It's very easy, given the special effects budgets of your average kid's show today, to forget how things used to be; namely men in robot dinosaur suits.
It's a pleasure, then, for me to say that MMPR has all the greatness I remember it having when I was a child in the 90's. Right from the off, with THAT theme tune, it had me hooked. Years later, nothing's changed. Everything, from the amazing intro music to the slightly cheesy Zord battles has me hooked, and this DVD set collects what I see as the best series of the show, namely the first one.
It's great to see the original cast of MMPR again, as this really was the show that started it all; seeing the original Power Rangers battling evil (if perhaps a little violently, but then most kid's games and shows feature some level of violence these days) and saving the world is truly awesome - especially the original Zords. I can't get enough of them; any child of the 90's would remember cheering as the Tyrannozord rose out of a volcano (how cool is that?) to battle whatever monster Rita had cooked up. Now, someone else here brought up how dated they looked, and perhaps so; we're dealing with Japanese Sentai footage from god knows when here, after all. Equally, there are undeniably some corny episodes, that one with Pudgy Pig being a prime example.
Of course, to then declaim an otherwise solid series based on this is taking things too far. The "Green with Evil" plot arc was absolutely magnificent, and the episode in which the Rangers are cut off from their powers and left at the mercy of Goldar is one of my all time top episodes. The filler episodes, whilst not being as good as the main plot epsisodes, are still (in my opinion) far better than you might expect of, say, any disney live-action kid's TV series since, and the villains, though comical, are all the more awesome because of it.
Yes, MMPR was cheesy; yes, it had some real drops in quality now and again. But ultimately, it's cheesiness was why most of the fans loved it. It wasn't afraid to show a cliche good versus evil battle, and do it to soft rock - indeed, besides the AWESOME Dragonzord, that was it's one strength.
I am a Power Rangers fan, and thanks to this DVD set, I remember why. Excellent stuff.