If there was one element of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that captured the imaginations of kids in the early 1990s, it was probably their giant, animal-inspired robots.
Though the idea of giant robots people could drive and use to fight monsters was a longstanding part of Japanese culture, it wasn't something that had made its way much into the imaginations of kids in the U.S., apart from a few imports like Voltron. The Power Rangers took an idea that was mostly relegated to cartoons, and one that was new to a lot of kids and added it to a live-action superhero show. Each episode saw the Rangers calling their zords and then combining them all together to make a super-powerful robot Megazord, and every episode culminated in a guy in a robot suit beating the snot out of a guy in a monster suit, complete with sparks and explosions.
It was pretty cool.
An essential element of what made the robots work in the early seasons was their theme: prehistoric animals. At a time when kids everywhere were very excited about dinosaurs (thanks, Jurassic Park), the Power Rangers had dinosaur robots that they used to fight giant monsters in Godzilla-style battles. They weren't just robots. They were robots based on cool animals, each with unique abilities.
The Power Rangers series recently celebrated its 25th anniversary--25 years of combining footage of American actors with stock footage of Japanese superhero shows to make something that, apparently, has spoken to more than one generation of viewers.
But over 25 years, the Power Rangers have also gone through a ton of iterations, becoming ninjas, shoguns, astronauts, aliens, and even 1700s-style pirates. All those changes in theme also brought about changes to the zords to adapt those themes. There have been a huge number of new zords over the years, and while they always combine to make a cool giant robot, the individual robots aren't always winners. For every sabretooth tiger, shark, or Godzilla-looking dragon, there's a frog zord or an armadillo zord.
We've dug through 25 years of huge Power Rangers robots to identify the very best--and the very worst.
1. Best: Sabretooth Tiger
Appearance: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
The original cool zord. It's a great choice of intimidating animal and it actually moves according to the laws of physics, unlike some other zords. Additionally, it occasionally gets to rip bad guys without just becoming some bigger robot's leg.
2. Worst: Mastodon
Appearance: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
The Mastodon wouldn't be so bad under most circumstances. It shoots super-cold air that freezes stuff. But it looks dopey every time it's summoned, thanks to its idiotic little feet that move even though the thing is clearly on wheels. Just make it a tank like the Triceratops Zord. Stop humiliating the poor Mastodon.
3. Best: Dragonzord
Appearance: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
The Green Ranger showed up not long into Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and basically completely usurped all coolness from the Power Rangers' leader, the Red Ranger. The Green Ranger has a better sword and a better costume, and his zord is better than a T-Rex--it's a dragon. In fact, it's basically Mecha-Godzilla.
4. Worst: Unicorn
Appearance: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 2
The Thunder versions of the Power Rangers' zords became all new animals, but a few of them were serious steps back from their dino counterparts. The blue Unicorn was the foot of the Thunder Megazord when the zords combined, and its designers didn't even try to make it look like anything but a shoe with a head sticking out of it. (See also: Griffin, who is also a shoe.)
5. Worst: Griffin
Appearance: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
The griffin is just like the unicorn, except yellow, and is also a shoe.
6. Best: White Tiger Thunderzord
Appearance: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
The Red Ranger kept up with the Green Ranger when they got their Thunderzords, upgrading from a T-Rex to a Chinese dragon. Finally, even footing with the Green Ranger's dragon--or so it seemed. Not to be outdone, the Green Ranger wound up becoming the White Ranger, and he took a page from Siegfried and Roy and upgraded to an even cooler zord than his Godzilla knockoff.
7. Worst: Frog Ninjazord
Appearance: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Literally a frog, and not even a cool or poisonous frog.
8. Best: Ninja MegaFalconzord
Appearance: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
We're mostly avoiding the different Megazords on this list, because huge robots made up of smaller robots would completely dominate it. But the Ninja MegaFalconzord deserves a mention for nothing other than its phenomenal name, and its glorious wings.
