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Power Rangers 2017 Movie Part One — Description

Okay, so, originally, I wanted to do the movie all in one go, unfortunately the app I edit videos on has changed how it works quite a bit, and the file size would be unmanageable. I want to keep my Rewatch posts and videos consistent with each other, so the summary here isn't the whole thing, just what would fit in the video version.

Power Rangers (2017)

Rumors of a new movie had been going around since Samurai. Around Dino Charge's first season, we finally got solid confirmation on one.
We got cast and crew information, but no story details. There were rumors of the movie including the Dino Charge Rangers, Scorpina, time travel, Angela becoming a Ranger, all sorts of crazy stuff.
Eventually it was clear that the movie would be a Mighty Morphin reboot. I was disappointed, with such a huge universe built up over the past twenty years, what was the point of starting over?
I tried to stay optimistic. Some stuff looked interesting. Rita was completely different in appearance, she now wore green armor. In other pictures she was dressed in dark rags. There was no Zedd, but there was a toy leak that revealed Goldar. Goldar was certainly... Different. Putties also looked quite different, but most fans liked their new designs. Alpha had big goggle eyes and long gibbon arms. Zordon was now a face on a wall instead of in a tube. The Zords barely resembled the animals that inspired them. The Rangers had armor and helmets that reminded fans of bootleg toys.
Despite all the strange changes this reboot was making, I was actually more excited than ever. I didn't want a reboot/remake, I wanted something completely original. This looked to be leaning more into being something original.
Eventually the big day came, and I went to see the movie in theaters.
Before leaving though, I rewatched Day of the Dumpster. I figured that would be primarily what the movie would be taking influence from.

Some ominously heroic music plays over the opening logos, and we're taken to Earth in the Cenozoic era, according to a caption.
The ground is scorched, and the sky is gray with smoke. A Red Ranger crawls through the ash, his armor heavily battle damaged. A ship crashes behind him. A Yellow Ranger demorphs, revealing an inhuman alien. She hands something to the Red Ranger, before falling dead. The Red Ranger contacts Alpha, telling him to send a meteor to his coordinates. He demorphs himself, and buries a collection of coins. "Seek only those who are worthy", he chants.
Suddenly, a woman appears before him, a Green Ranger!
She says that with the Zeo Crystal, they could have ruled the universe.
It's then revealed that these two are Zordon and Rita, right before the meteor strikes. It looks like neither survived.
Around the time this movie came out, there was a "fan" film out. Alot of people compared the opening scene of this movie with that. Personally, I'd be fine with never thinking about the "fan" film again, but it's relevant here. Did someone working on the movie see that short film and take inspiration or influence from it? Possibly, though no one has ever said anything about it as far as I'm aware.
In the present, we meet Jason. He and his friend are stealing the mascot of a rival sports team, a steer. Jason's friend mistook the steer for a cow and tried to milk it, thinking that would calm it down. It's not a female though.
Yeah, not even five minutes in, and someone has jerked off a steer. This didn't give me high hopes for this movie.
Oh hey, shouldn't the rival school's mascot be a beetle? Or is that just the broomball team's mascot?
Jason panics, driving away in his dad's car, which he proceeds to crash.
The title pops up in the bottom right corner of a black screen. No music or fanfare accompany it.
I think most audiences were either completely turned off by this point, or willing to go along for the ride and see where it goes.
Personally, I was in a daze. This was all so surreal. Jason crashed a car and his friend had jerked off a cow.
Three weeks later, according to the caption, Jason's father is driving him to school detention. We see Jason has an ankle monitor. His father is pretty upset with him. He had dreams of his son becoming a sports star, but Jason can't participate in sports at all now.
Inside, Jason recalls playing football, and passes by a trophy case reminding him of what he's lost.
In the classroom, Jason watches another student being bullied, and stands up for him. He easily evades a few punches, and slaps the bully.
"Did you... Just slap me?!" Jason shrugs. "I did, weird right?"
This reminds me of something probably no other person who ever watched this was reminded of. The Dana Carvey movie, Master of Disguise. In that, the hero is taught that slapping is a good way to fight, because it asserts your own dominance while allowing your opponent to keep their dignity.
