For those who don’t know, Power Rangers Ninja Steel has started this weekend.
Surprised? Yeah, me too. I was lucky enough to record the 2nd airing of the episode on Sunday. And since I saw VERY little promotion for the new season so far, from both Nick and the online fanbases; and taking a page from Linkara’s book, I thought making a review of first and only episode so far to air, “The Return of the Prism”, to help promote the series.
The episode starts off ten years ago, as a giant powerful ninja star travels through space and lands into someone’s backyard. And that’s pretty much it for the backstory
Just some random McGuffin that just shows up in space and just ends up in a random person’s backyard. I know Power Rangers have done the whole “items of universal cosmic power” stuff before, but they usually had more backstory to it. Heck, the EnerGems in Dino Charge had a protector to them who then passed it onto dinosaurs, whose powers they imprinted on. Sure, there was more to them as the series continued, but what I just listed was from the first episode. In this episode, it just a random space object that randomly lands at someone’s backyard… that someone being a Ninja Master. One of the whitest Ninja Masters too, with two sons, Brody and Aden… though the Master himself has no name.
Brody’s Dad takes the space shuriken, known as the Ninja Nexus Prism, and tinkers around with it, breaking off the metal cover to reveal it “prism” form, which holds the Ninja Nexus Star, which he is able to reach and grab.
Meanwhile, Brody, our future Red Ranger of this season and narrator for this flashback, is training by himself in the field and capture by the villains of the series, an alien warrior named Ripcon, the mysterious Madam Odius; and Galvanax, the big bad of the season.
Upon hearing his son’s cries of help, Brody’s Dad rushes too… put all the Prism’s metal shrapnel in a tin case and give it Aden, giving him orders to hide until he gets back; and then goes out with a sword to save his other son.
Galvanax give the ultimatum: Hand over the Nexus Star or be destroyed, to which Brody’s Dad takes the later. Galvanax attacks but Brody’s Dad blocks it with the Star… and makes him morph into the Red Ranger, and starts to fight…. Until Ripcon captures Body, causing his Dad to be distracted long enough for Galvanax to land attack that demorph Brody’s Dad and drop the Nexus Star.
Galvanax then prepares to absorb the Star’s power, ready to be invincible and rule the universe… even though he sucker punched the power right out of the guy who just had it… But before he could finish absorbing all the power, Brody’s dad strikes the Star with his sword, causing a HUGE ninja smokescreen/explosion. When everything is cleared, Brody’s Dad is gone and in his place: The Nexus Prism with the Star’s shards… which then turned into 6 “Ninja Power Stars”, each with designed with their respected Ranger helmet.
Galvanax tries to take the stars, but can’t reach into the prism, which he takes back to the ship, as well as taking Body prisoner.
We then jump to present time. Brody is still a prisoner, alongside a C3PO-esque robot named Red-Bot, and Mick, a shapeshifting Boom from SPD if he was a Pyschlo from Battlefield Earth, who is a “mechanical genius”. They work on Galvanax’s ship, which is the host of a intergalactic show “Galaxy Warriors”, a show which Galvanax uses by having competing warrior monsters of across the cosmos gather and fight to see if they’re worthy to reach in the Nexus Prism and pull out a Power Star. And since the show itself is named after a line of Bootleg He-Man toys, it is safe to say that NONE of them are “worthy” enough to wield them.
Mad that it has been 10 years with no progress, Madam Odius tells Galanax that the steel from the Prism can be melted down and make new stars he can use… why she didn’t bring this up sooner, is anyone’s guess (she is considered to be untrustworthy)… though if these guys “age” like Sledge and the others villains from Dino Charge, 10 years might just be a week to them. So the Galvanax’s ships back to earth, giving Body and the others the idea of escaping…
Speaking of Earth, we cut to the a random High school at “Summer Cove”. Where we are introduce to the other 4 Rangers… but only 2 of them will morph in this episode, so we’ll focus on them. Preston is a magician, performing acts of comedic illusions, and Sarah, who rides in a on HOVERBOARD and NOBDY is amazed by it. No seriously, everyone is all like “Hey, nice hover board” like it was common place. Is this the 2017 from “Back to the Future” or is part of the new timeline from Dino Super Charge where Dinosaurs are confined in zoos? We are also introduced to Monty and Victor Vincent, who will be the “Bulk and Skull” of the season and the typical Nerd and Jock characters respectfully.
Back on the ship, Brody, Red Bot, and Mick are ready to escape, getting the Prism and a set of keys to a space cruiser (all off screen), but the later is destroyed, so they have to go with plan B. Which is… jumping out a garbage chute while in earth’s atmosphere. As they’re falling, Preston and Sarah see the rest of the debris falling from the sky and set off to investigate, just for the fun of it.
