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This site is intended as a recourse against worldwide Power Rangers mistreatment. Read on, but brace yourself for some real horror stories first.
Owing to complaints of violence, unmorphed fighting has been removed from the majority of episodes since 1996. The crux of the matter is that to be shown in full, episodes need to be rated PG. $even, the free-to-air network involved, has shown an extreme reluctance to do so(for undisclosed reasons), even when using a timeslot that permits PG ratings, instead imposing a hacked up G-rated version. Any episode with too much unmorphed fighting or "unsuitable content" is dropped, often with blatant disregard for overall continuity. Such episodes include :
1) "Shadow Rangers"
(later reinstated in full with an inexplicable and hypocritical G-rating)
2) "Built For
Speed"
3) "Passing The
Torch I & II" - (I wish I was kidding)
4) "Shark Attack"
5) "Destined For
Greatness"
6) "The Rescue
Mission"
7) "Enter The
Lost Galaxy"
8) "The Fifth
Crystal"
9) "The Fate of
Lightspeed I & II"
Australian Pay-TV plays episodes(apparently) in full - but with a wait of up to twelve months and the imposition of a fee just to see episodes as they were intended to be shown. Does this mean that only the nation's wealthier audiences should receive proper access to the episodes? Something to think about...
For more information, please consult the following sources :
http://www.aba.gov.au/about/public_relations/newrel_95/78nr1995.htm
(the violence
ruling)
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/mstories/index98.htm
(associated interview)
I recommend taking them with a grain of salt, though.
In the US, some episodes and seasons are repeated into the ground whilst others never see the light of day. A recent attempt to screen all episodes in order failed dismally, not only skipping several of them but also grounding to a halt at the start of Season 2. UPDATE - ABC Family has announced that they will be running "best of" episodes from Seasons 1-5, starting in March, 2002. Fingers crossed, eh?
Not all Fox affiliates pick up the show, either.
Space bloopers remained unscreened or were ruined with voiceovers and promotions. It is primarily for this reason that bloopers are no longer being made.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, repeat screenings of Time Force have been edited, removing particularly "violent" scenes - especially those involving exploding buildings. One "subtle" edit dubbed the Time Force theme music over a threatening speech! Absolutely unbelievable.
In Britain, ITV(free-to-air) skipped almost all of second season Turbo to get to Space episodes. And then they jumped over half of the Space episodes, too! Lost Galaxy was shown intermittently up until "Redemption Day", after which it was once more taken off the air. These episodes were hacked to pieces, some only lasting for about fifteen minutes or so. Lightspeed Rescue has been playing on this network(on Sundays and Bank Holidays), but mostly with hacked opening and end credits. "Lightspeed Teamwork"'s pre-credit sequence was removed altogether.
GMTV skipped episodes 13-18 of Lightspeed Rescue. CITV, which took over the screening of the series, played 19-23 and then removed Power Rangers altogether. The reason? They only purchase enough episodes as they have space in their scheduling. Consequently, they only bought those five.
FoxKids UK(Pay-TV) didn't show the last ten Space episodes, leaving the Psycho Rangers saga hanging and depriving British fans of "Countdown To Destruction". Why? Something to do with the merchandising of Power Rangers mousemats. Unbelievable. These episodes have now begun showing, in 2001, but again hacked up.
A more recent problem has been the removal of footage which contains quick flashing. The reason is supposedly to reduce the risk of epileptic seizures(I kid you not). As a result, many Lightspeed Rescue episodes have been hacked up, including their opening credits! ITV, a free-to-air network has been slowing down flashing scenes(depending on the timeslot). Note that ITV, a free-to-air network(and thus more accessible to the public), has seen no need to do the same. Furthermore, "Go Volcanic" appears to have been banned completely{owing to its firearm content}. "Full Exposure" has been banned, too.
Now, as ridiculous as that sounds, consider what else Fox Kids UK have been doing. In their reruns of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, they no longer change the opening credits when required. For example, they use the same "pre-Tommy" Season 1 credits to introduce Season 3 episodes! Surely I don't have to point out how misleading, not to mention ludicrous, that is! Why are they doing this? Because they've edited those Season 1 credits to remove the rapidly flashing "Power Rangers" text, and it seems like they can't be bothered doing the same for flashes in subsequent credits.
Of similar concern to Fox Kids UK viewers has been the removal of other scenes, seemingly at random. Controversy alert - one British viewer claims to have noticed a disturbing link between these removals, many of which contain battle footage(morphed and unmorphed) of Asian and African-American Rangers. Make of that what you will ...
End credits and bloopers are an uncertainty on ITV and Fox Kids UK these days(it varies, depending on the season). As mentioned above, opening credits are starting to be chopped up as well. Neither network can guarantee full versions any more; this means that the only solution for British fans is to import episodes from the US. Just think about that for a moment. Very troubling indeed ... and sadly, their situation is not an isolated one.
