alpha & Zordon.jpg

?For the Command Center enthusiast on a budget, Bandai presents Alpha, complete with a Futurama-esque head-in a-jar Zordon. There’s nothing really wrong with the Alpha, other than that he’s twice the size of the Rangers’ fearless founder, who certainly should be significantly bigger since that was part of his appeal. We guess you could just pretend that Zordon is really far away from your other MMPR 2010 toys if you’re stuck with this, but man, not trying has rarely looked this bad. Check out the disillusioned expression on mini-Zordon’s face – even he’s disappointed.


3) Deluxe Dragon Dagger

3) Deluxe Dragon Dagger.jpg

?Where to begin here? The new deluxe Dragon Dagger features a random lightsaber that protrudes from its hilt. While we’re sure that most of you agree with us when we say that any addition of lightsabers to objects tends to make things better, we like our toys canon-accurate, and our lightsabers pretty much in Star Wars where they belong, not as gimmicky afterthoughts. Perhaps most hideously of all, this Dragon Dagger plays the wrong melody, so any attempt to call on the Dragonzord will probably result in the appearance of something much less cool than you probably remember. Actually, if they ever release that Dragonzord in this line, it’d fit right in.


2) Dino Megazord

2) Dino Megazord.jpg

?Let’s face it: there wasn’t a whole lot to improve on with the original deluxe MMPR Megazord toy. Sure, it could have used better articulation and show-accurate stickers, but generally speaking, they were widely considered to be pretty great. So, you’d think that the new version would simply take the originals and make them better, right? Wrong. While it’s not all bad news, gone from the Megazord are its chrome parts and moving wheels, replaced with comparatively miniscule Dinozords which generally feature less articulation and overall MMPR gravitas. That said, the toy’s oddest attribute is the ridiculous option to attach the Megazord’s Tyrannosaurus Zord base to the toyline’s bikes with the rangers still on them, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.


1) Mobile Morph Green Ranger

1) Mobile Morph Green Ranger.jpg

?We don’t know who decided that having Tommy transform into a cell phone made any sense at all, especially when the more obvious Power Morpher or Wrist Communicator would have been at least half-logical, but we think a fitting punishment would be to require said individual to carry one of these things to ever board meeting they attend from here on out. Did no one bother to take note that the Rangers don’t morph into inanimate objects on the show? Why not bring back the head-flipping Auto Morphin ranger figures from the ’90s instead? More importantly, why did they do this to us?