Jason David Frank Tribute: Power Rangers Wild Force: Forever Red Review (patreon Sign ON Review for Brotoman.exe)
In Loving Memory of Jason David Frank: 1979-2022
"May the Power Protect Him"
Like many around my generation, I met Jason David Frank one afternoon as a Teenager with Attidue. While any chlid worth his salt loved power rangers, it had teenagers in bright colored outfits beating up monsters in stock footage, what's not to love?, it really kicked into gear when a new kid kicked his way into town: Tommy Oliver, a cool new kid who swept Kimberly off her feat, actually beat big beefy lead boy Jason inc ombat, and then got brainwashed because of both of those things, becoming the rangers greatest threat as Rita made her own.. and then once freed of his mind control becoming the greatest one of them. Across three classic seasons, multiple returns, and another season down the line as a mentor to a new generation, Jason David Frank was THE Power Ranger.
Thus it was tragic that we lost him. My relatoinship with the franchise may of been "I watched the first five seasons as a kid, then dropped off, saw an episode or two then watched history of power rangers as an adult", but Jason always seemed like a nice guy who genuinely loved the franchise and us the fans. He was never too ashamed to step into bright spandex and his sudden death a few days ago was a blow to us all.
So it was a sad serendepity that this long scheduled patreon sign on review for my new friend and patreon Brotoman happened to end up on this week and he was more than happy to make it into a tribute to jason. And given Tommy is the most prominent red ranger besides Wild Force's own ranger in this episode, it was perfectly approraite.
For those either only casually familar with Power Rangers or familliar with the Zordon era but not so much what came after and if so I HIGHLY recommend Linkara's exaustive History of Power Rangers series on Youtube, but for now stick with this one: Wild Force was an end of an era as it was the final Power Rangers series aired on Fox Kids, before moving to ABC Kids (the former one Saturday Morning), and an era ender.
As such this episode, which is thankfully a standalone heavy on fanservice, serves as a nice caper. To celerbate the 10th anniversary, they got back ALMOST every red ranger. Rocky, the second red morphin ranger was absent. Why? He missed a phone call. No really, they didn't have the right phone number for him and by the time it was sorted out it was too late. And the galling thing is he was supposed to be just a backup for Austin St. John… which strikes me as odd given the aquatar ranger is right there. Just replace him. Still despite this it's a huge gathering of franchise faviorites.
The special was a bit rag tag, basing itself on a similar sentai special but using mostly new footage. It was INTENDED to both be an hour long special and have a much snappier climax.. but both things were shot down by new owners Disney wondering "Why are you spending so much time to promote old toys"
But what we get is a fun, cheesy half hour ride through the franchises history up to that point. So come with me as we honor Jason David Frank and may the power protect us all as we look at Forever Red.
Forever Red opens on the Moon, where a bunch of robots from the Machine Empire dig up a giant robot dragon named serpentera entirely missing the moonlander colony
Yup this is power rangers: cheesy as heck, but gloriously and unafraidly so. For those needing a refresher the Machine Empire were the main villians of season 2, a giant unstoaple machine army.. that translated to the usual "send a giant monster to get his ass kicked by teenagers" formula, but still were neat. So using a few spare suits from another bit of my childhood, whose title must be said in song as is in my contrast
Which was dope.. and far more insane than I remembered. Though the comic strip bit always bugs me anytime I listen to this. There.. two diffrent mediums guys. Their both some of my faviorite mediums, but come on.
They had some remnants of the empire surivive to ressurect serpentera, Lord Zed's giant murder dragon WMD who is on the moon because it was in the writer's fanfic.
Luckily for earth, Andros, the red space ranger, is there, in a cloak because he generally likes to cloak around when he's being sneaky even if it dosen't remotely work as camoflage here on a robot covered moon. He plans to go warn the others but accidently trips a rock and then gets CHASED ON HORSEBACK BY TWO OF THE MACHINE EMPIRE GUYS, whose names i'm not bothering to learn as they all have the same personality of
But let's not bury the lead; TWO ROBOTS ARE CHASING AS SPACEMAN ON HORSES. I now want a full graphic novel from boom detaling why the machine empire has horses, what these majestic space horses can do, and why we never saw them again after scenes. I also applaud whoever was on set, saw they could get horses and decided "fuck it i'm going to have these big bad beetle borgs chase Andros on horseback". That person deserves a nobel for their contributions to humanity.
So we go to Bulk's poolside hangout spot, probably built where Ernies used to be, where he's regaling Skull with tales.. tales he was there for because they got into all kinds of weird shit together and tails he'll undoubtly pass on to Skull's own child when he raises him for a year as a samurai because he saw some power rangers do it and thought it'd be badass.
They get a call for Tommy, whose identity some cut stuff confirms they DO know now and it does make sense: it'd be easy to connect the dots from the space rangers unmasking in the finale of that series, to the guys who directly mentored them. Probably. Look I just like the idea they and tommy were friends. Tommy also has some very pointy frosted tips because clearly Jason tried out for Zoolander and didn't get the part and hadn't been able to wash them out when they filmed it.
We cut to.. wherever Wild Force is where Cole Evans, this series red ranger is picked up by Carter Grayson, Lightspeed Red Ranger and certified badass. How Carter does it is hilarious.. he just comes up to him in a park, says "are you the red wildforce ranger" and flashes his morpher like a badge to assure he's not some creepy weirdo who figured it all out.
