Bryan Cranston Compares The POWER RANGERS Movie To Chris Nolan’s BATMAN Trilogy
As you may have heard, they're making a Power Rangers movie ("they" being Lionsgate, director Dean Israelite, and a team of six writers, one of whom is Max Landis). No, there's not much we can do about it now.
The film recently added Bryan Cranston in the role of Zordon, the giant-ass blue head who gives the Power Rangers their marching orders. For Power Rangers superfans, this was an exciting turn of events, largely because it gave them an excuse to remind everyone that Bryan Cranston once did voiceover work on the Power Rangers TV show, a factoid that had been utterly useless until that precise moment.
Anyway, Cranston just did an interview with The Huffington Post, and he had some interesting things to say about how the upcoming Power Rangers movie will differ from the astoundingly terrible and poorly-made TV series which inspired it. For instance:
“This is as different a reimagining as the Batman television series as it became the Batman movie series. You can’t compare those two, and nor can you compare this movie version of the Power Rangers to that television series. It’s unrecognizable for the most part. There are tenets of the folklore that you hold onto for sure, but the inspiration is different, and the sensibility of it, and the approach to the film making is completely different.”
After confirming that, yeah, he means the Nolan Bat-films, Cranston backpedals just a smidge:
“Yeah. (But) I don’t know if the tone is as dark as that because you’re dealing with teenagers. So the appropriateness of that, and real teenage life, and going through high school and the cliques and the popularity or lack thereof, and the bullies and all the different sections and sub-sections of high school life, and the insecurities of these kids and things like that — hopes and dreams — and you embrace all of that into a retelling of the Power Rangers. And what you would get is this new version, this new reimagined version.”
Here's what I think Cranston's saying: the Power Rangers movie's going to be darker and less cartoonish than the TV series, and will thread what darkness it does contain through a (hopefully!) relatable story about high shoolers. I think the Nolan comparison he's making is largely an aesthetic one, pitting that trilogy against the uber-colorful and campy TV series that preceded it. At least, that's how I'm reading that. Maybe I'm wrong and Zordon's gonna shove a pencil through some kid's eyeball, but probably not.
Are you an adult who's excited about the Power Rangers movie? Please explain yourself in the comments below.
