"Aren't you a little old for this,Tommy?" NO he's never too old to be a Power Ranger!

Hello one and all and welcome to another segment of me geeking out on Power Rangers.As per tradition,before we start,I'd like to thank you all for helping my blog reach a total of 565 pageviews! As I stated before,I'm a huge Power Rangers fan and so,to make up for delays,decided to make back-to-back reviews on my top 4 personal favourite seasons. You can check my Space and Time review.So now,after journeying thorough Space and Time,let's get back to the roots,dinosaurs, in POWER RANGERS DINO THUNDER: The 12th instalment of Power Rangers begins with someone running on an alien,fending off monsters and explosions that keep happening around him.He reaches the edge of the island and proceeds to jump off.We soon get to see that the mysterious person is Tommy Oliver.For those uninformed,Tommy is the longest serving Power Ranger in history,and has become THE legend in Power Rangers fandom.He literally can make his own team of rangers with the many costume changes he went through.Anyway,we cut to Tommy in Reefside Highschool,where he teaches palaeontology.We soon get to meet our three stereotypical stars: Connor,the douchebag jock who skips class for football;Ethan,the geeky gamer boy and Kira,the only girl and musician.The three of them are in detention for various reasons and Tommy is in charge of taking care of them.Tommy takes them to a dinosaur museum,but soon sends them for a wild goose chase in the forest after learning that "Anton Mercer Companies" is in charge of the museum,something he says is impossible.Connor,Ethan and Kira accidentally drop thorough a hole and find themselves in a lair of sorts,with a huge computer on one wall and three glowing,coloured gems in the middle.Connor takes the red one,Ethan the blue and Kira the yellow.Right after the stones were removed,an island surfaced in the middle of the ocean,where we cut to Messogog,our main villain,saying ominously:"The gems have moved,I can feel them" then he sends some monsters to capture them.We get to see Connor and the others fight off the monsters. The gems actually give them special civilian powers which is super powers without them morphing eg. super speed(Connor) hardened skin(Ethan) and sonic scream(Kira).Tommy comes to get them,with the others keeping it a secret from them.Next day,Kira says she doesn't want this and hands over the gem to Connor,luckily though since a few seconds later,when she walks off,a few monsters appear and capture Kira.Connor and Ethan,for some dumb reason,go find Tommy(they call him Dr O,short for Oliver),thinking he can solve their problems because he teaches dinosaurs?The hell? They stumble around his house(which is located in a remote area)and accidentally press some button that opens up a secret room to the dino lair where they got the gems.Whilst Dr O,Connor and Ethan go in search for her in Dr O's car,Kira is interrogated by Messogog. Once Messogog finds out she no longer has the gem,he orders his henchman,Zeltrax and henchwoman,Elsa to destroy her.Kira fights them off and goes through a portal,slamming right on top of Dr O's car. Dr O explains that it was him and his friend Anton who created the monsters for some experiment.Zeltrax activaties his bio-zords,huge zords that look like dinosaurs.Connor,Kira and Ethan morph to Red Ranger,Yellow Ranger and Blue Ranger respectively,kick his butt,gain control of the bio-zords,form the Thundersaurus Megazord and proceed to kick his butt again,this time on a Megazord scale. The next episode is the 500th episode,nicely titled 'Legacy of Power'. Dr O is kidnapped and interrogated by Messogog on how to release the black dino gem which is locked in a  sacred stone.Meanwhile,the Rangers,with the help of Tommy's confidante and friend,Hayley who also knows the Rangers identity,try to find Tommy on the computer and accidentally stumbling across a video diary of him explaining the entire history of Power Rangers.After watching the video,Hayley got a track on Messogog's whereabouts and they uses their motorcycles to get there.Tommy is freed and the stone opens up to him,giving him the civilian power of invisibility and his 5th costume change,the Black Dino Ranger.We also learn that Zeltrax hates Tommy.We'll get into that in "my thoughts". The next major thing is that Elsa has found the White Gem,supposedly more powerful than the others and,thanks to Elsa's tampering has made it pure evil.Back on Reefside,Tommy meets his old friend,Anton Mercer,his partner in making the monsters.Tommy tries to warn Anton about Messogog(without revealing his identity of course)but Anton just brushes it off and introduces his adoptive son: Trent. Kira,being the only female in the group,instantly crushes on him.Let's cut to the chase:Anton Mercer is Messogog.Yes in a lab experiment(probably before he went all ballistic and blew up an island as seen in the first episode)Anton drank a concoction he came up with,and thus created Messogog and a sorta Jekyll and Hyde relationship,with Messogog always interrupting his daily life.One day,when Anton was changing,he went thorough an 'Invisa-portal' that teleports him to his lair.Trent witnesses this and sneakily follows through.He arrives but can't see anyone there.He sees a bright light and when trying to get near it,the white dino gem jumps on his wrist,forming the White Dino morpher and transforms him into the White Dino Ranger,with the civilian power of blending in his surroundings,like a chameleon. Thanks to Elsa's tampering,Trent has no control on the evil gem and,like his father,has a Jekyll and Hyde relationship with his evil morphed form.He meets the rangers and proceed to royally kick their asses.In fact,I think he,like the Psycho Rangers,always come on top on every confrontation he has with the other Rangers,this time though the reason for not finishing them is because Trent manages to gain control of his body here and there,though he never reveals his identity to them.Trent soon finds his Dinozord,the White Drago Zord,and can form his own Megazord.As time passes,Trent and his evil counter-part merge more and more with each other,each having qualities of the other,which is present when initially the white ranger wanted nothing to do with Messogog,but soon decides its in his best interest if they work together to rid the Rangers.The fight goes on for a while until when Trent,thanks to Zeltrax increasing jealousy of Messogog favouring Trent over him,gets shot at by Messogog.Anton comes takes control for a while and redirected the blast to Trent's morpher,destroying the evil half.Trent joins the team,while Zeltrax,thanks to a machine,managed to copy the white gem's power and create an evil clone of the White Ranger,without any trace of Trent in it.Anyway,after a few episodes,Zeltrax reveals his Smitty,Tommy and Anton's old friend(we'll get to that later).Tommy then seemingly destroys him.Tommy and Trent then go in search for an ancient weapon,leaving Connor jealous.Turns out,the ancient weapon,called the Triassic Shield,was meant for Connor and that's when we get to see this season's battlizer.Next episode,Zeltrax comes back with more power and no loyalty to Messogog.Connor seemingly destroys him by unlocking yet another more powerful battlizer(thorough his passion?The hell?).Anyway,one more episode of significance before the finale,which is the annual team-up.In the finale,the rangers find out Anton's dual identity,Trent spys on Messogog separating him and Anton,Messogog taking Elsa's power,making her innocent.(the rangers save her though since Messogog just tosses her out)After that,Messogog threatens the Rangers for the gems in exchange for Anton's life and so Trent goes in and finds a button to open the portal for them.The rangers go in and blow up the lair,seemingly taking Messogog life with it.Meanwhile,Zeltrax busts up the Dino lair and takes Elsa as hostage by restraining her next to him in his Megazord while fighting the Rangers.Tommy and Kira jump in to save Elsa while the other rangers distract Zeltrax.It ends with them blowing up their Megazord with Zeltrax's robot,once and for all destroying Zeltrax.Messogog didn't die in that explosion,and the ranger's proceed to destroy him,using up all their gem's powers in the process,making them unable to morph anymore.