Just thought it was a funny thing.
A flustered teacher rushes in, just as a girl excuses herself.
She goes to the restroom and meets with two other girls, who were both inside a stall at the same time for some reason. They're fellow teammates on the cheer squad. They're mad at the other girl for sharing a certain picture of one of them, and tell her she's no longer welcome on the team.
This girl is our new Kimberly. She stares into the mirror and cuts her long hair. The other students are shocked when she returns to class.
Later, Jason sees Kimberly's parents freaking out over their daughter's new hair.
Yeah, mother and father, both. I always found it a bit ironic that for all the drama added to the characters in this movie, Kim having divorced parents was an element that apparently wasn't kept.
The student who was being bullied earlier, Billy, thanks Jason for standing up for him. Billy asks for his help, but Jason says he can't leave with his ankle monitor. Billy assures him he can fix it, he has the tools.
After thinking about it for a while, Jason bikes over to Billy's house.
Billy tricks the ankle monitor, and Jason is so grateful he hugs him. Billy asks him politely to stop.
I noticed in the background are the old Bandai vinyl toys of Squatt, Baboo and Finster. Huh. I guess they are in the movie. So is Power Rangers an existing show in this universe? Or did Zyuranger make it to the US and get popular enough to get toys?
Jason and Billy drive out to a closed down mine. Jason thinks Billy is acting weird and confronts him about it. Billy explains that he's "on the spectrum". Jason gets it, but still doesn't know what's going on, and starts to leave.
Across the mine, sits our new Zack. He sees a mysterious girl meditating near a ridge. The girl is our new Trini. She appears to be relaxed and serene, in contrast to the death metal she's listening to.
Jason meanwhile is wandering around, and happens to see Kimberly. She dives into a lake, but doesn't surface. Jason runs to help, but it turns out she's fine. They share some small talk and bond over their shared nihilism.
Billy is setting up a bunch of wires while talking to himself, and suddenly gets thrown back by an explosion!
The others all come around to check out what happened. A rock wall collapses, and in the rubble the kids see a bizarre crystal structure. Inside are glowing orbs. Zack breaks them out. They're the Power Coins, but they don't know that yet.
Security shows up and Jason drives away with the others, except Zack. They speed out of the area, and Zack lands on top of the car! They pull him in.
Where did Zack fall from? Maybe the same place Tommy did back in Legendary Battle.
A train is passing by the one exit, and Jason tries to beat it.
He doesn't.
The car is smashed and thrown down an embankment.
I just thought, wouldn't it have been cool if Billy's car looked more like the Radbug?
Out on a a fishing boat, Jason's father comes across a disturbing discovery, a mummified body! It's placed in a freezer, where we see the Green Power Coin in it's hand.
The next morning, Jason wakes up at home, totally fine, and with new muscles. Kimberly and Billy as well wake up at home, and with exceptional strength. Jason sees in the mirror new muscles.
Did anyone out there ever see that one Spiderman movie? No reason. Just curious.
At school, Billy is once again threatened by the bully, who knocks himself out when he tries to headbutt him.
Jason and Kimberly talk to Billy, and try to figure out what's going on.
Back at the fishing boat, a detective is checking the body found. Suddenly, the body glows green and springs to life!
Jason, Billy, Kimberly, Zack and Trini return to the mine and discover they each have super powers! They can jump several hundred feet!
Trini can also scurry up a sheer wall, which reminds me of Boi from Zyuranger climbing up trees.
The scenes of the kids jumping over a gorge reminds me of the skydiving scene from the beginning of the first movie, especially when it goes slow motion.
Billy falls down the gorge, and the others follow. Trini hesitates, but Kim pulls her down.
Oh hey, kinda like in Zeo. Rocky hesitates before going through the vortex, but then Adam reaches out and just pulls him through.
The kids land in a pool, and are each surrounded by a glow. Zack announces that he's black. "No you're not!" Retorts Billy.
They see something below, and swim towards it.
They reach a strange wall of water, which also reminds me of the vortex from Zeo.
