Why The New Power Rangers Movie Is A '90s Kid's Dream

It's finally happening! After months of rumors, casting confirmations for the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers movie have started to trickle out onto the Internet. While most people will probably just look at this as another attempt for Hollywood to cash in on a previously popular franchise, this is the best news for '90s kids. This is our movie, and here's why it's a dream come true.

If you somehow escaped the '90s without finding this out, it's time to burst your bubble: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers just used repurposed footage from a Japanese show called Super Sentai. Looking back on it, however, it's pretty obvious. Combining the original footage with newly filmed scenes for the American actors didn't exactly match up perfectly. Also, Rita and her monsters were horribly out of sync with their voice actors, while some of the story lines didn't really fit together all that well. Now, the reboot movie will finally be free from the recycled footage. Instead of building a new story around existing fight scenes, the filmmakers will be able to do things the right way. It's amazing how much better something can turn out when the writers can actually focus on telling the story first. It's almost as if this is the way that movies and shows are supposed to be made.

The Power Rangers franchise changed directions so many times that it became unrecognizable to original fans. The show went from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers to Power Rangers Zeo, which led to Power Rangers Turbo, and so on. They became ninjas, then mystical warriors, and at one point they were time travelers.But it wasn't just the characters and actors that changed: the entire concept was different. It would be like if the X-Men decided that instead of working as superheroes, they were now all going to open a law firm. Look, we don't want these newfangled samurai-themed Power Rangers, we just want ones that are mighty and morphin.' They're the Coca-Cola Classic of the franchise, and '90s kids have been stuck drinking New Coke ever since they went away.

The plot of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers was pretty simple. Some crazy lady that lives on the moon sends a monster down to Earth, where it causes general chaos. The Power Rangers show up and fight it for a bit. Eventually, the monster turns into a giant and starts knocking down buildings, so the Rangers summon their Zords (giant robot animals). Eventually, all of the Zords link up into one Megazord, which finally defeats the monster. Since the show came out before computers could create amazing visual effects, the show's producers used the same special effects technology from old Godzilla movies. This meant that these epic fights usually just ended up looking like people wearing foam and rubber costumes stumbling around for a few minutes. Despite the classic show's cheesy charms, it's just going to be nice to see something that looks like it wasn't created using props from a Halloween costume store.

This may come as a surprise, but none of the cast members ever won an Emmy for their work on Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. The show celebrated cheesiness on every level, especially when it came to the actors. As the cast list for the reboot has slowly been released, it's looking more and more like the filmmakers are trying to improve the acting quality. There are a lot of newcomers, like Dacre Montgomery as the Red Ranger, Naomi Scott as the Pink Ranger, and more. But there are also bigger names involved, like Elizabeth Banks as villain Rita Repulsa. It's clear that the studio isn't just trying to find the biggest names possible, but also aren't just being cheap by hiring unknowns. Maybe we'll finally get a Rita who actually has an emotional range beyond "angry" and "super angry."

One of the things that was cool about the original Power Rangers was that it celebrated diversity. The team was made up of a group of teenagers from different ethnicities. It was nice to see the world being saved by a team that wasn't just white people. Something that was a little uncomfortable, however, was how the Rangers' different identities were assigned. Zach, the black Ranger, was the only black guy on the team, and Trini, the yellow Ranger, was Asian. It was the sort of thing that kids didn't notice at the time, but when we all got older, it became super uncomfortable. When the new movie was announced, fans all secretly worried that the same color coordination would occur, but thankfully it did not. The team is still diverse, but their Power Ranger assignments feel a lot less like an inappropriate joke.

When it comes down to it, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers is as important to '90s kids as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is to '80s kids. Over the last couple of years, it's been great to see properties like Ninja Turtles and Avengers kill it on the big screen, but they always felt like they belonged to someone else's childhood. With the Power Rangers reboot, now it finally feels like it's our time. We'll finally get to see our silly childhood heroes turned into big screen badasses. It'll be like the franchise grew up, as opposed to staying in the '90s while we all turned into adults with bills and jobs and other boring stuff. Basically, "it's morphin' time!" is our "cowabunga!"