Power Rangers RPM/Headscratchers


 * WHAT THE HELL IS DILLON'S LAST NAME?! Or FIRST, for that matter? And what is the superwoman Tenaya going to do with her life? And...WHO ARE THEY? That was part of the PLOT, people! WTF happened to RESOLVING it?
 * Dillon decided saving the present and the future was more important than know his past, hence why he left the robot with his memories be destroyed. After they rescued Tenaya, they finally had some free time and decided to go on a self-discovery trip. Sequel-hook, Fanfic-hook or whatever.
 * It's more true to life that you don't ultimately find out all the answers. Let's face it, if they had revealed in the last episode that Dillon's real name was Joe Smith, what would people refer to him as? Joe or Dillon?
 * Amnesia doesn't work that way. Unless there's mechanical implants in his brain, he would remember--and if there were implants, he would have way bigger problems than a virus, because his brain would be bleeding.
 * Yes, and in reality, hitting a button on a mobile phone, wrist watch or joystick doesn't instantly transform you into a superhero. Sometimes you have to step back and remember this is a kid's show that runs heavily on Acceptable Breaks From Reality.
 * More about the fans than the show, but I wonder. Why are people so sure that Dillon has a connection to Tenaya 7? I've heard people say that she must be the one he wanted to rescue but failed. Also people have claimed that he dreamed about her in the third episode, claiming that we see a close up of her eyes. The only problem? Tenaya's eyes are brown, while the person in the dream had extremely light blue eyes. So is there something I'm missing? Did one of the actors confirm that there was a link between the characters in some interview or something?
 * We watched Power Rangers in Space.
 * I think its because of the Venjix hardware in his body.
 * Also, her face is always masked every time they are near each other, implying that he would recognize something about her. And though the eye color is different, the area around the eyes looks very similar. Either they gave her new, Venjix hardware eyes, or Tenaya was just modeled after the girl, rather than being made from her. IIRC, Venjix said that he made her look like a human, not that she was made from a human, so the second is more likely.
 * The episode "Blitz" removes the eye color problem... the person in the dream was blind, so it's probable that Venjix gave her new eyes.
 * Both the sister thing and the new eyes have been confirmed.
 * If Venjix is the cause of why the planet is so... post-apocalypic in Time Force's year 3000, as people have been speculating, and Power Rangers Time Force has both time travel technology and ranger technology, why don't they send a team back to prevent the bloody razing of 99% of the planet? Its easy, just send in a megazord, five rangers, and an antivirus program (developed with up to 900 years of being able to study the remains) to the day before the virus strikes.
 * As I recall Time Force has a policy of not trying to change the past.
 * Not even to prevent the apocalypse? It makes going back to stop Hitler look positively selfish, and lord knows there's already enough people who would be willing to do that given half the opportunity.
 * Perhaps they're afraid that something even worse will happen instead. Considering what we see of the future in Zeo (which is probably the timeline where the Millenium Message was never sent) and what we see in RPM (which is probably the timeline where the Millenium Message was sent), I'd say their fear is pretty justified. Alternatively, Venjix was clever enough to time-lock his entire invasion.
 * Also, look at the future in Time Force. It's not all that bad, other than the Mutant thing. Time Force knows that things worked out for the better. Maybe they're afraid that if they go back, they'll somehow mess something up, and their own time will become horrible?
 * If we just now had the technology to go back in time and fix such things as the black plague, one of those big wars that happened centuries ago, or one of those other big disasters that appears in history books, do you thing we would try to go and prevent them? No! Whatever happened thousands of years ago don't matter to us at all, we are still here and going back to fix it would probably just do something wrong. Yeah, it sounds selfish and all, but it really was something that happened hundreds of years ago.
 * It would cause a paradox. Preventing the apocalypse would eliminate the events leading to their society forming and them being born.