Thanks to Red Bot and his boot-jets, he and Brody land safely near the Nexus Prism, while Mick transformed into something “cushiony” and is separated from the two. Galanax sends one of his warriors, Mig the fearcat from Operation Overdrive (No, seriously, they just reuse the same costume with slightly different colors.), to go after them and bring the Prism. Mig (he has a different name, but he is what he is) pops out of nowhere and gives Brody a beat down until Sarah and Preston ram into the fearcat with the hoverboard, knocking him out long enough for the 3 humans to look at the Prism, with 3 of the Power Stars glowing and talk about becoming Power Rangers. Brody takes the Red Star, Preston blue, and Sarah pink. They then get their morphers, and just like with Galvanax and Brody’s Dad, Mig attacks them and triggers the 3 to morph. And using their basic weapons, the 3 rangers destroy the fearcat.
The episode then ends with our heroes burying the Nexus Prism in rocks to keep it safe from Galvanax and his monster… but then the Prism then float up and flies away with the other 3 stars with it.
“To be Continued”
My thoughts.
The whole thing feels rushed, somewhere between Dino Super Charge’s finale rushed and Megaforce rushed. We are given NO real backstory to the Ninja Nexus Prism or Star itself, other than it is a item of great power that the villains want. Like I said before, their might be more lore to them later on, but still rather flat for the 1st episode of the series. It doesn’t help that Brody’s narration in the flashback opening of the episode doesn’t really add anything, just extra exposition for the younger audiences who wouldn’t catch on what’s going on if everything wasn’t explain in a way or another. We are also didn’t get a proper morph sequence, just a quick flash transformation after an enemy atatcks.
The theme song for the season is… meh. It is a rock ballad with “traditional” Japense guitar rifts. The lyrics move too fast and are drowned out by the music, so it hard to hear in some spots.
Brody’s actor seems a little too much like Troy or Jayden, a bit bland and little flat in some areas… not to mention a little too much like every Red Ranger since the start of the Neo Saban era of the show. Seriously, every Red Ranger had some kind of Daddy issue to their character.
• Samurai had Jayden has to carry the burden of his father’s legacy of being a great warrior while trying to a stop a evil that even his father couldn’t beat.
• Megaforce had Troy, or at least in a draft version according to Linkara’s HOPR, was left by his Dad while serving the military.
• Dino Charge Tyler set out to find his missing father.
And now, ANOTHER missing Dad while fighting a overpowerfull villain. It is implied that Brody’s Dad might have turned into the Nexus Prism itself… or he just switch it out with himself and left his son alone to be capture by alien tyrants…..
Still too early to talk about Preston and Sarah. Preston is the typical bumbling magician while Sarah seems to be a gear head who wants to break the speed record with her board, as well as an slight obsession with freight-trains (she mentions them twice in the show).
At one point, when Brody talks about the Power Star turning his Dad into a “Power Ranger”, Sarah just says “Power… Ranger.” In a way that can be interpreted as either in disbelief or like she heard those words for the first time ever, which wouldn’t be too surprising as it is a Ranger rule to have every other new team think the past events of other rangers as a work of fiction or something.
As for the Villains… they’re kinda overwhelming… they’re like Sledge and his monster/alien captives from Dino Charge, only this time it more of a reality game show motif, which does seem like a neat idea if done later rather right after Dino Charge. IT doesn’t help that they’re not very competent to boot , it seems like Brody, Red Bot, and Mick are they’re only prisoners, but do a poor job of keeping them in line, as Mick just shapeshifts into objects and they don’t notice, not to mention they even somehow stole the Big Bad’s precious McGuffin and swipe keys to a getaway car from them OFF SCREEN! They even talked about escaping sooner, but the only set back was that they had nowhere to go to… until Galavanax decided to head back to earth. The crowning moment of fail for them that Brody used the “Look Over There” trick on Ripcon to switch out his sword for a mop (which was Mick ATM). So far, Madam Odius might be the only capable one of the group, as she has more mystic to here (as well as being the reoccurring Baddie from the Super Sentai counterpart of the show).
That’s all I got for this one episode… which brings up HOW this episode was handled by the network. I only managed to catch this episode on the 2nd airing on Sunday on Nickledeon… and even though there were promos for it coming out around this, I don’t think Nick aired any talking about the EXACT air date for the start of the season. If anything, they’re promoting their TV movie about a dog turned human boy. Though be fair, I don’t watch much Nick, just like 2 or 3 shows if they are new… but they also have underwhelming promotion for their Saturday morning shows, as I only know when a new TMNT episode airs either when I look it up on my TV browser (which is hard cause they COSNTANTLY switch the air time for new episodes: Like it would be on Friday night, than Saturday morning, and then Sunday morning), or; as stated by PanPizza/RebelTaxi, when the internet reviewer, Andre the Black Nerd, reviews/recaps the new episode. It doesn’t help either that earlier that week, the new trailer for the Power Rangers movie was one and got all the fans buzzed about that… so much so they might have missed the fact that Ninja Steel was starting. I am MORE surprise that that started out with just the ONE episode for a 30 minute air time, instead of just having a hour long special to help kick off the show…
Either way, I am going to watch to see where this show will go. And I hope all of you reading this will too… Lord knows the show need more promotion than what Nick gives them, and lets all hope 2017 will be a good year for Power Rangers.