power rangers

Last week, NYCC gave us our first official look at the new Power Rangers movie: five teens happen upon alien artifacts that give them super ninja powers, which they must use to fight off evil. It all looks pretty Power Rangers-y, but also very serious. It’s the dark and gritty Power Rangers reboot nobody was asking for, but we’re getting one anyway. Luckily, we have YouTube, and an evil genius with enough time on their hands to recut the new trailer with footage from the original show.

The robot character is the assistant to benevolent sage Zordon.

I really wish the new posters for Lionsgate’s Power Rangers came with a behind the scenes video from the photoshoot. What, exactly, did the photographer tell the cast of young actors as they laid across green screens showing off their Ranger costumes atop their Zords like dystopic models brooding in a fall fashion editorial? There were probably lots of adjectives thrown around like, “moody,” “wistful,” “sexy,” “stern,” or to the women: “stick your chests out more because those costumes definitely don’t emphasize female body parts enough.”

With 800 episodes over the course of 22 years, the Power Rangers television show is arguably the single most successful live-action superhero franchise of all time, and certainly one of the strangest. Adapted from Japan's long-running Super Sentai series, created by manga legend Shotaro Ishinomori, the Power Rangers combined the giant robots and monsters of their Japanese counterpart with a completely different set of secret identities and problems, and became a pop cultural phenomenon. That's why we're looking back with an in-depth guide to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, including its source material, Kyuoryu Sentai Zyuranger, in ComicsAlliance's Ranger Station! This week, an old friend returns. What exactly were you expecting after that title?

The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers have seen their fair share of reboots and adaptations, but did you know Saban went all out to add new sequences to better suit its 1993 American premiere? Or that Walter White himself, Bryan Cranston held an early role? Break out your morphers, it’s the 16th episode of ‘You Think You Know TV?,’ which go-goes to Angel Grove for the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers!

As the kids of the ‘80s and early ‘90s are dragged kicking and screaming into middle age, their nostalgia for the things they enjoyed in childhood has only grown stronger. And Hollywood has responded in kind, taking those childhood obsessions and transforming them into movies that are specifically crafted to appeal to adults with fond memories instead of kids. That’s why director Joseph Kahn’s new grim ‘n gritty Power Rangers short film is brilliant and unsettling in equal measure. On one hand, it’s exquisitely made and just tongue-in-cheek enough. On the other, it’s exactly the kind of movie that we’re worried will actually get made in the next few years.

Well, we don't know about you guys, but we've resigned ourselves to our new nostalgia machine overlords. Their latest decree: the film reboot of the long-running 'Power Rangers' TV series will officially hit theaters in 2016. That gives you plenty of time to figure out an excuse for where you need to be that day -- whether that's an excuse so you can go see the movie or an excuse to avoid it is up to you. The power is yours. Wait. That was 'Captain Planet.'