Bryan Cranston explains why the hell he’s doing the Power Rangers movie

He was initially 'reticent to look at the role'

If last month’s Power Rangers update left you thinking ‘Bryan, first Godzilla, now this?’, this explanation from Cranston himself might be of interest.

The Breaking Bad actor admitted to being “reticent to looking at the role” of Zordon, because the television show (which he worked on briefly) he correctly remembers being “kind of farcical and silly and ‘pow’ and ‘zow’ - weird movements and things like that.”

Apparently, the script and vision for the reboot won him over though - comparative to the difference between the Batman TV show and Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.

He told The Huffington Post:

“I wasn’t really high on it until I talked to the producer and read the script and talked to the director. After that I went, ‘This is different. This is as different a reimagining as the ‘Batman’ television series as it became the ‘Batman’ movie series. You can’t compare those two, and nor can you compare this movie version of the ‘Power Rangers’ to that television series. It’s unrecognizable for the most part. There are tenets of the folklore that you hold onto for sure, but the inspiration is different, and the sensibility of it, and the approach to the film making is completely different.”

The official Power Rangers poster

He admitted that Power Rangers’ tone probably wouldn’t be “as dark” as Nolan’s series as it is aimed at teenagers, but he’s satisfied that the new version is fresh and interesting.

"So the appropriateness of that, and real teenage life,” he added, “and going through high school and the cliques and the popularity or lack thereof, and the bullies and all the different sections and sub-sections of high school life, and the insecurities of these kids and things like that — hopes and dreams — and you embrace all of that into a retelling of the ‘Power Rangers.’ And what you would get is this new version, this new reimagined version.”

I guess he has to say that though, and the lurid new Power Ranger suits don’t exactly back it up. We’ll find out if the reboot actually has any artistic merit on 24 March, 2017.