10 Things We Want To See In The Power Rangers Sequels

The Power Rangers reboot is now here and despite a lukewarm response from critics, it's being met with a lot of love from fans and doing some pretty decent box office business to boot. While nothing official has been announced just yet, this will likely be enough for Saban and Lionsgate to speed ahead with their ambitious plan to make five more movies. While it's thankfully standalone - for the most part - there's a lot of potential in Power Rangers for it to spawn a few sequels. It sets up an intriguing backstory for the titular heroes, it hints at an adaptation of a later TV series in the franchise to come and there's even that old superhero movie staple: the post-credits scene. So, what would we want to see in the Power Rangers sequels? Well, quite a lot, actually. From fresh locations to new Rangers as well as a few problems fixed, here are 10 things we'd want the five subsequent movies to include. Take a look through them on the next page and as always, be sure to drop us a comment once you're done letting us know what you hope to see. 10) Going Beyond Angel Grove 2017's Power Rangers made the right decision to take the incredibly long-lasting franchise back to basics. For instance, the movie was set entirely - well, apart from the opening flashback sequences - in the small coastal town of Angel Grove, which was also the setting of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. For future movies, though, we would love it if the franchise branched out from this location and embraced the space-faring, galaxy-spanning turn the TV show took as it went along. For those who don't know, Power Rangers series have been set in Earth-orbiting space stations, alien jungles and even in a dystopian future. While the movie came up with a neat way of explaining why alien nasties will keep invading Angel Grove - it's the location of the powerful Zeo Crystal - there's too much cinematic potential in the other locations that the franchise has explored for the next five movies to confine themselves to a small seaside town. 9) Give Bryan Cranston's Zordon More To Do Casting Bryan Cranston as the Rangers' disembodied mentor Zordon was a stroke of genius on the production team's part. For longterm fans, it brought things full-circle as a young Cranston once voiced several of the monsters-of-the-week on Mighty Morphin. More importantly than that, though, Cranston is a phenomenal actor who brought a real gravitas to what was traditionally a loveable but cheesy character. Under Cranston - and some nice work from the screenwriters - Zordon became a much more layered character than before. For one, he was a previous Red Ranger who had been betrayed by his teammate the Green Ranger, Rita Repulsa. He was also a more fallible mentor, criticizing the team and losing faith in their ability to get the job done at certain points. In the sequels, it would be great if this combative, two-way relationship between Zordon and his Rangers could be continued. As the Rangers get stronger and more experienced, Zordon learns to trust them and their instincts more. Let's hope that Lionsgate manage to hold onto Cranston for the duration of the franchise. 8) The Return Of Rita Repulsa Speaking of Rita, the movie made a lot of drastic changes to the villainess to distinguish her from her Mighty Morphin counterpart. Even if you miss the crazy hair and fashion sense of the original version, you have to admit that the idea to make her a former Ranger turned bad was a great move. Plus, Elizabeth Banks' deliberately hammy performance ensured that she retained the character's core campy appeal. After all, you can't do a gritty reboot of a character called Rita Repulsa. At the end of Power Rangers, Rita is seen floating through space but, crucially, still alive. It seems certain, then, that the character will return to plague the Rangers in the sequel. This is only right, as the original was an incredibly long-lasting villain on TV. She appeared from Mighty Morphin all the way until Power Rangers In Space and turned up in both previous movies, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie and Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. To get the best out of the character when she returns though, the sequel needs to pair her up with her frequent partner from the original show... 7) Lord Zedd As the first major antagonist the Rangers faced in Mighty Morphin's first season, the movie made the right choice in - very loosely - adapting Rita Repulsa for this origins story. The sequel has an equally obvious choice of villain that we really hope director Dean Israelite and his team take up. Namely, Lord Zedd, the self-styled Emperor of Evil. Introduced in Mighty Morphin season 2, Zedd starts as a much more fearsome foe than Rita and is revealed to be her master. Over time, however, Zedd became just as bumbling as Repulsa and eventually married her, after which the pair were more often presented as comic relief than a real threat to the Rangers. For the movies, though, there's a lot of potential to return Zedd to his original factory settings as a hugely formidable enemy for the Rangers to face. He's also one of the finest designed Power Rangers enemies ever, so they hardly need to reboot the character's look. Interestingly, the reason for his skinless appearance is because he was disfigured when trying to claim the Zeo Crystal - a piece of backstory that could easily be retained for the movies. 