I had a power ranger RPM thought:
So, the bad guys in power rangers have been pretty good for the most part. Venjix from RPM is genuinely terrifying simply for the fact that he’s killed the majority of the planet, Zander from samurai is a really good bad for bad sake kind of bad guy and he’s a chronic migraine icon, and Jarrod/Dai Shi and Camile from Jungle Fury are my favorite bad guys ever and they are so much fun and all the villains in this show are giving off toxic family drama vibes and sometimes have more interesting plot lines than the heroes.
Lothor from Ninja Storm and Mesagog from Dino Thunder have been alright. They have interesting concepts that I feel like needed a little bit more oomph to be on par with everyone else I’ve seen/remember so far. Mesagog has an amazing character design tho.
ANYWAY, most of the villains have reasons for why they are failing to destroy the rangers despite their best efforts (Zander suffers from constant debilitating migraines that stop him from leading well, Lothor is purposefully losing for later plot reasons, Dai Shi is being held back by Jarrod, Mesagog is being held back by Trent’s dad) but I didn’t really see this kind of reasoning for RPM.
Which is weird because RPM is like, the best power rangers ever and has some really fun interactions/dynamics with villains and heroes, but didn’t have the same “we’re failing because there is X holding us back”
And then I remembered Venjix’s origin story.
He’s a computer program meant to infiltrate and disarm security programs, maybe even destroy them. He’s a computer program made by Dr. K, his direct enemy. Computer programs are only as smart as they are programmed to be.
Venjix can easily get into Corinth, that’s basically his whole programming, but can’t beat the “security team” (aka the rangers) because they are “programmed” beyond what he was designed to destroy.
He keeps losing because he is a computer program with set limitations already in place for him. All his biggest schemes and plans that had the greatest success were thought up by Tenaya in combination with his other generals.
It is a human mind that is progressing his advancements and even then it is held back by his preference for his machines.
Like, that’s really cool. And maybe that wasn’t what they were going for but it works and it’s wonderfully consistent with what we are give about how Venjix works.
I love this show so much.
