Power Rangers is a difficult franchise to make a good movie for. Its campy nature and over-the-top visuals mean modern adaptations might not set the right tone. The franchise’s 2017 film epitomized this challenge, a big-budget outing with "serious"-looking visuals that still digressed into lazy product placement. The movie didn't do well commercially or critically, ruling out the possibility of future sequels, with production company Saban instead opting to sell the franchise back to Hasbro the year after its release.
Hasbro is now planning to take a shot at an extended Power Rangers universe, including a television series and new movie, both helmed by Jonathan Entwistle, writer and director of Netflix's I Am Not Okay With This, and with the film being penned by writer Bryan Edward Hill, who previously wrote HBO Max's Titans. Entwistle and Hill will still have their work cut out for them though. In addition to already being difficult to adapt, the franchise now has a cinematic bomb to its name. Let's take a look at where the previous film went wrong to determine what Entwistle, Hill and Hasbro will need to take into account when developing this new remake.
Power Rangers is a kids' series that is also deeply entrenched in the format of television, which means any adaptation has to deal with its formulaic nature. An episode of Power Rangers is fairly simple. A monster shows up and terrifies the city, which means the Power Rangers have to stop it, usually by engaging "foot soldiers" in unarmed combat before morphing. They then fight the foot soldiers and "monster of the week" for some time, before piloting giant vehicles called Zords to destroy the monster as it grows to giant size. This format is intended to fill out a brisk 22 minutes, which means there isn't a lot left on the cutting room floor. Adapting it into a movie requires adding a lot of extra material, however, which is where the 2017 movie went wrong.
That film chose to extend its runtime by adding a Breakfast Club-style teen drama as the different characters learned to work together. This wasn't a terrible idea, especially for a franchise like Power Rangers that's themed around the power of teamwork. Unfortunately that was the only new element the film added to the story, otherwise it essentially stretched out the formula of one Power Rangers episode. In fact, the characters don't morph until the beginning of the third act, which means the entire work feels thin.
An alternative approach could have been instead to combine the structure of several episodes into a film. The Rangers could have fought a weaker monster to learn to handle their powers before working their way up to fighting the big boss. This would have let them morph multiple times and ensured their powers were featured throughout the film instead of just the final act.
But structure isn't the only weakness of the film. It also adapts the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers series, which was a mistake. Power Rangers is an anthology series, adapted from dozens of different Super Sentai series. Individual seasons told their own stories, which means a new adaptation doesn't need to restrict itself to any particular canon. For example, the BOOM! Power Rangers comics adapt Mighty Morphin' but add its own twist by creating new characters like Lord Drakkon and new powers like the Omega Rangers.
A new film could introduce an entirely new set of Rangers with never-before-seen powers who are created specifically for the movie instead of adapted from a Super Sentai series. Power Rangers historically dubbed over the Japanese series as a cost-saving measure, but this is entirely unnecessary on the silver screen. Mighty Morphin' might evoke nostalgia, but it's a story that's been told forwards and backwards, inside and out. A movie that chose to pave new ground wouldn't be constrained by established canon and could still claim the name recognition of the Power Rangers brand. A Power Rangers film needs to walk a fine line between introducing new elements and staying true to the heart of the franchise. In order to make the reboot work, Entwistle, Hill and Hasbro will have to strike that balance.