 * It's a matter of how events impact the future. Even tragic events can have positive results. If we stopped the Black Plague, for instance, we would have saved millions of lives, yes, but it would have a negative impact on the future, for the Black Plague caused the beginnings of the end of serfdom in Europe, creating the European middle class, and led directly to the Renaissance, and eventually to the Enlightenment as a result. If we stopped the Black Death, the world we live in today would be unrecognizable, and likely worse off. The same for Time Force and the Vengix virus. The events of RPM could have done for their world what the Black Death did for ours.
 * The not being born thing is a major concern. Saving lives in the past would change the population of the present. As would any change that, for whatever reason, resulted in even one of your many, many ancestral couples not hooking up. Or hooking up at a different time - your grandparents have sex three hours later than they should, a different sperm reaches the egg, and there goes your life.
 * No matter how you put it, it is a fixed point in time
 * RPM takes place in a different universe as Time Force. That's the easy solution unless they choose to retcon it into the rest of the series.
 * Just WTF is up with the cannon in the fridge? Why is it there? And for that matter, how do they fit in in there?
 * The cannon is on the other side of the wall behind the fridge, as the cannon itself is much bigger than the fridge. I would think that Dr. K is smart enough to install a back access panel to the fridge, while keeping it in perfect working order.
 * That still doesn't answer why it's there in the first place...
 * Presumably she knew that the series black suit's special abilty would be a shield right from the start, and foresaw the need to have weapons in unexpected places to test the black ranger at anytime to prompt his/her mastery of it.
 * To keep it chilled. Duh.
 * It's their HQ... the real question should be *Why* they don't have more hidden weapons?
 * Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny combined.
 * It greatly amuses me that the plans of Venjix- an "aggressive computer virus"- amount to "create robot, infiltrate city and blow shit up" instead of finding a way to infect the computer systems of Corinth with the Venjix virus.
 * Chances are, the systems of Corinth have a strong enough antivirus program. If the Wild Mass Guessing is right, and its the same Venjix from the Forever Red incident, he is by design an AI- not a viral program. As such, chances are that his ability to get past firewalls designed to keep him, specifically, out, are not very good. He had only one window of opportunity to infect everything that he could before being spotted, and now that that's past, he's resorting to the old standby tactics he learned on the battlefield as a general of the Machine Empire, which worked quite well for millions of years until they hit Earth the first time. Old habits die hard, especially habits that are literally programmed in.
 * That would be a good explanation if they didn't say that Venjix is a computer virus that became self-aware. Or if the explanation didn't rely heavily on a piece of Wild Mass Guessing that came about from the reuse of a name.
 * Fine then. If we're ignoring the epileptic tree, then assume that the giant barrier also includes a superpowerful antivirus program. If he's just an earth virus, it would mean earth antiviruses and firewalls could keep him out, given effort.
 * It was the "World Internet Federation" who announced it was a virus. Maybe they were just mistaken? There would be no way to know that an artificial entity that acts like a virus was actually a general of an alien race of robots.
 * Especially since, with Zordon gone, Alpha 5 long destroyed, Billy on Aquitar, and none of the Zeo rangers being tech-savvy, there's nobody left who'd recognize Machine Empire programming or technology when they saw it.
 * I think it's more likely to be a virus. Dr K refers to it as such and considering she was the one who created it, I think she'd be smart enough to tell the difference. The fact that it spread because she couldn't upload a firewall in time tells me that Corinth is protected by that firewall alone.
 * Note that Venjix can't remotely access the computers in Corinth. "Ranger Red" starts with the Rangers chasing an Attack Bot that stole the access codes for the shield. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense for important computers in Corinth to subvert Everything Is Online after what Venjix did.
 * When Dr K released the Venjix virus, she had a firewall with her that she was confident would keep it contained. It was only able to take over the world because she never got the chance to upload said firewall. It's probably installed on all computers in Corinth now.
