What if MMPR had been adapted from Fiveman instead of Zyuranger?

[Black Fang]

Having finished watching Fiveman for the second time, now with subtitles, I've started to wonder whether Saban could have adapted this show instead of Zyuranger for MMPR. I think it would've been the easiest of the pre-Zyuranger shows to work with. Consider:

1) The team's color palate is the same as Zyuranger's, plus there are already two females, so there'd be no need to swap the sexes for Yellow.

2) Footage of the Magma Base from the outside can easily be used for the Command Center.

3) Arthur G6 could be your Alpha 5. The episode where Arthur first transforms into the Earth Cannon could easily be adapted into an episode where Alpha feels "useless" and wants to be more active in the Rangers' fights.

4) Zone footage is easily dubbed over, like Bandora and Lami were with Zyuranger. Empress Medou could be "Rita Repulsa".

5) The Fivemen's backstory with Zone when they were children could be made into Zordon's long war against Zone.

What do you think? Would using Fiveman have made Power Rangers the juggernaut it was in the 90s, or would it have just been a flash-in-the-pan 90s thing without the dinosaur hook?

 

[Dr Kain]

I'm sure any series Saban would have started with would have been a hit, though probably not as quickly. I really think the dinosaur theme is what made PR a smash instantaneously.

Though, I fell in love with Power Rangers the moment I saw an advertisement in a toy magazine that talked about the show (Goldar's name in the book was Flyguy) without even having any actual footage. I basically saw the words "super heroes," "aliens," and "giant robots" and was instantly sold. I told my mom about the article the next day and like 3 hours later a commercial appeared on TV advertising the show as coming in a few weeks.

 

[Black Fang]

Fair point.

On second thought, Turboranger might have been able to work too, just for the car theme. Also, the TurboBuilder base would've worked as the Command Center just as well. Although you'd still need to sex-swap Yellow, in which case Fiveman solves that problem.

 

[Shougo B'Stard]

Pretty much what Kain said with the dinosaurs. I don't know why kids like dinosaurs so much, but especially coming off of Jurassic Park, I think just the fact that the heroes were dinosaurs was a large, large part of MMPR's success.

As sugar-coated as Fiveman is, I'd still have a hard time imagining it as MMPR. I think it's mainly due to all of the face-actor villains. Saban wouldn't have had a problem dubbing over them, but it's hard to imagine characters like Billion being like "Eat a sock, Power Twerps, HIYAAAAAAAAAA!" Zyuranger was bonkers, so the PR staff was fortunate to be able to get away with a lot of their own weirdness and comedy with the same footage. Bandora was already so over-the-top, the silly crap they wrote for Rita could fit. That wouldn't be the case with Medo, and they weren't going to actually take writing the thing seriously.

Kinda reminds me of how some people once insisted that Maskman would have been the ideal MMPR source. For a lot of the same reasons, like the colors would have worked out more. Like, what? First of all, don't ruin Maskman like that. Secondly...if MMPR's action got parent groups in a tizzy, they definitely wouldn't have liked Maskman.

Though, I fell in love with Power Rangers the moment I saw an advertisement in a toy magazine that talked about the show (Goldar's name in the book was Flyguy)

Funny -- my intro to Power Rangers was the magazine Hero Illustrated covering the toys, in which Goldar's name was listed as Dreadwing. Like Power Rangers could ever deliver a character worthy of that name!

 

[Dr Kain]

I'd say kids love dinosaurs for the same reason they love Godzilla, giant freaking monsters.

 

[Al_Taransky]

Fiveman might be a hurdle to their plans of a diverse cast because they are siblings but on the other hand, The nininjers are cousins but are not related on the American version.

 

[scikaiju]

Don't think that them being siblings would have mattered, inGoGoV they were siblings too and in MagiRanger but that didn't affect their PR counterpart in any way.

 

[Dr Kain]

Fiveman might be a hurdle to their plans of a diverse cast because they are siblings but on the other hand, The nininjers are cousins but are not related on the American version.

Same with GoGoFive and Lightspeed Rescue and Magiranger and Mystic Force.

 

[Al_Taransky]

I kinda wish we have sibling team rangers in the US.... if they want diversity, They can be step siblings

 

[Dr Kain]

I kinda wish we have sibling team rangers in the US.... if they want diversity, They can be step siblings

Agreed. I've also never understood why they felt Power Rangers needed to fill a checklist in every season.