Power Rangers (2017) Teaser Trailer

For a movie about people who fight monsters inside dinosaur themed costumes, this movie looks way too serious. There's somber music to start things off. People are getting bullied in non-campy ways. And there's even a part of the trailer where a woman cuts her hair to show her inner turmoil! In other words, I'm predicting that this will be 2017's Fantastic Four (2015).

Hey, remember that thing you liked when you were a child?

Want some more of it but removed from the circumstances of you not having yet developed good taste? Yeah? Yeah? No? Well have it anyway.

All I can think about is the fact that I live in the middle of BC and they filmed the movie out here (the Welcome to Angel Grove shot is taken from a weird angle that makes the city look like its a lot smaller than it really is, and the scene with the dude sitting on his cabin looking at a river is a few degrees away from showing my house). The scenery is too distracting for me to get invested in the movie..... other than that, though, it looks better than a power rangers film has any right to be. I don't inherently dislike a serious, or grimdark film, so the trailer doesn't put me off of the movie like it would some other people.

Edit: This trailer makes me want to watch Chronicle again.

I'm not inherently against the idea of a slightly more serious Power Rangers movie, I don't think excessive camp is a necessity, and I even kind of like the idea of making them into delinquents (in other words, legitimate teens with attitude) but everything else about that definitely seems like they took it way too far in an overly serious young adult novel style direction that it really shouldn't be. Either all the actual Power Rangers stuff is going to clash super hard with the tone, or they're going to make all of it completely unrecognizable as Power Rangers anything.

I liked Chronicle well enough, but that's not what you turn a Power Rangers movie into.

This is Chronicle out the ass.

This looks boring as hell.

If I really wanted to watch modern Power Rangers that stays faithful to the camp I'd watch modern Super Sentai.

I have no idea who this film is for.

Called it. For me to be enthousiastic this movie needed to have gone in the opposite direction. Embrace the Japanese origins, wacky characters, no world is such a dark place video filter, maybe even self-conscience Racial stereotyping in an endearing way (as banter among your power friends) (calculator hack attack on robot foe -> "you so chinese", "nah you so guatamalan"). You're going to need the 90's Zeitgeist for this movie to work I think. I feel confident Power Rangers (2027) is gonna be awesome.

@leeftie: to be fair, that isn't a video filter, there is a different spectrum of light in northern BC. Filming out here will always give that desaturated, crushed-black, high contrast look.

Anyone who expected the terrible cheesy 90s show has not been paying attention to what movie studios have been doing lately. Since the success of Marvel, every other studio has been chasing for the next big franchise be it comic books, novels, tv show in which to create a long spanning movie franchise to rake in the big bucks. Lionsgate had Twilight and Hunger Games, but those are over and now its edging its bet on Power Ranger. Looking at the trailer it seems the movie has influence of Breakfast Club, Chronicle, Twilight and Hunger Games (and even some Marvel movies), but none of its own identity. It is following The Force Awakens formula of "give the audience familiar safe things, but nothing too in your face or risky". This movie will be big in the box office and probably won't be bad, but like every big franchise out now it will be bland.

No Morphin' Time, no deal.

I feel like, as someone who was a fan of the original series in kinder, I should be the target demographic for this thing. Can't say I have much interest in seeing a grimdark version of Power Rangers, however.

Can't wait for the rest of the Saban Brands cinematic universe.

Also what makes this a teaser trailer and not just a trailer? I thought teasers were like 15 seconds long. Is this the movie equivalent of calling your public game test an Alpha so you can have another called Beta later on?

Oh boy...this really should've just been a campy version of the series, only on a bigger scale. Now it looks more bland than anything ever.

I'd rather wait for this reboot to hit the big screens.

I've been genuinely surprised at all the good press this movie seems to be getting. To each their own and all that, but I think this looks like shit. Granted, it's just a teaser, but I'm worried this movie will be mostly outdated, cringe-worthy, stereotypical teen drama with little actual fucking Power Rangers until the last act.

