After announcing the 30th anniversary special back in January, Netflix has revealed the official trailer for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always, which reunites various cast members from the original series for one more adventure — except this trailer is a huge bummer, because it begins by seeming to have a robot Rita Repulsa immediately kill the Yellow Ranger.
The Yellow Ranger in this case is Trini Kwan, whose actress, Thuy Trang, tragically died in a car accident back in 2001, so it makes sense to write Trini out of Once & Always. And as previously reported, the series also adds actor Charlie Kersh as Minh, the daughter of Trini, who will almost certainly become a Ranger herself. It seems the entire plot structure of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always revolves around remembering and honoring Thuy Trang, which is wonderful, but… did they have to kill off Trini? Heck, it’s surprising to even hear the word “kill” in a Power Rangers story. Oh well.
Beyond that, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always official trailer is about old Rangers coming together to stop Rita Repulsa in her new dumb-looking robot body from apparently traveling through time to kill the Rangers before they could become a threat to her. Then they go around fighting monsters and putties, with the most prominent location being the Angel Grove Youth Center. It all looks pretty low-budget as expected, but fans in their 30s aren’t expecting Shakespeare writing or Lucasfilm visuals out of this.
As a reminder, here is everyone confirmed to be returning for the series:
- Walter Emanuel Jones as original Black Ranger Zack
- David Yost as original Blue Ranger Billy
- Catherine Sutherland as second Pink Ranger Kat
- Steve Cardenas as second Red Ranger Rocky
- Karan Ashley as second Yellow Ranger Aisha
- Johnny Yong Bosch as second Black Ranger Adam
- Barbara Goodson, the voice of Rita Repulsa
- Richard Horvitz, the voice of Alpha 5 (Age seems to have altered his voice a bit though, don’t you think?)
- Charlie Kersh joins the cast as Minh, the daughter of original Yellow Ranger Trini.
The 30th anniversary special Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always premieres on Netflix on April 19, 2023. Hopefully it will take the time to explain where killer robot Rita came from and that this is some time-traveling alternate version of the character, because it would be a shame to retcon the happy ending she and Lord Zedd got in Power Rangers in Space.