Going through leads to an underground cave.
Inside, is the ship that crashed at the beginning.
The friends walk in, and get spooked by the walls rearranging. Trini is suddenly grabbed and dragged back to the center. There, they meet Alpha 5. He tells them he's been waiting for them and that they're here because of the coins.
Alpha leads them each to platforms. Once they step on them, the front wall becomes a massive face, Zordon's face!
A face on a wall with a robot assistant, oh hey, it's like Gosei and Tensou!
Alpha explains that he was able to save Zordon's consciousness inside the ship itself.
Zordon asks to see their Power Coins, and declares that they are indeed, Power Rangers!
Without any time to adjust, the Rangers are shown a nightmarish vision of Rita Repulsa destroying their world.
If you listen closely, you can hear Rita say "Dig, dig, Goldar." Is that a reference to the beginning of the "Hey Rita" song? "Dig the seed and grow, girl".
Zordon tells them they must work together to stop Rita, or this could be their future. There's an image in the Morphin Grid Sphere or whatever it is of the Zeo Crystal. It looks more like that crystal Zedd used to create the Dark Rangers.
In the closest instance of remaking Day of the Dumpster, the Rangers leave, aside from Jason, who remains to hear Zordon out.
Unlike MMPR, this team of Rangers immediately talk things over. Jason tells the others he'd be coming back tomorrow.
Billy asks if their powers are more like Spiderman or Iron Man. They both had Saban produced cartoons back in the 90s. I don't know if that was an intentional reference or if it's just because Marvel heroes were popular around the time this movie was made.
We see a little of Zack and Trini's home lives. Zack takes care of his ailing mother, while Trini's parents are suspicious of where she's been. Trini flat out tells them that she's a superhero, but her mother doesn't believe her, and insists she pee in a cup.
Behind Trini is a Bandai Putty toy. Nothing to add, it's just an odd detail. I think there should have been other toys scattered around, like, wouldn't it have been neat to see a Vexacus toy lying around somewhere?
Elsewhere, Rita has regained her humanoid body, and is collecting gold to create Goldar. She proceeds to rip out some guy's gold teeth.
Welp. That was disturbingly violent.
Yeah, this is one of those movies, where the tone is so all over the place it's hard to get a read on who the intended audience is.
Is this movie for kids? Ass, bitch, douchebag, these are all words in the movie! Within the first few minutes, there's a masturbation joke! Combined with a bestiality joke!
Is the movie for adults? Maybe? It's rebooting a show from over twenty years ago, and it's definitely taking the premise in a darker direction. It's rated PG13, but then again, nearly every Marvel movie has that rating and those are most definitely intended for kids.
Power Rangers is usually considered exclusively for kids by the mainstream.
I still remember sitting in the theater, surrounded by kids and their parents. There were a couple adults or teens there by themselves, but not many. Did the kids in the audience like this movie?
I haven't seen the opinions of many kids that grew up with this movie. I know kids of the early 2010s loved Samurai, and that's about as late as I'm familiar with kids' opinions on Power Rangers.
I know when I was little, some of my favorite movies were the ones that had dark moments, like The Witches and The Dark Crystal.
Back to the movie, a day has passed, and all five kids return to Zordon.
Zordon gives the Rangers three rules, and they're straight out of the original show. "Never use your powers for personal gain." "Never escalate a fight unless your enemy forces you." And "Never reveal your identities."
Zordon then asks if any of the kids have Morphed yet, and Zack responds "Yes, but only in the shower." I don't even know what the joke is, but the line is delivered pretty funny.
The Rangers stand on the platforms, Zordon tells them that they can Morph by connecting to each other, and summon their armor from within themselves.
Yeah, they don't have Morphers. This was a huge controversy among the fans at the time. Personally, I had no issue with the powers being summoned by inner will, but then again I didn't want an MMPR movie at all, so the source of their transformation being different didn't bother me.
Anyway, something's wrong, and they can't Morph.
Alpha takes them to a training area in the Command Center or whatever we're calling it. The Boom Comics had just started, and this training area was a thing in the early comics too. I wonder if one influenced the other.