I was never expecting it to be some amazing thing, but if Power Rangers wasn't in the title, this would just seem like yet another shitty adaptation of an average-at-best young adult novel.

Also, it's 2016. Why do the wirework stunts look like obvious wirework stunts? In a stylized action movie, like Hero or Crouching Tiger, that's one thing. In a movie like this that's trying so hard to be serious, it just looks incredibly jarring.

It's super funny that they're giving it all this gritty, troubled-kids setup, and then eventually they're going to be doing kung fu while wearing brightly coloured spandex and goofy helmets.

Then again, it's the tone I expected when everyone needs their childhood stuff to grow up with them. I'm curious how the final movie will compare to this fan film everyone was talking about for a hot minute:

Maybe I just expected it to be far worse than this, but I think it seems like it could be ok. As much as I was a fan of the original Power Rangers run when I was a kid, I don't think anything that campy would work for a 2016 movie adaptation.

Hey, it's at least not as grimdark and dumb in concept as that viral video from a few years ago (see previous post).

@chaser324: I think the possibility is there for it to be just as over-the-top grimdark as the fan film, though probably less gunplay and endless headshots. Everything about the teaser seems like it's trying to look edgy, and I'm not seeing many moments of levity.

I'm going to say that I'm in the minority here and thought this looked better than expected. As someone who watched the original Power Ranger movie in the theaters as a grown ass teenager I can say I'm okay with the direction this is going. I don't know what people's expectations of this movie were going in but mine were pretty low so it's hard to be down on them since they are basically rebooting the original core team.

I'm curious to see if Elizabeth Banks' Rita turns out to be the Green Ranger or if JDF will make a surprise appearance in this somehow.

The movie trailer just looks like a really boring superhero movie.

That grim dark Power Rangers thing is hilarious. The nostalgia grab feels so cheap when it is actually tied to nothing but a guy in a given costume.

I am not automatically opposed to a darker take on Power Rangers but the concept of the show was generally pretty silly so it is hard for me to imagine them being able to pull it off. This trailer did nothing to make me think that they are going to be successful in this venture. It isn't the darker tone that is putting me off, it is the boring generic look of everything. It looks to me like they are going to do to Power Rangers what they did to Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Which is to say that it will probably suck but make a decent amount of money.

I kinda had low expectations when I saw the suits, but this teaser took the small amount of hope I had. The jumping over the cliffs and that scene with Rita hovering looked so cheaply done.
Felt I could almost see the wires. Hopefully they won't go too deep into teen drama. The viral fan short was dumb, but at-least it was funny in how far/over-the-top they went with it.

I'm fine with it...except for the part where they have super strength and super jumping and all that shit. That just didn't need to happen at all.

Also, where's my Bryan Cranston as the voice of Zordon?!

Looks OK.

The original Power Rangers movie is awful, so I really hope people don't act like Power Rangers is some sacred brand because of their nostalgia.

Well that looked garbage.

I thought that looked Dragonball: Evolution bad.

It had to cut out right before the suit reveal, huh? Pretty much the only bit I wanted to see.

I expect it to be like someone else stated earlier in the thread, teen drama for the majority and then some Power Ranger stuff at the end. Not terribly interested in seeing it, but maybe it'll be okay.

I never liked Power Rangers as a kid, and I doubt this'll be better.

@counterclockwork87: The original Power Rangers movie may not be great by grownup standards, but it at least had an obvious target audience and appealed directly to them. As a kid that movie was hype and it did not disappoint. It was exactly what it should have been at the time.

If this movie has no real audience and any potential audience doesn't care then it's a failure as a movie.

Looks like shit. I look forward to the RLM review.

Yeah this looks horrible. I'm glad Super Sentai is still going strong because Zyuohger is currently a billion times better than whatever that teaser was.