RTL, in Germany, has started screening Power Rangers again(Lightspeed Rescue). The timeslot? 5:50am, Saturday mornings. Ai-yi-yi!
German broadcasts have been plagued by misleading dubbing, lack of end credits, and missing scenes.
Source : Andrew_Young@kiwi.com, http://ic.www.media.mit.edu/Personal/manny/power/text_docs/mmpr_faq_4.txt
"1. Power Rangers orginally aired in Canada on YTV (the Canadian cable youth channel) and in Southern Ontario on the CanWest Global Television system (sort of a mini-network). Global held the non-cable station rights for the whole country (as it does for all U.S. TV shows it airs) so they're sold local syndication rights to regional stations (CanWest owns several stations out west in British Columbia).
2. CanWest voluntarily belonged to a group set up by the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) that monitored violence in children's programming. Prompted by a few parent's complaints, the group (whose name escapes me right now) reviewed MMPR and deemed it too violent. The main concern was that as soon as an alien or putties show up in Angel Grove the first reaction from the Rangers is to start kicking evil butt. CanWest/Global was a member of the anti-violence group, YTV was not. YTV voluntarily decided to drop the show when the controversy broke in the second season (YTV didn't pick up any of the second season episodes anyway) and CanWest had Saban produce an edited version that took out things like kicks to the head and other extreme violent acts.
3. CanWest/Global has decided to no longer carry the show. They claim that their decision has nothing to do with the violence controversy (Global is picking up more shows from Cinar and Nelvanna, the Canadian animation house that produces Eek! The Cat). MMPR is effectively not broadcast by Canadian stations anymore.
4. MMPR is now only seen on Fox affliates that reach Canada via broadcast or cable (there are NO Fox affliates in Canada - American broadcasters are not allowed to hold broadcasting licenses within Canada).
5. Although MMPR was attacked, similar shows such as Super Human Samurai Syber Squad, Masked Rider and VR Troopers. MMPR was essentially used as a scapecoat."
(This information is several years old now. Any updates from Canadian viewers would be most welcome.)
Source : http://ic.www.media.mit.edu/Personal/manny/power/text_docs/mmpr_faq_4.txt
"The show was banned
in Norway when two adolescent boys were charged with beating a small girl
to death. Somehow, their actions were associated with what was shown
on Power Rangers. Because of this occurence, the show was also banned in
Sweden. *However*, several weeks later, in a court of law, it was determined
that the boys' actions were in no way influenced by the show Power Rangers
(in fact, I don't think they were even fans of the show...my mind is cloudy
on this point). Shortly
afterwards, MMPR
re-appeared on Norweigan airwaves. However, it has yet to re-appear
on Swedish airwaves."
Source : http://ic.www.media.mit.edu/Personal/manny/power/text_docs/mmpr_faq_4.txt
"According to Reuter's,
Kuala Lampur has also taken MMPR off its airwaves, but not because of the
violence. No, Malaysian officials feel that all their drug problems
would be easily solved if the
word "Morphin"
were removed from the title "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers". As if
my 5 year old's penchant for syringes and houkkas is fueled primarily by
the title of a kid's t.v. show. Certain
Malaysian government
officials believe "Mighty Morphin" is a reference to morphine. They
also worry that children could be fooled into thinking that drugs can make
them as strong as the Rangers."
(I -knew- I'd heard this one somewhere. This is disturbing on so many levels. What does it say about society if censors are allowed to get away with this kind of insanity?)
(Any updates on this one would be most welcome, especially concerning the later seasons which did not contain the dreaded "M-word".)
Source : http://ic.www.media.mit.edu/Personal/manny/power/text_docs/mmpr_faq_4.txt
"The only other country that I know of that has actively banned MMPR -- and to this day, continues to ban MMPR -- is New Zealand."
(Any updates on this situation would be most welcome.)
"As fans, our concerns should be with plot, continuity, character development, etc. Network incompetence has been destroying our enjoyment of the show for years; enough is enough."
(If Power Rangers is mistreated in your country and it hasn't been mentioned here, or if you can clarify further details about any of the situations above, please contact me and I'll record them here.)
Each of the countries mentioned above has had cause to complain about some fundamental decision regarding Power Rangers broadcasts. Whether these complaints have been due to skipped episodes, banned episodes, censored episodes, ruined opening credits, skipped bloopers and end credits, or simply a lack of availability of older seasons - all of these things affect us as fans. We're asking for a fair go, that's all, and we're not getting it.
I envisage a centralised source of transcripts, highly detailed, in order to inform fans of episode content which may have been denied them in their own country. Are there scenes which don't make sense? Have you always wondered whether certain episodes were censored? Are you curious about the history of Power Rangers and want to try to get some idea of what those episodes were like? I hope that, one day, this site will be able to provide answers to all of these questions.
