Bryan Cranston says the new Power Rangers film will be a Dark Knight-style reboot
He is the Zordon who knocks
Fans of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers will know that the 90s kids TV show was anything but dark.
In fact, the closest it probably came to making us feel any teenage angst was when Pink Ranger Kimberley and Green/White Ranger Tommy's torrid love affair took us on an emotional roller-coaster.
While we often felt as though the Rangers were in peril, we never thought they'd be in any real danger, especially not from the original feature film's villain, Ivan Ooze.
But it seems as though all of that beloved earl 90s guff is being left behind, because Bryan Cranston (who plays floating head mentor Zordon in the reboot) says the new Power Rangers movie is going to be a film as different from its TV origins as Christopher Nolan's film franchise was from 1960s Batman.
“At first I was, to be honest with you, I was reticent to looking at the role because I remember the television series was kind of farcical and silly and ‘pow’ and ‘zow’ — weird movements and things like that. I was like, ‘Oh, OK,’” the actor, who used to do voice work on the series, told The Huffington Post.
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“I wasn’t really high on it until I talked to the producer and read the script and talked to the director. After that I went, ‘This is different.’
"This is as different a reimagining as the Batman television series as it became the Batman movie series. You can’t compare those two, and nor can you compare this movie version of the Power Rangers to that television series. It’s unrecognisable for the most part. There are tenets of the folklore that you hold onto for sure, but the inspiration is different, and the sensibility of it, and the approach to the film making is completely different.”
As different as The Dark Knight?
“I don’t know if the tone is as dark as that because you’re dealing with teenagers. So the appropriateness of that, and real teenage life, and going through high school and the cliques and the popularity or lack thereof, and the bullies and all the different sections and sub-sections of high school life, and the insecurities of these kids and things like that — hopes and dreams — and you embrace all of that into a retelling of the Power Rangers. And what you would get is this new version, this new reimagined version.”
So not quite The Dark Knight itself, but definitely in that vein when it comes to rebooting a franchise.
The new Rangers flick features Elizabeth Banks as villain Rita Repulsa, who'll go head to head with Cranston and his Mighty Morphin' mentees.
We're still hoping at least one of them says "Yeah Zordon... science".
