Power Rangers Trailer Drops!

So, as the gritty reboot of our childhoods continue, we have now gotten our first trailer for the upcoming Power Rangers movie. And…. here it is:

So, there it is. I’m going to come out and be honest about it: I’m not sure this trailer is selling me. I know that this is only the first trailer and even that you can’t necessarily judge a final film based on trailers alone. But, as this is the first time that we have truly seen anything from this film outside of a few promotional stills and posters, this is what I have to work with right now. So with that said, here’s what I got out of it. (Possible spoilers if you really don’t want to know anything about this movie before you see it) 

First off, the story details that the trailer gives us (or wants us to assume at this point). I finished watching it and all I could think of was: so this is The Breakfast Club becomes the X-Men by way of Transformers/Pacific Rim? Nothing, not one shot, not one image, nothing felt or said Power Rangers to me. In other reboot films, especially in the marketing, there is something that harkens back to the original, if only to cash in the nostalgia factor. Nothing here. No part of the story, of what they have given us as far as story at least, is anything remotely similar to Power Rangers as we know it. The only thing that remained the same was the names of the Rangers, which they are using the Mighty Morphin’ characters for.

Although there should be dinosaurs, after a fashion

 Now, this remains to be seen whether any of this is a good idea or not, but for now I can presume that they are using very little from the show at all, outside of a few broad details.

I also want to talk about the look of the thing itself. Visually, much of it was lit darkly without a lot of the brightness of color that the show had. Even daylight, outside shots are blunted by clouds or shadow or just lack warmth in their light. The mid-to-end quick cut montage gives an unpleasant Michael Bay Transformers feel that I had hoped to avoid. There are no shots of zords here (not a huge surprise), and only the briefest look at the suits at the end as they appear on the Rangers. And it’s like the Venom Symbiote wanted to go for a look that was a little bit Mass Effect and a little bit Iron Man. 

And a bit of Carnage in Jason's case

Overall, it just looked so very modern. If the original Power Rangers show had a look that was very much a product of it’s time, then I think this reboot might hit that aspect right on the head. It’s almost painful how by-the-numbers, absolutely 21^st century this looks, and somehow there’s a wrongness about that that I can’t quite describe. 

 There’s one last thing I want to touch on about this trailer. There’s hints of action and romance and serious tone as if to say ‘this ain’t your parents’ Power Rangers folks, this is the new, modern, Nolan-Batman-trilogy-esque Power Rangers!”. And that’s all well and good that the folks making this film want to make something more serious and adult than the source material. But it kind of feels like a half measure at this point. Why? Because this short film came out beforehand that introduced a truly dark, gritty, and absolutely adult version of Power Rangers. Perhaps this is my bias showing because I loved it (and also the Punisher short he did), but this film seems like it’s trying to go in that direction but not able to fully commit. So it went over lukewarm for me. It was also seemed to take itself way too seriously. I get trying to limit the campiness of the source material, but just a touch of humor, of self-awareness would have benefitted it greatly. Otherwise we’re going to end up with some cringe-worthy melodrama on our hands in a series that always had at least some aspect of fun about it. So just… lighten up a little, guys. I really hope I’m just reading too much into this first trailer, that I’m taking way more out of this two-and-a-half minutes than is actually there. But Power Rangers, especially Mighty Morphin’, holds a place in my heart, and I just want to see this movie be good. Not just for the seven-year-old me either, but for my seven-year-old that watches not only the old episodes I watched, but the newer ones too. 

So what did you guys think of the trailers? Good, bad, meh? Do you think this movie is going to pan out, or just end up another forgettable reboot? As always, let me know what you thought!

        

Hey, I Remember That! Rewatching Digimon: Digital Monsters

We all remember the TV shows we watched and loved as kids. As adults we grumble about the ‘quality of kids’ shows these days’, but what about the ones we remember so fondly?  They may hold a place in our hearts and in our nostalgias, but what happens when you re-watch some of those shows now? Well, thanks to DVD release and streaming options like Netflix, this task is simpler than ever. So, with that in mind, I thought I would go back and look at some of these and give my thoughts on how they’ve aged, or at least how they fare through adult eyes. So first up is the one that we’ve actually been watching a lot of lately, Digimon: Digital Monsters (or Digimon Adventure). I’m talking only about Season/Series 1 here, because that’s the one I remember watching. To be fair, it’s a season of 54 episodes, so there’s plenty to talk about.  

