QUICKIE -- Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always (Netflix Exclusive)

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always is an American superhero web special serving to commemorate the 30th anniversary of both Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and the Power Rangers franchise. In the special, the Power Rangers assemble to stop robo-Rita Repulsa from her diabolical plans. 

Synopsis

After tragedy strikes, an unlikely young hero takes her rightful place amongst the Power Rangers to exact revenge on the team's oldest arch-nemesis.

Cast

• Walter Jones as Zack Taylor (Mighty Morphin Black Ranger I)

• David Yost as Billy Cranston (Mighty Morphin Blue Ranger)

• Steve Cardenas as Rocky DeSantos (Mighty Morphin Red Ranger II)

• Catherine Sutherland - Katherine "Kat" Hillard (Mighty Morphin Pink Ranger II)

• Johnny Yong Bosch as Adam Park

• Karan Ashley as Aisha Campbell

• Charlie Kersh as Minh Kwan (Mighty Morphin Yellow Ranger III)

• Richard Steven Horvitz as Alpha 9 (voice), Alpha 8 (voice)

• Barbara Goodson as Rita Repulsa

• Ryan Cooper as Robo-Mighty Minotaur (voice)

• Daniel Watterson as Robo-Snizzard (voice)

• Benny Joy Smith as Annie

• Howard Cyster as Boyfriend

Archive recordings

• Austin St. John as Jason Lee Scott (Mighty Morphin Red Ranger I)

• Thuy Trang - Trini Kwan (Mighty Morphin Yellow Ranger I)

• Amy Jo Johnson as Kimberly Ann Hart (Mighty Morphin Pink Ranger I)

• Jason David Frank as Tommy Oliver (Mighty Morphin Green Ranger)

• Machiko Soga as Rita Repulsa

• Ami Kawai as Scorpina

Plot

In 2022, Billy Cranston is attacked by a robotic Rita Repulsa and a gang of Putties. He morphs into the Blue Ranger and leaps into battle, later on joined by the other Power Rangers, Jason, Kimberly, Zack, Trini, and Tommy. Billy is knocked to the edge of a cliff, where Robo-Rita attempts to finish him off with a lethal blast from her magic wand. However, Trini saves Billy by diving into the path of the blast and is killed. Robo-Rita then retreats into the Dark Dimension, leaving the remaining Rangers to grieve over the loss of Trini. At the Kwan residence, Billy and Zack argue about how and when to break the news to Trini's daughter, Minh. However, she walks in on the conversation and immediately runs off. Billy tells Zack that they need to tell her everything.

A year later, Zack has become Minh's new legal guardian and moved into the Kwan residence. They go to the cemetery to visit Trini's grave, only to walk into an ambush from Robo-Rita and two of her monsters, Snizzard and Minotaur. Snizzard captures Jason, Tommy and Kimberly and imprisons them in a machine that will slowly drain their energy. Knowing they're outmatched, Billy, Zack and Minh retreat. Back home, Minh expresses her desire to get revenge on Robo-Rita to Zack and Billy, but they advise her not to get involved and let them sort things out. She angrily lashes out at Billy, blaming him for her mother's death.

Zack and Billy head to the hidden command center under Billy's Cranston Tech headquarters, where it is revealed that Billy's attempt to revive the deceased Zordon accidentally created Robo-Rita; the evil particles that were purged from the original Rita Repulsa from Zordon's Z-Wave years ago took over the body of Alpha 8. Alpha's successor, Alpha 9 initiates the Bandora Protocol, summoning all Power Ranger teams throughout the universe. The call is answered by former Pink Ranger Kat Hillard and former Red Ranger Rocky DeSantos. While this is going on, Minh learns of the Putty gangs invading worldwide. Driven by the desire for revenge, she grabs Trini's Power Morpher and sets out.

