T3Medias: Zordon's History as the Red Ranger & The Return of Tommy

Saban's Power Rangers 2017

4 out of 5

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Naomi Scott as Kimberly

Dacre Montgomery as Jason

Elizabeth Banks as Rita repulsa

Ludi Lin as Zack

Becky G as Trini Kwan

RJ cyler as Billy Cranston

Bryan Cranston as Zordon

Bill Hader as Alpha 5

Directed by Brian Spicer

Heavy Spoilers Are Here!

I gave a lot of credit to Brian Spicer for his directing of this film. The use of slow-motion was the best I've seen in a long time especially with movies that deal with the giant robots fighting monsters. Sometimes watching things explode in the background and slow motion has been done to death so much that it was raised from the dead and killed again. But the scene where Rita repulsa is walking out of the gold shop and destroying the building in slow motion for some reason resonated with me. I compare this movie a lot to the online Dawson Creek Power Ranger story because I believe that Saban the owner of the Power Rangers did take a few notes that kids like me who love the first season we're now middle-aged half of us are in midlife crisis and even though we like to reach back and feel like a kid again we still don't like to be talked to like children. We want our stories two entertainers and a different way but give us those fuzzy feelings for the past. I think this director executed that very well.

From the beginning of the movie you see war on prehistoric Earth over 65 million years in the past. Bryan Cranston was the Red Ranger. There is a battle that has just been lost by the Power Rangers and you see the Yellow Ranger dying as her morphsuit disappears to reveal a female alien humanoid . Bryan Cranston crawls her and apologizes to her in an alien language. You see Elizabeth Banks, the former Green Ranger, hovering over as she has obviously succeeded in killing the Rangers. The Red Ranger, Cranston, tells Alpha 5 to send the meteor. This is obviously what killed the dinosaurs and hit a reset button hiding away the crystals for the Power Rangers and getting rid of Rita for millions of years. I don't remember ever being explained in the Power Rangers series but makes too much sense. This is something that speaks well to re-imagining and retelling of a story. It felt like fan fiction brought to life.

Fast forward to present-day where we meet the teenagers with attitude. This was the part that I was worried about I didn't know exactly what to expect seeing that it was a movie that was based on something from the nineties. Everybody knows that that was the last of the greatest decades it was a magical time but calling back to the nineties is ever so risky. I feel that the writing of this movie did a good job of keeping it updated period bullying isn't as popular as it used to be but keeping the bully element was important to the story.

Seeing that Jason was a football scholarship away from greatness he pulls a prank bust his knee and is put in detention. You don't learn why everyone else is there until later. Kimberly obviously hit some guy and knocked his tooth out and got kicked off the cheerleading squad which was a good twist that we weren't dealing with the head cheerleader like the show Davis we were dealing with social bullying by having her get humiliated and kicked off the squad. Billy Cranston is socially awkward but you don't find out exactly what he did until the end of the First Act. Something about explosives. Jason Stroh's Billy a little kindness and that sets things in motion that puts them on the path.

Billy helps Jason sneak away from house arrest to go run a project at a dig site that he's been working on and somehow the remaining members of the team coincidentally also go to the same spot Trini goes there to meditate comma Kimberly was just there to swim, and Zack who we meet there for the first time seems to go there to check training. Billy is digging because he calculates that there's something there at the old site where his father used to work construction if we find out that while ago. This is where they find the crystals, Alpha 5 and Zordon in a underground spaceship.

The special effects of the headquarters is amazing period after the crystals have found the new team they begin their training to become the power rangers. Even though the way they all coincidentally happened to come together to find their coins and receive their powers, I like that it didn't happen as fast as it did on the TV show. That came later with more character development and learning about each ones history.

You learned that Billy was there because his father used to work that same construction site and Billy being a brilliant mind who has the inability to read things like sarcasm and people make some socially awkward but smart enough to locate the Coins. Kimberly was there to go diving in the local Lake. Jason became a little bit of a creeper as she those in her bra and panties and watch her a little too long. She can fight and Jason and third Act that the reason why she punched that boy was because there were nude pictures taken of a friend of hers on the cheerleading squad. There was some kind of falling out or a weird reason why she decided to share those pictures with the boys she was dating and he does what most dumb teenagers would do and shares the pictures with everyone in school. The guilt of her allowing it to happen was keeping her from morphine at first. Zack isn't a dancer but he's a little reckless and crazy. He's worried that his mom will die soon can't deal with that pressure since it's just him and her. But rainy is the most complex, she doesn't communicate with your family very well. Her mother is frantically worried. The reason that she is such a rebel and loner it's because her secret maybe that she's afraid to come out of the closet. Confiding in her new friends also contributes to the team morphing in the end.

Before the teen morphs for the first time the word morph was used so many times that the setup for It's morphing time said by Jason did not feel that camping. It was so subtly said as a matter of fact it just indicated that it's time to morph literally. One of t
he funniest lines that came out of the movie was given by Zack when Zordon asked if any of them have morphed. Zack's answer was "yes but only in the shower". Humor like this was sprinkled throughout and was very surprising. But it gave that adult and me what I wanted because the kid and me was already being heavily entertained. If that makes sense.

What's the Rangers take on the swords and fight the newly Resurrected Goldar after Rita's Gold Rush. We get another throwback line from Rita when she says make my Monster Grow. We have the inevitable product placement with Krispy Kreme and we get a scene of Elizabeth Banks enjoying a donut with sprinkles as it's being destroyed. The team comes together creating the Megazord learning on-the-job how to work it and defeats Goldar. Rita is knocked into space and heads towards the Moon which gives another setup period

If you don't want to be spoiled from this point stop reading

Because this is something that was awesome seeing on screen without knowing.

You've been warned!

As the city of Angel Grove rejoices over a dancing Megazord as he celebrates the victory a lot of people take out their cell phones and snaps pictures. Two of these people are the original Tommy and Kimberly. The people in the theater begin to clap myself included. That was an awesome moment. Here comes the conspiracy theories. I believe this is an alternative Universe where Tommy still came to Angel Grove in the nineties but the path that put them all on becoming Power Rangers just never happened for them.

Stay till the end of the movie and halfway through the credits there is a new scene bringing the kids back into the tension and the teacher in charge calls out names for accountability. He says there's a new student and repeats the name Tommy over and over. All we then see is an empty desk and Tommy's green jacket with Chinese letters written on it. And The Crowd Goes Wild!

Before Rita is Vanquish she indicates that she would not be judged by sword on. She also implies that the reasoning behind her actions

Is because of some greater threat. Are they going to twist it around that maybe she's trying to save the world from a possible Lord Zedd? I believe that the way she was able to get her powers and break away from the Power Ranger order was because of Lords and that's the angle of the sequel. That because she failed he'll strip the power from her and create Tommy the New Green Ranger.

I enjoy this movie I think a lot of people Realty it's got a 70% rating overall. I see that is being a little bit better than what I expected but if this was a brand new movie that didn't have any kind of History I think it would have received a higher rating. But overall I think everybody is now saying Go Go Power Rangers!