Trivia / Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie

• Box Office Bomb: This movie was not a surprise hit like the first film, as it had a lower budget with smaller distribution and advertising campaign, not to mention the gradual decline of the popularity of the Power Rangers brand. This caused significant confusion when Power Rangers Turbo premiered, as very few fans actually saw the movie that sets up most of the new status quo.
• California Doubling: The scenes taking place in Muiranthias were actually filmed in Iao Valley in West Maui, Hawaii.
• Channel Hop: As with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, the film stayed with 20th Century Fox despite the sale of the franchise to Disney, its subsequent buyback by Saban and sale to Hasbro years later. Funnily enough, Disney's acquisition of Fox in March 2019 included both movies, giving them pieces of Power Rangers history once more.
• Deleted Role: A mermaid character called Mandika had a significant supporting role. Her scenes were filmed but the entire character was deleted from the movie. The only remnant of her existence was a mention of the prosthetics being done by the Chiodo Brothers (who also handled the Maligore and Elgar costume effects and the baby eagle puppets) on an earlier version of their website.
• Deleted Scene: There are reports of a nearly 3 hour version of the movie, including a sequence where the Zeo Rangers get trounced by the Pirahnatrons and better justifying the need for the Turbo powers. The VHS/DVD back cover shows Tommy and Kat using a flamethrower in the jungle, which doesn't happen in the movie.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: The main reason Rocky is written out with an injury is because Steve Cardenas on the previous season had appealed to producers to get all the cast members a pay rise (for similar reasons that Austin St John, Thuy Trang and Walter Jones had eventually left the original series). When they refused, he opted to leave the show to open his own karate school. There was a rumor that he had injured himself in the series and tried to hide it, but they incorporated that into the story.
• Sequel in Another Medium: The film takes place shortly after the Power Rangers Zeo TV series.
• Shoot the Money: The morphing sequence in this film was the most advanced morphing sequences in both Power Rangers and Super Sentai at the time, and likely the most expensive. Considering Saban's propensity for cheapness, it's no surprise it got reused in the series. Unfortunately, it was usually used in its complete form (with the Ranger yelling "(Vehicle's name), Turbo Power!" and the suit coming on in stages before a CG helmet formed on their head), taking up time a movie could spare but not a half-hour TV episode and throwing and dragging on during what should be the episode's big action moment. The production team seemed to have learned their lesson when the 2nd set of Turbo Rangers got their own morphing sequence which was less flashy but also quicker. Later seasons would make better looking morphs without dragging out the length.
• Wag the Director: Austin St John would only return as Jason under two conditions - more pay (as he needed to support himself and his mother) and for Jason to turn evil. They compromised by having Jason and Kimberly be brainwashed into evil and turned back by Lerigot after a fight scene.
• What Could Have Been: Enough for its own page
• Working Title: The working title of this movie was Power Rangers: Race to the Volcano. Another alternate title for the movie was Turbo: A Power Rangers Adventure. Although the reason for this change is unclear, it was presumably done to more clearly associate it with the then upcoming season and thus not seem standalone. The second was likely altered due to sounding extremely generic given almost every episode is some kind of adventure.

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