Hey look! Tommy's personal team consisting he,himself and Tommy!

My Thoughts On It: I enjoyed Dino Thunder alot. I have told you all my top 4 list,which is In Space,Time Force,Dino Thunder and RPM(chronological order,not favourite order).The difference in Dino Thunder with the others is that its light-hearted and fun.Space,Time Force and RPM are all considerably darker in what you would expect from a Power Rangers season,and though I enjoy darkness factor(RPM takes the cake if I'm measuring them on dark and gritty tones)a light-hearted tone can be fun too.Which is what Dino Thunder excels at.With Tommy as mentor and back to the stereotypical teenagers like Mighty Morphin was,it's really fun to watch.People praise it simply for Tommy,but Dino Thunder is a fun ride,and though with Tommy it's added fun,without Tommy Dino Thunder would be able to stand on its own(or maybe I just don't like Ninja Storm and Wild Force so much,especially after Time Force, that I'm willing to accept anything) Trent was a parallel to Tommy so its kinda neat to see that,but the evil white clone really falls flat.He doesn't do anything outstanding and they could do without it,or at least inject more tension in the situation.Another thing that falls flat is Tommy and Zeltrax relationship.They're always fighting each other in every episode,but it's not really explained why the hell Zeltrax hates Tommy so much(there was one episode where Smitty was snubbed for a job by Tommy,but it's really nothing since it's never mention in their final battle).There was something called Super Dino mode,but like the civilian powers,its really nothing and could do without.Messogog is a great villain. Remember how I said people said Ransik is a Magneto,bringing justice to mutants? Well,while I disagreed with that,I really think Messogog is a character that stands up for dinosaurs.His plan is to not take over everything,but to restore the world to when he thought was perfect,the Dinosaurs era.Zeltrax,like I said,could use some work with that rivalry of his,but he's not too bad.Elsa is standard villain,not interesting.I just wished they showed how she got her powers,since in the finale she turned back to human,showing she was good last time.The Rangers themselves are likable,even being stuck in VERY stereotypical roles(savefor Trent and Tommy)they are fun to watch,especially the attempts when Tommy is trying to understand the hip young teenagers that are now his team(coz let's face it,in his time,his friends were essential goody-goods,the Dino Thunder team are more real in the fact that they hate training since it cuts into their social time) All in all,Dino Thunder is light-hearted,fun,entertaining and just plain awesome.So what do you think of Power Rangers Dino Thunder? Did you enjoy the light-hearted,fun season and the return of the legendary Tommy,or do you hate it and think its overrated simply because Tommy's there,or just plain hate it? Comment on that and tell me where I can improve in my storytelling summaries or reviews in general on my   Facebook Twitter(Follow me if you are a PR fan please!We can discuss PR all night) or Google+. Next time,in my last segment of Power Rangers(for now) we take go back to the darker seasons of Power Rangers like Space and Time Force by reviewing the last(and darkest) of the Disney seasons,Power Rangers RPM.