Dear Angel Grove, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us—in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a freak… and a screwup… and a guy who gets bullied… and a girl who gets bullied… and a tech whiz…
Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Power Rangers Club.
Zordon’s “teenagers with attitude” have been replaced by misfits with even more attitude and bigger chips on their shoulders in the first teaser trailer for Power Rangers, which was released during NYCC.
Instead of being freinds before they were called by Zordon, the new Power Rangers are a bunch of “weirdos and criminals” brought together by detention, for a variety of reasons—some their fault, some not. But when they can’t resist exploring a restricted site where a mysterious object has crash-landed, they discover odd alien artifacts that give them inexplicable super-strength and super-jumping and super-karate…
Oh, and a surprise guest from space, who has killed Rangers before and won’t hesitate to do it again.
Also, the morphing experience is much creepier than it was in the ’90s.
Power Rangers comes to theaters March 2017.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the Power Rangers were a staple of my childhood that I don’t want to be messed up. On the other hand, this looks like something completely different which has me mildly intrigued. Anyone else feeling something similar?
@1/Alicea: I guess I have a different perspective, both because I was in my 20s when MMPR premiered and because Power Rangers is still in production today — literally, I just watched the newest Power Rangers Dino Super Charge episode four hours ago. (Well, I mostly didn’t watch it, since it was their annual Halloween clip show, so there wasn’t much worth seeing. But it was a new episode, inasmuch as a clip show in a franchise that’s built around recycled Japanese effects footage can be considered new.)
Honestly, nostalgia for MMPR kind of puzzles me; it certainly had one of the best casts in the history of the franchise (Amy Jo Johnson in particular is a remarkably gifted actress), but its writing (at least in the first year) was terrible compared to later Power Rangers seasons. The so-called “teenagers with attitude” were clean-cut ciphers with no depth, their plots were generic school-sitcom stuff with monster fights stuck in, and they never had any conflict unless they were under magic spells. A lot of the later seasons have had much better characterization and writing, although the franchise has had its ups and downs over the years as it’s changed hands.
As for this movie, even though it’s reusing the premise and character names of MMPR, it seems to be drawing a lot on the approach of later seasons in the franchise — more character complexity and conflict, the Rangers having superpowers in unmorphed form — as well as going for more generic teen-superhero/YA-movie stuff to draw in general audiences. I suppose it has potential, but it’s hard to tell from a teaser trailer alone. Generally the formula for trailers these days is to have three main ones — the first one vague and ominous and serious, the second one revealing more of the plot and action, and the third one playing up the fun and humor. You kind of need to see all three trailers, or at least the second one, to get a sense of what the movie’s really like. (Remember the teaser trailer to the Ghostbusters reboot? You couldn’t even tell it was for a comedy, as opposed to a tense action thriller.)
Dreary.
It’s not my childhood, but it does appear to be more naturalistic, no rubber monsters in sight.
@4/MByerly: Keep in mind this is an early teaser trailer, which means that most of the visual effects shots probably haven’t been completed yet. No doubt the monsters will be CGI, but they’re bound to be included in some form. I remember seeing some production photos involving an action scene with the Red Ranger and a stuntman in a motion-capture suit.