When Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers debuted in the year of 1993, it forever changed the landscape of TV and pop culture. Western audiences had never seen anything quite like it and certainly no one expected to remain relevant over 25 years after it premiered. Kids of all ages grew up idolizing the Power Rangers. The first and most iconic team was made up of Jason, Trini, Kimberly, Billy, and Zack, with fan-favorite Tommy joining soon after. After the six Rangers became a team, the show blew up even more.
Fighting in the name of friendship, tolerance, and peace, time and again the Power Rangers faced down monstrous foes. The Mighty Morphin’ team was the first team, and they paved the way for the future of Power Rangers. Leaping into combat with dinosaur-themed weaponry, along with a never-say-die attitude and an unparalleled resolve, they won the day. Though the Power Rangers were typically able to beat any threat they faced, that doesn’t mean they were especially powerful, at least with respect to tall the subsequent teams that preceded them. Today we’re looking at 15 reasons why the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers team is the weakest of every other Power Ranger unit.
15 WEAKER ZORDS
Over the course of a fight, Rita or Lord Zedd would cause their creatures to grow to the size of a skyscraper. In response, the Power Rangers summoned their equally giant dinosaur-themed Zords, merging into the giant Megazord robot. Over the course of the three Mighty Morphin Power Rangers seasons, the Rangers utilized a wide range of Zords of different varieties, but none of them held a candle to the Zords that came after MMPR.
Its true that the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers piloted the most iconic Zords out of any series, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their Zords were the strongest. Their giant robots got destroyed every so often, but follow up Ranger teams, like the Super Megaforce Rangers, not only had more powerful Zords, but also could summon any Zord from Power Ranger history. It’s hard to beat that ability, and others like it.
14 THE GREEN RANGER
Tommy Oliver, the Green Ranger, is unquestionably the most popular Power Ranger in the franchise. Even after he graduated to become the White Ranger, fans remained partial to his original Ranger outfit. A cool character all around, it’s only an added bonus that actor Jason David Frank is an ambassador for Power Rangers outside of the show.
That said, Tommy’s first couple arcs were pretty awful.
To be fair, many of the problems revolving around Tommy were due to the show’s writers. Tommy’s Sentai counterpart, Burai, dies early on in the series. To make up for this, the writers made Tommy an awful teammate. In turn, this only weakened the Power Ranger team. Whenever the world was in peril, Tommy was in detention, or he’d lost his communicator… silly stuff like that. Tommy Oliver’s legacy is legendary, but as the Green Ranger he could be incompetent.
13 WEAKER WEAPONS
Among other things, the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers are known for their awesome weapons. When the going got tough, the Power Rangers brought out their Power Blasters, and sometimes each of their signature weapons. If nothing worked, the Rangers combined their individual armaments to form their Power Blaster. Though it destroyed its fair share of monsters, it, and the rest of the Ranger weapons, is easily the weakest out of every other Power Ranger arsenal.
Though they might not be as memorable, there are a ton of weapons that far outclass anything the MMPR used. Everything from the Super Megaforce Rangers’ Super Mega Cannon (a weapon so powerful no one Ranger could wield alone), to the Gold Cybersaur Ranger’s Petra Thunder Saber, that could warp reality and summon lightning, demonstrated that if we’re going according to armories, the MMPR had the weakest weapons.
12 LACK OF PREPARATION
A central rule of thumb in war is to know your enemy. If you don’t know your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, you could find yourself on the end of a nasty surprise. Time and again the Power Rangers would leap into battle with little clue about what they were fighting.
When they were in the Command Center before a battle, Zordon did instruct the Rangers to look into the Viewing Globe, which would show the monster they were about to face.
Sometimes Zordon would offer words of wisdom, but other moments he’d essentially say “good luck” and that was it. Maybe it is hard to prepare against supernatural monsters, but the Rangers typically formed plans while in the midst of battle. It worked out for them because of plot armor, but if they were anyone else, they wouldn’t last the week as Earth’s protectors.