Cole is also a lot. He looks like this
He looks like he escaped from the set of Miami Connection and it is glorious. His actor.. less so. I'll comment on this so no one else brings it up: Cole's actor murdered a man with a replica conan the barbarian sword, pled guilty to it, and while he's served his sentence he's understandably not being invited back to any other series after he ran a man through with a sword. I brought it up to get it out of the way. Granted even if he hadn't commited murder, i'd still be making fun of this guy for his hammy acting, hilarously awesome bandanda, and sleeveless vest, all of which is both cheesily enjoyable and gloriously stupid, but the fact he ran a man through with a fully functional replica conan sword just makes it go down easier. I limited myself to one Jason David Frank's frosted Tips Joke since he just died and all, I gotta get my laughs where I can.
So Cole runs off with a stranger and alone
And they meet at a Nasada warehouse where most of the other previous rangers show up: TJ from Turbo and In Space, Wes and Eric from Time Force (Whose quantum ranger was also red), and of course the king of all rangers, Tommy Olvier, former green and white mighty morphin ranger, red turbo ranger before TJ, future Black Dino Ranger and for this special Red Zeo ranger. Three are missing with Leo Corbett being later shown grabbing his sword that turns him into a ranger back, and picking up the Aquitian ranger because they had the costume so why not.
Tommy, naturally taking point as a living legend among the others as he damn well should be, has Andros fill them in: Serpentera is on the moon, the machines need to be stopped from using it to wipe out earth as it's that powerful and they got a fresh pack of triple a batteries for it, and he united all the red rangers and not every ranger he could get for such a mission.. because it was all Disney could afford and it gave them a badass looking group theme regardless of how many diffrent teams are represented.
They plan to blast off in a recreation of the astro megaship, but their one short…. until Jason, the old son of a bitch rides up on his motorcycle. I planned to make the joke that we were just one handclap shy of the "you son of a bitch" scene from predator.. only for him and Tommy to FUCKING do it. I love this gloriously stupid franchise, bless you writers for just going ahead and doing it.
So our heroes head to the moon, and meet up with the other two and we get a truly badass sequence of EVERY ranger present having some morphing time as we get EVERY morph sequence. I'm convinced a good chunk of the budget went into this and it. was. worth. it.
What follows is about 5 minutes of awesome fight scenes. We get Jason and Cole back to back and they get the most actual character interactoin: there was more planned but you know
With Jason chiding the rookie.. but also clearly mentoring him a bit: sure he's ribbing the guy a tad, but after saving his ass gladly lets him get some shots in and fights along side him. He may give the rookie crap as he's going through some things while his actor goes through some criminal charges, but their both rangers through and through and he knows that.
We also get cool swordfight with thankfully not coll, but TJ and Leo, as well as a fun gun fight with Carter and one of the time force rangers. It's a solid bit of power rangers action. We also got an unmorphed fight I almost forgot about earlier that just.. kinda happened so fair enough me. I saved the best for last though as Tommy kicks off the fight.. literally by SUPER KICKING ONE OF THE MACHINE EMPIRE SO HARD HE EXPLODES. If anything summed up Jasons glorious long tenure with the franchise, it's Tommy Oliver super kicking a robot to death. That or him kicking Goldar while scremaing "out of your mind!".. which I couldn't find a clip or gif of.
The finale.. is infamously stupid. Like I said they wanted to maybe break out some zords, the astromegazord.. something.. instead to promote a toy Cole flies into serperntera, gets a zenkai boost or somethinga nd blows the fucker up. It's hliariously dumb to see Beef McLargehuge do this.. but kind of an antic climax after some really good fight coregraphy that showed off the various rangers skill sets.
Still the ending is nice as Tommy literally walks off into the sunset, Cole rightfully calls him the greatest ranger ever, and we get a fun scene of the other rangers piping in all the insane shit they did caping off this episode.
Forever Red is a nicely paced anniversary showcase, throwing in everything from nasada, to the machine empire to serpentera. Even Alpha gets a cameo and my boy Richard Steve Horvitz gets a paycheck. It's a loveletter to power rangers and while cheesy as hell, it's in the best way possible. Wethere your familiar with the franchise or not, it's a fun, bonkers 20 minutes of action, heart, and tommy oliver being badass. If you can think of a better way to honor jason than watching him do a predator handclasp and super kick robots ont he moon.. there probably is , but this is certainly one of the best. May the power protect you jason…
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hihi!! im a new follower and got introduced to your blog from tact!donnie and i absolutely ADORE your writing fr
like dork you got me goin FERAL for a preference i never knew i HAD???
Mad respect and mad props to you bro holy shit, this is the PINNACLE, the STANDARD , that i have to achieve for my own writing goals.
im gonna start on CtM soon, (been celerbating lunar new year so no time), but i just wanted to say that im genuinely so excited to start, especiall with the rave rviews from so many other blogs. thank you for blessing everyone with your works of art, and may your water forever stay fresh 💗
Hi! Welcome! I must say you are going in the most incredible reading order known to man because my tact!Donnie is a dirty filth (/pos) while CTM is a general aged romance of sweetness and angst! 😆
I hope you enjoy! Happy Lunar New Year!
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