Power Rangers Mystic Force: Almost Magic

[Music] [Applause] [Music] hello Internet I'm the Disney brain and mystic force is an interesting season it was certainly a very timely season premiering back when Harry Potter fan still had a movie almost every year so magic in general was still at a fever pitch in several respects it follows in the tradition of its Disney era predecessors in terms of quality narrative acumen and character development but on the other hand it also finds ways to sort of slip up in those same areas not much else to say so let's start where we always do at the beginning the series starts with the two-parter broken spell there's a subsection of fans who never really approved of the whole New Zealand filming culture that defines it this era of Power Rangers but even if the accents do get a bit hard to mask its in this season with a setting and the general aesthetic makes it that much more plausible more so than seasons before it you actually feel like this is New Zealand and they're embracing that more so than trying to Finley veil it adding to that is Xander's character being allowed to keep his accent even though he's technically Australian and you've already got a very unique set up for this season even before the magic kicks in all at all a pretty good start so the story goes that for kids who all work in a record store find themselves faced with an earthquake signaling the arrival of evil so an old man comes in to Briarwood seeking assistance and the only one who volunteers the help initially is some outsider named Nick eventually all five future Rangers tag along one thing you'll notice that this season does more than most is play around of color they use it alongside their environment to emphasize several of their story elements which was another thing this season did right when they chose to do it it might have been enough to just fully dive into the magical side of things to create that on-screen aesthetic but utilizing the whole screen works that much better even though it's relatively minor in the grand scheme of things so the team confronts their first monsters before being whisked away by brooms and formally meeting Donna who is technically a ranger too but it's honestly hard to think of her as one and while we're here let's discuss the first of many issues surrounding god complex in training Nick Russell remember how when Zordon was explaining things to the original Rangers Jason was heavily invested in the story it was subtle but it was the perfect initial setup for the kind of leader he ended up being remember how when Carter the gold standard of his role heard all this talk of demons and monsters and immediately said sign me up remember Holly oh and Wes were way out of their depth early on but it never once fazed them those were the great ones Nick on the other hand was literally carried to a magical tree through magical flying brooms and he's all like come on guys magic really I mean sure we saw monsters and explosions and even that odd coloration change but come on those are just special effects and guys in suits right I kind of wish they would have taken that fourth wall breaking self-aware angle of Nick would have made him stand out a little at least but instead these kind of an idiot it's Vita who has to tell him the so-called future leader of the team - shut up and listen we'll leave after if her story doesn't quite so this is episode one they did a lot of things right here but Nick wasn't one of them we also meet clear who is fairly enough to now but improves over time but on the Nick side of things it gets worse remember Claire is a goat spill because that's Nick seeing magic again after the team leaves they see firsthand what this season's evil can do everyone is hit hard emotionally by the realization everyone except you guessed it our resident asshat who is five freaking feet away from devastation and all he can say is I never agreed to this our hero ladies and gentlemen and then we get to our first real ranger battle the Rangers left their wands at home but since they are in a realm of magic all they need to do is believe in it to make it work simple enough so they do and it does for everyone except this Nick guy he's something else magic has been happening all around him all day stuff that he cannot for the life of him explain and he's alike yeah magic I guess it is by far the worst character introduction in the history of Power Rangers sure Troyes was terrible and lifeless as all hell but at least he was never this aggressively dumb but Nick and what this season should have done later part one ends of coreg attacking the Rangers someone who Adana seems familiar with hmm I wonder why in part to the range get their wands back and have them smartly converted into less conspicuous cell phones we're gonna then tells them to follow the treaties to get through the forest I know that seems like a throwaway line but remember it for will he break down sander later Maddy tries to convince Nick to stay but that goes about as well as you'd think Claire questions who Donna for giving up on Nick comparing it to her many screw-ups but given how many tries to reach out to him and everything Nick did in part one this comparison is problematic at best but it works and Nick finally joins the others as the Red Ranger yay other than O'Donnell losing her White Ranger powers that's more or less all that happens in Part two code breakers is an interesting