Ranger Re-watch: Power Rangers: The Movie, minute by minute

(written for one of the PR forums I used to frequent)

00:00:27 Opening legend: Great stuff, the first of many awesome cues from composer Graeme Revell, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick’s voice-over is perfect and there’s already a real Star Wars-esque sense of grand mythology.

00:01:19 Sky diving sequence: Talk about showing off! The team take to the skies with ridiculous confidence and the movie struts its Hollywood budget. It’s great fun but seems strangely at odds with the show we know and love. A karate class at Ernie’s would have worked just as well.
The Rangers all flash their whiter-than-white teeth- and personalities!- and it’s nice that we don’t have to sit through a retelling of the teams’ origin; the opening crawl may annoy diehards for skimming over PR history, but it’s an elegant introduction to the film that really doesn’t need much in the way of set up.
In contrast to the stately orchestral opening, this scene is accompanied by the first of many dynamic pop songs, “Higher Ground” by Red Hot Chilli Peppers. It won’t be the only Stevie Wonder cover, either.

00:03:37 Weird. Tommy’s parachute makes a noise like a champagne cork popping as it opens. This won’t be the last inappropriate, cartoony sound effect we’ll be hearing in this movie...

00:03:40 Our first look at a panoramic Angel Grove doesn’t disappoint. New South Wales offers an appropriately futuristic skyline and it’s all very green and utopian looking already.

00:03:55 There’s a brief shot of a gaggle of kids from Angel Grove High, waving a banner, then we cut straight to the POV kid character, Fred and his boring father. Some familiar faces would have been nice, of course. Miss Appleby, Mr Kaplan, Ritchie, Curtis...

00:04:40 The target touchdown: is this the first time ever we hear Tommy’s last name used? Also note our White Knight has a little sky board (?) thing on his feet, which none of the others had.

00:05:15 Gosh, was JDF always that pretty?

00:05:33 Bulk and Skull’s jump actually raises a laugh, which bodes well.

00:05:53 Rollerblading now! Where do these kids get their energy? One has to laugh, especially given all the safety gear the teens wear, which apparently justifies some incredibly reckless stunt-skating, like thundering down stone steps. Don’t try this at home, kids!

00:06:49 I’d forgotten Paul Goddard, of Farscape and the first Matrix movie, was in this. The excavation scene that follows is a good showcase for two things; first, the humorous no-cursing policy of kids’ shows (how many real-life building workers would say “what in the world?”?), and second, a lot of antipodeans doing American accents of wildly varying quality.
Seems oddly familiar.

00:07:35 The hyperlock chamber cover really suggests something very different to the villain we wound up with

00:08:22 Who designed the hand and egg thing? Zordon?

00:08:58 Is that open air food court supposed to be Ernie’s? Give me the pastel coloured gym and juice bar any day.

00:09:15 I never cared as a kid, but those coloured teleport beams streaking across the sky kind of give the Rangers away.

00:09:20 Same Command Centre building, good!

00:09:22 The CC interior is impressive, sure. The light-up concentric rings in the side columns have been retained, as have the chunky push buttons of the consoles. But am I being a slave to nostalgia in preferring the old, darkened TV set? I’m just saying, they could have switched the lights off and the dry ice machine on and saved themselves a few thousand dollars at least.

00:09:38 Not sold on the white faced Zordon. I’m grateful they stuck with the Bob Manahan voice, but the blurring, ghostlike face used on the TV series was far more effective. I don’t know who exactly is under the make-up but the mouth doesn’t move in time with the voice.

00:09:54 I realise that the teens’ outfits, despite the colour coding, are primarily white, as if to underline the characters being pure and non-threatening as possible, as well as sponsored by Nike.
I like how Tommy’s ensemble is evocative of both his White Ranger armour and a karate gui.
And look at Billy, showing off his biceps! He looks a lot more macho than Adam or Rocky. By this point his nerdishness had been forgotten.

00:10:14 Tommy’s yin yang pendant is present and correct.

00:10:52 The regular series villains enter the picture.
Zedd is awesome. The familiar Robert Axelrod voice is set to maximum growl with reverb up to 11, and the Big Z looks like a skinned, metal-plated Satan. This is how Zedd was meant to be before panicking parents and sloppy writing neutered him. If only he were the main villain of the piece!
Yet another actress is playing Rita, same Barbra Goodson voice, but it’s Michiko Soga or nobody, frankly.
In contrast to Zedd, Goldar looks less animalistic and more like an action figure here. ‘Evil Space Pig’ Mordant is fine, the monocle is a nice touch, but I’d rather have Baboo and Squatt.

00:12:35 Don’t think much of Ooze’s overall design.

