Might Morphin’ Power Rangers: Dawn of a great new franchise?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been hyped for the new Power Rangers movie to release in theaters.  Growing up, the Power Rangers were always #1- just ask my parents how much money they spent on toys, videos, etc., and you’ll be met with a disdainful glare.  Being the man-child that I am, I cannot wait for March 24th when it finally does come out, so here’s what I think about it so far.

Based on the trailers, it looks really different from the Power Rangers we grew up loving.  Cool effects, developed characters, and signs of good production value (gasp!) are what emerged from the first trailer.  This wont simply be a monster-of-the-week type movie or franchise should they be successful enough to build one.

It looks darker than I remember the Power Rangers being.  My first thoughts of the trailer were that this would be Power Rangers if it was directed by Zack Snyder.  It does resemble his work so far int he DCEU, with Zordon looking like the Kryptonian dots/beads/ whatever they were and the putty patrollers looking a lot like Doomsday.  At any rate, I think going this route was a studio decision and so far the only thing I don’t like.  Power Rangers is supposed to be a lot of fun, and while there is humor in the trailer, if they don’t icnclude the fun spirit we know Power Rangers for, I’m not so sure the movie will be as good as it could have been.  I mean, look at any of the Fantastic Four movies- they did not capture the adventurous, fun essence of Marvel’s first family, and those movies were turdfests from start to end.

The cast looks great.  I can’t say much about the Rangers themselves considering they are all unknown at this point, but the supporting characters are impeccable.  Bryan Cranston is, well, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Banks looks awesome as Rita Repulsa, and Bill Hader will, in my opinion, bring the necessary humor that is needed to play Alpha 5.  Hopefully, they will carry the film if the young actors can’t, and will continue to appear in their roles should a franchise be born.

I’m a little disappointed they couldn’t make the megazord or their suits look like their original MMPR counterparts, but they still look pretty cool. If a franchise should be born out of this, I’d say to look out for a few obvious things: Tommy, hopefully as the white and green ranger, Lord Zed, appearances from the original rangers in roles, and potentially even Ivan Ooze.  That would be wild.

Are you gonna see this film?  Were you a fan of the original series?  Let me know your thoughts about it and how you think this movie is gonna do.  As always, be sure to follow me on instagram: @keithscreen.  Also, if you have any suggestions, feel free to message me or leave a comment.  Thanks for reading!

What we can expect from Iron Fist

Two weeks away from its Netflix premiere, Iron Fist has already generated some buzz around itself, and not all of it is positive.  Obviously, fitting into the already stellar Defenders lineup, we have lofty expectations and rightfully so.  Yet, Netflix got themselves into a little bit of a mess by casting white actor Finn Jones to play Danny Rand, sparking an outrage that they did not cast an Asian actor to play a character who is a martial arts master (even though Danny is white in the comics).  In any case, I won’t get into that, as that’s not the purpose of this blog, but I felt the need to mention it because it is one of the big things to know heading into the series- some people already have a negative perception of it.

The fourth Defender, and the final one before Netflix comes out with The Defenders, the tone of the show will be familiar.  Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones comprise the lower-level heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Univerese, and while htey may not be travelling between dimensions or fighting evil robots, these heroes are much darker and more captivating than their colleagues on the big screen.  Iron Fist should be no different, as we can expect the dark, dramatic feel to continue through this show as well.

Finn Jones is a face familiar to many through his time on Game of Thrones.  Personally, I think casting him was a good choice.   He is familiar enough but still not popular enough for us to have any real impression of what his performance will be like, similar to how we did not really know the other three stars of the Defenders shows before those came out, aside from maybe one or two things that we had seen those actors in.  As always, we know to expect familiar faces, such as Rosario Dawson, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Wai Ching Ho who played Gao previously in this Netflix subset of the MCU.  Building up to the Defenders, familiar faces are always welcome to create that sense of a shared universe, and those actors have all done a fantastic job so far in their roles.

Going back to the buildup of the Defenders, we should expect to see a lot of crossover in that regard.  We didn’t get much of it in Luke Cage which was a little disappointing, but with this being the last stop on Marvel and Netflix’s path to the Defenders, I think we may see the other titular heroes at some point.

Iron Fist as a comic book series was never popular until they paired him with Luke Cage.  Also, we already have another martial-arts centered hero in this universe in Daredevil.  I think that Iron Fist will be slightly out of place at first, but as the series progresses he will find his niche in this universe, and I have high expectations for this show.  Luke Cage lost a lot of steam once Cottonmouth died, and rightfully so- Mahershala Ali brought a lot of charisma to the screen and replacing him with anyone would have been difficult.  Daredevil‘s second season was a let down for some people, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.  And last but not least, I have been itching to see more of Jessica Jones, because the first season was so good and completely out of nowhere- I have certainly never seen a comic book adaptation quite like that one.  Season 2 of that won’t get here soon enough.

How do you think the show will do?  Where do you think it will rank among the other Marvel series on Netflix?  Let me know and be sure to follow me on instagram (keithscreen) so you don’t miss anything.

All episodes of Iron Fist  will be available to stream on Netflix on March 17.