No, see, this whole thing is a joke, this is what happens when you turn a lighthearted property gritty and dark, it becomes a weird, twisted thing with no resemblance to the original.  What's really funny is all the Ranger fans who say they want something gritty and dark and yet were repulsed by this, when it's taken to the absurd extreme.  You gotta understand, SO many Ranger fans wanted something like this and it's kind of boring after a while because outside of just being that way, what's the point?  This had a point, reductio ad absurdum.

I don't want Power Rangers to get darker or "teened" up because I know we'll just get garbage like the new Ninja Turtles movie or the Transformers.  When you do something like that, it feels like you're apologizing for it and diminishing your fanbase who actually like the product.  And you cut into your audience when you go into a direction like that.  You COULD and it would be interesting to see like a 21 Jump Street version of Rangers, but how many parents would see that with their kids?

The Rangers shouldn't be looking at Batman or Transformers as a model for how to do their movie, they should be looking at things like Big Hero 6 (the same East-meets-West superhero fusion that Rangers is, and one of the biggest f*cking cartoons of all time), The Lego Movie, etc.  Entertainment that works for kids and adults not because it dilutes itself to the point where anyone can eat it up or apologizes for what it is, but embraces its identity and strives to be the best version of itself that it can be.

Power Rangers, especially in the last few years, was sh*t but it wasn't sh*t because it wasn't "grown up," it was sh*t because quite frankly it didn't feel like anyone gave a sh*t.  The shows doesn't have to grow up, it just has to be as good as it can be.  It needs to be done by people who love the property and can make it work.  It's not.  It's lazy and doesn't give the audience any credit.  And I think whoever winds up making the movie isn't going to like the show, so they'll put their own stamp on it and make something... well, the weak sauce version of this.  You know, "edge," "dark," and "adult" don't equal good, in fact, sometimes it's as unimaginative, boring, and soulless as f*ck and it can be just as insulting to your intelligence as, well, the recent Power Rangers was.

Outside of just liking this because I like it and I get the joke, I'd hope that this version sort of diffuses the whole idea of a dark gritty reboot.  Anything in that vein will be compared (unfavorably) to this, so now that it's out there, there can be some course correction.

BTW, if you like this and haven't seen Detention... go see Detention.  It's this dude doing Scream meets The Breakfast Club.



And BTW, you don't wanna be harassed by Saban, he's like the Isreali Ian McShane.

So few people look beneath the surface, the slick easy-to-watch action hides such delicious satire.

I didn't make one, but without looking at the video, I'm assuming it's them taking Bryan Cranston's comments on Larry King Now out of context because he mentioned the Dark Knight?  Jesus.  Look, I'm sure there's a chance that they took the wrong lessons from TDK and will make the movie dark and dour and too serious instead of taking a page from the Avengers which is the more obvious and appropriate way to go.  But what Cranston was clearly saying is that the difference in quality across the board between the recent Batman movies and the 1966 Batman movie is comparable to the difference in quality between the new movie and the original show.  That's about as obvious a thing for the movie to do as those awful looking faux Iron Man suits.

The five character posters for the flick:


They're... there's something not quite right, and I think it's b/c they're trying to be minimalist but without the elegance of minimalism, the lightning bolt is just a bit too indistinct to be iconic (and it's not the proper lightning bolt, there was really zero reason to change it), and there's no extra light to bring out the eyes.

First still from the actual proper Power Rangers movie: