Lessons from Power Rangers -

A Few days ago i saw a post on a movies group about Bryan Cranston being a part of the new Power Rangers movie. I am one of those so called 90s kid who grew on Jetix and Power rangers and reached the Heisenberg. So, I was pretty much excited about the news. I can proudly say among the peers that I am going to a Bryan Cranston movie but the kid inside roaring all the title music of the Power Rangers Saga. It was indeed a great nostalgic feeling. I still remember the days where it starts with Ninja Storm followed by Dino Thunder. These two series started my relationship with the so called Power Rangers. Then it reached the ultimatum with the Space Patrol Delta fondly known as SPD. It was the time when everybody was watching Power Rangers and Disney’s Jetix must have attained the max TRP with this show. These shows followed the same pattern in every other episode. They have some fights, a new creature comes and the rangers destroy them, then it turns into a big monster and then the rangers will summon the Zords aka the big robots and smash it. In each episode a certain ranger will play the heroic role among the heroes. They get defeated easily and stand again united to defeat the enemy. They will be rewarded something each episode for their unity. This might sound mundane but it was interesting to watch that. Those fights with masks, explosions, heroic landing and the ranger conversion words. It was indeed a great time every kid must enjoyed. I still remember trying to get a Shaktimaan costume, then getting many more Power Ranger watch aka morphors.

But unfortunately or fortunately this grownup kid in me started to analysing the Power Rangers and what it actually was trying to convey. Blame on the GOTs, Suits and so on. Thanks to the lot of subtexts, Kuriyeedu and inner meaning preachers, I started to analyse the most favourite show of mine. I started dissecting the concept and got few things which it conveyed.

So if you notice it closely each season had the red ranger as the hero and emphasized on the team spirit. Every heroes will fall and when they unite they will make other fall. This is on the whole the major concept of every other episode. Then after a while on retrospection I was thinking of the favourites and the most powerful Rangers from each season and the list came down to this. Tommy Oliver, Trent Mercer, Blake, and Jack. If you see the similarities they are started as a bad rangers and enjoy the evil (exception being Jack but the reason I added him in the list will be explained later). They all had a choice but they choose bad and then after enough damage done, situation forces them to choose good and they become good. Now they are rated over the always righteous superheroes of us.

I was the one who enjoyed all of these and now I see the injustice done to the always righteous heroes. Their struggle to stay good right from the beginning is not at all appreciated but rather the people who comfortable chose bad over good and turned good again due to the situational pressure is hailed as the better or even compared to the legend. So this indirectly says that if you are good right from the beginning you will not be considered as a great person. Do enough bad and then turn good so that you even be rated better than the person who is doing the right thing from the beginning.

So this lesson made me think the very own thoughts of the pitiful creature called human being and out of curiosity I asked the following questions to a considerable amount of my friends. The question I framed is as follows, “the thing is two ppl are there one is good guy from the beginning. He had chance to be bad but even then he chose to be good. Other one is bad, he had option to become good but he chose bad after a long time, enough damages done he chose to become good. So whom do you rate or consider above other”.

Out of the considerable amount of the people whom i asked 95% of them told that they would rate the second guy higher than that of the first guy. The reasons mentioned are as follows, “To be good always is not difficult”, “only someone who has been through that growth cycle will appreciate the value of the things they have in life”. Among the few five percent the one response that hit me hard was this, “It takes guts to be good all along.” It was evident that everybody kept both in the same balance or kept the bad guy in a slightly higher level.

So what I interpreted is that if someone is tempting you to do things, it is not a big deal to avoid but rather do it along and then get out of it. Then you will be hold in a higher position. So a person who controls his urge to go the easy way is not even respected and more than that it is not a great deal to be in that way. This is the human mindset in the vast majority. This is not something I am going to preach to change but rather my idea is to share what I understood.

Now going beyond, I am able to remember from the lectures of Services Marketing that If you give service delivery 100% then the chance of the customer to stay loyal to you is less. But if you fail to deliver few services and compensate with high quality treatment (Service recovery) then the chances of the customer to stay loyal is very high. So for example in a safety ride, if you take all your passengers without a scratch its not a big deal but rather make some minor accidents and treat them great and you gain the loyalty. So your utter dedication to provide zero failure is not appreciated but failing to serve and recovering for the mistake is much appreciated. This service recovery paradox seems very much true to the life too. And I would suggest go with the demands of the market, make mistakes and don’t think consequences because obviously you deserve a second chance and you can make up for that then. Don’t worry much of what if there is no second chance. Obviously you will get better respect and brownie points for the transition than that of being goodie two shoes. Apart from all of these being bad is fun and you can enjoy the you time.