00:13:00 First mention of Eltar in PR history

00:16:20 The fight at the construction site. As a kid, this seemed to go on for days. Back then I just wanted to see them morph, but watching it now I’m very impressed. First generation PR fans tend to rhapsodise about the Saban era fight scenes, back when nobody had heard of genetic powers or Kalishplosions. But the fact is, fights in the early days were more like dance routines, choreographed so cleverly that you didn’t notice how little actual violence was involved- ironic, given the controversy about the shows violent content at the time.
This is different. Fast cut, with our heroes moving like lightning (there sure is a lot of somersaulting and back-flipping going on) and much more actual body contact. In fact...

00:17:30 Did that Ooze monster just punch Rocky across the jaw! You hardly ever saw anybody get punched in the face in the TV show. What a great scene.

00:17:52 “Let’s do it, guys!” Boo yeah! It’s Morphin’ time!

00:17:56 But of course, the sequence has been altered for the movie, with the group morphing in a different order ( so it goes Kim, Billy, Rocky, Adam, Aisha, Tommy), for some bizarre reason. The morphers are now colour coded, with the POWER RANGERS graphic removed. This is also, sadly, the first of only two brief uses of the famous “Go, Go, Power Rangers!” theme we all love.
I’m not complaining, though. This scene rocks.

00:18:34 That old joke about what the bad guys are doing whilst the Rangers go through all this transformation business is finally answered onscreen; they get bored and go away.

00:18:48 From this point on, the Rangers can’t so much as flutter their eyelashes without a lot of loud Bruce Lee swishing and swooping noises.

00:20:09 Ivan/Zordon face off. Again, Zordon’s voice is out of sync. Up close he looks like he’s saying something else entirely.

00:20:25 Ivan trashes the CC: pretty scary if you’re a kid.

00:21:00 Tracking the Ooze creatures. You’re suddenly very aware that this scene takes place at night, in darkness. Try to think of so much as a single fight scene from the TV show that wasn’t filmed in bright daylight. Sound design, direction and music are fantastically atmospheric here.

00:21:34 Hmm, the “Power Beam” might have worked if it'd been integrated a little more organically. As it stands, I think this is where the makers of Go-Onger got the idea for Bear RV.

00:22:08 Power Scope. Oh please.

00:22:30 I'm sorry, but I really can't love the new suits. I do admire how the design looks so solid (the suits were made from both plastic and metal plating) yet allows for so much flexibility. I just don’t think that the Power Rangers look right with armour. Nor do I like the colour scheme used, the gigantic helmets or the single diamond/giant power coin on the chest. It’s all a bit tacky.

00:23:17 Monsters go splat. Nice surprise.

00:24:02 The infamous Double Whammy. The cartoon eye-popping is deeply lame, his head should have exploded!

00:24:15 "Stega-Stinger"?? What have stegosauruses got to do with Billy? Or grappling hook guns, for that matter. It’s just dumb, they obviously thought the name just sounded cool.

00:24:32 ...Like “Pterodactyl Thunder Whip”.

00:24:50 Tommy does a cool flying kick. In fact, most of the coolest stuff on screen revolves around Tommy.

00:25:34 Funny, I don’t remember Saba being able to fly. And where exactly did Tommy pull him out from? The blade blasters and holsters, again colour-coded, are visible but are just for show, so that's faithful to the TV series from season 2 onwards, anyway!

00:26:35 The Rangers arrive to find the CC in ruins. Look familiar, Tommy?

00:27:00 I hate the idea of Zordon being an actual flesh and blood man inside the tube. And did anyone stop to ask why the ‘real’ (read: fake) Zordon has a British accent? Worst of all is his “the Power Rangers are no more” speech.
Zordon would never, ever say that! No matter how bad things got, our Zordon would still always tell the Rangers to believe in themselves and never give up. It’s a pretty basic character trait and for them to have gotten it so wrong feels like a betrayal.

00:29:10 Off to Pheados. It sinks in that we won’t see the team morphed again until the end of the film.

00:29:40 The movie version of Rita’s Palace is pathetic. It’s just one big empty room full of dry ice. No Finster, no monster machine, no armies of Putty Patrollers.

00:30:18 “NO ONE DOUBLE CROSSES LORD ZEDD AND LIVES!” You tell ‘im, Zedd!

00:30:30 Rita and Zedd are trapped in a snow dome and that’s pretty much their contribution to the movie over and done with, too.

00:31:48 Oh joy, the Tenga’s, or "Tengu" as they're called here. At least the ones in the TV show were grown from eggs, whereas these guys come from, erm...snot.

