Awesome / History of Power Rangers

• His decision to make the series. Okay, so on the surface it doesn't seem like much, but it's the fact that he's Doing It for the Art makes it so awesome. How? Well, to start things off, he made an original opening showing all the Power Ranger teams fighting monsters as well as a sliding effect of all of the Power Ranger members and series logos with tight editing making it seem really professional in scope. Next and more importantly, he not only chooses to take a serious-analysis approach, but he's willingly subjecting himself to full-on Archive Panic twice. He admits that he didn't rewatch all the Zordon Era episodes but after the first 293 episodes, he's willingly watching 266 hours of Power Rangers just for the fun of learning what went on in Power Rangers after he stopped watching. He eventually got through all of the many seasons of Power Rangers and managed to catch up, allowing him to make episodes about the newest seasons once they're released on DVD.
  • His work to remaster the older reviews to avoid copyright issues should also be mentioned as he takes the time to write new jokes, add material he initially skipped, and followed up on a number of points that new information had since come to light.
• Showrunner Simon Bennett discovered the video for Beast Morphers and praised it for the work put into it and in a follow up tweet to Lewis revealed that he found it on his own ^note Lewis asks that people don't send his videos to anyone involved in the show and that a few of the writers had seen it too and were fans.
• His very furious and epic rant to close off part one of Power Rangers Turbo...
  Linkara: Instead, we've got a friggin' twelve-year-old driving around in a supercar, the Rangers tossing the keys to their weapons over to a bunch of untested newbies, our wise leader and quirky-but-intelligent robot buddy replaced with a woman pretending to be deep and her jive-talking faux-street robot, intergalactic empires with armies of deadly soldiers replaced with a woman whose mask doesn't fit right in a submarine along with her incompetent nephew, and her tendency to whine every five seconds because she doesn't have the good sense to set her damn explosives for thirty seconds instead of an hour, AND WE HAVE A POLICE LIEUTENANT RUNNING A FREAKIN' JUICE BAR!!! GAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGHH!!!!!!
  Rita Repulsa: I have a headaaache!!
• Power Rangers Lost Galaxy:
  • He restores a fight scene to Ron Wasserman's "Hero" to show how the music in the show sorely missed his involvement (something he calls "The Wasserman Factor").
  • It's only a brief praise moment, but there's his mentioning of the filler episode "The Rescue Mission". He describes it as "Essentially an Aliens ripoff, but for a kids show, it's simply spectacular." Lewis, despite his love of the show, is not always keen on handing out open praise, so for him to give it such high praise is pretty awesome to hear.
• Power Rangers Wild Force:
  • The original opening of the season has Lewis very firmly making his case that the "History of Power Rangers" series has no set schedule and constantly complaining about how long it's taking for the next update only makes the series seem like a chore, yet remains relatively calm, if very testy and aggravated, with zero profanity.
  • The extended What the Hell, Hero? to Animus. Linkara essentually calls Power Rangers' closest thing to God an eco-terrorist.
  • Despite how polarizing Power Rangers Wild Force is, Linkara says that isn't as bad as people make it out to be; the only massive criticisms he hands out are Animus being a dick, Shayla taking the jackets along with the morphers, and a small one about Merrick using his Power Crystals as pool balls. Otherwise, he praises it for the plot and doesn't moan about the Growl Morphers (which are not phone morphers, only phone shaped, as they only have one button to press to morph, not a key combination). In fact, he says Wild Force is at least better than Power Rangers Operation Overdrive (though to be fair, that's not saying very much...) and Power Rangers Turbo (but again, Linkara loathes Turbo; in fact, it was the season he called the worst until he saw Operation Overdrive), and it's likely he'd prefer Wild Force to Ninja Storm (if only because the story of Wild Force is just "iffy" to Linkara, whilst the story of Ninja Storm is great when done right, but horrible when not); plus Wild Force has a more Ron Wasserman-like theme than Ninja Storm does (and Linkara loves Wasserman-made songs or ones like his). In addition, Jindrax, Toxica and Zen-Aku all probably put Wild Force above Ninja Storm, since the latter has only one good major villain out of a larger group, as opposed to Wild Force having three good villains out of four major villains. The fact that all three of them are redeemed probably adds to Linkara's appreciation of the series. Obviously, he doesn't think Wild Force is better than Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Power Rangers in Space, Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, or Power Rangers Time Force, but he'd never rank it as low as Power Rangers Operation Overdrive or Power Rangers Megaforce.