6) A Great Tommy Oliver Every Power Rangers fan punched the air when the movie's mid-credits scene teased the introduction of perhaps the most popular Ranger ever. While the kids are back at detention, the teacher announces that they have a new student joining them today: Tommy Oliver. Tommy is, of course, the Green Ranger from Mighty Morphin. As played by Jason David Frank, he quickly stole the show away from his teammates and even grew to swipe the role of leader away from Jason the Red Ranger. For the sequel, the movie needs to create a fresh yet equally loveable version of the character who can measure up to the classic version of Tommy. Intriguingly, the Power Rangers cast have called for the character to be reimagined as female. That way the group would consist of three male and three female Rangers. That's something we'd totally be up for, too, as it would help to make this iteration of the character stand out from what's come before. 5) The White Ranger Part of what makes Tommy the most popular Ranger is that he had the most transformative character arc in the TV show. And also because he had at least two awesome Power Ranger personas. Tommy originally appeared as Rita's evil champion, transforming into the Green Ranger thanks to her possessing the Green Power Coin. After battling the Rangers, however, he switched sides and joined his former enemies. Eventually, Rita destroyed the Green Power Coin to stop him. To keep Tommy on the team, however, Zordon created the White Power Coin and Tommy was reborn as the team's new leader, the White Ranger. Tommy's transition from the Green Ranger to the White Ranger is such an iconic part of Mighty Morphin that it's surely a dead cert that the movies will get to it eventually. We'd recommend that the second film adapt the Green Ranger arc and then perhaps leave the White Ranger for the third. 4) More Rangers Action Perhaps the greatest achievement of 2017's Power Rangers is how it fleshes the five central characters out far more than the original series. Infamously, the Rangers are described as "teenagers with attitude" in the classic opening credits, when they're really some of the squarest, squeaky-cleanest adolescents you've ever seen. In the movie, the characters feel like real teenagers, full of anxieties, family issues and other hang-ups. The downside of this emphasis on the characters outside of the suits is that we hardly get any time with them as actual Power Rangers. The film takes the Batman Begins approach to the superhero origin story and keeps them out of their outfits until well into the movie. In fact, they don't even suit up and go into battle until roughly the final half hour. While we were happy to see all the character work, the sequel should build on the great foundation established here and significantly ramp up the action. How about opening up Power Rangers 2 with an all-out action sequence? 3) A More Consistent Tone Perhaps the biggest area that the new movie struggles with is finding a consistent tone for itself. It was always going to be tough to pitch this film exactly right - make it too gritty and it's not Power Rangers anymore, but keep too much of the campiness and you're in Batman & Robin territory. What Power Rangers tries to do, then, is to have its cake and eat it, too. As we've said, the presentation of the five central characters and Zordon is far more mature than that of its parent series. On the other hand, Elizabeth Banks chews her way through the scenery as Rita Repulsa and feels much more of a piece with Mighty Morphin. Likewise, there are some really goofy moments of humour. Such as Jason's introductory scene, where his friend "milks" a male bull's "udder." With this difficult first try out of the way, we really hope that Dean Israelite and his team of writers will have learnt from what worked and what didn't about this movie and find a more assured, consistent tone next time. Basically, keep the depth of the characters and the core outlandish fun of the Power Rangers but do away with the sharp swerves back to goofiness. 2) New Zeo Powers The addition of the Zeo Crystal into the new movie's mythology means a lot to longtime fans of the franchise, as it seems to clearly point to the heroes getting a new power set at some point in the future. The Zeo Crystal was not actually part of Mighty Morpin Power Rangers and instead hails from its follow-up series, Power Rangers Zeo. In that show, it's not the life-giving crystal that rests within the Earth's crust as in the movie but the source of the titular team's Zeo powers. Though we're not expecting the movies to shake up the Rangers' powers for a while yet, the potential is already there. The Rangers gaining new powers is a core part of the franchise's appeal, so it's bound to happen eventually. We're thinking that the Zeo powers could be introduced in the fourth outing, thereby splitting up the six planned films into two sets of trilogies. 1) Further Exploration Of The Power Rangers' History In Mighty Morphin, the origins of the Power Rangers are left frustratingly vague. While Zordon and Rita are old enemies, there are only ever hints that there've been Rangers before the five teenagers of Angel Grove are chosen to save the Earth. 2017's Power Rangers rights that wrong, however, by outlining the Rangers' past in the very first scene. According to Zordon, the Rangers were once "a legion of warriors" sworn to protect the galaxy from those who sought the Zeo Crystals embedded in every inhabited world. Much like the Green Lantern Corps from DC comics, the Power Rangers were not traditionally comprised of humans but individuals from various alien races. Zordon was the last Red Ranger while Rita was the turncoat Green Ranger. The use of the term "legion" suggests that there were originally many more than just five Rangers and that there might possibly be separate teams of Power Rangers out there in the cosmos. Just as we said we wanted future movies to travel outside Angel Grove, the addition of alien Rangers would be a terrific expansion of the Power Rangers mythology. Not to mention a nice callback to the Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers miniseries.