@jakob187 said:

Is that not even a little bit canon? I haven't watched the show since the mid-to-late 90s, so honestly most of it is fuzzy. Do they only get to do sick jumps and kung fu when they're the Rangers? When they're out of the suits, are they literally just normal teens? I genuinely can't remember most of the rules of their powers.

Yeah, original Power Rangers movie was the kinda thing that had all kinds of generically cool features, as far as 8-year-old me was concerned. There is no way I would expect that movie to hold up if I were to watch it now.

The direction of this Power Rangers movie is also my problem with the Michael Bay Transformers movies, in that they aren't even pretending to make the movie for a kid demographic, despite the whole premise being dumb bullshit. I watched the G1 Transformers cartoon (very much in syndication, as a lot of those episodes would've come out when I was like, a fetus), I watched Power Rangers when it was the hot new thing and liked it, but c'mon, as an adult I know the premise of both shows is super stupid and for kids. Don't try to make some serious, life or death movie about it. Yes, obviously with this movie they're pandering to the now-30-year-olds who used to watch the TV show as kids, but it's sad that they're just doing that instead of making any attempt to make a kid-friendly movie that would justify to the kids of today why Power Rangers is a cool thing and hey maybe go check out the TV show. I know they still keep making the show and its broadcast on some channel, but the movie seems like a situation where they're basically making no attempt to bridge the Super Sentai/superhero tokusatsu ideas to a new generation, and would rather go for a last gasp of pandering to the young adults that was really into Power Rangers specifically in the mid 90s. The 90s nostalgia is real.

@zeik: See how I see it, the audience has shifted. With this movie, they are very obviously trying to target fans of young adult science fiction...the divergent series, Hunger games, maze runner, chronicle...that's where the big money is. They see a franchise that they feel like can fit in with these movies if it's updated ever so slightly, and that's what they've done. Will it work? Who knows. It doesn't look great, but like I said...little was great about old Power Rangers either...and I REALLY don't think it'll take much to make a better film to be honest. Just my thoughts.

@counterclockwork87: But that's what I'm saying. For the target audience at the time the original Power Rangers movie was great. As a little kid who was way into Power Rangers at the time it was exactly what I wanted.

You are probably right it is trying to target the young adult fiction crowd, but is this the movie those people want? The audience for this movie seems way more iffy than the audience for the original Power Rangers movie. That movie was an incredibly successful children's movie. The chance for this movie to succeed as a young adult fiction movie in the way Power Rangers: The Movie succeeded as a children's movie seems incredibly slim.

I never understood the 'you're raping my childhood memories' argument. Not everything in the world is directed at you (general you, not you personally) and this movie is clearly for people who are new to Power Rangers.

@bisonhero: I really only watched the original Power Rangers series and none of the later stuff (except the odd episode here and there when I'm at my parents' house and my nephew is hanging out there). They didn't have super powers outside of the suit. They just knew hella martial arts (as choreographed as they were). No super strength or anything like that.

wow, no clue how i never heard of this one lol. That was actually pretty good. I had to look up who van der beek was, i really only remember the first season even though i think i watched the second as a kid too.

As for the actual movie, the trailer makes it pretty interesting honestly seems like it will atleast be better than the monstrosity they turned the turtles into. :-(

So I remember them being able to sort of hold their own without the suits. Cept for maybe the blue ranger, the other kids would get pretty physical. They weren't pulling off great feats of strength, or jumping over canyons, but they could go toe to toe with a few of the putties. Though without morphing, it was more of a hold their own sort of fight where they could get a putty down but could never finish it.

The impression that 10 year old me got was that they had the ability to do those sick ass moves and flips (before being power rangers, the red ranger was in martial arts, the pink was gymnastics, the black one was a crazy dancer, and the yellow one was born with martial arts?) , but the suits augmented their physical abilities. Cept for the Green ranger. They nerfed him so hard, he lost the color in his suit and he was still OP.

Drew is totally the Green Ranger is this scenario.

