2017 Power Rangers: Old Story, New Costumes

Photo via USAToday

We take a look at what 2017’s Power Rangers reboot brings to the table.

By Shrey Sankalp

Let’s get this one thing straight – if you ever counted the number of people who weren’t aware of Power Rangers, you’d get a grand total of zero people.

Shocking, isn’t it?

Hardly so.

Power Rangers as a franchise has been in mainstream consciousness for the last 23 (!) years, and  while it was initially aimed at kids, its unfathomable popularity thanks to some smart advertising, cool toys and snappy costumes has made sure it has a corner of pop-culture all to itself.

It’s not very hard to see why people love Power Rangers. Nearly every iteration of the series deals with a group of very relatable people dealing with a threat that’s as fantastical as it is a commentary on the state of affairs in the real world, and at the end of the day, don’t we all just want to see the good guys win?

Of course, it does help that there are some really cool costumes involved on both the parts of the heroes and the villains, but thankfully most iterations of Power Rangers have had a story strong enough to be worthy of those costumes.

And when they weren’t?

Well, at least the costumes still looked cool.

There have been multiple storylines involving a different theme each time (Mystic Force, Jungle Fury, Ninja Storm—yeah, the writers kind of tend to run wild with the names), and not all of these seasons have been great, or even good.

Fans argue how Lightspeed Rescue, Dino Thunder, S.P.D. and Ninja Storm are the best, but if you ask me, the best version is still the one that started it all – Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.

The plot was rather simple – when an alien entity known as Rita Repulsa was let loose on the planet to conquer it, wise sage Zordon recruited five teenagers from the fictitious Angel Grove in California and granted them the power (and costumes) to be Power Rangers and save the planet.

If this sounds like something you’ve already seen before, then it’s probably because they took it off of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. 

Photo: Lionsgate

The film is reported to be a reboot of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers that retells the origin story of the Power Rangers, and since there haven’t been too many promotional materials released so far, we don’t have an exact metric to see how faithful they are choosing to be to the source material.

We have gotten our first look at Rita Repulsa’s costume (who is played by the wonderful Elizabeth Banks) and the costumes that the Rangers themselves will wear, but let’s get to that in a minute.

Zordon will be played by Walter White himself, and having Bryan Cranston in your movie is always a good thing, isn’t it?

He is the one who knocks after all.

Of course, the Rangers themselves are largely unknown, but then it’s not like a star cast is that important to a movie anyway.

Again, since there’s not a ton of promotional material to go on I can’t really comment on what the film is going to be like, but I sure do hope it’s not the same portal in the sky shtick we’ve seen in every movie this decade.

Photo Via: People

But even if it is, we can surely overlook it if it feels like a Power Rangers movie, right?

Which is where the aesthetic comes in.

Now, you know it as well as I do how important the costumes are to a Power Rangers product, maybe to a point where the costumes are the product.

In that regard, we may have an issue. Of all the costumes revealed so far, none of them look or feel like a Power Rangers costume. Rita Repulsa’s costume has undergone a change so dramatic, that if someone didn’t tell you it was her, the costume would never let you know.

But I can forgive this costume change as the original costume may have been too goofy.

Photo source: Wikipedia.org

What about the Power Rangers costumes themselves?

I’m somewhat disappointed that the thin “fabric-ness” of the original costumes has gone and now every costume resembles an Iron Man costume. The costumes did need an upgrade with time, but did they have to look so much like the Iron Man costume?

I don’t suppose we can expect any acrobatics in the new costume due to its heavy and cumbersome nature like we could with the old costumes, and I did like the overstylized acrobatics that came free with the old costumes.

But on the bright side, the new costumes will sparkle just as much as the old costumes upon getting hit thanks to their metal (apparently) construction!

Thank God they didn’t completely forego fan service.