Kat and Rocky are given proxy Power Coins so they can again morph into Power Rangers. However, Snizzard and Minotaur have been tracking Rangers all over the universe, using the Putties as bait to lure them into the same machine that trapped the other Rangers. Upon learning of this, the Rangers de-morph and fall back. Back at the command center, the Rangers discover that Minh is at the old juice bar and is under attack. Minh is able to hold her own briefly, but is overpowered after a failed attempt to use Trini's morpher. Zack and Rocky teleport to the juice bar, defeat the Putties, retrieve Minh and bring her back to the command center. Zack takes Trini's morpher away from Minh, scolds her for seeking revenge instead of justice, and after a heart-to-heart conversation where Zack tells Minh exactly what Billy was trying to accomplish, Minh finally calms down.

At a junkyard, Billy, Rocky and Kat morph to lure out Snizzard and Minotaur, then trap them on a giant electromagnet. The Rangers then use cloaking devices that Billy developed to make them invisible so they can infiltrate Rita's Moon Palace using a spaceship provided by SPA agents (and former Rangers) Adam Park and Aisha Campbell. However, after the Rangers leave, Minh grabs a spare device and Trini's morpher and escapes the command center. Minh commandeers the RADBUG, Billy's flying car and takes off toward the junkyard, where she is abducted by Robo-Rita. The Rangers find Rita's machine in her palace, seeing that she has already captured members of multiple Ranger teams.  Billy discovers that Rita has been creating a time portal. Rita and her monsters arrive with Minh in tow and reveals her plan - to travel to the past and kill the Rangers before they are recruited by Zordon.  

Rita attempts one more time to kill Billy with her wand, but Minh breaks free and takes the shot instead.  She miraculously survives, and notices Trini's morpher is glowing. The Rangers morph, and this time Minh is successful in morphing into the Yellow Ranger. Rita then makes Snizzard grow but then Billy impales Rita with his Power Lance. Billy has Alpha teleport the Zords to the moon where they form the Megazord.  Billy and Minh take Megazord into battle against Snizzard, while the remaining Rangers defeat Minotaur in the palace.  The Rangers join Billy and Minh in the Megazord while a wounded Rita attempts to use the portal. The Rangers destroy Snizzard, which destroys the machine and releases the captive Rangers. The Rangers immediately teleport back to the palace and finish off Rita.

Back on earth, Adam and Aisha load the freed Rangers onto their spaceship and set course for Aquitar, where they would heal up before returning home. Billy, Zack and Minh celebrate their victory at the juice bar while they reminisce about their past adventures.

Notes

• Multiple original cast members were unable to return due to a number of circumstances that have occurred since the end of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Archival recordings of their voices are used in scenes while they are morphed as Rangers:

  • Thuy Trang, who portrayed Trini Kwan, had passed away in September 2001. As such, this special is specifically dedicated in her honor with the story revolving around Trini's daughter, Minh Kwan.

  • Austin St. John, who portrays Jason Lee Scott, had been arrested for legal issues in May 2022 and put on probation, which prohibits him from traveling other than for convention appearances.

  • Jason David Frank, who portrayed Tommy Oliver, had passed away in November 2022 following a series of personal issues that left him unable to participate in filming for the special. Furthermore, Frank had previously expressed his intent to distance himself from Power Rangers to focus on his lead film Legend of the White Dragon, which was posthumously released on what would have been his 50th birthday. Like with Trang, Once & Always is dedicated to Frank as well. 

  • Amy Jo Johnson, who portrays Kimberly Ann Hart, had declined her offer to return for unspecified reasons, though Johnson did however announce her collaboration with Boom! Studios to write an original comic series for the franchise's anniversary.

• The title of this series is derived from the phrase "Once a Ranger, Always a Ranger".

• This special marks the first time both Walter Jones and Steve Cardenas appear on-screen simultaneously, a fact that is recognized by both actors.

• This special marks the first time since Power Rangers Jungle Fury to use the phrase “power down” when the Rangers de-morph.

• The initial cast photo that accompanied the announcement of the special's production was taken during shooting of the final scene at the new Command Center. While Minh wears a yellow sweater in that scene, it is digitally recolored into a different colored gradient for the cast photo to hide any hints that she would become the new Yellow Ranger.

