Green with Evil
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Green with Evil was a five-part story arc in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series. It introduced a few new characters, but centered around Tommy Oliver, a new member of Angel Grove High and the series' namesake Green Ranger.
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[edit] Part I: Out of Control
Part I of the series begins with a karate tournament in Angel Grove. Competition in sparring has been eliminated down to two final contestants: Jason Lee Scott, the Red Ranger, and newcomer Tommy Oliver. The match ends with a draw, 4-4. Kimberly Hart, the Pink Ranger, also shows some interest in Tommy.
Rita Repulsa, impressed with Tommy's performance, sends a squad of Putties to attack him. When he defeats them, she captures him and reveals that she possesses a sixth Power Coin. Using its power, she brainwashes Tommy and turns him into her Green Ranger.
The newly-minted Green Ranger wreaks havoc on the Power Rangers; possessing the Dragon Power Coin, he can enter the Command Center. There he infects Alpha 5 with a virus, and breaks the dimensional contact with Zordon, ripping and severing much of the circuitry in the process. Later, he single-handedly defeats all five Power Rangers in combat. They are left at the end of the episode wondering what has become of Zordon, and stunned at the beating they have received from a fellow Ranger.
[edit] Part II: Jason's Battle
In Part II of the saga, Kimberly notices a change in Tommy; he has become cold and brushes her off. When Tommy encounters Jason later on, he uses his Power Coin to send Jason to Rita's dark dimension, where the Red Ranger encounters Goldar, who has stolen his morpher. Meanwhile, after defeating another group of putties, Tommy is given the Sword of Darkness, a legendary weapon which Rita's forces used against Zordon's Rangers millennia ago.
While the other Rangers are uneasy about Jason's inexplicable absence, they are quickly drawn to battle nonetheless against the Green Ranger. Armed with the Sword of Darkness, he dispatches them even more easily than before, especially in the absence of their leader. However, they call on the Megazord and force him to retreat. The episode ends with Jason at the mercy of Goldar, who has received orders from Rita to finish him.
[edit] Part III: The Rescue
While the Power Rangers attempt to find Jason and renew contact with Zordon, Jason continues his desperate confrontation with Goldar, trying to hide amidst the mist in the dark dimension. Kimberly tries to ask Tommy about Jason, but he snaps that Jason didn't show up for a practice session they had scheduled and walks off. She and Zack go to ask Tommy about Jason again, but Rita, realizing that they might suspect him of being the Green Ranger, sends a squad of putties to attack.
Green Ranger, his secret out of danger, decides that he wants the honor of defeating Jason, and teleports to the Dark Dimension just as Goldar is about to kill Jason. The fight begins anew, but while Jason is quickly overwhelmed, Tommy takes a moment to gloat over his victory, and just before he can strike the final blow with the Sword of Darkness, Billy Cranston finally isolates Jason's signature and teleports him back to the Command Center. Goldar, furious, leaves Green Ranger in the dark dimension for the time being.
With the Power Rangers reunited but no closer to finding Zordon, Rita sends one of her most dangerous minions, Scorpina, to attack Angel Grove. The Rangers do battle with her, further taxing themselves until she is recalled. While the Rangers recover in the Command Center, Alpha 5 finally finds a way to track down Zordon. He is beginning to renew contact when Rita sends Goldar to attack the city, intending to force the Rangers to summon the Megazord, all the while cooking up a spell to cause a solar eclipse and drain the Megazord's power (it is powered by solar cells). The Rangers end the episode watching desperately on the Viewing Globe.
[edit] Part IV: Eclipsing Megazord
Realizing that they have no choice but to fight yet again, the Rangers draw their morphers. However, when they try to morph, sparks fly and it doesn't work. Apparently, focusing the energy on finding Zordon drained power from the Morphing Grid, and nothing (morphers, Zords, communicators, and most of the lights in the Command Center) works. Goldar manages to tear a section of Angel Grove apart before Billy reconfigures the Command Center and restores power. The Rangers morph and go to fight Goldar.
After a short exchange with Scorpina and the giant Goldar, the Rangers have a brief confrontation with Rita. She sends Goldar to the beach, carrying a bus with Bulk and Skull in one hand. The Rangers teleport after him, trying to save the troublesome duo. After a few tense moments of watching putties pushing the bus toward a cliff, the Rangers call on their Zords, and the Megazord catches the bus just before it falls, depositing Bulk and Skull back on the cliff.
Meanwhile, Rita again sends Tommy to the Command Center, this time to get rid of Zordon for good. However, after disabling Alpha 5 again and seriously damaging the connection with Zordon, the Green Ranger is surprised to see Alpha back on his feet. Having accessed his "backup power generators", the quick-thinking robot traps Green Ranger in a force field. Unfortunately, all the progress made in finding Zordon is lost.
The Megazord, which is dealing a heavy beating to Goldar, suddenly finds itself fighting Scorpina as well, who has also been enlarged and now sports a monstrous appearance. When Rita's spell completes the solar eclipse, the Megazord is drained of power and overwhelmed by the dual attack. Jason calls for the Power Sword to give the Megazord a power boost. It works, and the Megazord is immediately back on its feet when it grabs the sword, going on the offensive again. Rita uses a spell to free Green Ranger from the Command Center force field, grows him to monstrous size, and sends him into battle as well. Overwhelmed by Goldar, Scorpina, and the Green Ranger, the Megazord is defeated. The Rangers fly out and demorph, only to see their Zords fall into a crevice in the earth and be consumed by lava.
