Power Rangers Turns 33… Is the Legacy Ruined?

Power Rangers turns 33 this year, and the legacy isn’t spotless. Behind the colorful suits were underpaid actors, ignored warnings, and the loss of Jason David Frank. So does that mean we throw the whole thing out?

Blog Version

33 years ago, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers appeared on everyone’s television sets. It captured the hearts and intentions of the world. I know for me as a young man, I was captivated as I watched this team of individuals dress up in colorful suits and fight a space witch who was in a galactic trash can. Later, they developed a friend who wore green and was the coolest member of their party. I followed their journey quite a ways. I watched it all the way through Power Rangers in Space and then spot episodes here and there.

As inspirational as the show was, there was a lot of drama and ugly things that took place in the background. Unfortunately, with all that, there were some people that were getting hurt. There are some people today that think that because of that stuff is there, you just need to get rid of everything that came with Power Rangers to begin with.

So is the Power Rangers legacy ruined because of all that? Today on Geek Devotions, we’re going to talk about that.

The Real Story Behind the Show

I grew up watching Power Rangers. I remember watching the premiere of it. I remember the three part premiere of season two where they introduced Lord Zedd. I remember playing as Power Rangers with my friends in the backyard. I was so locked in, my mom actually made me a Power Rangers costume for Halloween one year and it was amazing.

Flash forward throughout the years, you hear these sad stories that take place. You find out how a lot of the actors were really underpaid and not listened to when they were expressing some major concerns. Some of them barely surviving, some of them falling into some really, really dark things. We lost Jason David Frank, the Green Ranger, several years ago. He was kind of championing a lot of things for people and some positive aspects. But he was dealing with some real demons on the inside and lost that battle.

Because of this, there’s a lot of people who feel like that because of the drama that took place in the background, such as bullying and all those other kinds of things, that we should just get rid of Power Rangers. We shouldn’t be promoting it. We shouldn’t be able to enjoy this property anymore because of the dark underbelly that took place.

I understand some of the sentiment. But at the same time, I’m not sure that’s the wisest thing to do. We do live in a culture that has a tendency that if one bad thing takes place within something, we throw it all together and we throw it out the window. We act as if that one small thing spoils everything and it’s no longer good, even though there were some really great things that came out of it. I think this is a disservice, and it also, I think, could be more damaging at the end of the day.

Joseph and “You Intended Harm”

I can’t help but think about this story in the scriptures where you have Joseph. There’s a lot of promise to him. His brothers got jealous, and they sold him into slavery. Then he was made a slave in somebody else’s house, and there’s all kinds of stuff taking place. He was mistreated, abused. He had every right to just throw his hands up and be done with everything, but he continued pushing past all the stuff and did a lot of great things.

At the end of the day, at the end of the book of Genesis, he finds himself standing before his brothers, and he has the ability to do some major damage. But instead he looks at them with a level of grace. And he says something very specific: “What you intended to do harm, God intended to do great things.”

Now, I’m paraphrasing a lot here, but the point of it is this. There’s a lot of things that take place that perhaps there’s some underbelly of some wrongdoing taking place. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to end up bad. It doesn’t mean that the fruit has to be something traumatic and terrible.

Lessons the Power Rangers Legacy Still Teaches

I think back at Power Rangers and the lessons that they taught us, lessons about friendships, lessons about how you come together to overcome a problem. Lessons about dealing with some inner peace and dealing with the things that bother us and not letting those consume us, but to push past that to become something greater. Lessons that taught us that people are important, and we need to look out for each other and for those who are even outside of our circle, because it’s the right thing to do.

I get it. It’s easy to become jaded. But recently, one of our writers, Branson Boykin, wrote an article for a website talking about finding healing through the legacy of Power Rangers. He was dealing with his own stuff because of the dark stuff he’s seen on the backhand of Power Rangers. But then he sees his son encountering it in a whole new light. He went back and looked at it through childlike eyes again with his son, and it became this beautiful bonding moment for them.

Again, Power Rangers has been around for 33 years, and now we have one generation with the next enjoying something. These things come back up and they’re inspirational again.

I want to encourage you: yes, there are terrible things that take place in life, not just Power Rangers, but in the world that you live in, the workplaces and other systems. There are some dark things that take place, and we’re not denying that. Those things need to be handled. They need to be called out and addressed appropriately. But don’t throw everything out the window because there’s still some beautiful things that are taking place. There’s still opportunities for people to grow and to be inspired to do some amazing things. We just have to be willing to step back, take a breath, and handle things in an appropriate manner.