00:34:40 Ivan’s laugh is already starting to bug me

00:35:25 Tommy and Kim’s heart-to-heart. Isn’t there some legend about a kiss between the two being cut from this very scene? If that’s true, I can’t see where it might have appeared, unless the scene was totally reshot. Odds are it wasn’t a French kiss, anyway!

00:37:22 Dulcea is, literally, revealed. And what a sight she is to behold! Even Divatox wore more than that. Why couldn’t we have had her instead of Ninjor?
Law and Order star Mariska Hargitay was originally cast in this role, but the footage has sadly never been released.

00:38:15 Oh, Fitpatrick's cut-glass accent! Me like.

00:38:36 Tommy lands on his back once again, but you can bet when he gets up there won’t be a mark on his brilliant white outfit.

00:40:00 Fake Zordon wants to ‘help’ the Rangers. Thanks, but I think you did your bit by telling them that it was all over and there was no hope.

00:40:05 Nice to see Ivan taking the traditionally small-scale approach to conquering Earth, dressing as a creepy wizard and handing out jars of ooze to kids in Angel Grove.

00:41:20 After a long hike, Dulcea brings the team to the Ninjetti temple ruins. Ancient powers...Animal spirits...A posh English accent really is ideal for delivering speeches about destiny etc. And I could listen to Dulcea talk all day.

00:41:40 Dang, look at those abs. Concentrate, man, concentrate!

00:43:30 More standing around for the team. There’s precious little of the interplay between the Rangers' personalities that was as key to the series as the action and effects. In this movie, they mostly stand around having the plot explained to them.
Again, a scene is superbly enhanced by Revell’s score.

00:44:23 Ninja robes. Glad to see they didn’t go for the full head-coverings of the show, which made the team look like some freakish rainbow sect of the KKK.

00:45:04 “Rocky, you are the mighty ape!”
No arguments here.

00:45:27 “I’m a frog!”
I wonder if Johnny Yong Bosch realises this is what it’ll say on his tombstone

00:46:33 Aww, Dulcea turned into a beautiful owl! No fair. In today’s Power Rangers, she’d just have become the Owl Ranger.
Why have we never had an Owl Ranger?

00:47:00 Big scene at a quarry. Again, very familiar.

00:48:51 Ivan zaps the Tengu (yay!) and we get another stupid sound effect; as Ivan pulls some feathers off his face it makes a Velcro ripping sound.

00:49:10 I’m guessing the others are getting bored of Tommy staring moodily into the distance whilst rubbing his wrist in that tough guy way. Time for more hiking. I think there was a scene here with some sort of blue elephant alien but it was cut.

00:50:29 More Fred. Movie makers always seem to think kids in the audience need some characters their own age to relate to, even though they actually just want to see the superheroes do super things.

00:52:15 The dinosaur skeletons come to life. Yup, didn’t see that coming! Whole seconds of thought went into this one. It’s a very American touch, but it serves to remind one that the film really misses the wonderfully bizarre monsters of the TV show.

00:54:00 Weird sound effect alert: the triceratops makes a belching sound as its head falls off

00:56:00 First glimpse at the Ecto-Morphicons. Again, very flashy but uninspired. Anyone could come up with giant silver bugs, where’s the originality? Am I expecting too much?

00:58:14 Rock creatures. Yawn. This movie is crying out for an Eye Guy, a RoboGoat, a Goo Fish or a Pineoctopus. Every movie should have a Pineoctopus.

0058:39 The ninja Rangers power up. And they didn’t even do that cool hand gesture thing.

01:00:15 So the gargoyles dissolve in water? Probably wasn’t a great idea building the monolith right next to a waterfall then.

01:01:40 More bad puns, and Rocky nearly gets it in the nuts.

01:02:05 For the second time in the movie, Tommy does something very similar to the Zeo flying power kick. Spooky.
Actually, any Super Sentai fans who saw this must have been completely bemused.

01:03:46 The animal spirits flying around the team are “new Zords”, apparently.

01:04:00 Alright! The Rangers are back online, with new power coins. The helmet designs retain the dino theme, as in the show. Pity they couldn’t have changed them to reflect the animal spirits, just for the movie.
Although, thinking about it, since one early (and utterly insane) idea for the movie was to remove the visors and mouth pieces from the helmets, so that that actors faces were visible while suited-up, we should just be grateful this movie didn't turn out a complete travesty.

01:04:25 Bye, Dulcea!

01:04:33 Ecto-Morphicons on the rampage. These things are supposed to have enslaved the universe? They’re not even that big. Any of the TV Megazords could have just stomped on them.

01:05:19 Has the Scorpitron gotten smaller since the last scene? This whole battle has some serious issues of scale.

