Power Rangers Reviews: Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty good for November 1st. I'm back with another Power Rangers review. Today I'm shifting into Turbo with Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie which came out in 1997, before Power Rangers Turbo began airing a few weeks later and served as the pilot for the season. So let's get into it.

Because the show's ratings had been revitalized with the shift from Mighty Morphin to Zeo, Saban decided the time was right for a second movie despite the fact that the kids who saw Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie in theatres only a year and a half before, had grown up and while the show's ratings had gone up, Power Rangers wasn't as popular as it had been between 1993 and 1995. And because Zeo was wrapping up the movie began filming before production on season 5, Power Rangers Turbo, began. Which makes sense since the movie was set up to lead into the fifth season. Which is also kind of a problem because, while the first episode of Power Rangers Turbo does a recap montage of the movie, but if you were unlucky enough to have missed seeing the movie in theatres, you might be have felt lost when you turned on the TV to watch the season premiere. 

I didn't get to see this movie when I was a kid. We didn't even own it on VHS. In fact I didn't see it until I found it on DVD for $5 at Walmart in early 2007. So when I began watching Power Rangers Turbo I wondered what had happened to the Zeo powers and the Zords, and why the Power Chamber looked brighter, with the MMPR costumes and Power Weapons replaced with columns of coloured light. So when I did watch the movie for the first time, I found out that the Rangers simply gave up their Zeo powers and exchanged them for Turbo powers, as well as exchanged Zords, and there's a very good explanation for the change in the Power Chamber. By the way, that "very good explanation" thing is a joke. If you've watched Power Rangers Super Megaforce (2014) you know why that's a joke. Anyways, there's no in universe explanation for why the Power Chamber looks different, though fans have had some theories over the years.

The biggest theory is that the Power Chamber that the Zeo Rangers used was located underground, due to the Rangers being tossed into the tunnels under the old Command Center building by the Zeo Crystal in the first episode of Power Rangers Zeo, and them stepping into the green mist goo didn't show whether they went up multiple levels. As for the Power Chamber used in Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie and Power Rangers Turbo, it's in the old Command Center building as shown in the season finale of Power Rangers Turbo, which I'll be getting to next week. But for the purposes of this review, they built the new Power Chamber set for this movie and then just kept it around for the TV show for the sake of continuity since this movie is in direct continuity with the TV show, unlike Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. Of course that didn't stop them from using stock footage of the Command Center exterior from the previous movie for the exterior of the Power Chamber, but it doesn't bother me anyway.

I've heard some people say they stopped watching Power Rangers during Turbo because the new Blue Ranger, Justin (played by the wonderful Blake Foster), was annoying. Personally, I never had an issue with Justin as a character in the TV show. He's only annoying in this movie because the script made him extremely annoying. But the TV show made him less annoying. But I mean, while the character is annoying in the movie, he's acting just like any kid his age would if they had just become a Power Ranger. I mean, Blake Foster is only a year and a half older than me, and like me, he watched Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, so not only was the actor excited to be playing a Power Ranger in a movie and on the TV show, but the character he plays, Justin, lived in Angel Grove and knew who the Power Rangers were, so naturally he was excited to be a Ranger. So I get it, even though I do think there were moments where he was a little too over the top in his excitement.

I do remember being surprised that Kimberly was in this movie when I saw the trailer for it on TV. Mainly because, even though I was ten years old at this point, it wasn't as easy to keep up with news about the franchise the way it is today. Social media didn't exist yet, and I didn't have access to the internet yet. Plus entertainment shows like Entertainment Tonight didn't talk about Power Rangers like they had back when the series started in 1993, and YTV didn't cover anything about Power Rangers anymore since it no longer aired the show. Seeing Jason didn't surprise me because he'd just given up the Gold Ranger powers and being that previous seasons had started out with six Rangers, I figured he would be in the movie since, as far as I knew, he was still on the show.

I don't have anything to say about Bulk & Skull in this movie, because like with the previous movie, they're pointless here. However, I would like to point out that this was the last appearance of Richard Genelle as Ernie as he left the show with this movie so he could deal with some personal stuff. He sadly passed away in 2008. I haven't talked about him in these reviews yet, but I loved Ernie as a character. He was friendly, and helped the Rangers out numerous times in the first four seasons of the show. Even when he was unknowingly helping out the Rangers by giving them things they needed to fight Rita's monsters. He also trusted the teens with the Youth Center when he had to step out for a moment.

Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie was released on VHS on July 8th, 1997, which was about midway through Power Rangers Turbo. Like I said, my parents didn't rent or buy this movie for me when I was a kid. 

As mentioned in my review of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, it was released on DVD on a two sided disc with this movie in 2001. In 2003 both movies got individual DVD releases. This is the edition I have in my current collection. It was also re-released on DVD in 2011 and 2017.

Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie got a Blu-ray release in 2019. Because the Power Rangers: Seasons 4-7 DVD box set, which included Power Rangers Turbo, didn't get a re-release like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Complete Series had, this movie only has the one Blu-ray release.

Unlike Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, which had it's own merchandise line, including a toyline, the only merchandise Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie had was the movie on home video. No comic book adaptation, no toyline, nothing. And I think that's because there was such a short turnover between the end of filming for Power Rangers Zeo and the start of production on this movie that Bandai America just didn't have time to get a toyline out since they were already working on the toyline for Power Rangers Turbo and they couldn't just repurpose the show's toyline the way they had with the toyline for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie back in 1995. And I suppose they could've done the Turbo Megazord and then repackaged it as part of the TV show season 5 toyline the way they did it with the Ninja Megazord and the Falconzord in 1995, but they didn't have time since the Power Rangers Turbo toyline had to be out by the time the show started, less than a month after the movie's release.

 The problem with Turbo: A Power Ranger Movie is that it only made $9.6 million at the box office against an unknown budget. While the advertising for the movie was fine, it wasn't nearly as big as the advertising for the first movie had been. And because of that the general audience wasn't there the way they were for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie two years earlier. The fans were, and Power Rangers's fanbase is pretty sizeable and always has been, despite the franchise's niche nature. That's one of the reasons the 2017 movie didn't do well at the box office. While the fans were there for it, the general audience just wasn't. In the case of Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, it had several things against it. The first is that it was a Power Rangers movie, at a time when the franchise just wasn't the phenomenon it had started out as in 1993. The second is that it was a superhero movie coming out in 1997. The third is that it came out in March of 1997, when the Star Wars special editions were all still out in theatres with Return of the Jedi: The Special Edition having come out only two weeks earlier. Given a choice between seeing a Power Rangers movie or a Star Wars movie, I'd say most kids in 1997 would've chosen the Star Wars movies.

Overall this isn't a great movie and it's nowhere near as nostalgic for me like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie is, but it's a decent opening episode for Power Rangers Turbo, which is really what it should've been given that it was treated by both Saban and 20th Century Fox as a TV special rather than as a theatrical feature film like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie had been. It's okay, but it's not as good or as memorable as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie is. Which is fine. 

That's it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for the final part of my DC Comics's Star Trek Overview series and then I'll be back next week for my review of Power Rangers Turbo. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.