To sum up, my site exists for the following reasons :
1) To provide an insight into the history of the different seasons for which broadcasts or video releases are almost impossible to find.
2) To keep the fandom informed of rulings, policies, etc., which affect the way Power Rangers is shown in different countries.
3) To pool and share comments on episodes through submitted reviews, in order to maintain an historical record of how each episode and season was received by the fandom.
4) To provide, where possible, detailed comparisons between footage and storylines in the US and Japanese versions of each incarnation. In many cases these, too, have been censored for Western audiences and the differences are quite intriguing.
5) To provide access to FULL episode transcripts(including bloopers) for everyone who has had their enjoyment of the series ruined by ridiculous and intolerable broadcasting practices.
The majority of transcripts have been written up from Australian and/or British versions. A lot of the time missing content can be observed from comparing the two, but in some cases I only have access to one version. I must go on the assumption that the only broadcasts guaranteed to be complete are the US versions(minus some bloopers); therefore, if you're a US viewer and you have a bit of time on your hands, would you mind checking the transcripts against your versions? Ideally, all you would have to do is read the transcript off your screen whilst the episode is playing in the background. I've endeavoured to make each one as detailed as possible to facilitate this process.
Transcripts ready for verification are labelled "awaiting verification", and currently include:
"Green With Evil Part I"
"The Mutiny Part I"
"Missing Green"
"Changing Of The Zords Part I"
"Changing Of The Zords Part II"
"Changing Of The Zords Part III"
"There's No Business Like Snow Business
Part III"
"Rangers Of Two Worlds Part I"
"Rangers Of Two Worlds Part II"
"Hawaii Zeo"
"Shift Into Turbo Part I"
"Shift Into Turbo Part II"
"Shift Into Turbo Part III"
Any episode which doesn't have this label is still not ready for verification.
This is an issue that I feel I need to address. Over the past couple of years, several people have offered to donate transcripts, but unfortunately I've had to refuse these kind offers. Please allow me to emphasise that this is in no way personal nor a reflection upon individual writing skills. I'm simply after a uniform style for each of the transcripts, a good deal of which require notes on the different versions. Some cuts can be quite subtle and difficult to detect depending upon the level of detail in the transcript(fight scenes being a major issue here).
After instigating this policy for so long, I don't want to offend anyone by accepting some transcripts and knocking back others. This is why the policy was introduced and why I have decided to stick to it. If I have inadvertantly offended anyone in the process, I am truly sorry. That was never my intention. I have now removed the existing donated transcripts which pre-dated this policy, with thanks going to those people for allowing me to use them for so long.
If you're interested in submitting a review or some comments on one of the (transcribed) episodes, I'd love to include them. For more information, please consult this Episode Reviews link.
Now that a final presentation style has been stabilised, the majority of older transcripts have been taken down for re-formatting. I sincerely apologise for the inconvenience. On the plus side, it's highly unlikely that this will ever need to be done again.
Since there has been some confusion over this, I'll attempt to clarify the situation. Over the years, my style of transcribing has changed dramatically. This meant that by 2001, the earlier transcripts(mostly from 1999) no longer matched the later ones in terms of detail and presentation. Being, or having become, somewhat of a perfectionist, I began to feel very uncomfortable about this contrast. And so the older ones were taken down - the intention being to quickly revise them and post them back up again. However, since I'm also working on new transcripts, it's taking longer than expected.
Around 40 additional transcripts(50 if you count donated ones) used to be up here. I'm working to get them back online, and they will be back one day.
Note - here is a list of some of the transcripts that were previously on the site(from memory). A request for one of them will likely be filled more quickly than a "from-scratch" transcript.
Season 1
"Green With Evil Part III"
"Green With Evil Part IV"
"Green With Evil Part V"
"The Trouble With Shellshock"
"Itsy Bitsy Spider"
Zeo
"King For A Day Part I"
"King For A Day Part II"
"A Brief Mystery Of Time"
Turbo
"Transmission Impossible"
"Rally Ranger"
"Bicycle Built For The Blues"
"The Whole Lie"
"Glyph Hanger"
"Weight And See"
"Alarmed And Dangerous"
"The Millennium Message"
"A Drive To Win"
"Cars Attacks"
"Honey, I Shrunk The Rangers Part I"
"Honey, I Shrunk The Rangers Part II"
"The Darkest Day"
"One Last Hope"
"Fall Of The Phantom"
"Clash Of The Megazords"
"Fire In Your Tank"
"Spirit Of The Woods"
"The Accident"
"Carlos And The Count"
"Parts And Parcel"
Space
"Save Our Ship"
"Always A Chance"
"Dark Specter's Revenge Part I"
"Dark Specter's Revenge Part II"
"The Enemy Within"
Sorry, I'm no longer taking transcript requests.
Er ... [looks embarrassed]