                Unlike a lot of shows I’d eventually like to do a segment like this on, I was already a bit older when Digimon came out. Its original run was 1999-2000, so I would’ve been 13-14 at the time and already ‘getting out of’ kids’ shows in that weird thing some of us did as teenagers before throwing our middle fingers to the air as adults and diving right back in to all this stuff. Digimon was a natural choice for us to watch, as my younger brother was into Pokemon (notwithstanding the fact we had three TV channels so we weren’t exactly spoiled for choice). But we all watched it, and I remember liking it as a kid for what it was. I don’t remember too much of the story, mostly just some of the different evolutions of the Digimon. So I thought it was pretty cool when I saw it on Netflix, and my oldest decided he’d give it a shot. At this point, we’d been watching Dinosaur King, which is like Pokemon except catching dinosaurs in cards rather than little creatures in Pokeballs. 

It's also not too bad, to be honest. Lots of dinosaur variety.

So we started watching Digimon, and this was what I found:

                Honestly, this show is still really good. As I said, I didn’t remember much of the story but watching it now it’s actually got a lot going on. There’s some really awesome themes; finding your destiny, saving the world and all that, but also friendship, discovering yourself, growing up, dealing with jealousy and differences of opinion and method, dealing with siblings and the struggle between being protective of them and letting them expand and grow on their own. There’s actually a lot of pretty heavy stuff wrapped in a bright, colorful cartoon about kids and their monster companions. That’s one thing that stood out to me and it was something I really liked. I always seem to most like the shows that don’t talk down to kids, that can deal with deeper stuff and be really entertaining for everybody. That’s one reason why shows like Batman: The Animated Series and Gargoyles are still so amazing to this day, and can even be better now as adults when you appreciate the content more. It’s really interesting as an adult to watch these kids’ initial bickering as they try to work together to figure out what happened, and then see those relationships mature. Then other things start to come in, like the often conflicting relationship between Matt and Tai, and how the two boys also have a second, internal conflict with the involvement of their younger siblings, TK and Kari. This is not to mention the impact that the consequences of their mission have on the kids. Digimon can ‘die’, that is be broken down into code. You see many of them do so, and not all of them are villainous. They lose allies along the way, and it impacts them. They grow along through their journey, you see them turn from the scared, confused kids at the beginning to united and capable fighters at the end who stand up to defeat the evil in the world. It’s a nice arc. 

Well that's pretty rough...

                This brings me to the Digimon themselves. I personally always preferred this show to Pokemon, as it always seemed that the relationship between child and creature was more equitable. And I’m not going to lie, the evolutions are still really cool. There is the standing practice of seeing the evolution montage in every episode, although it’s nothing new if you’re familiar with things like Sailor Moon, Power Rangers, or any other show of that ilk.

Digivolve into Champions! Digivolve into Ultimates!

I love the creative directions that they take with the evolutions. Even though it can be hard to keep the names straight of who turns into what in what order, the designs are great. A lot of the ‘wild’ Digimon, and the villainous ones, don’t really do a lot of evolving for the most part, so it doesn’t get too confusing. They often streamline the evolutions as the season goes on as well, especially for multiple evolutions for multiple Digimon at once. As much fun as that is, I like seeing their interactions outside of battle as well. As I said, these kids are partners with their Digimon. They don’t go out trying to catch or collecting others, so they form a strong bond with their counterparts. I really adds to the dynamic of the relationships, such as when Gabumon says he’ll follow Matt even if he decides to challenge Tai, despite not wanting to have to fight their friends. But it was his choice to make, not that he was tossed out of a card or a ball and told that’s what was going to happen. I have nothing against Pokemon or anything similar, honestly, I just prefer the dynamic of the relationships in Digimon.

Friendship!

 

                What else is there to talk about? The animation is nice, colorful and smooth. There is a little bit of computer-generated stuff in there, but just during the digivolutions, I didn’t notice anything outside of that. I’m not an expert in anime, but to me it looks good and holds up well. The voice acting was well done and worked well with the animation, even considering I was watching the English dub. The story, as I said, was well presented and only really tried to hit you over the head with the message in the last episode of the season. But, given what was going on at that point, and being the season end, it was understandable.

                So would I recommend Digimon: Digital Monsters? Does it hold up now as an adult? Yes, absolutely. It was a lot of fun to revisit this one and enjoy it again and I think I enjoyed the actual story itself more now. If nothing else, you get a show about cool creatures fighting other cool creatures and a bunch of kids trying to get home. If you really watch it though, you get a lot more. More than I was expecting. So if you’re looking for something to watch on Netflix and you stumble across this one, by all means, give it a shot.

Demolishing A Mystery, Or: Why I Never Want To Know The Joker’s True Identity

                I’ll admit, this wasn’t what I was originally going to write about this week. I’d been working on something else, but then I saw this article on a sidebar: Weare Finally Going to Learn The Joker’s True Identity! The moment I saw the title I knew I’d have to save my original topic about revisiting a childhood TV show to see how it fared now, and talk about this instead. I know this article is from a few months ago now, but the idea of it still bears discussion. 

