Geek Tech 101: Zords

It’s been well over a year since the final episode of Power Rangers. Even though whispers of a reboot keep coming around, the franchise will never be the same. But maybe the beauty of Power Rangers is that it kept evolving and rebooting. Despite literally dozens of soft reboots, one of the things (besides vibrantly colored heroes) that made the franchise iconic was their Zords.

From its earliest episodes, it was a recurring element of the series for the monster of the day to grow to Godzilla size. On occasion, like with the robots in SPD, the monster didn’t grow but a gargantuan enemy needed to be defeated. So each generation of Rangers needed Zords and Megazords. 

The concept of the Zords changed from season to season, but generally each Power Ranger had a Zord they piloted and the team’s Zords would combine into their Megazord. Exceptions to this include the Astro Megazord and the Delta Base Megazord. Regardless of how each Megazord was formed or transformed, it’s amazing that the civilian casualties didn’t reach hundreds during the seemingly daily monster battles. 

Because some Zords are sentient, I thought for a short moment about making this blog post into a Creature Feature. However, enough number of Zords are pure technology (like on Lightspeed Rescue and on SPD) that they fit better as tech, not creature. All the same, the creature-based Zords are phenomenal. The Zords of the Wild Force Rangers and the Galactibeasts of the Lost Galaxy Rangers are some of my favorite sentient Zords. 

The Zords turned into plot points and deus ex machina at times, depending on the season, with their miraculous arrivals or hunting for them. Some seasons it barely seemed like the Zords played a part in the plot, like with the Space Rangers. Other times it felt like a new Zord was discovered every other episode, like with the Wild Force Rangers. I think my favorites were the seasons somewhere in the middle, where they supplemented the Rangers character arcs, instead of becoming characters themselves. 

The 2017 Power Rangers movie kind of poked fun at this, but I often find it interesting how intuitive driving a Zord must be. Sometimes these Power Rangers were barely old enough to drive, but they could drive a Megazord with no problem (and then there was Justin who was young enough the Zord had to drive him). That’s the plot armor of a kid show though, not having to worry about the technical experience to fight the weekly baddie. 

With 2025 being the year of Power Rangers SPD, I plan to write more Ranger content this year (like I tried to do with LOST’s twentieth anniversary last year) so if there’s something you want explored from the Power Rangers franchise, you can reach me at the Command Center.

Go go Power Rangers!