Holographic Putties form, and we see the Putties here are quite different from the sillier ones from the show.
The Rangers practice fighting the Putties, and Alpha says to "aim for the center mass". Is that like "Hit the Z"?
Days go by, and the Rangers improve their skills. Alpha demonstrates some moves on a tiny Putty hologram. I just like that part.
Alpha shows Billy some info on the Zeo Crystal, and Billy determines that it's location is in under the local Krsipy Kreme.
Oh boy, THIS for whatever reason drove people out of their fucking minds. After this, alot of people saw the movie as a commercial for Krispy Kreme and nothing else. This is fifty nine minutes into the movie.
I guess maybe fans were upset we were getting product placement before the team even Morphs.
Alpha introduces the team to their Zords. He explains that they take the form of the most powerful beings on the planet, in this case, dinosaurs.
Zack takes his Zord for a joyride. With six legs, it looks more like a giant beetle than any dinosaur. Or Mastodon.
He narrowly avoids hitting a bus full of nuns singing "Go tell it on the mountain". Alright.
The tone goes from this quirky, silly bit to unpleasantly serious as Jason gets into a fight with Zack for being so reckless. Billy steps in to break it up, and the others stare in awe as Billy Morphs for the first time!
Zordon orders them to leave, but they insist Billy was succesful. Billy tries to Morph again, but nothing happens.
The Blue Ranger being the first to Morph was a thing happened in Jungle Fury. Probably just a coincidence.
The kids decide to camp out that night.
Inside the Command Center, Zordon and Alpha discuss freeing him from the wall. It can only happen if the Rangers Morph as a team. Jason overhears and confronts Zordon about his motives. Does he actually care about them, or is he using them to free himself?
In the city, Rita goes to a jewelry store and eats some gold. Oooookaaaaay. Police try to stop her, but she just retalitiates with Putties. She also makes stuff float, which kinda reminds me of the scenes back in MMPR where Rita could move buildings around.
Back to the Rangers, they're talking around the campfire.
We learn that Zack lives in a trailer park, and his mom is sick. If something happens to her, he has no one else. No cousin Curtis, or girlfriend Angela, I guess.
Billy says he loves country music. He lost his father, and appreciates the new friends he's made. They ask how he ended up in detention, and he says it's because he built a bomb in his lunchbox. He doesn't explain why.
Trini has moved alot, and hasn't ever stayed anywhere long enough to make friends. Zack questions if she has boyfriend troubles. When she doesn't answer, he asks if she has girlfriend troubles.
This line here, was enough to get some additional marketing. This movie now has the first LGBT Ranger! Disney's Beauty and the Beast remake was being promoted around the same time, and they were going all out on hyping up their first gay character. This created a controversy in some overseas markets. Malaysia threatened to ban both films, until a standards guy looked at both and determined they were perfectly acceptable.
Anyway, we never get confirmation on Trini's sexuality, and it doesn't matter. Her whole thing here is that she's confused. She says her parents "believe in labels". That's a pretty vague statement. You could assume or project anything onto her.
She also says her family is "too normal". I guess she doesn't have a wacky inventor uncle.
I love the campfire scene, it's very similar to a scene from one of my favorite movies, Stand By Me. In that, a group of kids talk around a campfire, and go into their personal insecurities. And also whether or not Goofy is a dog.
Later that night, Rita attacks Trini in her bed! She demands to know where the Zeo Crystal is. Trini says she doesn't know, and Rita responds that she'll destroy everything if they don't hand it over.
Kim goes to see Jason. She's convinced she's the reason they can't Morph.
She feels guilty about a photo she shared of one of her former friends.
She isn't the one who took the photo, but she's the reason it's no longer private. She broke her friend's trust, and doesn't know how to deal with the guilt.
This here is one of the things about this movie that ruins it for some fans. They can't accept Kim as any kind of hero because of what she did.
I always found that an ironic perspective. These are the same kinds of fans who say they don't like MMPR because the Rangers are too "goody goody". Little goody two-shoes, little goody two-shoes, little goody two-shoes.