                From my own personal standpoint, I don’t think revealing the Joker’s identity is a good idea. And contrary to how I usually approach writing on a topic, I didn’t research it to see what the reveal was, who he is, and how this particular story resolved. So I can’t spoil anything as far as this goes or even tell you whether this was legitimate or was somehow twisted at that end so that we still don’t really know who he is. All I know is that apparently the reveal was supposed to be over the summer in Justice League #50. So why am I opposed to this idea? Let me elaborate:

For some characters, who they are and their journey is integral to relating to the character. For others, their appeal lies in the mystery of their identities or motivations. Let’s take for example another comic character with a mysterious past: Wolverine. 

Wolverine had no memories past a certain point outside of brief flashbacks. And that was an integral part of his character, the fact that he didn’t know exactly who he was and how he’d come to be the way he was. Enter November 2001, and the beginning of Wolverine: The Origin, a six-issue run that told you the real story of Logan. And in a way, having that story fleshed out, makes the character lose the mystique that made people love him (no pun intended). One reason why Wolverine is as compelling a character as he is because he is a man that doesn’t really know himself, and is constantly looking for answers as to his past. That pulls you in because you go on that journey with him and you don’t know any more than he does. To suddenly have that information (even if he doesn’t), invests you less in his search because you already know the answer. 

So, I know you’re thinking, how does that relate to the Joker? Well, it’s a very similar situation, if not for the same reasons. The Joker is also a character, much like Wolverine, that does best with a certain mystery about him. The appeal of the Joker is not that you are searching for his past, but that he doesn’t need one. The mystique of him is that he’s not so much a character as a force, bound by no rules or confines of origin. Batman himself is bound by origin, by the death of his parents and his need to avenge or atone for it somehow. Spider-Man is bound by guilt, by great power and great responsibility, The Punisher by revenge and an unending war on the criminal element. The Joker has no real motive: is it to cause chaos? Just for fun? A twisted obsession with Batman, who is his opposite image? Even when the Joker is given an origin, you never know if it’s true or not. The Killing Joke gives a backstory to him (though no name), but how much of it is actually true? Were any of the Joker’s reasons in The Dark Knight for how he got his scars based on truth? I posit that it doesn’t matter if one or any of them are true or not, because that misdirection is so much more a part of Joker’s character than whatever his true origin is. He’s something that we can’t figure out, but more so, he’s something that Batman can’t figure out.  

Mystery is all well and good, but is that alone a good enough reason not to divulge the Joker’s real past? Perhaps not. After all, character reveals can have a profound impact on a franchise and provide a plot twist not only to throw audiences a curveball, but change the story immensely. One of the biggest examples of this is obviously the revelation about who Darth Vader really is. In that case, it propels the story forward and makes you look at the previous stuff in a different light. In Batman’s own universe, look no further for character reveals than Red Hood, first teased in Hush before later expanded into Under the (Red) Hood. Yes, sometimes solving a mystery can be very satisfying, but then what do you do? Once the big secret of the Joker’s name is out, what do you do with it? Does it become a sidenote, forgotten and not mentioned again? What impact does it have not only on the story, but on the greater scope of the character? I would suggest that in a way, it kills the character you know. I know that sounds a bit overdramatic, but hear me out. Let’s go back to the Wolverine example. Prior to the The Origin, we knew his name was Logan, he was Canadian, and had taken or been given the name Wolverine, possibly while being experimented on by the government. Origin takes one of those fundamental things right off the bat and discards it by letting us know that the name we’ve known the character as for the last thirty-odd years is wrong, replacing it with James Howlett. Apply that now to the seventy-plus years of history of the Joker, who is now [insert name]. You will never quite be able to disassociate the character from this identity that he didn’t really need in the first place. 

I have one final reason as to why I never want to know the Joker’s identity, and it’s probably the most important one. Strange as it is to say, especially for me, I don’t want that story because I don’t want a story that humanizes the Joker. Even worse, I don’t want a background that not only humanizes him, but makes him relatable or even sympathetic. That is the worst thing that you could do to a character like Joker. I said it earlier, Joker is a force, an embodiment of chaos. And you need those characters too. There are so many villains that you can understand the motives of, can sympathize with: Loghain Mac Tir from Dragon Age, Mr. Freeze (especially from Batman: TheAnimated Series), or the MCU favorite, Loki. Let the Joker remain who he is, and more importantly, who he isn’t. Being the Joker is exactly who he needs to be. Nothing more, nothing less. Because as he said himself:

Well said.

So what do you guys think? Do you agree that there are some mysteries better left unsolved, or are/were you interested to see who the Joker really is? Do you think it will be something that sticks, or is it a short-term gimmick? Leave a comment below, and let me know!