Trust The Audience: The New Power Rangers Reboot Doesn’t Need An Origin Story
Recently, the announcement for Hasbro’s planned film reboot for the Power Rangers franchise had fans abuzz. This time, the movie comes from Paramount Pictures with Jonathan Entwhistle (Netflix’s The End of the Fucking World) reportedly in negotiations for the director’s spot.
Taking advantage of rising 90’s nostalgia, the film’s current story adds a time travel element, trapping the Rangers of today in the 90’s where they must find a way back to the present. One would be forgiven for wondering if this was indeed the plot of a new Power Rangers movie, or the state of Power Rangers in general.
Despite the fact that the franchise has seen many successful iterations over the last two decades, the 90's Mighty Morphin era with its iconic Zyuranger suits are ingrained into the cultural zeitgeist forever as Power Rangers. As a result, it tends to be the focus of any large multimedia event, whether it be a reboot film as in 2017 or the excellent Boom! Comics. Most big franchise pushes often center around the Mighty Morphin Rangers.
It’s not difficult to see why.
Ask a random stranger on the street, and, more often than not, I guarantee they’ll either sing notes from the beloved theme song or mention a moment from the Mighty Morphin era. Mighty Morphin sells and that’s what The Powers That Be care most about.
Fans of the franchise might express exasperation at the notion, but in all likelihood, the new film will either star or somehow feature a new version of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Now, whether the filmmakers choose to re-adapt Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, or, should they get creative and deliver some sort of version based on Power Rangers: Time Force, I am begging them to do one simple thing:
Ditch the origin story.
With the current boom of superhero films still dominating the box office, filmmakers have relied heavily on origins stories to introduce characters often viewed as outside the peripheral of mainstream media such as Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, or even Shazam.
However, a restlessness among fans with films entirely reliant on origin stories for well established properties has been brewing.
Love it or hate it, one of the main weaknesses in the 2017 reboot film stemmed from the amount of time spent detailing not only the origin for each and every character, but how they became Power Rangers, resulting in very little onscreen time actually starring the Power Rangers. As a result, the adventure felt a little short-changed and crammed.
This is not necessarily an indictment against the movie itself (For the record, I still love it). I get it. You want to re-establish an entire franchise in a similar fashion to what has been printing money at the box office for the past decade.
In a TV show, one is afforded plenty of time to nurture a character’s development. In a film, precious little. When you have a large ensemble cast, all of whom are equally important, it’s very difficult to both give everyone their due and still have time to tell an exciting Power Rangers story. There’s just too much ground to cover in two hours for it to completely satisfy in both ways.
For the same reason audiences don’t need to be subjected to the Waynes’ death for the 700th time in a Batman movie, they don’t necessarily need to see how the Power Rangers came to be. This is 2019. Audiences are smarter than studios give them credit for. Properties like Power Rangers are no longer niche things only held by “nerds.” We’re dealing with cultural icons.
People know the score.
If you write a smart script, you can provide enough context revealing who the Rangers are without painstaking detail and wasting valuable screen time.
Audiences no longer require hand holding to ensure engagement with a superhero film. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse took one of the wildest Spider-Man comic book stories and turned it into one of the most beloved superhero movies of all time without bogging the film down by introducing the concept of Spider-Man. The filmmakers understood Spider-Man was not a foreign concept to people, given that we are on the third series of live action Spider-Man movies. Instead, they moved forward, allowing them to devote more time to the bright, kinetic, and engaging story of the finished film.
Yes, Into The Spider-Verse does admittedly serve as an origin story for Miles Morales. But imagine how little time would be dedicated to that character if they spent 15–20 minutes setting up the concept of Spider-Man as well as delving into the identity of each extra-dimensional Spider. His story was successfully told alongside the adventure at hand.
A future Power Rangers film should utilize similar storytelling tactics. Whether they’re die-hard since August ’93, a casual fan, a kid currently watching Power Rangers: Beast Morphers on Nickelodeon, or just someone who vaguely remembers the show from their childhood, everyone knows the Power Rangers are a group of teenagers (with attitude, of course) who morph into brightly colored superheroes and call upon giant robots called zords.
“But who puts the team together?” I hear you ask.
Zordon. Udonna. Dr. K. Keeper. Every iteration of the Power Rangers franchise has a mentor character guiding the Rangers. More often than not, they’re also responsible for giving Rangers their powers. If you didn’t know a single name after Zordon, that’s okay! Knowing who Zordon is gives you enough context to understand what kind of character the others listed are and what role they play in their respective Power Rangers seasons.
Does anyone honestly need much more than that to be able to sit back and enjoy some Ranger action? A competent script could sprinkle in plenty of context in the film itself and ancillary material would surely dive deeper for those desiring more.
Consider the opening to the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.
The metal-as-frak guitar starts up, and we see the accidental unleashing of Rita Repulsa. She then screeches her famous: “Ah! After 10,000 years, I’m free! It’s time to conquer Earth!”
Cut to the Command Center where we find Zordon instructing Alpha-5: “Alpha! Rita’s Escaped! Recruit a team of teenagers with attitudes.”
13 seconds.
That’s all the time it takes to set up the context for the show. Your typical of-the-time TV montage of actors’ credits follows, each displaying their character name as well as visually indicating which color Ranger they portray. The theme ends with all their zords coming together to form the Megazord as Ron Wasserman repeatedly sings “Go! Go! Power Rangers!”
The entire theme lasts just over a minute and gives the viewer everything required to enjoy an episode.
No one absolutely had to watch “Day of the Dumpster,” the pilot episode of the show, to follow the characters and their relationships with one another. Barring a few exceptions, the first seasons of the show featured mostly stand-alone episodes. Between each character wearing their coordinating Ranger color in their civilian outfits and the glaringly obvious writing spelling out every situation for the viewer, you could watch virtually any episode on any given day and never feel lost.
Similarly, 1995’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie treated the film like a 95 minute big budget episode with no new origin for anyone who may not have seen the show. To be completely fair, though, the film did come out at the height of the Power Rangers craze. No one outside of maybe a few bemused parents going into that film needed to be told who any of the characters were.
A new reboot obviously can’t show the same abandon for an origin as in ’95. That would be suicide. However, take that confidence in the property into consideration. Yes, write the characters in a way that allows the viewer to accept and get to know them. Include your audience, sure. But don’t baby us.
We know what Power Rangers are. Just give us enough context to appreciate whatever team comes together so we can awe at the adventure-fueled Power Rangers movie fans worldwide deserve.