9. Worst: Red Shogunzord
Appearance: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
The Shogunzords were a far cry from the earlier zords, mostly eschewing the animal theme in favor of just being big robot people. Each of the other zords got an animal head, though, adding at least a hint of theme coolness. The Red Ranger's Shogunzord, on the other hand, just has a big weird mannequin face that is not at all intimidating.
10. Best: Pyramidas
Appearance: Power Rangers Zeo
The zord of the Gold Ranger takes everything over the top. He literally just drives an Egyptian pyramid into battle. Few people are cool enough to battle interstellar monsters with a huge ancient building. It also transforms into the most ridiculous possible robot--basically, they just flipped the pyramid sideways and stuck a head and arms on it.
11. Best: Zeozord III Sphinx
Appearance: Power Rangers Zeo
While the concept of the Zeozords being based on ancient myths is an interesting one, in practice most of the robots look kind of dopey. The sphinx, though, at least has some rip-off-monster-faces attitude.
12. Worst: Red Battlezord
Appearance: Power Rangers Zeo
All the zords in Power Rangers Zeo are a bit weird, but the Red Battlezord just looks like the kind of bad knock-off robot costume you'd encounter on Hollywood Blvd., worn by a guy pretending it's a character from a popular movie to grift tourists.
13. Best: Wildcat Galactazord
Appearance: Power Rangers Lost Galaxy
The seventh Power Rangers season had a nature theme but also was in space for some reason. The zords were based on space creatures (that were mostly suspiciously like Earth creatures), and the Wildcat Galactazord looks like weird deadly alien that might also make for a fun pet.
14. Worst: Thunder Loader Rescuezord
Appearance: Power Rangers Turbo
It's bad enough that the zords in Power Rangers Turbo were just dumb cars--a colossal step down from mythological creatures and prehistoric animals. Later, the Power Rangers traded up for first response vehicles like a police car, an ambulance, a fire truck and ... a dump truck, for some reason. This is also not the last time a dump truck would be one of the zord options over the history of Power Rangers.
15. Best: Quantasaurus Rex
Appearance: Power Rangers Time Force
It might have a terrible name, but the Q-Rex is a robot dinosaur with lasers that travels through time, and it doesn't even look like a malformed plastic toy from the Wal-Mart bargain bin like most of the other zords.
16. Best: Blue Shark Wildzord
Appearance: Power Rangers Wildforce
Finally, a shark! It took nine whole series until we finally got a shark zord. Sure, a shark zord seems like it'd have limited applications, but it's a freakin' shark. Just use one of the other zords to heave it at bad guys.
17. Worst: Parasaurzord
Appearance: Power Rangers Dino Thunder
It's nice to see the return of dinosaur zords to Power Rangers, but it seems there was a shortage of cool ones pretty much right off the bat. Tyrannosaurus and triceratops got recycled, to start with. Added to the ranks: the illustrious parasaurolophus. It's every kid's dream to drive a giant duck into battle.
18. Best: Tyrannozord
Appearance: Power Rangers Dino Thunder
It only took forever, but Power Rangers eventually came up with a cool Tyrannosaurus zord that's not a weird knock-off creature, and that doesn't look like it belongs in a '50s sci-fi B movie.
19. Worst: Zoom Zord
Appearance: Power Rangers Ninja Steel
A maglev train because you can only do so many dump trucks, apparently.
20. Best: Super Mega Skyship
Appearance: Power Rangers Super Megaforce
It's one thing to have zords that are vehicles, like spaceships or even cars. But this is a zord that is a literal pirate ship. The Power Rangers are making robots out of warfare technology from centuries ago basically for novelty value. That's ballsy.
21. Best: Kodiak Zord
Appearance: Power Rangers Ninja Steel
The Power Rangers Ninja Steel zords are all over the place--there's a train, there's a dump truck, there's a dragon. And then there's this good robot boy.
Source GameSpot - Galleries https://ift.tt/2NvP4YD
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