 * Well according to the final episodes,
 * I have one even better. Corinth had no wifi. Every computer ran on cable internet. No exceptions. Because there's no wifi, there's no way for Venjix to download himself (since nobody in their right mind would have download capabilities from a physical thumb drive when email is a perfectly good substitute, and, you know--you're only a mile or so away, so you can WALK). Simple, protective, and probably the idea that every survivor's outpost uses, if they haven't completely given up on technology.
 * A more simple solution is that Dr. K invented much of the technology protecting Corinth or oversaw it. Since she created Venjix in the first place, she could make all their technology automatically resistant to him infecting them.
 * In "Ranger Green", the magnetic monster pulls over a row of six mail drop boxes. The entirety of human cvilization consists of one city. Why do they need six mailboxes? There is no such thing as "Out of Town" service.
 * Mailboxes for separate individuals living at one address. Kinda cramped in the one-city earth, lotta refugees, probably, so more families per residence than was originally intended is probably quite common. With more people per residence, separate mailboxes are needed, to avoid complex sorting later on.
 * These are the big blue drop boxes that you put outgoing mail into, not the small individual ones you get your mail out of, just to be clear. You'd normally see multiple ones only outside a major post office, and even then, it's typically 1 for local mail, 1 for out-of-town mail, and 1 for express mail.
 * In that case, it is most probably a relic of stock footage from sentai being used, and should be placed into the same "ignore" category as the whole "bystanders periodically become Asian" thing.
 * Or the fact that the mecha in this series HAVE FACES AND MOUTHS YET NO ONE EVER CARES TO POINT OUT WHY. Doesn't help that they completely removed any voice they might have had, more less made the series Darker and Edgier...Then again it does have Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight to compete with...
 * I don't think it's too hard to guess why the zords have faces. It's basically offering a middle finger to Venjix. It's like they're saying "Yeah, we're fighting technology with our own technology, but we haven't forgotten what makes us different. We're animals, you're machines, so suck it!" Not to mention the RPM team is more militarised than most ranger teams (despite them being civilian) and the military sometimes paint scary faces on the noses of their fighter jets, don't they?
 * That would work surprisingly well as an in-universe reason.
 * I just assumed that Dr.K has a cute animal fetish.
 * That also works scarily well. Maybe it's some sort of combination of both? But hey, on the plus side, we've at least seen that some of the mouths-on-the-mechs carry a purpose.
 * Well according to Ranger Blue the eyes are actually "optical scanners" and apparently Dr K hadn't even noticed that they resemble eyes...of course this was major Lampshade Hanging.
 * I have an idea regarding the faces.
 * Seems the cute animal thing was closest to the truth. Now we know Dr K was working on the Ranger tech as a child, so she probably designed the zords that way because she thought they were cute.
 * She was recently seen wearing cute animal slippers...
 * Doctor K did mention that she had help in the form of Gem and Gemma. Being as perky as they are, I wouldn't be surprised if the animal motif was *their* idea.
 * It could be Doctor K's Repressed Adult Child status. She was never allowed to go outside (she was told she's allergic to the sun.) Considering she actually wants to go outside so badly, likely she's seen pictures and/or video of nature and wildlife, which she desperately want to see for herself. Since she can't go to nature, she made nature come to her.
 * The mailboxes where already there before it became the last bastion of humanity...
 * Okay, so as villains go Venjix is most likely the most intelligent out of any Power Rangers villains, actually using clever plans with his Elite Mooks instead of relying on "it's ability alone will defeat the Power Rangers!" But my question is, why exactly does an intelligent, self-aware super-virus whose eye is ridiculously reminiscent of HAL have the capacity for emotions that he seems to have? Cold, logical, emotionless AI=perfect villain.
 * Where the crap was Trey and/or his son when Venjix hit Earth? We know he's been there, and we know he helped beat Mondo and such, and that he goes around the universe saving people. So, why abandon his old friends on Earth? If his son has taken over, why let part of his father's legacy down? No way Pyramidis could lose to those guys.
