That Damn Power Rangers Trailer

I can't understate how important Power Rangers is to my development into the nerd I am today. When the first season of the show aired on Fox Kids, I was 3 years old, and I became a crazy fan almost immediately. That lasted until, oh, Power Rangers In Space, when I soon moved onto other things. But I still love those early seasons to death, and I love watching all the Sentai shows that were adapted into Power Rangers. I mean, no season of Power Rangers ever had this:

Really, do I even need a caption for this masterpiece?

In any case, Power Rangers remains one of the most important parts of my formative years. So when I heard they were making a big-budget film adaptation of the series (of the original series, no less!), I was excited with a healthy degree of skepticism. I followed the announcements on and off - when I saw the updated armor designs, I thought they looked pretty cool, like if they were to take a set of powered armor from 80s anime and make it real.

Then Bryan Cranston was announced to play Zordon, which is awesome not just because it's Bryan Cranston, but because Cranston actually got some of his earliest roles providing voices for some of the monsters in the original show. It's a cool little full-circle thing with a hint of self-awareness that made me hope, at least, the movie wouldn't suck. And then I saw, under the trending section of Youtube, that a teaser trailer had been released, and I just had to watch.

Quick aside here: we need to stop referring to every goddamn popular thing under the sun as "trending," lest the world become like Twitter, at which point we can never have peace. Fuck Twitter. End of aside.

Now, I didn't want to do some sort of shitty "reaction" to the trailer, because I don't want to end up in the same category as any of the assholes featured here:

Note: If I EVER do something that stupid on the internet, every one of you has the right to find me in the street and set me on fire. Anyway, I watched the Power Rangers Trailer, and I definitely have some issues with it, so I figured I'd take the sane route and write them here instead of, as a wiser man than I once said, making an ass of myself for all eternity. For reference, here's the trailer:

We aren't in the early 90s anymore - whereas the original show had kind of an explosive color palette, this trailer is awash in very muted, almost sedate tones. Jason, apparently, has a father who hates him, and has to attend some sort of Breakfast Club style Saturday detention with the rest of the future Rangers, for reasons we aren't told. There's bullying on multiple fronts. The teens find their powers in some weird grotto, and immediately test them out at school. This is all capped off by Rita Repulsa threatening one of the female Rangers in an almost sexual way. Wonderful.

If you couldn't tell, there's an obvious pattern going on. Everything is dark and edgy. I suppose, though Power Rangers is a show for children, that the studio is trying to target people like me who saw the original show when they were kids, and so naturally made it a little more adult. But why the hell are they trying to make it dark and edgy?

Power Rangers is the antithesis of dark and edgy. It's ridiculous and goofy, and it revels in that. That doesn't mean there can't be drama - the original Power Rangers movie, made in 1995, had Zordon almost get killed. And still, it decided to open the film with a scene of the Power Rangers skydiving set to a Red Hot Chili Peppers song, because, why the fuck not. That's the kind of show this is.

The new Power Rangers film will certainly not have any scenes like this, and that's to its detriment. Sure it will probably have great special effects and some cool explosions, but if it's anything like the trailer, it won't be any fun. And Power Rangers, above all, was fun. That's what's so offensive about the dark and edgy direction - it's literally making Power Rangers into something that it fundamentally isn't. I honestly wonder why they even bothered to call the movie Power Rangers in the first place.

And this gets to a deeper problem facing a lot of American made action movies, as well as TV shows and video games. They all need to have this dark and edgy veneer, or else, and I'm trying to put myself in the head of a studio executive here, nobody will take them seriously or think they're cool. This is taken to ridiculous extremes. Even the motherfucking Ninja Turtles, a franchise about motherfucking ninja turtles, have to be given this treatment!

What's terrifying is that these movies make money, so there's clearly an audience for this shit. I just don't understand it. Sometimes, like when you're making a movie about teenage mutant ninja turtles, whose most memorable characteristic is eating bizarre kinds of pizza, you can let loose. But nobody feels like they can, and that's really sad. If they would have done that (and gotten rid of Michael Bay), Ninja Turtles could have been a fun movie. What we have now is something that tries way, way too hard, and in the process is just not fun to watch. All but a handful of modern action films fall into this trap.

I'll give you a video game comparison: look at Bayonetta, the Platinum Games action epic, alongside God of War, the beat em up based on Greek mythology. I like both games, but I prefer Bayonetta hands down. God of War gets tiring after a while - Kratos as a character is nothing but anger, and even though you're literally killing gods, its unironic no-laughs-ever attitude just makes it feel like a chore. Bayonetta, meanwhile, has no pretensions of being taken seriously - it's a completely unhinged thrillride that doesn't leave you hanging for one second. It's, oh my god, an action game that tries to be fun! And it succeeds! Here's the trailer in case you haven't played it:

This is the kind of thing American movie, TV and game developers need to be putting out. I hope it happens soon. Clearly, the audience for God of War style action pieces have no problem shelling out money for all that, but I honestly wonder how long it'll be until people are just no longer interested. I see a lot of complaints on the internet, so maybe it's already happening. I long for the day when the Stonefaced Action Movie becomes an embarrassing pop cultural joke, like the concept of the Arnold Schwarzenegger "Comedy" is to us now.

To end this post: based on the trailer, am I going go see the Power Rangers movie when it comes out? The answer is a resounding no. Once upon a time I had at least some hope, but after seeing it, I have none remaining. The film won't be terrible, I'm sure. But it also won't be Power Rangers, which, in this case, is a far greater sin.