  • In his re-release of the Wild Force retrospective, Linkara's previous complaints and attacks towards both it and later series are excised for a more nuanced and focused retrospective of the series. He still complains about how much Animus is a Jerkass and how Princess Shayla was The Load outside of that one awesome moment where she fights Toxica, his main complaint this time around just comes from the pacing near the end of the series, suggesting that director Jonathan Tzachor was so into the Sentai iterations that it bled into the series. He praises the greater usage of original unmorphed fight scenes and winces at how brutal the scenes where Master Org blasts Cole can be. As well, he praises how amazing "Reinforcements from the Future" is story- and action-wise, comparing it to Lost Galaxy's "To The Tenth Power" and gushing at how awesome Jen's fight scenes are. He even praises "Forever Red" for accomplishing what it set out to do, even with the Executive Meddling put into play by Disney.
• Coming up with a detailed explanation of the meaning behind Tommy's Battle in the Center of the Mind in Power Rangers: Dino Thunder that fits perfectly with the evidence given and is actually a quite moving piece of Character Development.
• Berating an extremely sexist line from the SPD pilot.
• Someone on the boards made the jaw-dropping statement that the franchise should never have a female Red Ranger, because the fans wouldn't accept it. Linkara's reply:
  It's not different anywhere. Sexist people exist all over. And my point remains: "sexist people wouldn't like it" is not a valid justification for saying there shouldn't be one. Being open-minded does not mean you sacrifice your own opinions, either. And even then, I see no reason why I should be open-minded to people who are CLOSED-minded. The idea of judging a leadership position by one's gender when the position does not require one to be a specific gender is an irrational, hateful thought process. If you want to listen to that position, fine, but there's no reason why it should be given any serious thought beyond that and I would argue against it every time. The presence of a uterus, the presence of breasts, the presence of a womb, the presence of a vagina, and the lack of a penis has nothing to do with the ability to lead a team of multicolored superheroes against threats demonic, alien, or otherwise. THAT is the end of the discussion.
• His opinions on possible ways they could have improved the Power Rangers Mystic Force pilot, giving us several ways both small (use the Sentai's magic of courage) or big (the difference between knowledge and belief in magic to activate their powers) ways to change the eventual Central Theme into something much better. Also, his very respectful line that it's easily possible to tell a good and mature story for children without talking down to them.
• Operation Overdrive:
  • Despite his contempt for the season, his review comes across as measured and calm for the most part, as he is willing to praise the series for the parts it does well in, as well as condemn it in where it fails. Given he outright stated he considers it the worst of Power Rangers and that History of Power Rangers is biased, the fact that he still gives the time to praise aspects such as the Foreshadowing of Mack's true nature and the good acting involved in The Reveal is a small awesome moment.
  • His jumping to the defense of stuntmen after Dax, who is a stuntman, is mocked. ^note He was given a dinky chair, with a half-assed "Stunt" sign, next to the bigger, more professional-looking chairs.
  • Tracking down and making a montage of the biggest moments in previous seasons where the Rangers refused to give up even after losing their powers or having the odds otherwise stacked heavily against them, to demonstrate how much worse this team comes off in comparison.
  • Just the way he tears into the Overdrive Rangers. It can be immensely satisfying for the many fans who absolutely detest Operation Overdrive.
  • His condemnation of Samuell Benta literally stealing from sick children. And while doing this condemnation, he shows a clip of Will fighting the rest of the Rangers in the original video and Kamdor in the re-upload, making it look like an in-context what-if message that the other Rangers, and even the villain, do not approve Benta's act. Furthermore, Linkara states that if Benta came forward and earnestly apologized for what he did, he'd forgive him. Forgiving someone for something terrible that they honestly regret takes a lot of moral fiber, and it's impressive that Linkara has it.
