[TokuChris]

There's a lot of rumor and speculation as to why Forever Red ended up the way it did.

Some of the more classic ones (again, RUMORS):

- Disney didn't want to do an Anniversary Episode, didn't see the need of the importance
- Forever Red and what they wanted to do wasn't in the budget
- Bandai agreed to fork over money to help finish the episode as long as it featured the "Wild Rider" (a toy Bandai really wanted to push) in a prominent way
- Was originally planned as a 2-parter but Disney only agreed to one episode

The only reason I put stock in to some of those rumors is because Doug Sloan has stated before that Disney was done with Power Rangers when Wild Force ended - they even titled the last two episodes "The End of the Power Rangers". It wasn't until Doug Sloan and Co. were able to talk Disney into agreeing to shoot in NZ where there wasn't unions and it was incredibly cheaper and closer to Japan (where everything was going to be shipped from anyways). The contract portion is sticky and I don't believe anyone has ever found concrete evidence on the contracts Disney signed with the production crew in NZ, but the rumor is that Disney agreed to a 2 year contract, and after ratings were strong with Dino Thunder, brought in their own EP (Bruce Kalish) and signed another 5 year contract. After "Jungle Fury" (4th year contract) ended, Disney tried to pull out of the deal but it was thanks to Bandai (rumor) that forced them to committ to RPM, where the EP Eddie has stated that he was told, "You can pretty much do whatever you want to do, you're being cancelled at the end of production no matter how good/bad the ratings are", hence his drastic change from source material (Go Onger) and the more serious and adult themed storyline.

In short? Disney was tight with the purse strings and really didn't want to do any of the stuff that ended up cool (Forever Red and RPM being the biggest two).