 * My theory is the SPD declared earth a no land zone so that venjix couldn't infect beyond earth
 * For that matter, where's Andros and the Karovians? We know he was tracking Venjix seven years ago (now, presumably ten years ago by the time of RPM), and he's still got two Megazords and an active team-why did they abandon Earth, who they presumably had VERY close ties to given that it saved them from Astronema?
 * Not the same Venjix.
 * And Aquitar? Did Billy just abandon his homeworld to the sentient computer virus of doom?
 * There is speculation that R.P.M is set a hundred years or so in the future. The very fact that the Venjix virus appeared three years prior to the start of the series alone, proves that the season does not take place in the year it was released.
 * If R.P.M does take place when the above were still alive they may be busy fighting the Machine Empire on other fronts.
 * That actually fits even if it doesn't take place when the above were still alive. Future Karovians would help their by now old ally of decades of friendship, but they too are being invaded. The incumbent Gold Ranger would help his father/grandfather/great-grandfather's legacy of Earth, but he too is fighting the Empire elsewhere. Aquitar would help the homeworld of its most legendary scientist who no doubt revolutionized their sciences, but the new Empire focuses on pollution, and so the Aquitarans are busy keeping their own world alive (they're rather vulnerable to unclean water, if you recall).
 * Or there is the very depressing idea that Maybe they did try, just failed because said Sentient Virus of Doom mucked around with their tech? While depressing it'd fit the RPM rangers being the last hope of humanity. Although, That wouldn't explain why the magic-influenced Rangers seem to be missing in action...
 * Does RPM take place after Lost Galaxy? If so, how can it be humanity's last stand?
 * It definitely takes place after Lost Galaxy- everything released after Lost Galaxy has, after all. As for how its humanity's last stand... I suppose Terrans' last stand would be more apropos. Humans exist on more planets than Earth, after all- just ask Andros. I think the humans on Mirrinoi are now simply Mirrinoians of Terran descent. Everything that looks human calls itself human, so the term doesn't really mean much in and of itself.
 * Why didn't Dr. K set up the firewall before uploading the Killer AI from Hell?
 * Perhaps because if she did, the Alphabet Soup computers would have been protected too, rendering the whole thing pointless.
 * In "Ranger Yellow" how are there any rich people anymore if most of the world has been destroyed? You know, along with all the banks, gold mines, oil fields, etc? It's only been three years since the attack, that's not enough time for a whole new economy to pop up AND for someone to become rich under it.
 * Everything they owned was in Corinth City.
 * In "Dr. K," yes the violin hurricane scene is great, but shouldn't Dr. K have been blown away as well? I mean, you know the metal-on-the-inside Tenaya 7 must weigh at least a hundred more pounds than the tiny Dr. K, but she gets blown around like a flower petal while K stays put.
 * Magnetic shoes.
 * Precision wind. She could have set it up to suck a small area, then lured Tenaya7 into that area before playing.
 * During Venjix's first attack, how did Flynn and his dad get all the way to Corinth from Scotland?
 * Plane?
 * Bus?
 * Hovercar too expensive to animate onscreen?
 * The dismissal documents after he's fired as a policeman and a fireman both say he already lives in a Corinth somewhere.
 * My own theory is that he lived in a small scottish community near Corinth
 * In "Brother's Keeper", Scott and Dillon being handcuffed together (and unable to get out) is a major plot point. They eventually break the chain when they both morph, so why didn't they just do that immediately?
 * Given the amount of out-of-suit fighting the Rangers do, we can probably assume that morphing has a limited duration or expends energy. Instead of wasting a morph of breaking out of the handcuffs, the two simply waited for the next Venjix attack bot to show up and morphed then.
 * Indeed, they have been shown to lose energy.
 * Not to mention Scott would probably have kept yanking Dillon's arm if he tried to activate his morpher, like he did during the sandwhich scene.


 * The Go-Onger. I find the name thing hillarious, no problem there. However, how hard would it have been to move the driver's seat over to the left side?
 * Flynn's European, maybe they moved it to the right to make him more comfortable.
 * Well, I guess its not like he has to worry about other drivers...
