MILLENNIALS STILL HAVE POWERFUL LOVE FOR ‘POWER RANGERS’
It’s morphin time. Again. The Power Rangers, the buttkicking, primary-color-wearing teen superheroes that made their debut on Mighty Morphin Power
Rangers in 1993, got a big-budget, star-studded update in theaters. It might seem odd, in an already superhero-saturated market, to spend so much on an incredibly campy children’s show from the ’90s. But the better question might be: Why wouldn’t you?
It’s no secret that nostalgia is currently ruling the movie marketplace. What Millennials loved as kids we’ll pay to see re-created as adults. But why are we so nostalgic for the Power Rangers, specifically? If you didn’t grow up with it, it’s difficult to nail down the appeal of the teens with their Power Coins and zords (the alien coins that give them their powers and the giant dinosaur-shaped robots they use to battle evil, respectively). Here’s why the property has a hold on Millennials.
IT HIT US AT THE RIGHT AGE Those who have never been introduced to the original Mighty
Morphin Power Rangers show may think it’s aimed at kids in the 9-12 range, but it’s for a younger group. I watched it as young as 5. On Netflix, it’s listed as appropriate for children 5-7. As much as current parents may get sick of Dora the Explorer, my parents
were tired of Power Rangers by the time I outgrew it.
The original told simple stories about friendship and doing the right thing, and it came with cool martial arts and giant robots.
A SENSE OF INCLUSION The best part of Power Rangers was that maybe you could be one.
While the original show is notorious for problems with racial stereotyping — the sole AsianAmerican cast member was the Yellow Ranger and the sole black cast member was the Black Ranger, for instance — it did do some other things right.
As a team of heroes there was room for more than just a white male saving the day every week. The Rangers were a team where the girls were as powerful as the
boys and people of color were a part of the story. To defeat the strongest villains they had to join together to create a giant robot (Megazord). When the notorious Green Ranger enters the scene, the show proves that even someone who has made mistakes can end up being a hero.
When Power Rangers comes off the screen, it’s markedly different from other stories aimed at kids that are so often gender specific. Unlike merchandise from Disney princess movies or other superhero properties, Power Rangers was aimed at boys and girls and fostered play that wasn’t as divided along gender lines. The theme of who gets to be which ranger at playtime gets a nod in the final scenes of the new film.
IT KNOWS HOW TO HAVE FUN The Mighty Morphin Power
Rangers built a comedic, hyperrealistic world where the dialogue was wooden and the costumes polyester, which doesn’t distinguish it from other shows aimed at children so young. But what does distinguish it is how the ostensibly “bad” elements have become revered by its adult fans.
The low-budget cheese that makes Power Rangers so laughable to our parents is part of its charm, symbolizing a simpler world with fewer gray areas. The “teenagers with attitude” are refreshing in the pop cultural landscape of 2017. More than anything else, we’re nostalgic for the joy that the Rangers embodied when they saved the world. The new film captures this best in a scene that swaps its pop-heavy soundtrack for a clip of the
Mighty Morphin theme song. To anyone not familiar with the property, it is jarring moment. To superfans, it’s a lot of fun.
IT NEVER WENT AWAY Not including the 2017 film, here are just some of the ways the Power Rangers have lived on: There have been more than a dozen different television adaptations, two feature-length movies, a Green Ranger comic book and enough tie-in products and toys to make even mega-franchises such as Star Wars blink.
The endurance of the property led to an unauthorized short film that went viral in 2015. And it is what brought us to the latest adaptation, which re-imagines the heroes tackling new issues. It’s a far cry from the series, but it manages to work enough original elements that it should win over longtime fans. The film took in $40.5 million its first weekend, but regardless of box office performance, the Power Rangers will live on. They’ve lasted this long.