The 25th Anniversary episode of Power Rangers has a lot to live up to, but the cast wants you to know that it will be much better than the previous special Legendary Battle.
Legendary Battle was the 20th Anniversary celebration episode, which took place during Super Megaforce, and despite having a massive amount of Rangers in it ended up underwhelming fans. ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with Jason David Frank, Catherine Sutherland, and Jason Faunt, who will be reprising their roles in the upcoming 25th Anniversary episode. From their comments, it looks like the episode is shaping up to be pretty great.
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“Power Rangers is up to the standards of where it needed to be,” Frank said. “When I first heard about it (the episode), I was thinking, ‘Man, I hope it’s gonna be better than Super Megaforce.’ Because I was so excited about that reunion episode and we had some glitches in there. They worked with me on coloring the helmet back to the original way it was supposed to be. When we shot Megaforce, it had the gray stripe in the helmet and gray Morpher, and I was like, “Ah, guys, I think, we need to make it the legit way.” Because when Disney got it, somehow it put a stripe in the helmet, and the Morpher was silver, so they actually fixed that in post.”
Frank holds this episode in some pretty high company, referencing an all-time classic.
“The episode by far is probably one of my favorite episodes, probably out of the whole franchise, I would imagine,” Frank said. “Evil Green was really great, but I think coming back and reuniting with everyone has gotta be a good feeling for me and fans; here we are 25 years later and we’re stronger than we were before. Like that song, Stronger than Before. … I just realized that.”
While he wouldn’t provide exact details, Faunt did tease some big things from the episode when we asked if it would be bigger than the 20th Anniversary episode. “Yes, It’s very safe to say,” Faunt said.
“It was great,” Faunt said. “This Power Rangers family is definitely a fraternity. And once they selected the people that were coming back, I’m very close with a lot of them. And it’s just such a great time. And we were filming out in New Zealand for like two and a half weeks. Filming, hanging out, playing pranks, having a good time, hiking and just doing a lot of fun stuff. So it’s just amazing. We’re all so close that it’s just kind of like going back to a high school reunion with a lot of close friends that you really enjoyed being around. So we had a blast. We had a blast out there.”
For Sutherland, it was just great to meet the new cast, who look at them as legendary Rangers.
“It’s really cute when we meet the newer ones because obviously they could be my children,” Sutherland said. “They’re so young. Immediately when we meet each other, it’s just an immediate rapport we have. You’re invited into the family and it’s really a special thing. We are like one big family. It’s wonderful. They were so excited to meet us and we were so excited to meet them and it was really fun. Really, just exciting. Exciting for them to have these legendary rangers in their eyes they’re legendary. And we’re excited to be meeting these new stars and seeing their careers unfold, so it was fun.”
The 25th Anniversary special airs in primetime on Nickelodeon August 28th at 8 pm. For more Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel coverage and all things Power Rangers, make sure to follow @MattMuellerCB.