Original Power Rangers feature film

Well they never actually named any of the animals they were representing, and the zords themselves were loose approximations anyway. The black zord had six legs, which no dinosaur or mammal would have. The red zord is vague enough to be any number of bipedal predators, rather than exclusively a T-Rex.

It's a conundrum in general, humanity is extremely low on the power level compared to most animals but they are the most versatile and adaptive. Larger animals like an elephant are capable of greater feats, but are much more fragile due to the Square-Cube Law. Pack hunters are individually not very strong but succeed in coordination and making kill shots.

Confirmed were not getting a sequel but a reboot with a new cast

A Shame as the cast did really well

Ugh, a reboot already!? They must've been really disappointed with the first one.

Pretty much what I expected. I really liked the 2017 movie and specially the cast, but with the movie having a so-so box office and with Hasbro/Paramount wanting to have full control for their future cinematic universe, this was their way to go. I had small hope that they might at least soft-reboot with the same cast, but it was inevitable that they were going to push the reset button.

I hope they keep the diverse team like the 2017 movie and hopefully this new series might be inspired by the awesome Boom comics.

That is the exact wrong thing to do. The cast was what was great about the 2017 film. It was the plot that sucked.

This does not bode well.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 12th 2019 at 6:46:57 AM

Is it possible the first cast didn't want to come back? Wouldn't be the first time that happened. Especially when it comes to Power Rangers.

Different studios means re-negotiations means different visions. The cast are usually the first to go.

If the cast proved to be money makers in their own right that might be under consideration, but the movie overall was not seen as a solid foundation for anything. I think most of them have leveraged their profile from this movie, but right now Naomi Scott is the one reaching more mainstream notoriety.

Ultimately I don't think the movie did a particularly good job developing the lore. Rita seemed like a one-off threat, and with her defeat the Rangers can retire. Kind of the problem between a movie and a series is trying to develop a status quo without resorting to a montage. With all the emphasis on the Rangers having to overcome their personal issues to save the day, the sequel has less room to go.

Speaking as someone who enjoyed the original film, this is probably accurate. A Paramount/Cybertron Studios (is that the name?) production will be leaning more heavily into the action and bad guys far more quickly, and in turn be more action oriented. I also imagine that Rita, Zelda, or Mondo (you can probably guess it will be one of the three) will get more dialog.

Making series Big Bads into one-off threats is always a problem when adapting serial media such as TV shows or comics to film. The unfortunate reality of film is that you're not going to get to tell 57 stories about Rita Repulsa, then bring in Zedd for season two. You'll often be lucky to get three "episodes", period, in which to tell your entire canon (or however much of it you've selected to adapt).

The problem with Rita and Goldar wasn't that they were only used for one film. It's that they were cheesy as f*ck, and not in a good way - after all, what's Power Rangers without at least a little camp? Rita was basically just a walking Bad Thing for the Rangers to eventually fight. She had no personality or character beyond Bad Person Does Bad Things.

The opportunity for a character was there. Potentially even a complex one given the relationship between Zordon and Rita. But it went by totally unheeded, making Rita and Goldar the weakest part of the entire film.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 12th 2019 at 12:01:46 PM

Zedd could be doable as a long term villain, since he's not a face character.

I thought it was an interesting approach to make Rita the evil Green Ranger, but in turn it kind of flattened her character and removed most of her supporting cast with Goldar being a voiceless blob. Similarly, the movie spends so much time developing the Rangers individually as people that it didn't develop them as Rangers. They didn't have a unique Weapon Of Choice, no unique fighting style and even the Zords sort of blended together. One major reason the Green Ranger was so popular was because of the golden chest "dragon shield."

It was enough changes to the source material that it was sort of bound to be disappointing in that way. On top of that it left the actual real world response to the Power Rangers to the end credits, which came from back ending all the action.

I don't think the statement adds up. Rita's supporting cast isn't absent/neutered because she was made the green ranger.

It's neutered because she's barely a part of the plot. Rita being the green ranger is itself practically just a handwave. It's there in the prologue and then never comes up again except for a sequel hook. The movie's not interested on why or how Rita became evil or what her deal is. She's there to provide the impetus for the "Power Rangers" part of the plot.

Edited by Ghilz on Jul 15th 2019 at 1:46:56 PM

And therein lies the problem.

Power Rangers is half of a great movie. The Breakfast Club stuff is phenomenal. But, as noted, Rita's a one-note loser who exists as an Excuse Plot to motivate Zordon to enlist the kids. She has no real depth or character of any kind. This creates some problems for the way the film's emotional intensity fails to rise with its action intensity.

The emotional climax of the film takes place in the second act. It's when the kids decide, "F*ck Zordon and f*ck the Power Rangers; we're awesome, we're a team, and we're going to take down Rita with or without the super suits!" This is the moment where everything the plot's been building to reaches its apex.

Like, if they'd gotten their Ranger armor in that second-act fight with Rita, defeated her, and then the film ended right there, I think a lot of people would have left that film feeling very satisfied about having experienced a complete story. Ranger fans would be upset that the Zords never entered into it, but casual filmgoers would be like, "Wow, what a cool movie."

But.

Like.

Then there's still another half hour of clean-up left. The actual story of the important characters is over, but there are still bad guys to beat up. And it's just empty action.

In fact, the way the film is written, Zordon makes for a more interesting and engaging villain than Rita does. There's this whole subplot throughout the second act where Zordon's using the kids to activate the Morphing Grid so he can revive himself.