• This special is the first appearance of Cranston Tech, the Radbug 2 and both Alphas 8 and 9.

• The Megazord seen in this special is fully rendered in CGI, based on a scanned model of the Zord Ascension Project Megazord toy release provided by Hasbro. The entire Zord summoning and formation sequence from the original series is recreated in CGI and adapted to match the setting on the Moon.

• This special marks the first time that Kat uses the Pterodactyl Power Coin and the Power Bow, as well as the first time she and Rocky pilot the Pterodactyl and Tyrannosaurus Dinozords. Albeit, they only pilot them as part of the Megazord, which was already fully formed before they entered the cockpit.

• Although Kat had a line implying she has had off-screen interactions with Putties before, this is the first time she is shown fighting them on-screen, as well as the first time Rocky is shown fighting the original-generation Putties.

• Though credited to Toei Company and Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger, the special utilizes little to no Japanese footage except for the scene where Rita's time portal shows the younger Rita awakening from her dumpster.

• Ernie is mentioned by Zack at the Juice Bar, who wonders if the place still has his recipes. Nothing is directly said about where he is.

• Alpha 9 activates the "Bandora Protocol", which is named after Witch Bandora, Rita Repulsa's counterpart from Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger, while Rita's Moon Palace is named the "Bandora Palace".

• Bulk and Skull are briefly seen on a billboard photo running their own company, the "Skullovitch & Bulkmeier Bulk Food Co.", but are never seen on-screen.

• This special explicitly confirms that Kat is J.J.'s mother.

• Sentai actors including Yasuhisa Furuhara, Reiko Chiba, and Shiro Izumi have publicly acknowledged the special.

• The man and his boyfriend George that Minh saves with the Radbug 2 are the first male same-sex couple in the franchise, marking another milestone in its representation of LGBT+ identities after girlfriends Ellarien and Remi in Beyond the Grid, Izzy Garcia and Fern (who officially became girlfriends in "The Matchmaker"), and the male voice calling Aiyon attractive in "Our Hero", both in Dino Fury.

• According to producer Simon Bennett, Trini's body was completely vaporized by Rita in the special. He stated that in an un-edited version of the script, her death was originally more explicit, with the Rangers finding her lifeless body along with her Morpher at the beach below the cliff where she would have fallen. This version of Trini's death was completely rewritten out of respect for Trang's memory. Despite the scene rewrite, Bennett explained that the Rangers ultimately went down the cliff to retrieve her Morpher.

• Bennett implied that multiple scenes may or may not have been cut due to the length of time Netflix had allowed Hasbro for the anniversary special.

• Yost and Jones both served as consultants for their characters in regards to how they were portrayed in the special.

Callbacks to series' episodes

• When accepting her Proxy Power Coin, Kat says she "(doesn't) care how dangerous too much pink energy is". This is a reference to Zordon's warning to Kimberly in "Wild West Rangers" on the dangers of multiple Rangers of the same color existing at the same time: "Too much pink energy is dangerous."

• When fighting the Putties in the Youth Center, Zack employs his "Hip Hop Kido", a fusion of fighting and break-dancing he taught in the original series, in episodes such as "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Bloom of Doom".

• While the Rangers are visiting the cemetery, Minotaur destroys a gravestone for Harvey Garvey, a character from "Lights, Camera, Action". The appearance of said gravestone confirms that the character has since passed away.

• When Minh sees a vision of her mother's memories from the Yellow Ranger's morpher, multiple clips of Trini taken directly from the series are shown.

• The special ends with a scene from season 2 episode The Song of Guitardo, featuring Kimberly performing the song Down the Road. The scene ends on the shot with Trini before fading out to show the tribute to Thuy Trang and Jason David Frank.

Callbacks to other series

• The news report Minh watches on her phone is from BuzzBlast, a media agency from Power Rangers Dino Fury. In Dino Fury's finale episode, Jane Fairview had announced plans to open a BuzzBlast office in Angel Grove. In said scene, the news report was reported by Annie, with Benny Joy Smith reprising her role.

