The 30th Anniversary revival of the highly revered franchise of the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” takes fans back on a trip down memory lane, having brought back characters like Billy Cranston (the Blue Ranger), Rita Repulsa, Zack Taylor (the Black Ranger), Katherine ‘Kat’ Hillard (the Pink Ranger), and Rocky DeSantos (the Red Ranger). It also introduces Charlie Kersh in the role of Minh, who takes the place of her mother, Trini, as the new Yellow Ranger. Released on Netflix on April 19 of this year, “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always” is a special one-off, picking things up after thirty years of the original show’s premiere. The plot takes us back to Angel Grove, where Rita Repulsa, now ‘Robo Rita,’ attacks Billy with her army of Putty Patrollers, and the other rangers drop in to save him, leading to some serious consequences for them. Starring David Yost, Catherine Sutherland, Walter Emanuel Jones, Steve Cardenas, Charlie Kersh, Johnny Yong Bosch, and Karan Ashley, this special acts as an emotional homage to the original franchise.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always’ Story
As Robo Rita’s army of Putties overpowers Billy, his friends quickly appear to rescue him, totally oblivious to the fact that it was exactly what she had planned. The rangers start battling Rita’s army with full grace and attitude, but she quickly fires a full-blown laser blast at a distracted Billy, only to be intercepted by Trini, the Yellow Ranger, who takes the attack and consequently dies on the scene, saving Billy’s life. Rita retreats back to the Dark Dimension to plan the next step of her insidious mission, leaving the team broken and in grief. Zack and Billy try to figure out a way of informing Minh, Trini’s daughter, of her passing but cannot find the right possible way to do it. While they quarrel, Minh returns home from school and overhears them, which leaves her shattered. The story resumes again after one year, showing Minh in some intense training while Zack has become her guardian. As it was the one-year anniversary of Trini’s death, all the rangers were supposed to gather at her grave to pay their respects, but as Zack and Minh reach the cemetery, they find that Rita has launched another attack on his friends, this time with a couple of her old minions, Snizzard and Minotaur, who have gained new powers. While in battle, Snizzard turns everyone except Zack, Billy, and Minh into tiny action figures for Rita to install into her time portal that would suck their energies out to serve as fuel for her ultimate mission. Having seen the rangers get captured, the memories of her mother being killed by Robo Rita gush back in, and Minh vies for revenge as Zack and Billy try to talk her out of it, saying that since she is not a ranger, Rita’s minions would capture her too. But Minh seems adamant, and she accuses Billy of being responsible for her mother’s death.
It is later revealed that, while Billy was trying to revive Zordon, the one who had created the rangers, he mistakenly released Robo Rita into the world. As Rita’s Putties wreak havoc across the world, the Bandora Protocol is initiated by Alpha 9, bringing Kat Hillard and Rocky DeSantos back to Cranston Tech to join in the fight against Rita. But to their dismay, she had orchestrated the Putty attack to lure them out in the open so she could steal their powers too. Minotaur uses his new-found powers to track the rangers wherever they go, and as long as they are morphed, they are in danger of being captured. To add to their problems, Minh had also joined the fight, having taken her mother’s morphine with her. But to her surprise, the Morpher does not work, and she would have been captured by the Putties if not for Rocky and Zack, who swooped in at the last moment to save her.
‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always’ Ending
The team devises a plan to get a step ahead of Rita, trapping Snizzard and Minotaur at a junkyard and attacking her base when she least expects it. But as they leave to carry out the final part of their plan, Minh steals Billy’s flying car, the Radbug, to go and seek her own revenge. But her plan is interrupted by Rita as she arrives at the junkyard to free her minions, finally capturing Minh and bringing her back to her Moon Palace as the rangers are in the process of freeing all the others that had been captured by her. History repeats itself when Rita once again shoots her repulsor rays at Billy, and Minh jumps in front of him to save his life. But this time, Trini’s old morpher saves her life and transfers her powers over to Minh, making her the new Yellow Ranger. As Rita is distracted, trying to transform Snizzard into a giant monster, Billy stabs her through the heart, apparently killing her, and the rangers call upon the Dinozord to defeat the gigantic Snizzard, leading to some seriously nostalgic giant-robot fight scenes. As Snizzard keeps the rangers occupied, Rita revives herself and fuels up her portal to contact her earlier self and communicate the formation of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, to destroy Zordon’s plan of creating them at its inception, calling it her ‘Rita Renaissance.’ As they see the portal opening from the battlefield, the rangers call upon the Mega Power Sword to defeat the enhanced Snizzard, which in turn breaks the spell that had kept the captured rangers hostage, and just as Rita is about to fulfill her mission, Zack shoots her, finally ending her long reign of terror. In a post-fight reunion, Minh thanks Billy for having told her the truth about her mother and apologizes for being so harsh to him before, while Zack admits that she reminded him of her mother and that Trini would be proud of what she had become. The film ends while paying a touching tribute to Thuy Trang (Trini) and Jason David Frank (Tommy), who were part of the original five-member cast of the parent series, leaving the audience on a note of nostalgia and reviving some of the best childhood memories that anyone could ask for.