Movies

'Power Rangers' Casts A Red Ranger Who Probably Wasn't Even Born When You Were Watching The Original Show

red ranger actor
By Jacob Hall

A Power Rangers movie is happening and there's nothing we can do to stop it. They've gone and started casting the Rangers and everything. See what your nostalgia hath wrought, children of the '90s?

Director Dean Israelite's upcoming take on the beloved – if not necessarily good – television series already found its Pink Ranger in Terra Nova actress Naomi Scott, but now it's gone and found itself a Red Ranger. Chances are strong that you haven't heard of Dacre Montgomery, but chances are stronger that he was probably just a collection of scattered DNA particles swirling around inside his parents when Mighty Morphin Power Rangers originally debuted in 1993. Insert your own "This makes me feel old!" joke here.

Read on about the new Red Ranger actor after the jump.

The news of Montgomery's casting was revealed through the official Power Rangers Twitter account, which also confirmed that the Red Ranger will be the leader of the team. No one knows if a mysterious Green Ranger will show up halfway through the movie to steal his thunder and send him to the sidelines of all merchandise going forward. We shall see.

If this movie really wanted to recreate the character dynamics of the original show, it would unceremoniously ditch its actors every 15 minutes often by sending them away to leadership camps and such. They would then be replaced by younger, hipper actors who are capable of showing off whatever totally rad extreme sport is cool at the moment.

To be fair, Montgomery only has two credits to his name and, for all we know, he's a terrific actor and the next big thing. And to be fair again, it is not beyond the realm of possibility to imagine a good movie about a group of young people who are granted extraordinary power by a bizarre floating head and must save the Earth from the many filmed-in-Japan-for-another-series threats that arrive on a daily basis.

Power Rangers has maintained an inexplicable adult fanbase over the years and the new movie looks to cater to them directly. It will not be a reboot, but actually a continuation of the entire series, sliding right into continuity and playing with elements that have been present over the many, many iterations of the show. In other words, it probably won't be a lighthearted adventure movie for children, but a slightly more complex (dare we say grim 'n gritty?) film that will appeal to the now-grown fans who actually have money to burn. For the record, the director says the script is "mature but playful," but what does that even mean?

The new movie certainly won't be as extreme as Joseph Kahn's Power/Rangers, the big budget fan film (which also happens to be largely successful deconstruction/pastiche of modern blockbuster filmmaking's worst trends) that blew the doors off the internet earlier this year, but we imagine they will have at least a few things in common.

Power Rangers is set to be unleashed upon the world on January 13, 2017. The studio swears that the January release date is not a bad sign.

Recommended