There are times when I wonder what’s in the local water over in Hollywood. I’m willing to bet that someone has floated an idea for rebooting every single TV series and movie franchise to be even halfway popular over the past 50 years or so. The latest in that ever-growing list of unnecessary reboots are the popular TV shows Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, from the 90s, and Green Acres, from the 60s.
Let’s take a look at Mighty Morphin Power Rangers first. Lionsgate and Saban just announced plans to launch a live-action reboot of the popular kids’ show that featured a bunch of high school students pretending to do martial arts while wearing brightly colored outfits and spouting impossible dialogue. The group almost always had to fight their evil adversaries by uniting their powers, resulting in some pretty bad mid-90s special effects. While the show did have its day on the big screen in 1995 with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, I think we all did well to forget about that. Now, it’s time for a reboot based on the “deep and detailed mythology” of the show. Be still my beating heart.
Meanwhile, over the Hollywood Media Bridge production company, the TV show Green Acres is being launched as both a film and – wait for it – a Broadway show. Based on the wacky idea of two married city-slickers heading off to the countryside to a ramshackle farm in the town Hooterville, Green Acres was pretty popular back in the 1960s, but might be less recognizable to the youth of today. The production company is currently on the lookout for a writer and director to make the reboot, so this one might be a long time in coming.
I wish I could say something encouraging about both of these TV-to-movie reboots, but I honestly can’t think of anything. Both appear to be another attempt to cash in on nostalgia while avoiding actual original work. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with the reboots of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Green Acres, but I cannot say that I’m terribly optimistic.