• Rita captures several Rangers from Beast Morphers, Dino Thunder, In Space, Wild Force and Lost Galaxy. The names of the cities in which they operate in were listed in the Bandora Protocol that Alpha activates.

  • The Rangers that are captured by Robo-Rita are actually Lightning Collection figures to represent each Ranger that was captured.

• This special debuts S.P.A. (presumably named Space Patrol Alpha), an organization relating to, or a predecessor of, Space Patrol Delta. In connection to the timeline relative to Power Rangers S.P.D., members Aisha and Adam note that they were in battle with the Troobian Empire on Sirius, which was the founding place of S.P.D. and the home-world of Anubis Cruger.

• Adam mentions that Cestria misses Billy. Her home planet, Aquitar is also mentioned to be place where Adam and Aisha plan to take the captured Rangers for recovery.

• J.J. Oliver is mentioned but never seen. His last "appearance" was in "Dimensions in Danger", an episode from Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel.

• The fact that both Bulk and Skull have established a company directly builds upon the fact that Skull was seen rich in Power Rangers Super Samurai.

• Billy mentions bringing Minh a souvenir from Mirinoi, the homeworld of the Galaxy Rangers from Power Rangers Lost Galaxy.

• The "Z-Wave" is fandom term referring to the wave of energy emitted from Zordon's sacrifice at the end of Power Rangers in Space, which was officially canonized in this special.

• Billy’s secret Command Center appears to also have been inspired by the Command Center from Power Rangers Zeo.

• Rita's goal of using various Ranger teams to accumulate Morphin Grid power is similar to Lord Drakkon's plan from Shattered Grid. This was previously foreshadowed by Adam Daniels in Power Rangers Beast Morphers when he warned Grid Battleforce of the dangers of Morph-X.

The Verdict:

I honestly was NOT going to review this, but after watching it after work last night, I HAVE to say something about this.

As a homage, Power Rangers: Once & Always is an excellent homage and tribute to the Power Rangers franchise as a whole for the 30+ years that it's been around. Their touching tributes to the late Thuy Thang and Jason David Frank were marvelously well done. 

As a story to expand their continuity along with the presentation of this at various points, I have some gripes with this that I have put out there. 

The Good

Boy, if you are a Billy Cranston fan, you get a LOT to love about that character here. He essentially reestablishes himself as the go-to guy in terms of all of the Ranger Tech being applied by the current Ranger teams in existence once the "Bandora Protocol" goes into effect. Adam Park and Aisha (who are both members of Space Patrol Alpha?) even thank Billy for his "stealth" technology that has allowed them to track Troobian Empire. 

(Record scratch) If SPD doesn't take place until the year 2025, then we're scary close to the events of that timeline (namely the Troobians invading the planet of Sirius) playing out, right? Then again, if we're in that Power Rangers "multiverse" of shit playing out like what was introduced in Beast Morphers and echoed again in Dino Fury, then that could be a different universe altogether. Ugh, this is going to be too hard to make sense of, especially when we see later in this special that Robo-Rita's goons have captured Grid Battleforce Red, Blue, and Gold Rangers. 

According to Continuity and placement reports on the Ranger Wiki, this special takes place 30 years after the events of "Day of the Dumpster" while managing to be set BEFORE the events of Power Rangers SPD, as the Troobian Empire is still locked in battle on the planet Sirius. The 2022 segment of this special takes place before the events of Dino Fury, while the 2023 segment takes place after. 

Billy gets a LOT of shine in this special as he's pretty much the defacto leader in this ordeal from start to finish. He's even the one who impales Robo-Rita with his Power Lance during the story's climax. Walter Jones' Zack gets a lot of screen time as well and it's great to see him, Billy, and Minh play off of each other. 

There's a lot of great moments in this special that takes you right back to the original season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and that's a GREAT thing, especially in terms of nostalgia. This special goes above and beyond to knock it out of the park in terms of recapturing the magic that made people fall in love with Power Rangers in the first place and to celebrate the 30 years of history that this franchise has had since. This was a MUCH better anniversary celebration of sorts than whatever the fuck it was we got with Super Megaforce a few years ago. 

