Power Rangers Reviews: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I'm back once again for another Power Rangers Review. Today we're heading to the movie theatre to discuss Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, which was released on June 30th, 1995 between the second and third seasons of the TV show. I've already done a review for this movie on The Review Basement but that review was done as a standalone movie set in the Power Rangers Universe, rather than as a piece of Power Rangers history. Which is what this review will focus on more since it's production did have an impact on the TV show even though it ended up getting made as a separate entity from the TV show. I'll also be looking at the movies that came out around the film too. So let's get into it! It's Morphin' Time!

After the success of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on TV, Fox and Saban decided to bring the franchise to the big screen. This was sometime in 1994 as Austin St. John, Walter Jones, and Thuy Trang were still playing Jason, Zack, and Trini on the show and, according to the Power Rangers Wiki, were supposed to be in the movie instead of Rocky, Adam, and Aisha. But by the time the movie's script was being written, probably in late 1994, the actors had been let go, so Steve Cardenas, Johnny Yong Bosch, and Karan Ashley as Rocky, Adam, and Aisha were written into the movie instead. Also, there aren't any details on this, but I suspect that only Lord Zedd would be in the movie as he and Rita weren't married until the three part episode, "The Wedding", which was filmed at the same time as this movie.

You can tell this is a Hollywood made movie because the budget is bigger than that of the TV series, alot of it takes place at night, as many superhero movies of the time did, and the only two lead female characters are written poorly. As I said in my review of the movie on The Review Basement, Kimberly and Aisha are girls who are also superheroes, and despite Haim Saban's treatment of people in general, they're written as intelligent, strong, independent, women who very rarely need the guys to help them. Like in the two part season 2 episode, "Wild West Rangers", Kimberly finds herself in the year 1880, when Angel Grove was an old western town. Once she gets used to that fact, Kimberly morphs to fight off Goldar and a monster that Rita and Zedd sent back to destroy Angel Grove in the past so that the Rangers wouldn't be born. THEN she teleports to the Command Center and informs the Zordon and Alpha of the time of her plan to give Rocko, Abraham, William, and Miss Alicia, the ancestors of Rocky, Adam, Billy, and Aisha, the remaining four Power Coins, knowing that she'd need help to stop Goldar, the monster, and the Putties. But she came up with that idea all on her own.

This movie version of Kimberly is constantly screaming, crying, and needing to be rescued by Tommy and Aisha isn't much better. Look, I get this movie was made and came out in 1995, where women were treated poorly in movies, hence why characters like Jasmine in Aladdin (1992) were, and are, so loved by audiences, but when you're making a movie adaptation of a popular children's TV series, don't eliminate one of the things that made the show so appealing, which was strong girls as main characters. And that includes Rita once she's married to Lord Zedd, particularly in the latter half of season 2.

Being that this movie was coming out between seasons, it introduced a few things into the Rangers mythos that would appear in the third season. The Ninja powers, the Ninjetti costumes, the Ninjazords and Falconzord, and the Tengu Warriors were all introduced in this movie. The Ninjetti costumes would be redone as Ninja Ranger Mode in season 3, the Ninjazords and Falconzord would look less shiny and less Hollywood budget looking, and the Tengus would be renamed to be Tenga Warriors, which replaced the Putties as Rita and Zedd's foot soldiers.

I like Ivan Ooze, but he doesn't actually do anything once he takes over Rita and Zedd's palace, which he doesn't actually use since he's on Earth, either at the construction site where his Ectomorphicon Titans were buried, or the abandoned factory where Scorpitron and Hornitor were built and his Ivan's Ooze was manufactured. All of his action takes place at the beginning of the movie where he enters the Command Center (without a Power Coin I might add), blows it up, and then goes to the moon and imprisons Rita and Zedd in a snow globe. I don't know who that would have more impact on either, Rita or Zedd. I mean Rita has been shrunk down to size and imprisoned before, mostly in that space dumpster, but Zedd hasn't. Though from what I've seen online about Power Rangers Dino Fury season 2, he does. 

By the way, this movie actually kind of proves that Goldar is only loyal to himself. I mean, sure, as soon as Lord Zedd showed up at the beginning of season 2, he turned against Rita, but that could just be that he was secretly loyal to Zedd all along and was merely waiting for his master's return. Which is later supported by the Boom! Studios comic book series. But in this movie, Goldar turns against Rita and Zedd as soon as Ivan trapped them in the snow globe, giving Goldar, and Mordant, who is a movie exclusive character, the choice of becoming his minions, or joining Rita and Zedd in the globe. Naturally they chose to join Ivan. But in the mid-credits scene, which is the first time I remember ever seeing one, Goldar and Mordant return to the Moon Palace and Goldar self-declares himself to be "King Goldar, the ruler of the universe!" right before Rita and Zedd showed back up, freed from Ivan's spell.