third episode because it tries to clarify the mechanics of magic so to speak since the Rangers are capable of unlocking more powers over time given their actions but other than that there isn't too much in the way of great team-building or character arcs set up in the first couple of episodes the next truly great episode we get is the two-parter stranger within it uses the whole good guy forcing the evil trope but it works because it allows us to see more from Vita and ship we really get to experience just how powerful their friendship is and the lengths ships specifically will be willing to go for Vita and it means more for chip because this is the kind of spooky supernatural stuff he always found cool and exciting but that same spooky supernatural stuff is now infecting a close friend not as cool now that's called a paradigm shift and when it's done right it works well to create layers of characterization getting back to the idea of color palettes brings us dark wish which is probably the highlight of the entire season it begins with the simple yet effective concept of the Rangers using their magic for everything because why not this leads to them getting their butts kicked by war max one of the Barbarian beasts which the Rangers try and blend Genji for since you could maybe wish evil weight being a genie no it's here where we get the theme of means and ends it's a theme we discussed in length when I talked about the best avatar episodes that show informs us that the way you do good can be just as important as the good itself and here we find the Rangers wanting to take shortcuts and getting punished for it it's something SPD also kind of did of doggy when he became shadow Ranger but it works a little better here so part one ends of Genji forced to wish the Rangers away thus causing the color to be removed from Briarwood has now taken over in part two the team realizes that they aren't in the Briarwood they know and love but they have kept their memories of what once was somehow even imperious himself seems pleasantly surprised by that revelation so co rag finds the Rangers and wishes to work with them everyone recognizes the situation and is ready to be reasonable except you know who also this is by far the best use of courage in an episode if only because he's still technically evil yet he seems to understand heroism and honor much better than Nick ever does what's also interesting about dark wish part two is that plans ender actually works kind of the warrior they first see seems like a threat at first but Xander calmly explains the situation and the warrior responds in kind and then they fight other warriors and then we get an even better character moment this time from Matty the team finds two doors one white and one black the white door shows a fully restored Briarwood and Matty recognizes before anyone else that this would be the easy way out as in the thing that got them into this mess in the first place and to his credit Nick eventually figures it out - unfortunately that is quickly erased by the very next scene when the team reaches the tribunal of magic Nick tells them that there is no one to blame for the way things are now I just can't with this guy it's always one step forward and five steps back but in another nice Matty moment she gives the first and best answer to the question of what the team would do if the wish was reversed it's another small but really great moment because Matty is usually a soft-spoken character between this moment and a realization about the doors dark wish challenges her to be more in subtle but incredible ways more so than anyone else through the first two parts and while she is also at fault for using magic as a shortcut in part one she's also the only one that does it for selfless reasons but the tribunal denies their initial request and sends them back to their cold dark world they initially give up hope which then sets up part three part three begins with Briarwood still under the control of evil magic the Rangers are motivated to fight despite not having magic right now which eventually wins the favor of all three tribunal members so they get their powers back gain new powers defeat the Beast goodbye to the uneasy alliance of courage and even make it to Toby's party I wanted to discuss these three episodes specifically because they connect most of the mystic force central theme and that theme is responsibility how you do things not always what you do put another way it's doing things the right way almost every step of the Rangers magical journey incorporates this theme since magic itself is used as a constantly rising bar for the Rangers to overcome they establish that early on with how the Xena tome and grants powers only once earned and for the most part that mechanics stays consistent and will dive deeper into that theme as we discuss the characters in mystic force a ton of side characters don't really matter at all but the ones that do make some interesting contributions Claire never really grew on me as a character even when she started getting a handle on magic but her head and her heart is still always in the right place she screws up a lot but it doesn't discourage her too much and eventually she lives up to the legacy of her mother she may not seem competent most of the time but she always knows things she knows how things are supposed to be done she's not a ranger but she understands magic at a level of morality