Back in the Command Center, all the Rangers except Jason are considering surrender, with Jason and Alpha 5 desperately trying to persuade them otherwise. However, Alpha does have some good news; while Green Ranger was trapped in the force field, the computer learned his identity. The episode ends with the Rangers in shock upon discovering that their nemesis is, in fact, Tommy.
[edit] Part V: Breaking the Spell
Upon discovering that Tommy is the Green Ranger, the Power Rangers split up to find him. Kimberly does so, and is shocked when he reveals that he knows she is the Pink Ranger. Meanwhile, toasting her victory in her palace on the moon, Rita decides to complete the destruction of the Power Rangers by reviving the Dragonzord, dormant for 10,000 years. Using the Dragon Dagger, Tommy assumes control of this new Zord and wreaks havoc on Angel Grove.
As the Rangers fight a losing battle with Tommy, Alpha finally succeeds in his search for Zordon. When Zordon returns to the Command Center, he and Alpha revive the damaged Dinozords from their lava prison and return them to the Rangers. A one-on-one duel ensues between Tommy, controlling the Dragonzord, and Jason in the Tyrannosaurus. When the Dragonzord is beaten down, the Rangers call on the Megazord to finish it off.
With the Dragonzord disabled, Jason leaps from the Megazord to fight Tommy in person. The Red and Green Rangers battle back and forth in an evenly matched duel, until Jason finally throws his Power Sword at Tommy and disarms him. While the Green Ranger reels under the attack, Jason shoots and destroys the Sword of Darkness, breaking Rita's spell. When Tommy revives, he is convinced by the Rangers to join the team as the sixth and final Ranger.
[edit] Trivia
- "Green with Evil" features a number of events unusual in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series:
- Part II is one of the few times the Megazord uses the Mastodon Zord's head as a shield.
- Part IV features one of the very few face-to-face confrontations the Rangers ever have with Rita Repulsa.
- Green Ranger's growth to giant size under Rita's power marks the only time a Power Ranger ever achieves Zord size until Power Rangers: Zeo, when all five Rangers were grown by the Gold Ranger.
- The end of Part V marks one of the few times a Dinozord ever fights on its own, rather than as part of the Megazord (Jason uses the Tyrannosaurus to fight the Dragonzord). Other examples include when Jason uses the Tyrannosaurus by itself in the episode "High Five", and when the Tyrannosaurus, Mastodon, Triceratops, and Saber-Toothed Tiger attack the Samurai Fan Man in "Calamity Kimberly".
- Aside from Tommy, the saga also introduced Scorpina and Dragonzord in battle mode.
- The martial arts tournament match between Jason and Tommy, aside from establishing them as fighting equals, may be a foreshadowing of the rest of the mini-series. Jason and Tommy start off as equals, Tommy gains the upper hand, Jason comes back with little time to spare and evens the score, and at the end the two are friends.
- Green with Evil is often cited as the point where Power Rangers went from a popular franchise to a world-wide phenomenon. Tommy, the Green Ranger and the Dragonzord became immensely popular, with the former losing his powers and coming back a number of times.
- The Green Ranger is seen throughout the miniseries without a holster. After he becomes "good" his costume has a black holster for the Dragon Dagger. There are some episodes where a white holster could be seen holding either the Dragon Dagger or a standard Blade Blaster. In "Return Of An Old Friend", he had a white holster with a Blade Blaster on the right side instead of the traditional left. Also, the gold shield in Zyuranger is different from the American version. This would not be corrected until the episode Fighting Spirit, in Power Rangers: Dino Thunder. It should be noted that all the aforementioned errors in Green Ranger's costume came from American footage added to the show, not the original Super Sentai.
- At the end of Part V, Jason and Tommy shake hands, symbolizing their new friendship and Tommy's acceptance by the Ranger team. Years later in Forever Red, this scene is mirrored when Tommy and Jason shake hands again, after being separated (at least on-screen) since Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie.
- To this day, Green With Evil is the only 5-part episode to air in any Power Rangers series, and therefore still the longest. The next closest to it is Ninja Quest with 4 parts at the beginning of the 3rd season of MMPR.
- Due to its length, the mini-series aired once on Polish Jetix as Power Rangers the Movie: Green With Evil, as a full-length movie being in fact 5 episodes put together. All episode titles and on-screen text (including opening credits) were removed, leaving only final Executive Producers block.
| Power Rangers |
|---|
| Television series |
| Mighty Morphin Power Rangers • Alien Rangers • Zeo • Turbo • Space • Lost Galaxy • Lightspeed Rescue • Time Force |
| Wild Force • Ninja Storm • Dino Thunder • S.P.D. • Mystic Force • Operation Overdrive |
| Movies |
| Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie • Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie |
| Characters |
| Rangers • Zords • Villains • Enemy grunts • Monsters • Other Characters |
| Related series from Saban Entertainment |
| VR Troopers • Masked Rider • Big Bad Beetleborgs • The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog • Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation |
| Other related series |
| Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad • Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills |
| See also |
| Fox Kids • ABC Kids • ABC Family • Toon Disney • Jetix • Saban • Disney • Super Sentai |