    • In February 2020, Samuell Benta finally made a statement about this, claiming that he only took the banner to the green room to get it signed and that it was taken when he wasn't looking. When Linkara was asked if he planned to make any kind of addendum to the Operation Overdrive video, he announced in his next "State of the Wall" post that he had decided against it, pointing out that there are still several reasons to doubt his version of events, and arguing that even if he is telling the truth, he is still culpable in the banner going missing (since, by his own admission, he took it without being asked to and let it out of his sight) and losing money for the charity (which he never attempted to make amends for). Lewis later (very briefly) reiterated this point in the revised Wild Force review. Additionally, this gives another awesome points: Had Lewis not called Benta out, he wouldn't be forced to come out and explain himself.
  • His admission that Tyzonn's backstory (the leader of a search and rescue team who lost his team due to a judgement call and is thus unwilling to join another team) was actually pretty good, and made his lone wolf attitude relatively reasonable due to survivor's guilt.
  • Giving a nice detailed explanation of why Moltor and Flurious act how they do and how it ties into their nature.
• Calling out Jungle Fury for saying a kid fighting back against bullies is "the highest form of evil".
• Power Rangers RPM:
  • What he has to say about Doctor K. He talks about how the season proves that any kids' show can have complex characters, deep themes, and still appeal to children as well, hence why he does what he does with Power Rangers. On that note, he gives Doctor K perhaps the highest praise possible: He calls her the best character in the show. While it's not clear whether he means RPM locally or the entire franchise, her character recap really makes her sound like a character on a big budget network show rather than on something more simplistic like Power Rangers.
  • His discussion on the nature of Darker and Edgier vs Lighter and Softer and why RPM is much more the mature, serious Power Rangers series that the franchise deserves rather than the film Power/Rangers that came out around the time of this video's release.
  • In Part 4 of RPM, as Linkara describes the victory against Venjix, he cuts to a music video of characters of various seasons from MMPR to RPM, all set to "How Far We've Come". When the "Let's see how far we've come" lyrics play, Linkara juxtaposes the MMPR team with the RPM team.
  • How about the fact that he was willing to go further with Power Rangers after RPM. There was nothing stopping him from stopping where he originally intended at RPM, but no, he's willing to continue going through with this difficult task despite the time and frustrations he experiences with it.
• Power Rangers Samurai:
  • After Mentor Ji takes away Antonio's morpher (which Antonio made by himself), Linkara goes on a furious rant about how poor a "mentor" Ji is.
    Linkara: [sarcastic chuckling, then suddenly dead-serious] Who the hell are you? No, seriously! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?! You don't even have a first goddamn name "Mentor" and yet you get to dictate who is and isn't qualified to be a ranger?! THAT'S HIS MORPHER, ASSHOLE! He's the only member of this team who actually chose of his own free will to DO this crap!
  • His anger at how dickish the Rangers act around Lauren just because "she's not Jayden", especially after the sealing symbol fails to stop Master Xandred and none of them can be bothered to go and comfort her in spite of the thing she spent her whole life working for turning out to be for nothing.
    Emily: [Lauren] spent her whole life learning the sealing symbol. And it was all for nothing.
    Linkara: Yeah, it's a pity you guys aren't going to comfort her or anything. GOD YOU SUCK!
  • His tearing the writers a new one about Jayden's "secret" being that he has a sister and him making a big deal of it is awesome, pretty much ripping apart about how Jayden is the one who started the dilemma of Lauren and the rest of the team by leaving for no reason.
• Power Rangers Megaforce:
  • Linkara calling out how dumb and redundant the title for the season is.
  Linkara: Super. Mega. Force. Why even stop there? Maxi-Extreme-Ultra-Super-Duper-Mega-Cyber-Radical-Supreme-Legendary-Top-Secret Force, while you're at it!
  • Linkara telling Troy to shut it when he tries the new "win-cry".
    Linkara: SUPER-MEGA-SHUDDUP!!!
  • His tearing apart of how ridiculously wasted the "never-before-seen-on-Earth" powers are, since like the first season Gosei just ''gives'' them the powers for no reason, and the opportunity for world-building was staring the writers in the face.
  • He accurately sums up the theme for Power Rangers Megaforce. It isn't that humanity will survive if they work together or even twenty years of the Power Rangers condensed into forty episodes. It's a bizarre form of laziness. Then Linkara points out that they took their laziness to a whole new level by recording all new footage with the old Sentai suits standing with the MMPR Red Ranger instead of just doing new footage with post-Jetman suits instead.