that the others really have to work towards and I thought it worked well to give her that unique respect for magic but also making her not so great at it it gives context as to what drives her to improve and why Oh Donna never gives up on her I think she could have made a great ranger but just being a really good character is fine to her type of character is often overlooked but I think her perspective was both valuable and necessary ironically though there's not as much to say about Donna despite being a ranger mentor of this season she does out a ton of exposition and magical history and that's about it if they had worked in the reveal of her being Nick's real mother sooner maybe that improves both of them but as is it kurz so late and means so little to all parties involved that they'd be better off without it at the end of the day she's a lot like guinea pig sensei she's very knowledgeable but isn't the most interesting or discussion worthy of characters compared to similarly positioned characters like RJ or doggie Kruger Korra is the only discussion with you villain here but all the interesting character points that define him were already handled better through Villa Max and Magna defender correct functions as a mostly solid fusion of the two but also was a pointless reveal tacked on later but as I mentioned it speaks volumes about the so-called leader of this team when dark wish Craig seems more capable of leading them and oh by the way he's actually lien buh who's on his husband once thought lost thus making him Nick's father given how much this season focused on Nick you'd think they would actually give us something at least as good as the titanium Ranger arc but instead they waste the entire season building up to information we could easily predict Liam boat is revealed until episode 26 but not really focused on until several episodes later and not granted his good guy powers to literally right before the season finale last time we talked Rangers I talked about how the parent Ranger relationships oftentimes improve the season but not this one carreg is a fine antagonist but the reason magnin defender works so much better is because one that didn't drag on to it was a real art for both him and then for Mike when he inherited the powers and three his family ties actually had emotional resonance behind them the Ranger team in this season is a really solid one except for Nick as I've touched on deck Ron serves as a second mentor for the Rangers and does well to help chip and especially Zander develop mentoring is really the only job he has and he does it well he doesn't really have the same level of intrigue or character development as other six Rangers but he's also kind of old and fully trained in the art of magic so development would be harder to come by overall not really a special character but a very good one that made the others a little better speaking of chip he's the energetic one of the bunch not that far removed from the original man in yellow his fascination with magic and knighthood and other such elements gives him a better baseline of appreciation for said elements Xander can be a bit much Vito can be a bit too hot-headed and Nick as Nick but ship as a ranger doesn't really do too much wrong I'd say he's underdeveloped but the parts we do see are pretty good parts and unlike for example deck slow and never saw his energy as a turn off and his big heart was necessary for many a mission especially when it came to saving Vita it's one thing to aspire to be a hero like chip and characters like him but it's a whole other thing to respond to that challenge for real when the fiction becomes reality he always embraced trying to do things the right way evil technically wasn't and it shows throughout the season making him somatically relevant as opposed to just another lovable goofball vita Roca is a character that had to learn responsibility she's a unique ball of energy but the season was wise enough to bring her down at pink which is to say that yes sometimes being hot-headed and acting without thinking can put you in positions where you're in over your head and that's where we see the theme of doing things the right way within her character she learns how to tone things down through a spat with Nick and eventually it leads to her using her heart and her head to befriend a monster this time it's Xander the one who's usually more calm and collected among the team who Rita needs to hold back perfect symbolism for where she is versus where she was she also doesn't get as much focus as she could have had otherwise she'd be an even better ranger but as is she's still an all-time great pink ranger at the very least for those of you who have seen some of my Disney videos you can stop me if you've heard this one before but Mady is pretty amazing but I also think that her character suffers the most from a lack of development not just because she doesn't get as much focus as the others but because just like Emily from samurai she had such a high ceiling that the series never came close to reaching she is constantly proving that she's one of the more capable Rangers here but is only ever given one real focus episode which for one thing isn't as good as it could have been and for another thing it revolves around Nick misjudging her she sits like a broken record of this guy missed up after misstep but on the plus side Metis is easily the most improved character in the aftermath