01:06:50 The Zord-summoning thing they do with their morphers is very nifty.

01:07:07 Comedy Sound Effect! There’s no way that loud "ribbet" the Frog Zord makes can be there for anything but comic value. Made me laugh, anyway.

01:07:33 “Nice stereo” says Kimberley, in a sweet nod to “Day of the Dumpster”. So whoever wrote this movie saw at least one episode of the show, that’s good.

01:07:42 “Ribbet!” There he goes again!

01:08:50 What the..? Why is Tommy flying around the city looking for the Ecto-Morphicons?! They were right in front of them just a minute ago.

01:10:00 The Ninja Zords have been given a predictable make-over from the TV versions. The polished metallic look doesn’t exactly work with those bright colours, and a lot of extra detail has been added to make them look more mechanical and less plastic. In fact they look more like they’ve escaped from a video game. The Ape Zord is also made to look specifically Gorilla-like.
Oh, and those close ups of the Zord cockpits are terrible, they don’t remotely match the CGI models and just look very cheap.

01:10:44 Bulk and Skull look somewhat incongruous amongst all those kids.

01:10:05 “You think she’s cute too, huh? Mmm”
I love Goldar! Now we know why he really hated Tommy.

01:11:18 Kim: “Ivan’s got me in some sort of electromagnetic deadlock!” Anyone else think maybe that line was meant for Billy?

01:12:02 Hooray, Tommy’s back in the game! Cos the others would be totally lost without him, as the movie is at pains to point out.

01:12:50 Weird sound effect: The Hornitor makes dog begging noises when it looks to Ivan.

01:13:44 Megazord time

01:15:00 Tommy saves the monorail. Let’s face it, he’s a God amongst men.

01:15:15 This Megazord fight bites. Both Zord and monster ought to be skyscrapingingly huge, but instead the relative size seems to change from one shot to the next and the MZ never seems bigger than about 60 feet tall.

Angel Grove First National seems to be made entirely of glass.

01:15:49 "NINJA FALCON MEGAZORD!"
Oh, come on, this is getting silly. This movie fetishises Tommy to a ridiculous extent.

01:16:25 “Leap to our doom...”
I’m told Anthony Kiedis, of the Chilli Peppers, is in the crowd somewhere

01:16:55 Well, whaddyaknow! Fred has a plan.

Is that long-haired kid a boy or a girl?

01:18:03 So Bulk turns on the hose, what’s Skull doing? I’m rather grateful the pair doesn’t appear much, they always stole too much screen time from the Rangers on TV. Compare this to the Turbo movie, where for every minute our heroes are on screen, Bulk and Skull seem to get ten.

01:19:20 Funny we never saw the Emergency kick-the-monster-in-the-balls button in the TV series.

01:19:30 Orion’s Comet is shown as...A giant flaming ball of rock. Who says PR isn’t educational!

01:20:41 Too late?
The Rangers’ close-up reactions are a priceless; Billy looks like he’s forgotten a line, Rocky looks embarrassed, Kim, well AJJ always gives the material her all, so naturally she’s crying very convincingly (you want to give her a hug, actually), Tommy seems to be forcing some tears out, Aisha’s expression suggests somebody just let one, and Adam simply hangs his head in shame.

01:22:36 The real Zordon’s back! Well done, gang.

01:23:38 At the party, Fred contemplates one day becoming a Ranger himself. A precocious preteen as a Ranger? Not in my lifetime, thanks.

Note also that Rocky doesn’t look up from his meal once.

01:24:19 Aw man, Tommy should have kept his soft rock locks tied back.

01:24:40 Tommy and Kim snuggle up. It’s as much physical contact as they’re allowed.

01:24:53 Credits: Screenplay by ARNE OLSEN (WHO??)

01:24:55 Van Halen’s “Dreams” is such a great song, even to a bitter old cynic like me. One of the greatest air guitar solos ever.

01:25:09 Nice to see the names of the Ranger actors are listed alphabetically, two at a time, so nobody takes top billing.

01:25:45 Zedd’s back. Uh-oh.

The movie should have ended with “Go, Go Power Rangers”, dang it!

The songs they do use are fine, the jazzed up remix of "Kung Fu Fighting" is great fun, but the “Ayeyaiyai” song smacks of a college band trying to be hilariously ironic.

The credits reveal that several different effects companies handled different costumes and props. Interesting. Seems the movie Zedd was created by Optic Nerve, who went on to do all the make-up and creature designs on Buffy.

THE END

I won’t lie, I enjoyed that. It’s not our Power Rangers, but it’s slick, good-hearted fun, and it’s not often we see our favourite super team looking so well-funded.

Overall, I give the movie a B- (like you care).