u/TheRV1HD

Just throwing this question out there..

What was your reaction to the reveal of who the Gold Ranger was in Power Rangers Zeo? Was it one of disappointment? Were you OK with it?

We are putting aside the events that followed the reveal where they tried to give the powers to Billy and ultimately Jason returned to the show. This is about the initial reveal. All that build up of who it could possibly be with even Billy being a red herring only for it to be a random alien guy that splits into 3 versions of himself? I mean I honestly didn't know how to take it as a kid. I was kind of expecting more from it. Trey was not my first choice at all. What didn't help was that Brad Hawkins voiced Trey in his debut and it immediately made me think that it was Ryan from VR Troopers, which honestly back then would have been super hyped.

The Billy hints were happening far too much for me to eventually believe that it was Billy. I would have even considered Tommy's brother, David for the role although explaining how he got the powers in the first place would have proven quite difficult. Part of it felt like they knew the reveal may not get the best reaction so they had the surprise lined up as a back up. At times you even wonder why Jason wasn't considered as the first option? I'm guessing they wanted to do something different then swerve us later? Kudos to them for that.

I feel like an important deciding factor in whether or not you liked the gold ranger reveal is if you often remember Zeo Gold as Trey or as Jason first. If it's Jason then the reveal didn't have too much of an impact on you. Again for me personally I don't have anything against the Trey character I just think that if you are going to build suspense around a character reveal you really don't want the end result to be "random guy we have never seen before".

Thoughts..?

Is the presentation of rangers like the 6th rangers a lost art form? Now I'm not saying that I never enjoyed the debut of some of the extra and 6th rangers throughout the franchise..I just personally feel like the earlier seasons did a much better job at making these guys seem like such a massive deal. Before I switch into my prime example I will indeed include Tommy Oliver in this. Look at that man's debut where he leaps into the Megazord and then proceeds to beat the heck out of all the rangers. Regardless of the fact that he was evil at the time you immediately thought that this guy was a badass and were thinking "what if he was on our team?" Then fast forward to White Light and they had the man descend from the heavens in a blinding light, slowly take off his helmet and give us the big reveal.. "Guess who's back?!" Tommy was treated as a massive deal not once but twice.

The main example I want to use however comes from Zeo. Now watching Zeo as it aired when I was a kid the hype I got from the Gold Rangers debut was amazing. He appeared out of nowhere and the first thing is this quick ball of energy taking everything out and right away you're like.. "what the heck was that?!" You're stunned just like everyone else but before you even have a chance to fully wrap your head around it the Gold Ranger shows up on the cliff and it's like an overload of hype. At this point you are high energy as the Gold Ranger theme starts playing and this guy leaps down and starts clearing house with ease. You have no idea who he is or how he got there but the presentation alone makes him an automatic favourite off the bat. The opening presentation works because they decided to go with the colour of gold because there was just enough of on the suit. As a kid you associate gold with riches and power. He came down seemingly from the heavens like a god in energy form so he already seems super powerful. What sets it off the most is the theme song.

Power Rangers in the early seasons gave their 6th rangers theme songs and it always set them apart from the main team. When that music played you knew that this guy was a massive deal compared to the others. It's something I feel like they needed more of in the newer seasons. From the green to white to now gold. You heard that awesome theme music and you knew that it was about to go down. It was part of the package that just brought it altogether in a neat little bow. Power Rangers as well had a little less talking during fighting scenes. The modern seasons had far too many quips and lines. They didn't need to fill all the dead air. What made Gold Rangers quip work was because it wasn't lost amongst a bunch of others. He just said "It's time for a gold rush" and proceeded to run through and destroy his enemies. His actions did the talking for him.

Some seasons did a bang up job with little changes to the formula like Sam from SPD where they had that little note play when he was on screen as a kid and when the Omega Ranger arrived the same note was used in places to hint at who he was before the reveal. Titanium Ranger had already debuted but when he turned good we saw him whoop monsters on his own with some solid fight choreography. So there are some 6th/extra rangers that do get some solid presentation. I just feel like they went that extra little mile in the 90s and it was kind of lost somewhere along the way..not lost completely but those rangers used to feel like something really really special. Like they were on a pedestal higher than the other rangers if you get me?