His whole plan is that they'll learn to work together as a team, power up and get the Grid going, and then he'll step through and reclaim his power and be awesome again. Then the kids can go f*ck themselves off a cliff because they're just the tools of his resurrection and have no greater value. Like, that is way more interesting than "Rita is a bad guy and she's doing bad guy things, so you need to fight her."

If they'd beaten Rita in the second act and then the third act was about fighting Zordon, that would be an intense and exciting climax. And a terrible Power Rangers adaptation, but those are the tools the writers put on the table!

But Zordon's antagonism, too, reaches its conclusion in the second act. Zordon abruptly and for no reason abandons his resurrection plans to bring Billy back from the dead, even though doing so does not actually work within the established metaphysics of the resurrection plot point. And again, we're left with thirty minutes of clean-up against the Excuse Plot villain.

That is the problem of the Power Rangers film. The Rita we were given just isn't interesting or engaging enough to carry the conflict of the film's A-plot. She works as an Excuse Plot or Decoy Villain, but the movie loses its steam as soon as it runs out of plot threads to distract from how shallow and underdeveloped she is. As soon as the camera focuses in on her for the third act, there's nothing left to hold audience interest.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 16th 2019 at 12:44:41 PM

Moved the post to a proper thread, so here's the extended Rita VS Trini scene from the 2017 Movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15pftwvXZ0s

Edited by Guy01 on Jul 18th 2019 at 6:49:10 AM

Sounds interesting but you should probably post that in the "Power Rangers as a whole" thread.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13660890350A78211900&page=83#2059

Done and done. Thank you for the correction.

Hasbro is trying their hand at a movie now. It's confirmed they're going for a lighter and more colorful route after the whole Darker and Edgier take of the last movie didn't work (which sucks, since I liked the cast).

Edited by comicwriter on Dec 13th 2019 at 6:22:28 AM

Dunno if it's a good idea, but they might go nuts with it and actually be entertaining if nothing else.

in Back to the Future fashion, they have to find a way to get back to their present.

Time For Time Force!

When I read "back to its roots" all I can think of is how Megaforce tried and failed to replicate the tone and style of the original MMPR.

Edited by windleopard on Dec 13th 2019 at 8:08:20 AM

I don't think going back to basics is necessarily a bad idea, but they need to realize there is a difference between back to basics and back to the beginning. Despite starting the franchise, MMPR is a lot goofier than the franchise as a whole, which is saying something because even the best seasons like Space, Timeforce and RPM are still pretty goofy.

They want to hit that nostalgia audience. And when the nostalgia audience thinks of Power Rangers, they think of MMPR. Five teenagers with attitude (who are such renegades that they do total delinquent activities like volunteering at the local community center and teaching valuable life skills to children) duking it out against Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd.

But trying to adapt Power Rangers into a film means running headfirst into the same problem that has long plagued superhero films. The source material was never meant to be a movie. It was meant to be a serial. These are very different story structures.

In serial storytelling, you have a wealth of time to explore and flesh out your characters. You have a prolonged conflict with battle after battle. Your heroes meet the villains, they clash, and they move on. They find something else to fight about, they meet, they clash, and they move on. The villain enacts a master plot to destroy the heroes, but the heroes thwart it at the last second. The heroes enact a master plot to destroy the villain, but the villain thwarts it at the last second.

Prolonged sustained conflicts like this are very difficult to adequately represent in film. You don't have time to build the kind of relationships, friendships, rivalries, and hatreds that a serial has. The decades-long deep, complicated, brotherly friendship and rivalry between Captain America and Iron Man is fractured forever, except they've actually only spent maybe a week in each other's company over the course of two films and never really liked each other that much in the first place so really it's no big deal.

Serials show you the day-to-day lives of their characters. You get to know them, to connect with them, for dozens of hours. Most episodes don't dramatically change the story, but you still feel like you know the characters a little better for having experienced it. The big events are reserved for big event episodes, usually multi-parters and often serving as mid-season or genuine season finale.

Film, on the other hand, is event-driven. A film shows you one thing, one MAJOR THING, that happened to the characters one time and changed their lives forever. And then that's it. The curtain rolls with some expectation of conclusive end to that one major thing. Unless they're a multi-parter, films are meant to end decisively, rather than leave the good guys and bad guys to duke it out again in a week's time.

And if it's a multi-parter, it needs to be epic. Because you're not asking the audience to come back next Saturday. You're asking them to come back in 2-3 years to find out what happens next. That's enough time for multiple seasons of the serial you're adapting to come and go; you better damned well have a story that's worth that kind of investment.

That's the boat that Power Rangers is in. Superhero films developed a habit of killing off their villains because when you're only going to get three or four movies and you have such a huge rogues gallery of bad guys who deserve to appear in a film, you don't have the time to spend on giving one villain repeat appearances. Unless it's a relatively minor role, like Arnim Zola's three minutes of screentime in Winter Soldier.

Rita doesn't get to spend ten years and six movies making Jason, Trini, Kimberly, Billy, and Zack fight her monsters. There are other villains and other Rangers who deserve the spotlight too. So how do you get in, get out, and conclusively wrap up the entire plot of MMPR in one film?

Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 13th 2019 at 12:26:00 PM

I don’t suppose they could do a soft reboot. Having been introduced to our heroes in the the last movie, just skip to them having operated for a while and then going back in time.

Why does everyone think "teenagers with attitude" means bad attitude?