Those early 2000s seasons after the Disney buyout were somethin’ else, man. I believe I made it clear in my entry for Dustin that Ninja Storm was very much a product of its time. To some degree, that same attitude was reflected in Dino Thunder. You see, kids, in 2003, there was this popular Canadian rock singer named Avril Lavigne and with her came a slew of school-age girls trying to dress like her by wearing ties over their shirts and skirts over their jeans. These days she’s more well-known for marrying the dude from Nickelback and creating this… erm… love letter to Japan.

Anyways, Kira Ford was a reflection of the Avril phenomenon. Guitar and everything.

NAME: Kira Ford
RANGER DESIGNATION: Yellow Dino Ranger, Power Rangers Dino Thunder
BASE OF OPERATION: Reefside
FIRST APPEARANCE: “Day of the Dino” – Power Rangers Dino Thunder
LAST APPEARANCE: “Once a Ranger Part II” – Power Rangers Operation Overdrive
PERSONAL WEAPONS/GEAR: Yellow Dino Gem, Ptera Scream, Ptera Grips
ZORDS: Pterazord
PORTRAYED BY: Emma Lahana

PROFILE

The tyrannical Principal Randall began her reign at Reefside High School by throwing detention at every kid she could. One of these students was Kira Ford, who was guilty of playing a guitar and singing like that one d-bag at that college party. You know the one. Joining her in detention were Ethan James, a big ol’ computer geek, and Connor McKnight, a soccer bro.

 

Obviously these three didn’t get along very well, but alas they were trapped in after-school detention with the new paleontology professor, Dr. Thomas Oliver. The good thing about this is that Dr. O would take them to a museum and cancel detention if they found anything “prehistoric” outside, whatever that means. During their search, the three kids fall into a trap that leads them to some sort of dino-lab. Here, Kira found her yellow Dino Gem and it merged with her DNA.

The kids got into a tussle with some Tyrannodrones and Kira discovered her Ptera Scream ability. They wondered if they should bring this whole situation up to Dr. O, but Kira wanted nothing to do with it and handed her yellow gem to the boys. Unfortunately she wouldn’t have a choice after getting captured through a portal by some goons.

She woke up in captivity under the evil Mesogog and his lackeys. His goal was to use Kira as bait to lure the others and steal their Dino Gems, but she was able to fight the baddies off and bail through an invisi-portal. She then fell from the sky and landed on Tommy’s Jeep.

Since the cat was out of the bag, Tommy felt it was best to bring the kids to the Dino Lair and present them with his little Power Rangers speech. Kira wasn’t the biggest fan of this concept, especially being teamed up with a couple of her polar opposites. Mesogog soon forced their collective hand when he unleashed the Bio Zords upon Reefside.

Kira left to confront the Zords with her new teammates, morphing into the Yellow Dino Ranger. She befriended the Ptera Zord and helped fight off Zeltrax and some Tyrannodrones.

She eventually became accustomed to being a Ranger, but her first love was always music. Kira fancied herself a bit of a singer-songwriter and could often be seen performing live at the CyberSpace. She had that edgy, rebellious vibe that was oh so prevalent in the early 2000s, except a version of that that’s suitable for kids.

In her early days as a musician, Kira was in a band with her friend Kylee Styles (possible relation to Harry?) who went on to become a big sellout pop star. When Kylee did a fan signing in Reefside, she reconnected with Kira but was not exactly grateful for her presence. A youth-stealing monster turned the pretty pop star into an old wrinkly hag. Not exactly the best look for a singer in the public eye.

Kylee took advantage of Kira’s “friendship” with her by begging for her help, even though she couldn’t seem to give a crap about her before. Kira eventually left to fight the donkey monster and everybody returned to normal. Afterward, Kylee performed with her live at the CyberSpace because I guess she just decided to be nice again?

A mysterious new artist boy arrived in town and took quite a liking to Kira. It also turned out that this kid Trent was the evil brainwashed White Ranger that they had been dealing with for a few episodes. When Trent found out that Kira was the Yellow Ranger, he almost came to his senses. She was also the only one to come to Trent’s defense, knowing that he wasn’t being a meanie of his own free will. She was happy that he was eventually able to join the team because let’s face it, he was super cute.

Kira took an internship on the Funky Fisherman Show, a program she was fond of as a child. Although, upon meeting the fisherman himself, he wasn’t very pleasant and demanded that she just get him coffee and stuff. Elsa and her troops invaded the set because it seemed like a good idea to turn the dude in the fish costume into a monster. Kira morphed on-set without realizing that the closed circuit security cams were recording her. Her classmate Devin, on a mission to find out the identities of the Rangers, got a hold of the footage. Fortunately he was never able to watch it, as he dropped it into a punchbowl.

Her dream of becoming a real recording artist almost came true when Kira got a contract with a big-wig producer that looked suspiciously like Boom from SPD. The means to this end, though, was turning into a weird glam pop star version of herself. Demanding honest feedback from her friends proved helpful, as they all knew that this wasn’t the Kira that they loved. Instead of betraying her identity and selling out, she decided to forego the whole deal and continue being her authentic self.

The other class buffoon, Cassidy, had secretly been hanging out with Ethan, despite them having seemingly nothing in common. Kira made a lot of assumptions about this, but Ethan convinced her that she’s more than a stereotype. It turned out that Kira had something in common with her and she was able to get Cassidy an on-camera job at the Reefside News station. High schoolers doing local news is exactly the kind of thing you can expect from this show, after all.

Kira used the last of her Dino Gem energy when defeating Mesogog. Retirement from superherodom led her to focus more on her singing career. She would later wind up crossing paths with the B-Squad SPD Rangers. Twice. It was here that present Kira discovered that future Kira would become a famous singer by 2025. A few years later, Kira joined other Ranger alumni to fill in for the Overdrive Rangers while they were powerless. Eventually they all teamed up to destroy Thrax, the evil spawn of Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa.

 

SUGGESTED VIEWING

This section feels really useless so I’m gonna stop doing it after this one. These episodes will usually be the ones that I base my ranking on the most, so I’ll probably include them in the Ranking section from now on.

A Star is Torn and A Ranger Exclusive showcase Kira the best, in my opinion. It’s a Mad Mad Mackerel is just a good time.

 

RANKING

Kira is similar to Cassie in that they’re both supposed to be the G-rated versions of a Punk Rock Princess, so the two are at least comparable. I think Cassie did a better version of maturing throughout her tenure. This puts Kira below her. To her credit, though, she also grew beyond thinking of people as their stereotypes and seeing them for who they really are, such as the case with Cassidy and just generally being a Ranger with a couple of dudes that she probably wouldn’t have been caught dead hanging out with before. I think this is gonna prop her up higher than Dom, who just didn’t have as much time to breathe. This makes Kira Ford the new number seven on our Children of Zordon.

Make sure you follow me on Twitter (and also no context power rangers, of course) and check back every Monday (mostly) for new entries on the list. I might do some other stuff in-between, and @childrnofzordon is probably the first place you’ll hear about it. As usual, I don’t make promises. If you wanna see where other Rangers stand on the list, make sure you take a gander at that link.

Next week we’re gonna skate into the world of New Zealand with our first true Kiwi Ranger, Chase Randall. Seeya then.