11 WEAKER TRANSFORMATIONS
The central aspect of any Power Rangers show, and one that appeals to every fan of the show, is the Rangers’ ability to morph. It’s one thing to fight putties, as they’re pretty dumb and relatively easy to beat, but when a monster appears, that’s when it’s time to take matters seriously. The MMPR would call upon their dinosaur-based powers and don their brightly colored spandex. In spite of this, these transformations didn’t offer much in the way of power and were noticeably weaker than every other Ranger team that followed.
True, occasionally the Red Ranger, or once even the Black Ranger, would get a power-up when provided the Green Ranger’s Dragon Shield, but none of that was any match for subsequent transformations. Many future Power Rangers would have transformation on top of transformation that would boost the awesome abilities they already possessed.
10 INEXPERIENCE
Before they became the Power Rangers, Jason, Zack, Trini, Kimberly, and Billy were regular high school students. When they suddenly responded to Zordon’s call, thrust into the role of Power Rangers, they had no idea what to do or what was going on. Out of them all, only Jason had fighting experience. In the very first MMPR episode "Day of the Dumpster", the Putties almost make mincemeat of our teenage heroes, since all but one have zero fighting knowledge.
Maybe choosing teens that’d never had a day of martial arts training in their life wasn’t a smart move, Zordon.
Their inexperience showed time and again, putting themselves (and the world) at risk. When Rocky, Aisha, and Adam became Rangers, they at least were familiar enough with combat to defeat Putties that the original Rangers had to morph in order to combat.
9 LACK OF LEGACY
Jason, Kimberly, Trini, Zack, and Billy were the first teenagers to become Power Rangers. In essence, they were the building block that future Rangers all throughout time and space were built upon. While that’s all well and dandy for teams like the Overdrive Rangers or even the Super Megaforce Rangers, the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers had no legacy to look back on. They didn’t have a history to connect to that could help inform their goals and motives.
Rather, the first team had to figure everything out for themselves, which lead to stumbling (both metaphorically and literally) a lot of the time. Zordon and Alpha-5 were there to offer support, but there’s only so much fatherly wisdom a floating head and a manic child-sized robot can impart on a person.
8 WEAKER MENTORS
Back when he was a strapping young lad and not a floating head in a giant glass case, Zordon fought evil throughout the universe. There are a few different versions of his origin, but they all emphasize the same point: Zordon was powerful. Then he had the misfortune of become a sentient lava lamp. Granted he dolled out wisdom in place of fighting, but Zordon rarely affected the course of a battle.
As for Alpha-5, despite his intelligence, he was a bumbling loon of a robot that got short-circuited time and again, or manipulated by the bad guys -- he was exceptionally unhelpful.
Many other Power Ranger teams never experienced having mentors that were, for all intents and purposes, useless. These Power Ranger units had mentors that could defend themselves or offer value support; it makes the difference when fighting killer monsters.
7 ROCKY
The behind the scenes knowledge of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers isn’t really a secret. One well-known fact is, following a dispute or two over their pay, actors Austin St. John, Walter Jones and Thuy Trang upped and left Power Rangers. According to the show, they went off to attend a peace conference. With the Power Rangers short-staffed, Zordon found replacements in new characters. Among them was Rocky, who replaced Jason as the Red Ranger.
In theory, having someone else take up the mantle of the Red Ranger was fine, but story-wise, Jason had already turned over the reins of leadership to Tommy, leaving very little for Rocky to actually do besides just appear during a battle. As a result, Rocky’s purpose on the team became murky at best and he turned into something of a non-entity until he was replaced by a 12-year old.
6 WEAKER POWERS
Over the course of nearly 25 years of Power Rangers TV shows, we’ve seen plenty of different Ranger teams with a vast assortment of incredible powers. Some can use the elements as a weapon, summon magical attacks, and even tap into every Ranger power ever.