I trust them less to do campy correctly so this is fine. The TV show was awful so let's not say we need more of that. I'm fine with a different take on it.

@counterclockwork87 said:

Not to mention that there is an absolute glut of "grim-dark-but-not-really-because-our-audience-is-tweens" movies out there right now. This movie clearly isn't trying to capture the 8-10 year old audience by being really cartoony and campy, but it doesn't seem to be making an effort to reach the early-30s nostalgic audience either. All that leaves them is a bunch of 13-15 year olds, and there's a lot of competition for that market right now.

Also, I don't see a single Zord in that trailer. What's the fucking point of a Power Rangers movie with no Zords?

To be fair this is a "teaser" the official trailer will come much later. Just like how they did with Rogue One and many other movies. It's stupid but I expect more trailers to come. Midly interested since I was a HUGE power rangers fan as a kid.

@acura_max: The Power Rangers don't have super powers, dammit! I don't want a superhero movie. I rather liked the idea of an actually dark Power Rangers movie, which this isn't it. It's trying to do this teen rated serious superhero drama like a CW show or something. If you're gonna give me a non-campy Power Rangers movie, I want a dark Power Rangers movie. I want like two or three of those Power Rangers dead by the end of it. Either that or a pulpy action movie with some camp like Lockout or a movie like Dredd or John Wick or something off the wall like Snowpiercer. Just don't give me a PG-13 run of the mill, Batman v Superman but with teens garbage.

Chronicle kept running through my head when I watched the trailer too. :)

This is the wrong sort of stupid for a Power Rangers movie. You need campy, unabashed childish stupid stuff that gets made presumably with little kids in mind. Not stuff that is trying to grow up with original fans of the show. That's just bad filmmaking stupid. No one likes that. This trailer is actually kind of depressing.

Yeah that fan made movie is dumb as hell and I love it. I was sad to see Wei Shen (Will Yun Lee) die though. As for this movie it looks like angsty garbage but that's hot these days so maybe it will do well? Who knows.

Man, they Michael Bayed the fuck out of Power Rangers. It looks alright but it looks like they sucked all the fun out of power rangers in favor of this overly serious action movie. Will still watch it when it releases digitally.

My sentiments exactly. The Transformers movies aren't targeted at fans of the original Transformers. Quite the opposite, in fact.

It's a sad state of affairs that kids these days are just getting the same repackaged properties that their parents' generation was force-fed. I'm too old for Power Rangers (in addition to, say, Pokemon or Harry Potter), but at least I can look back on that stuff and acknowledge it was something unique. Now kids are into Star Wars and Transformers and Marvel, it's extremely troubling. What's the newest thing that kids are way into? Minecraft? Angry Birds?

This looks alright. Colour me interested.

To be honest, I don't get your position either. You're basically saying the cliche saying of: 'everything used to be better when I was a kid'. I don't see a problem with Marvel movies at all. I enjoy them and I can assume they must be thoroughly enjoyable for kids too. Also don't think Star Wars is a problem at all. What does it matter that particular franchise started all those years ago? If it's good, then it's good. Not to mention the new one is the only actually great Star Wars movie, so kids have it better now, but I guess that's a matter of opinion. What is less based on opinion though, is that you don't really have to grow up with new and unique franchises necessarily. In fact, it's probably better to grow up with existing, fantastic franchises than new and shitty ones.

I just don't see what the problem is. Just because you grew up with some of these franchises don't make them yours. Let others grow up with them as well.

This wont be the 2017 Fantastic Four, because even us Power Rangers Fan's know enough to not expect a movie to be any good. If this movie is even slightly okay I will be super happy. I'd love to see it in the theatre would feel bad dragging my Significant Other to see a Power Rangers movie, so we'll see how that goes.

All that said everything I've seen, this movie seems better than it has any right to be, It has real actors and budget of all things. Good actors is a rarity and a budget is unheard of for Power Rangers productions.