The live action ‘Power Rangers’ feature film, directed by Dean Israelite, is more than a year off, so understandably news hasn’t exactly been pouring out, but up to this point, everything that has been revealed (mostly via rumors, of course) has pointed to this being a reboot of the original incarnation of the popular sentai series, ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ featuring Zordon assembling a team consisting of Jason, Kimberly, Zack, Billy and Trini to oppose villain Rita Repulsa.  The Twitter account for the movie even announced that Naomi Scott had been cast as Kimberly.

But the newest report throws everything out the window!  The latest rumor is that the movie won’t be a reboot at all, but will continue the storyline from the current TV series, ‘Power Rangers: Dino Charge’ and that those characters will appear in the movie, at least in the beginning.  It is speculated that the Dino Charge characters– for the record Tyler the Red Ranger (Brennan Mejia), Shelby the Pink Ranger (Camille Hyde), Koda the Blue Ranger (Yoshi Sudarso), Riley the Green Ranger (Michael Taber) and Chase the Black Ranger (James Davies)– pop up for the opening battle sequence only to pass the torch on to a new selection of Rangers.

And the villain?  It was previously reported that the opening battle would be between Rita and her forces against a prehistoric team of extraterrestrial Rangers led by the Red Ranger, who happens to be Zordon.  Later, in the present, after being freed, Rita goes about collecting gold to assemble her champion Goldar.

But the new rumor nixes that and states that the new villain is one of the oldest Ranger villains who vanished but never returned on the show, Scorpina, Goldar’s girlfriend of sorts.

Take everything with a grain of salt.  The first argument against this new report is that Lionsgate announced Naomi Scott had been cast as Kimberly– KIMBERLY not the Pink Ranger.

Also, everything up to this point has indicated that Lionsgate and the script written by Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz would indeed be rebooting the original MMPR, with the original teens.  Like it or not, while I’m sure ‘Dino Charge’ has its fans, the Power Rangers franchise today is nothing compared to the Cabbage Patch Kids-level of fandemonium created by the original incarnation.  And the original fans are now at the age that is the target audience for film studios, 18-30. There’s never been a lapse in Power Rangers toys on the market, but if you’re looking at merchandise for older fans– clothing, costumes, collectibles, glassware, decorations– that’s all strictly old school, first batch MMPR.

Considering that ‘Dino Charge’ isn’t even that popular as a TV show, it makes no sense to spin it off into a big budget movie if the intent is to kick off a successful franchise.  I mean, I sure as heck am not going to shell out money to see a ‘Dino Charge’ movie with the cast from the TV show.  I don’t even watch the TV show!

This news is being reported widely, though so it’s worth mentioning even though I suspect it is mostly (if not entirely) false.

More news as it surfaces…

For now, ‘Power Rangers’ is slated to film in Vancouver in 2016 from January-April, with a scheduled release date of January 13, 2017.

What version of the Power Rangers do you want to see on the big screen?

Source: Collider