Bulk & Skull are kind of pointless in this movie. The writers, whose only writing credit for Rangers, is this movie, wrote them in, most likely because Paul Schrier (Bulk) and Jason Narvy (Skull) were part of the cast, but they have no role in the movie. I guess you could argue that they help Fred Kelman, the kid of the movie, to get all the parents back, but Bulk is the only one who actually does anything and it's so generic that any of the other kids who are with Fred could've done what Bulk did. Personality wise, they're also back to where they were at the end of the first season, since the writers of the movie most likely didn't know of Bulk & Skull's plan to discover the identity of the Power Rangers, nor of the friendship they'd begun to develop with the Rangers in their civilian identities during the course of the second season. 

One of the reasons I think that Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie didn't make a whole lot of money at the box office is the competition it had. Both Batman Forever and Pocahontas were in theatres when the movie came out, and while Pocahontas didn't make anywhere near the amount of money that The Lion King had the previous summer, it still made more than Batman Forever did and way more than MMPR: The Movie did.

The movie also came out the same day as Apollo 13 and Judge Dredd. While Judge Dredd only made $113.5 million at the box office, against a budget of $85-$90 million, Apollo 13 made $355.2 million against a budget of $52 million. Which is pretty decent for a movie that had a much lower budget than Judge Dredd. How does this stack up against this movie? Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie only had a budget of $15 million and made $66.4 million at the box office. Which is pretty good given the budget the movie had. But considering how popular the TV show was at the time, the movie should've done way better than it did. Especially because Judge Dredd, which was based on a, at the time, relatively unknown British comic book series, made more money. Which brings me to the next reason that I think this movie didn't do very well compared to other movies that were out at the time.

Despite it's popularity, particularly at the time, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and the Power Rangers franchise as a whole, is a pretty niche franchise. Moreso today, but even back then MMPR was popular with children for the most part. Obviously, like today, there were adults who enjoyed the show, particularly if they were geeks, but the show was aimed at children of a certain age group. Even then not every child was into the show. But as a movie that was being released theatrically, MMPR: The Movie failed to appeal to the general audience, plus, there aren't enough Power Rangers fans, even today, to make a movie financially successful, even if the audience loves it. Which what also happened with the 2017 Power Rangers movie. It failed to grab the attention of the general audience. Now all of this is mere speculation on my part as there could be many factors that played into why Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie didn't perform well at the box office.

Like the TV show, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie had it's own toyline consisting of Rangers and Zords. I remember seeing the toys on the shelf at Toys 'r' Us at Christmastime, along with some season 2 and season 3 Ranger toys. The larger Ranger figures were revamped versions of the original five Rangers and the White Ranger figures from 1993 and 1994 respectively. This line had smaller figures that were modified Auto-Morphin figures from the season 2 toyline, but there weren't any villain figures. Ivan Ooze, Mordant, and a Tengu Warrior were released as part of the season 3 line later in 1995. I had the smaller scale Red Ranger figure that came with a red Tyrannosaurus Power Coin (that fit in the Deluxe Power Morpher). 

Marvel Comics published a comic book adaptation of the movie in 1995 as well. I've never read it though as it's not included with the Marvel Comics run of the comic in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Archive Volume 1 trade paperback collection. I've also never come across it as a single issue at conventions, comic book sales, or in back issue bins at comic book stores.

 As with the TV show, the movie had a video game released for the Sega Genesis, the Super Nintendo, the Nintendo Game Boy, and the Sega Game Gear. Like with the games based on the TV show, I didn't have any of the movie games when I was a kid, nor did I play them anywhere. So I have no idea what they're like or how different they are from the TV show based video games.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie was released on VHS and Laserdisc on November 21st 1995. I got the VHS edition for my birthday, or for Christmas that year, along with Batman Forever, and, being the Power Rangers fan that I was, I loved it.

After being released with Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997) on a double-sided DVD in 2001, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie got it's own, individual DVD release in 2003. It got re-released in 2011, and AGAIN in 2017 in tandem with the theatrical release of Power Rangers (2017). I have the 2003 DVD release in my collection, and it's pretty barebones. It has the movie's theatrical trailer and a short featurette on the making of the movie.

Fans were surprised in 2018 when the 25th anniversary Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Complete Series DVD steelbook set was released and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie was included in the set...on Blu-ray. Not on DVD but on Blu-ray. Even though the rest of the set is on DVD. 

Then on June 4th, 2019, the movie was released on Blu-ray as an individual release by Shout! Factory, which had released the steelbook series DVD set the year before. The movie is also streaming on Disney+ since distribution rights are still with 20th Century Fox, even though Hasbro owns the franchise.

Even after 27 years I still really enjoy this movie. It has a slightly darker tone than the TV show, but it still has that cheesy quality that I love about Power Rangers. I also wish the movie version of the MMPR suits would show up again. I know it would be impractical to wear on the set, because they were impractical to wear on the set of the movie, but since the franchise has opened itself up to multiple dimensions, I could see them showing up in the comic book series at some point. 

That's it for today my friends. I'll be back tomorrow for the next installment of my DC Comics's Star Trek Overview series where I'll be looking at the three Star Trek Specials issues and then on Sunday, I'll be back for my review of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers season 3. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.