Robo-Rita Repulsa (voiced by Barbara Goodson) downright ruthless in this. She's no longer the bumbling sorceress that we've come to know from the Zordon Era of Power Rangers. She was accidentally revived by Billy who was too eager to revive Zordon using some of the residual energy that he collected from the Z-Wave that annihilated the Zordon Era villains at the end of Power Rangers In Space. He wind up collecting Rita's evil energy instead, who quickly took Alpha 8's robot body as her own, destroying him in the process. Robo-Rita wastes no time killing Trini Kwan within the first 10 minutes of this special in a blast that was meant for Billy Cranston. I appreciated that they finally gave us a canonical explanation to explain Trini's whereabouts since MMPR that wasn't something found in the Boom! Studios Power Rangers comics. This entire special was devoted to honoring her memory and legacy to the franchise while honoring the late Jason David Frank as well. To be fair, this special is focused more on Trini as Jason David Frank didn't pass away until after this special was done filming. 

I really have to rave about the fight choreography in this. I saw vast improvements in their choreography in Dino Fury and I appreciate it even more here, especially when you know that they made this without using any Sentai footage whatsoever outside of the flashback snippets. If this is a preview of what we can come to expect out of an original Power Rangers season that doesn't use/recycle any previous Super Sentai footage, then I'm all for it in terms of the Ranger suit battles.  

The amount of Easter Eggs and callbacks to stuff in the original season(s) of MMPR, along with other nods to various other points in Power Rangers lore is insane. I definitely didn't catch all of them on my first watch but the full list of them is mentioned earlier in this write-up.

The Bad

I'm going to chuck it up to nerves working with the OG/original cast members, but Charlize "Charlie" Kersh's acting as Minh Kwan was a little rough around the edges for most of this. It came off as a little "try hardish" at points, but by the end of this special, I was on-board to seeing more of her character. It was just that the opening portions of this special were pretty rough with her character (at least for me anyway). She's allegedly going to appear in the upcoming Power Rangers: Cosmic Fury, so that's something to look forward to. For the record, I thought Steve Cardenas' (Rocky) attempts at acting was FAR worse than Kersh's though if I had to compare them. 

(Laughs) If I was looking for Emmy or Oscar award-winning performances then I wouldn't be watching Power Rangers would I?

Speaking of Rocky, him and Kat are essentially just there for the ride for most of this outside of a few one-liners. They have next to no interactions with Minh, but that is understandable since they weren't close to Trini like the original members (Billy and Zack) were. Kat all but confirms that she's essentially the mother of Tommy's son, J.J., so we at least get that much knowledge. J.J. is only briefly heard off screen in the episode "Dimensions in Danger" of Super Ninja Steel. In the Boom! Studios comics, J.J. Oliver is the son of Tommy Oliver and Katherine Hillard-Oliver, who later becomes an S.P.D. Cadet who morphs into the S.P.D. Green Dragon Ranger.

Tanya (Zeo Yellow Ranger) didn't get any love in this special, despite being Kat's best friend. Her character didn't appear properly until the series finale of MMPR and the start of Zeo, so I can understand somewhat why she wasn't part of this special. I thought it wouldn't have killed them not show how she was captured when she was the only Zeo Ranger who was captured by Robo-Rita's goons. I mean, c'mon, a montage of all of those Ranger captures would have been cool too.

And before people come at me in the comments on social media and what not, I'm all for equal representation and identification in media. I would have called this out if it were the same deal with a heterosexual couple of color that had their wife in that relationship shout out, "Help! My BLACK boyfriend is in trouble!". Look, I get it - Power Rangers isn't known for strong depictions of all walks of life, but let's not turn the need to present equal representation in your medium into merely a checkbox of criteria that your medium is merely checking off to please everyone. 

The Ugly

My god that final Zord battle looked horrible from the start to the finish. I get that they didn't have Sentai footage to use in that regard, but oh man, did this look like some piss poor CGI on that budget. 