 * I've only just seen the most recent two episodes, but it's enough to bug me: Given that this show is pushing to be more realistic than its predecessors, the Power Rangers are directly tied to Corinth's government with a highly professional Bald Black Leader Guy in charge, and the overall situation is about as desperate as can possibly be maintained... can't the higher-ups keep these people on a shorter leash? They go bopping off on half-thought-out missions, shirk orders, and in Scott's own frustrated words, pretty much go AWOL whenever they feel like it, only to face minor chastisement about following the rules. Unless they've addressed this somehow earlier on, it doesn't seem to add up.
 * I don't think the rangers answer to Truman. Aside from Scott, none of them are military and even then, Scott is technically ex-military. For the most part, I think the Colonel is wiling to co-ordinate missions with them, but whenever they want to leave the dome, the attitude is, "it's your funeral".
 * Yeah, technically, the only one they answer to in Dr. K. Dr K, of course, isn't tied to the base government directly purely for psychological reasons, what with her life being a living hell due to the government.


 * Why is Colonel Truman a colonel if he's in charge of Corinth military forces? Its made abundantly clear that Corinth is all that is left, effectively a city-state. As the highest ranking remaining active and uncompromised military officer on the planet, let alone United States, shouldn't he be a general?
 * Most likely the disaster was recent enough that Corinth hasn't hammered out all the details in it's hierarchy. Truman probably is too busy dealing with the constant robot attacks to bother with a mostly superficial promotion.
 * I can understand having a weather system be capable of creating rain, rain is useful. But why did someone program Corinth with the ability to create lightning? What possible function can it serve? I doubt it was developed as a weapon, it seems way too risky.
 * Weather is a very finicky thing. Vasquez probably just ran the weather grid on low pressure mode, or just broke it, and let nature take it's course.
 * Maybe it's a defense against Venjix attacks that was forgotten once the rangers appeared.
 * Why only 4 women defended Corinth? There are no more women in the military? Or cops? or firefighters?
 * Cops were probably busy ensuring that no civilian woman used the chaos to go on a robbing or killing spree. Firefighters were probably busy with fires caused by people falling asleep while holding burning objects. Military, I got nothin'. Maybe they were maintaining the machinery and systems to keep Corinth from falling apart or shutting down, so that when teh men woke up there would still be a Corinth?
 * That would be fine if they had showed *anything* happening, at all, but all that was shown was pretty much a ghost city. And even if the public service people were busy, that still doesn't account for all the other women who could have taken a stand in the fight. None of the women know martial arts? or self-defense? Or even how to fire gun? It would have been nice to at least adressing why all the other women were busy(Like, relocating the men, or taking them to the hospital, but alas, nada)
 * And then we see an apparently prominent woman with Truman revealing the new power source. Where was she when charge needed to be taken?
 * Er, taking charge of the civilian side of things and keeping order, while allowing the military side to take care of defense rather than micromanaging the military into oblivion with her lack of experience?
 * I know she wouldn't do any military work, but wouldn't we have seen her coordinate with the rangers at all? Then again, she could have just been something like a head researcher for the power source, or something to that effect.
 * Even if she was a mayor/president/dictator/prime minister/whatever the hell the person in charge of Corinth's civilian sector is called, while the rangers are not formally part of the military command structure, in practice their are essentially a "special forces" unit. Ergo, no military=no rangers. Hell, she may have been coordinating with Vasquez offscreen, Vasquez being the highest ranked remaining person, but since most of our focus was on Dr. K and the Rangers, we didn't get to see it.
 * And i thought Truman was the only dictator, what with the "high treason" thingie
 * Here we go with the whole "Totalitarian government in Power Rangers" deal again...Dr. K unleashed a virus that destroyed most of the planet. Though I don't think Truman was right in trying to arrest Dr. K, I can clearly see his reasoning.