Fans wanted a team that was more grounded in reality, and had flaws, but when they got what they asked for, they realized it wasn't actually what they wanted.
Personally, I don't have any issue with what Kim did in the past, what matters is that she's trying to better herself and move past it. Yeah, her old friends probably won't be her friends again, and they probably shouldn't be.
Moving on, Trini calls the team together to tell them about Rita.
She tells them Rita would be at the docks "where the dead ships live".
Was that a reference to the Ghost Galleon from the Turbo movie?
The Rangers are hesitant to go, but Jason inspires them with a speech that really doesn't sound inspiring at face value. He tells them about why Zordon wanted them, it was just to free himself. They couldn't even do that, they're all screwups. But, this does inspire them. Because they know what he's saying is true. This is their chance to accomplish something, to prove to themselves they're more.
Oh hey, there's the tagline of the movie, "Together, we are more".
They confront Rita, but they're no match for her. She ties them up and pontificates. She knows one of them knows where the Zeo Crystal is. She threatens Billy that she'll kill each of them until he tells her.
After she almost kills Zack, Billy relents and tells her. "Krispy Kreme". Zack looks at him with a bewildered expression. "Krispy Kreme?" Rita lights up. "Krispy Kreme? This must be a very special place."
Rita leaves, but not before blasting Billy with her wand and dropping him underwater.
The others can't do anything but watch helplessly. Rita laughs and releases them, knowing it's already too late.
They pull Billy up, but he's dead.
The Rangers carry him to the Command Center.
Here we get a mellow, slow cover of Stand By Me.
Again, I feel like there may have been influence taken from that movie.
Jason asks Zordon if there's anything he can do, but he just responds that they were both reckless with their teams.
Jason solemnly states this was all his fault. The others console him and each other. They all come to the realization that each of them would give their lives for the other.
Suddenly, the Morphin Grid opens, it's Zordon's chance to come back. Everything goes dark, but Zordon appears once again still in the wall. Alpha questions why he didn't come through. Zordon answers that only one can come back.
Billy returns to life, and the Rangers are overjoyed. Jason looks to Zordon, who tells him that there can be only one Red Ranger.
Jason hugs Billy, and he finally feels like a true leader.
The Rangers step on the platforms, and now united, they Morph as a team for the first time.
We are now over an hour and a half in. The 1995 movie would be almost over by now!
This is another one of the major reasons people didn't like this movie.
Both hardcore and casual fans wanted more action. Kids also probably wanted more action. Instead, we get a slow burn coming of age story.
Once the Rangers are Morphed, we get a cool slow-mo walk.
Elsewhere, Rita is summoning Goldar. The Rangers battle their way through Putties, and it's a pretty impressive fight.
Goldar is fully formed, and joins Rita on a rampage through the city.
The front of the Rangers' helmets disappear. It kinda resembles when the Ninja Storm Rangers' helmets open. Oddly, they remain open for most of the rest of the movie.
The Rangers pilot the Zords, and we get the theme from the 1995 movie! For some reason alot of people say it's the tv show theme. No. It's not. It's the 1995 movie's theme. They are different.
Billy comes in backwards. Okay.
Rita yells to Goldar that they have to find Krispy Kreme. The Rangers have a quick discussion of strategy, and they also say Krispy Kreme. Oh boy, did some fans hate that for some reason. How dare a store be called by it's name?! That's not true to life at all! Now, I must be off to the department store, and then off to the money lenders, before returning to my place of residence via public transport automobile.
Maybe fans would've preferred the Zeo Crystal to be under Ernie's. I feel that would make everything far too connected.
Rita creates more Putties, and Jason throws a yellow car at some. "Sorry, Bumblebee!"
Kim smashes a Putty, and a piece of it lands on the car of her former friends. "That's what you get", Kim snarks.
Yeah, the movie seems to have forgotten itself for this part. The girls Kim betrayed the trust of and feels guilt over, are now just cartoonish bullies who can be the target of slapstick. I feel like this scene should've been cut. Maybe along with the cow masturbation from the beginning.
Rita decides to try a Krispy Kreme donut before Goldar destroys the place.
End of Part One