by Benjamin Haines » Sat Jan 21, 2017 6:21 pm
To be honest, my feelings toward the Power Rangers franchise are probably very different from most of you. I loved watching the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers on TV as a kid and I dug the 1995 movie. I watched episodes of the following series (Zeo, Turbo, and In Space) sporadically. I got into Lost Galaxy when it premiered and kept up with it for the most part all the way to the finale. I was in fifth grade by that point and once Lightspeed Rescue premiered, I realized just how disinterested I was in watching another whole new cycle of Power Rangers and I just stopped.
I still have nostalgic memories of the original MMPR series but I've long since grown out of it. There are things we get into as kids that are worth lifelong interest, and there are things that are just so bad that you really have to be a kid not to notice and it's best to just let them exist as fond childhood memories rather than revisiting them. For me, MMPR is definitely the latter. I actually tried watching some classic episodes a few years back when the original series was on Netflix, and holy crap, it's just so bad. I'm not even talking about the cheap production values; I'm talking about the high school scenes, all of the parts with the Rangers out of costume, which is basically half the show. The acting, the dialogue, the stories... Has anyone else here actually sat down and watched MMPR recently? It's really not good.
Since I genuinely have no desire to watch the original Power Rangers series for entertainment at this point in my life, the prospect of adapting the series into a modern, big-budget scifi action movie carries no sacrilege to me. I was indifferent to this project when it was first announced but I actually think the trailers make the movie look like it could be a lot of fun. The cast seems to play off each other well and the core elements of the original series are all on display: high school recruits, martial arts, colorful costumes, alien monsters, and a squad of giant robots that can combine into one. I don't get a Bayformers vibe from this at all. To me, this looks more like Chronicle meets Pacific Rim. I say bring it on!
Plus, Bryan Cranston is Zordon and Elizabeth Banks is Rita Repulsa. That's awesome.