of dark wish and that's because she goes above and beyond who her character is supposed to be to rice the level of the challenge a team faces now everyone else more or less operated as they normally would with chip being Chip Nick being a dick and Xander trying to sort things out but Matty and to a lesser extent Co rag show real layers through the experience the so called romance between her and Nick is pretty non-existent they paralleled our first bit of alone time in broken spell in the finale when Nick leaves again but it doesn't really work because not much has changed there are several problem areas with this season but one of the biggest is making a great ranger look a little less great to a lack of proper focus Xander Blair on the other hand does get a fair bit of focus and becomes easily the character of the season as a result his patient growth from thinking he was a leader to actually putting in the work to earn respect was handled very well and again we see his growth through the lens of doing things the right way he gets himself into trouble at times for not understanding that but what he learns he gets it he always thought of himself as a leader and through dagger on he realizes that real leadership is hard but he does it he makes it through he would originally strike most as the kind of character to give up quickly once things got hard and there are times where he seems to do that but his connection to his friends is something he values above all else because just like Nick he was once an outsider looking to fit in somewhere that's what drives him that's what makes him sander more so than any of his smooth-talking her so-called supervising that's at the heart of his character this is why a sander should have been the leader and they set it up perfectly to remember when I mentioned who Donna's lying about following the trees that just so happens to be Xander's magical specialty it would have been so perfectly subtle and earned and I'll take plans ander over whatever the hell Nick thinks he's doing any day of the week oh speaking of Nick I guess we've got to talk about him now this video so far mostly speaks about the good things mystic forest did the reason this analysis is called almost magic can be tied back to Nick and literally everything surrounding him he sees magic several times but doesn't believe in magic he always seems distant cold and brooding making him essentially a slightly improved version of Troy burrows and because he's leading a team those traits only make him look worse a good leader finds a way to connect with their team even if that team doesn't have a ton in common with them Carter did that Leo did that Wes Collins made it look easy but that's not the damning part of it because we've seen this type of Ranger before the part that makes Nick downright awful is his lack of any real growth on that end there's a lot going on if Nick what with his rivalry of co rag and the eventual reveal of his true parents but none of it amounts to anything in fact he might actually be over characterized in areas that don't matter the man is more broken up about Cora taking away his damn horse that he would be if any of his teammates were in trouble he is a terrible leader who inspires less confidence in the mystic forest mission and literally anyone else on the team every single ranger here could have led the team better including the soft-spoken Matty and in Xander's case they gave him a chance to do just that and he did leave the team better trying to establish rapport of people you don't know in a place you don't know should have been as straightforward as it gets development wise but the second the other suspect him of wrongdoing he doesn't fight for respect he plans to up and leave and it's perfectly symbolized in the finale - everyone else is having a grand old time except for Nick who is leaving again even with an amazing girl telling him not to and yes I get that he wanted to spend time with his parents but he already did it's called all of mystic force so what this moment perfectly symbolizes more than anything else is just how far a move from a great leader and Nick really is he's not setting any standards or developing a better team half the time he is the problem and most of the time he seems to have one foot in the door and the other out being a ranger is a great honor that many individuals made the most of it is a job yes but for Nick it was more of a chore and the best of the best never saw it that way all the focus in the world but honestly does he ever really learn anything without having a spoon fed to him as just a thought experiment here's what I would have changed to improve this season firstly Matty would get a lot more development I'm talking Jen levels of development if you want the romance angle to work you've got to earn it like she did with Wes I would have route her personality in a backstory that really delves into who she is what her upbringing was and what it was like growing up with Vita and then have her work through all of that in relation to being a ranger I would also do away with Nick's family ties all together and instead have korra revealed to be Donna's lost son I know I know been there done that but this time he stays evil and maybe even becomes more evil then ooh Donna's arc becomes about how much she values her son's life versus the lives of the Rangers and clear who she needs to protect from him who Donna then realizes