 * I guess this is more of a WMG, but it's possible there are less women in the armed forces because there are simply less women in Corinth. Picture this: You're a robotic emperor trying to take over the world. You can out live any individual human; provided you have raw materials to replace whatever parts may wear down, you can live indefinitely. So, if humans are no longer able to procreate, all you have to do is wait for the generation currently on the Earth to die of old age. So you target women.
 * Well, yeah, but we should have to assume that Venjix know about basic biology and how humans reproduce. And even then, we should assume he can tell the difference between a man and a woman. (An yes, Tenaya should be able to tell the difference, but that's just her)
 * Erm. Why wouldn't he be able to tell the difference? He's not some alien machine, he was programmed by a human. One would assume he has a few human thought processes by virtue of his mind being based on a human's.
 * Where is it said "his mind was based on a human"? For all we know, he was only programmed to be a virus... and do virus stuff... and even if his mind is "human"... well, we tend to not recognize something we are not familiar with... You can differenciate your pets easily, but for people not familiar with them, all dogs, cats, etc, look the same. We humans also tend to have difficulties distinguishing humans of other races from one another, or male animals for female ones(Yeah, yeah, one can distinguish everything just fine if gets some "training" but that's no the point here)
 * Just to remind people, this is a computer virus on the internet. You know, that thing with basically every piece of information humanity has gathered? Including human reproduction? So let's clarify, a computer program with the ability to learn and access to information from every computer on the planet. It is very safe to say that if humans knew it before he attacked, then he knows it too.


 * What was with the subplot in 'End Game' where Gem and Gemma finally locate Venjix's palace? It didn't really go anywhere. The team decides to head how to destroy it, but then Venjix enters the city and the final battle takes place there. The palace is still out there somewhere. I can understand that the rangers don't need to destroy it now (or at least they don't think they do), but why bother having them discover it in the first place?
 * Best guess is that it was misdirection, they wanted to make the viewers think that the rangers were going to head out and fight Venjix in his palace so it was more of a surprise when Venjix took the city instead.
 * How do the monsters keep getting in with the shields up? In fact there's one episosde where Tenaya 7 and the 2 robots just walk through the doors. Is it that easy to breach shields?
 * Probably; there's air and water intakes, not to mention the garbage flamejet thinggy. I think the shields are designed to keep out large invasion forces and armies; groups of ten 'bots or so are small enough to sneak in, which is why they need the Rangers as well as the shields.
 * In the combination sequence for the Zenith Megazord, why do the High Octane Megazord's feet on the Lion Hauler fold out and then fold back in again when the Lion combines with the Croc Carrier? It can't be a case of stock footage, because the Lion Hauler's footage is entirely new for this sequence.


 * Okay so you realise the city is full of sleeper agents, which can be detected via a scan of a photograph or with a simple swish of a hand held scanner; and you don't scan your staff who are maintaining your cities control centre for potential sleepers? It took Dr. K seconds to scan that photo and yet Vasquez was a sleeper and left in a prime position to be activated and turn on Col. Truman. Scanning my staff (and myself) and locking up any sleepers would have been my first action if I were in Col. Truman's position; or Dr. K's.
 * Presumably, Venjix managed to infect all those people in the numerous time his army invaded the city. They never thought of the possibility of someone already on the city to be be infected, so it never occurred to them to check the population, until it was too late
 * But there were several scenes between the reveal of all the sleepers and and the sleepers actually being activated; why weren't the control tower staff quickly scanned in case any were sleepers?
 * In "Ghosts" why do the rangers not have a short range radio to receive forwarded messages on, so the exact situation they end up in (Dr. K contacts them with urgent new while their away) doesn't happen.
 * Am I the only one who notices all the Expies of Digital Devil Saga? The Hero is similar to DDS's, The Lancer shares a connection with the Big Bad to a mysterious girl, The Smart Guy is a Genius Bruiser, The Chick is a strong fighter but still a Token Girl, and The Big Guy is mostly The Fool but becomes useful much later. (Saving Dr. K for Ziggy, Demi-fiend for Cielo.)