I'm sure that long-time and hardcore Power Ranger fans will be debating and arguing the inconsistencies with the lore and explanations for the older Rangers being able to reclaim their previous powers until they are blue in the face. 

I thought now more than ever would have been the best time to bring back the Zeo powers for those who have access to them since Zordon stated they were arguably the most powerful set of Ranger powers at their disposal. That shit still doesn't make sense to me to this day why they were abandoned in favor for the Turbo powers without an explanation in that movie and the season that followed. 

In my head canon, I was watching this off the "assumption" that all of the original Rangers (and previous Ranger teams) got access back to their original Ranger powers following the Legendary Battle in Super Megaforce. (Laughs) Would it have been too hard to have all of the OG Rangers get a Master Morpher like Tommy had in Super Ninja Steel? Then again, that would have blown this special's budget through the roof, but I see it going to a great cause in terms of nostalgia. At the same time, I think that both Netflix and Hasbro should have gone all out for this 30th anniversary in terms of not sparing any dough on the expenses for this, especially if they wanted to get the bad taste of Super Megaforce out of fans' minds. 

All of that being said, the bad and ugly points that I brought up don't flat out ruin this special in the least. I would still encourage any and all Power Rangers fans (past and present) to go out of their way to check this out.

Some questions I had walking away from this...

• (Laughing) How did they have a funeral for Trini Kwan when she was atomized by Robo-Rita? It's not like there was a body. And good Lord that had to be awkward to explain to her non-Ranger friends and family. Same goes for how did they replicate her morpher and Power Coin when there wasn't anything left after Robo-Rita blasted her?

Answer: Producer Simon Bennett has stated that the Rangers went down the cliffside and retrieved her Morpher, so that mystery was solved already.

• Who is Minh Kwan's father? I can't see it being Billy when he was off-world with Cestria on Aquitar for so long until he came back to setup Cranston Tech. She was even mentioned in the end of this. 

• How was Rita Repulsa able to come back as a robot in this special when we just saw Lord Zedd revived in his previous Z-wave state in Dino Fury that occurs after this? I hope there's going to be some explanation to how he regained his previous state after being hit with the Z-wave in In Space. I thought it was a MASSIVE missed opportunity to have both versions of Rita (Goodson and Carla Perez) meet each other for this too. Machiko Soga (Rita Repulsa/Witch Bandora's original Sentai suit actress) wouldn't have been able to take part of this for obvious reasons since she passed away back in 2006. Her last recorded contribution to the franchise was depicting the Mystic Mother (from her portrayal as Heavenly Arch Saint Magiel in Mahou Sentai Magiranger's stock footage) in Power Rangers Mystic Force. Sadly, it would have been worth it just for the laughs when both versions of Divatox met up in the past. 

• If Adam and Aisha are with Space Patrol Alpha fighting the Troobians over on Sirius, when is Earth's technology and defenses going to accelerate to the point of advanced technology in Power Rangers SPD within the next three years? From the way how things sound in SPD's society, their Earth has been like that for years. What about that whole Power Rangers "multiverse" concept they introduced back in Beast Morphers? It simplified a lot of this need/urgency to try to tie every season into all of the ones before it into the same timeline and continuity.  

Watch It or Don't Bother?

That's an easy question. For any past and present fans of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (or Power Rangers in general), you owe yourself to go out of your way to check out this Netflix special. The touching tributes to the late Thuy Trang and Jason David Frank are worth the watch alone, with the icing on the cake being that we get to see a lot of the original cast back in action one more time with a ton of callbacks to the original series. 

There was a lot of love put into making this special a reality and it shows from start to finish. It was essentially a love letter to the fans (past, present, and future) that has kept this franchise alive for 30 years, while simultaneously honoring the memory of the late Thuy Trang and and Jason David Frank. I'm sure there will be some skeptics who will complain at the lack of Jason David Frank's Tommy in this, but I thought they did great with what they had to work with. JDF's unfortunate demise occurred well after filming for this special had wrapped up and he already had declined to be a part of it, so the team behind this had their hands tied.