that no fight can be won without sacrifice and kills herself too we can coax thus creating an opening for the Rangers to finish the job and nobody gets brought back this time after all Voldemort didn't get reincarnated into a good Tom Riddle what's done is done and most importantly I would have changed the trajectory of Xander's character he's great as is but in my version of mystic force he actually becomes the leader still the Green Ranger but leading the team Nick can be as moody as he wants and then let that clash of Xander's natural charisma and constant improvement it would function kind of like sky and Jack's relationship on that level then make the slow and patient crawl towards ander eventually working hard enough to justify his initial perspective Nick is forced to respect that and step down as leader while also toning himself down in relation to Matty because in this version Matty is a big deal and if they like each other that make sure as hell better change each other and in the end Xander becomes a definitive leader Nick is ok with that because Matty likes him more as a follower and not a quasi leader and everyone else embraces the theme of doing things the right way who done a sacrifice shakes a team in the end but remember magic so there is a way to bring her back but because the team knows better than the tempo of life and death using magic they decide to accept and respect her sacrifice across the board and keep fighting for magic the right way using every lesson she topped them all this while Claire takes over as head of route core mystic force is a really good season of Power Rangers some of their characters are all-time great in their roles a ton of the multi-part episodes are exceptional especially dark wish which I've constantly raved about here the use of colors and aesthetics to create unique atmospheres characters and narratives all works really well and separates this season from its peers on that level there is a lot to like about what this season did and what they tried to do and the central theme does well to connect magic and being a ranger as a responsibility that should be undertaken in specific ways but this season is not without a bevy of problem areas Nick is a terrible character a worse Ranger and an even worse leader he's the biggest thing holding mystic force back from being an all-time great season in a season with nothing but solid or great characters surrounding it should have been that much easier for him since he doesn't have a Joel or a Mike on his team making life harder but none of it works because the focus they give him is never on what matters and that's on top of his boring directionless at times abrasive character arc that is if you could even call what he goes through a character arc the magical elements work well to give the season a thematic backbone but I do think there was even more that could have been done with him it's magic they can literally make anything happen so this concept was a license to get really creative which they did at times but not consistently enough and the episodes in general end up being overall inconsistent in quality since there's a ton of them that don't matter and even the great ones make certain characters look much worse and even some of the just okay episodes delve way too deep in a backstory and don't do enough to build a team that's here now wild forest and jungle fury also had historical battles prior to the current team but that never gotten the white of the current events because said battles are only ever briefly referenced for the sake of context but there's also no way around mystic for us having a crop of villain characters as a week if not weaker than Lightspeed Rescue it was actually the first season since Zeo to make no changes in the scent I've villains and that removes a ton of potential right off the bat a move made even stranger by the fact that the original American made villains were almost across the board excellent during that time span oh no despite my many many issues of Nick and the stories surrounding him mystic force is still one of the better teams and that goes back to just how impressive the other characters are as individuals and as friends the four of them play off each other in ways similar to last galaxy and Time Force who are the gold standards for Team Dynamics and if more of the show had focused on them then a good season becomes arguably top five they had a great team but an awful leader a pretty good antagonist but nothing interesting beyond him they had interesting ideas but didn't always execute them well mystic force is a season of potential it could have been mind-blowing but instead it only rises to the level of excellent a handful of times but when they got it right it really comes together when they got it right they created beautiful moments powerful moments exciting moments and of course magical moments and that was mystic force a thematic review I'll probably try and make another anime video by the way watch my first one and then we'll discuss the underrated gem that is jungle fury and as always thanks for watching [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Disney Brain

Views: 208,266

Rating: 4.9121714 out of 5

Keywords: power rangers, megaforce, samurai, lost galaxy, time force, mystic force, jungle fury, ninja steel, analysis

Id: Wr4-5llDICI

Length: 25min 26sec (1526 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 26 2017