As for the Mighty Morphin’ team, all they got was the ability to jump into their Zords.
Sure, they also had increased durability and strength, and maybe it’s because of budgetary reasons and also that the show was using stock footage from a decade earlier, but you never got a sense of scale in relation to their powers. Just look at the Super Megaforce Rangers for example; they could tap into the powers of all the Rangers that preceded them instantly. The fact that they didn’t use the MMPR powers often, speaks volumes to the original teams’ physical strength.
5 IGNORING THE MMPR MOVIE
During the ‘90s, there were few kids’ shows as popular as Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. With the show so beloved and merchandise coming out of the wazoo, it didn’t take long for studio executives to make a Power Rangers movie. With a completely original story and original footage, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie, was released on July 30, 1995. It was the Rangers’ first big screen adventure and introduced brand new zords, powers, and the over-the-top villain Ivan Ooze. The story revolved around the Rangers getting new powers based upon the Ninjetti and stopping Ooze.
Yet when Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers returned for its third season, the show ignored the film completely and created a new storyline to accompany the Super Sentai series. By not incorporating the Ranger suits or the film’s storyline into the series, many fans were driven away.
4 PREDICTABLE FORMULA
Ever since Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers debuted in 1993, one aspect of the show that received harsh criticism was the predictable formula that nearly every episode adhered to. It usually went something along the lines of the following: one of the Rangers is dealing with a life problem, internal struggle, or family issues and don’t know how to deal with it. Rita or Lord Zedd would create monsters that mirrored the issue of the week, further exacerbating problems for the Rangers.
The Rangers proceed to fight both the monster and Putties -- usually in the reverse order.
The monster then grows, and the Rangers defeat the enlarged monster in their Megazord. Afterwards, our heroes usually discover that the answer to their problem was inside them all along; a moral lesson has been learned.
3 PROBLEMS WITH DIVERSITY
One issue with Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers is that it’s very much a product of its time. By that we mean the producers behind the show made some questionable decisions when finalizing which actors would play the part of specific Rangers. In recent years, this has lead to questions of diversity. After all, Power Rangers is supposed to be about inclusion, friendship, and acceptance, but MMPR and its team struggled with diversity.
Critics of the franchise found it more than peculiar, and even borderline racist when Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers had Zack (Walter Jones) as as the franchise’s Black Ranger, and Trini (the late Thuy Thang) was the series’ Yellow Ranger. The powers that be didn’t see a problem with their actions until it was too late. It took three years for the franchise to switch things up and become much more politically correct with its casting decisions.
2 ENDLESS ROMANTIC TROUBLES
The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers team had a lot of things going for them, but that got thrown to the wayside when it came to the will-they-won’t-they romance of Kimberly and Tommy. As a kid, it was rather fascinating to see that Power Rangers struggled with romance just like everybody else; hindsight is 20-20.
By that we mean the relationship of Kimberly and Tommy did very little to strengthen the team, but rather served as a way to weaken it.
Forever pining after the other, it lead to multiple instances when the other would be kidnapped, having gotten lost daydreaming about their romantic crush and taken unawares. There’s a time and a place for romance. While it’s somewhat understandable that they would pursue each other romantically, considering there weren’t many other people with shared experiences, it got them (and the team) in so much trouble it almost wasn’t worth it.
1 LACK OF ORIGINAL FOOTAGE
Many fans of Power Rangers know fully well that the franchise used tons of footage from the original Super Sentai series. As a result, the Power Rangers production team ended up using two different types of footage. The first was the original footage, like when the Rangers were unmasked and frolicking in Angel Grove, and occasionally taking on Putties. The second batch of footage revolved around the scenes versus an episode’s central villain, along with the Rangers suiting up, fighting the bad guy, and getting in the Megazord.
The second footage came from the Super Sentai series. Because of all this, many early seasons of Power Rangers, emphasized the Japanese footage. Though the transition would be made to more original footage, it was a slow, grueling process that was very noticeable.