Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always

That was pretty great. It was imperfect, but if you had seen every single episode of Power Rangers (and I have not) and told me that this was the best one, I'd believe you. It's TV-Y7, but the movie is allowed both pathos and conflict between the heroes, things entirely absent in every other project. And since both of those are the things that MAKE most projects good, the blandness of everything else seems to be the culprit to how shoddy it always is.

But if it were just that, the movie would be far less effective than it is. As a scene in the original Power Rangers TV show, Kimberly singing that corny song to the Rangers back in the 90's was corny as hell. As seen 30 years later, with a title card dedicated to the memory of both Thuy Trang and Jason David Frank? I have a freaking lump in my throat. How did they do that? It's perfect.

The voices of the special remain imperfect however (Alpha is somehow even more annoying sounding NOW than he was back then) but the dialogue, the characterization, the humor, the franchise upped its game, far beyond Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie ever bothered to.

And I can't fault the movie for this, but the truth is making a decent Power Rangers project should NOT be hard. The fact that every single series is low quality and awful is an artistic choice on the producers end. They COULD actually up their game the way they did here if they wanted to. It's makes how bad the recent seasons are even MORE unforgivable.

Confirmation: Kat and Tommy ARE the actual Pink / Green Ranger 'ship. They've hinted it, but this is the first confirmation. And I'm sad Frank was not in a place where he felt he could participate, and I'm sad he was in a place where he took his own life. But I found that sort of rewarding and frustrating in equal measure.

I am glad the franchise finally resolved its tension with David Yost. I hope they offered him a sincere apology for how they treated him on the original series (people on the set used to gay-bash him). The fact that they must have is probably the only reason Walter Jones is back too.

Power Rangers delivering a decent script with actual conflict and drama and interesting character dynamics is NOT impossible, and this movie makes it seem almost easy and effortless. And again, since it clearly is, there is no part of the rest of the recent seasons that is acceptable. *****.