Power Rangers 2017 Movie First Trailer Impressions

Anyone who's ever spend five minutes on a message board or forum knows that even the littlest disagreement can seemingly tear a fandom apart, but the wait for the 2017 Power Rangers movie trailer took things to a new level. Following a brief teaser trailer way back in October, reveals seemed to only come in via leaks and toy reveals - leading fans to question Lionsgate's marketing strategy when it came to the film or whether they had faith in the movie at all. Fast forward to 19th January 2017 and many of these fears should have hopefully been put to rest, as the first full trailer for the film arrived and left quite the impression.

The trailer kicks off in much the same way as the original teaser did - showcasing the new interpretations of the five heroes and how they stumbled upon the Power Coins. However where the teaser (to many fans' dismay) took this down a far grungier route, this trailer delivers on the one thing most agreed it was sorely lacking - the humour. Now we actually get a look at the teens' individual personalities, as they crack jokes at each other and this crazy situation they've found themselves in. Some of it might be a bit too Michael Bay-Transformers at times, but it shows Power Rangers hasn't lost its sense of humour and this thankfully isn't going to be a completely gritty affair.

From there we get our first proper look at an all-new Zordon and Alpha, played/voiced by Bryan Cranston and Bill Hader respectively. Out is the "floating head in a tube" look, replaced by pin-art style wall decoration. Honestly this doesn't feel like too drastic a change, and most importantly allows  Zordon to keep that all-important ethereal aura the character should have. Alpha we'd already seen both as concept art and a toy release, but as expected looks far better in motion. More interesting than the design change is the snark he shows off with this one line, suggesting we might get a slight dash of Alpha 6 in this new interpretation.

Elizabeth Banks' has already made a pretty lasting impression sinking into the role of Rita Repulsa, but this is the first time we get to see her properly in action and it looks glorious. With the former green ranger rumours seemingly proving true this is a whole new Rita, as she gets in on the action personally in her bid to take over. Also receiving a pretty hefty power boost are the putties, now living up to their clay-golem inspiration more than ever.

With Rita on the rampage it's time for the rangers to suit up, and in doing so we get our first peek at the rangers in action. The suits themselves have (rightly so) been at the forefront of the movie's marketing, but only ever as still images. At least we know now that the characters can actually move in them! I find it unlikely that the film with focus on the martial arts side of things quite in the same way the series did, but that doesn't mean it can't deliver on the fight scenes. We'd also previously seen that the helmets could open up ala Ninja Storm, but this trailer revealed that this will be the case when the rangers are piloting their zords as well. At least it makes more sense than the current shows where the rangers gain more armour to pilot a zord.

Then finally we come to the zords, which have possibly been the most controversial aspect of this movie so far. Revealing these via the toys was just about the worst move Saban/Lionsgate/Bandai could have made, because they really didn't do these things justice. In motion they're looking fantastic, even if the dinosaur/insect hybrid look some of them (particularly the mastodon) seem to be taking is questionable at best. Even Goldar, who has literally been reduced to a giant humanoid mass of melting gold, looks like he could provide an amazing climax to the film. The Megazord is teased just about the right amount here - we see enough of it to generate buzz (and suggest that it might not look as bad as initially feared!) but not enough to completely spoil things just yet. If the crew have taken the right cues from Pacific Rim, then things could be looking very positive indeed.

I had my doubts about Power Rangers. The suits and teaser trailer were enough to get me interested but with each new reveal my sense of scepticism grew larger and larger. This trailer has been more than enough to silence me until March 24th. Despite the changes (some more necessary than others) it doesn't feel like the spirit of the original has been lost, and that at the very least the movie will be a fun ride in true Power Rangers tradition. I've kept my discussion of the movie relatively minimum on this site, but you can bet I'll be in the cinema day one to check it out and report back with a full review.