Poor Elizabeth Banks has been placed in the unenviable position of being the first visual representation of the upcoming Mighty Morphin Power Rangers reboot, which somebody is probably looking forward to. When Lionsgate released a teaser image to People of Banks in costume as the film’s alien witch antagonist Rita Repulsa, the 42-year-old actress was obliged to make some sort of statement for the magazine. It probably couldn’t be anything like, “this is paying for my new pied-à-terre in Tuscany,” so what she came up with was this: “It’s definitely a modern and edgy re-imagining of the original Rita Repulsa.”
Last month, Lionsgate released an image of Power Rangers’ five new stars out of costume, looking like a bunch of cool kids hanging out on a rock, but this is the first clue we’re getting of the overall aesthetic of director Dean Israelite’s new interpretation of the ’90s-era kids’ action series that was itself pieced together using footage borrowed from the Japanese television show Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. Here’s Repulsa’s introduction and costume in the first episode of the original show:
Compare this bulky brown frock and goofy headdress to Banks’ sleek and pointy Hunger Games-esque costume above. It’s pretty clear that the new film is going in a different, more modern, and edgier direction.
Power Rangers will explode out of a hole in the ground and into theaters on March 24, 2017.