  • While he rips the season apart, he DOES defend traits he liked, of note admitting that as bland as they are, the Megaforce team is STILL better than the Overdrive team and more likable, and pointing out that while Gia doesn't get much focus, her actor managed to convey a lot of character in her body language.
  • A sort of retro-CMOA. You wanna know why Linkara used "How Far We Have Come" for RPM but not Megaforce? Because he felt like it fitted more with RPM (as they grew the beard to its fullest potential, while Samurai and Megaforce pretty much shaved it), and that if it was applied to Megaforce, it would be more ironic.
  • Although minor, Linkara points out that, even if they had a limited run of episodes (compressing two 40+ episode seasons into twenty-episode seasons), Megaforce had no excuse to skimp out by pointing out examples of both modern day cartoons and even previous Power Rangers.
  • He also points out how much children's television has changed in the twenty years since the franchise started, which the people behind this show seem to be completely unaware of. Especially its trying to give episodes morals like ignoring a bully will make them go away, which have since been completely debunked.
• Power Rangers Beast Morphers
  • Linkara praises The Reveal that Evox was actually a reborn Venjix and how it pays tribute to a previous series despite not being an anniversary, explicitly calling out Super Megaforce's lame usage. He equally praises the Character Development of Dr. K, how she grew from the events of RPM and uses it to help Nate out of his Heroic BSoD.
• Power Rangers Dino Fury
  • Linkara praises Izzy and Fern's relationship in the series, noting that, outside of Power Rangers (2017) hinting that Trini was a lesbian, this was the first major usage of LGBT+ representation in the series and how, instead of minor one-off characters, it's a main and minor character, ones we'll see over and over again.
  • He calls out the overusage of past characters in that the sudden usage of the Morphin' Masters and the return of Lord Zedd just feels like nostalgia-bating for nostalgia-bating's sake unlike Mick and the Ninja Prism Star's return, which serves as a nice follow up to Ninja Steel.
  • Linkara's impressed when Ollie's mother vows to ruin everything Void Knight has if he harmed her kid and his friends.
    Linkara Damn! Can't we make her a Ranger?
  • Linkara just flips out after he realizes the sheer Continuity Snarl that is Beast Morphers' placement in the Power Rangers multiverse scheme and how it just clashes with everything else.
  • Linkara praises quite a few episodes. He praises the Camping Episode as Ollie's tech helped save the day and it didn't try to cram a "disconnect from technology" moral to it. A lot of episodes he praises are Izzy's episodes, including an episode about predatory scams and attempting a Long-Distance Relationship with Fern.
  • Linkara also praises the excellent Santaura and Tarrick storyline, noting it positively for the surprising complexity of the situation and the emotional stakes it posed for Amelia. What especially stood out to him was how it managed to be very subtle in its Foreshadowing, something that Power Rangers has generally been either incredibly blunt about, or usually so obvious that anyone could figure it out very quickly. Thus the nuance and careful revelations of details (Void Knight and Queen's backstory, Pop Pop's reluctance to talk about Area 62, Amelia's mysterious parents, etc.) that fit together into a cohesive picture impressed him.
• In Cosmic Fury, Linkara was quite impressed at the symbolism of banking on nostalgia to hide the real plan for Bajilia's evil Z-Wave, using a symbol of Zordon's sacrifice to fund a never-ending war.
  • When mentioning Izzy and Fern's relationship, he has a message for those who want to post homophobic or bigoted comments on his page:
  Captain Kirk: Leave your bigotry in your quarters. There's no room for it on the bridge.
  • He praises the writers for making a tight narrative and strong character development for most of the cast, whether it's Amelia taking charge, Aiyon being more serious, or working around Kai Moya's schedule to have him evil and use the lessons he learned from Lord Zedd against him.
  • Linkara gave praise for how Lord Zedd is defeated not through a Deus ex Machina, but through wisdom and telling him how his power won't be worth it if he dies.
  • It's nice of Linkara to defend Andrew Laing's performance of Lord Zedd after hearing about the toxic fans complaining about the latter's performance in Dino Fury that forced him to leave, calling them out for unacceptable behavior.

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