Power Rangers Legacy Pre-Order Available Soon
September 7, 2013It’s Morphin’ Time!
In less than four days you will be able to preorder the Power Rangers Legacy: The First 20 Years, from ShoutFactory.com. Please note, I said preorder, the collection will not be released until December 3rd of this year. But when it does, man, it’s going to make some lucky fans Christmas. You are getting over 270 hours, on 98 DVDs, spanning the first 20 years of the Power Rangers universe, starting with my personal favorite, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Here’s the best part, are you ready, all these DVDs are housed inside an original Red Ranger helmet display case!! You will have to act fast though, because this collection is limited to just 2,000. All of this and more for just $650 (free s/h as of now), wait, what was that last part?!?
www.tvshowsondvd.com
Yeah about that, $650 is a tonof money to put down on anything unless you are a die-hard fan. The problem I see, most people that enjoy Power Rangers, didn’t enjoy it for 20 seasons. Being in my mid…err late 20’s; I grew up watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. While I am sure that I would eventually get around to watching every season, I don’t know if paying $650 to experience 17 seasons that I didn’t care to watch originally is worth it. Now before I get blasted on Twitter, I don’t think I am alone in this.
As I alluded to above, I think most people who watched Power Rangers watched one or two iterations of the show before stopping. I think we all can agree the show is somewhat derivative, heck it borrows the action sequences from Super Sentai in Japan. In that light, I don’t think the show is designed to retain an audience so much as to continually generate new interest when viewers “age out”. Obviously, the fact that this article is about a DVD Collection spanning 20 seasons, speaks to the success it’s had in doing just that.
When it comes to purchasing something like this, the actual business model of Power Rangers hurts its own cause. Look, right now you might be saying, “Dude, there are only 2,000 of these babies, of course it’s pricey and only appeals to the “true” fans of the show as a whole.” I understand and appreciate limited-edition sets but with that said, this could have been approached differently.
Right now on Amazon, you can buy all four DVD collections that comprise the first-three seasons of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers for roughly $60 (free s/h if you have Prime). If you want seasons one through five, then it will cost you $72.96, and you’ll even get a nice collector’s box to hold them in. Again, these are the seasons I grew up on and would be most interested in buying. Yet, if what I really want is that fancy Red Ranger helmet, I am going to have to pay more than 10x that amount to get it.
So what would be a great solution? How about releasing your favorite iteration of the show in a ranger themed helmet from that specific era!! Would you pay $100 for it, I know I would? Can you imagine instead of just one giant collection, being able to select the ones that are nostalgic to you?
A few of you are trying to poke holes in this as your reading, and that’s fine. But seriously, you can’t tell me that by marking up the price more than 66%, that it wouldn’t cover the cost of manufacturing 6-8 different ranger helmets1. Asking someone to spend $100 is a lot different than asking someone to spend $650. It would appeal to more fans overall, and if you still want the limited aspect, just limit each one to 2,000. Personally, I think more fans would be lining up to buy one-to-three of these helmets so they could relive some of their best childhood memories. But maybe that isn’t the point.
In the end, this is a fabulous addition to any Power Rangers fan’s collection. I understand this was marketed to appeal to those who love the concept of the show more than anything else. With that said, I wish they would have thrown the casual fan a bone though. After all, it is a product that someone is going to make money on, but I think they left a lot of money on the table of Ernie’s Juice Bar when it could have all been going to the Command Center.
P.S. Why the helmet is stylized after the Red Ranger and not the Green Ranger or White Ranger is a mystery unexplainable by man…but that is for another time.
1 At every pop culture convention I’ve gone to, someone has a sweet ranger helmet. When I talk to them I am always surprised how easy and cost effective it was for them to obtain the mold for it.
This article was written for publication on the GCE site by Stephen Gertz.
