The recent Power Rangers reboot from Lionsgate had a lot of great things going for it, but one area where it fell short was the action. One would expect a lot cooler fight scenes in an action movie starring five teenaged martial artists, but the choreography was just — fine. It was just fine. But over the weekend, fans got a taste of what could have been in a mind-blowing alternate sequence released by the movie’s co-fight coordinator Aaron Toney.
On his YouTube page, Toney — whose previous stunt credits include The Hunger Games, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and doubling for Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther — has released a pre-visualization of the original cliff fight climax in Saban’s Power Rangers. Toney appears in the video, doubling as the Blue Ranger (played in the film by R.J. Cyler).
In the description, Toney writes that this scene was the original fight planned for the movie. But “Plans changed, schedules got rearranged and pushed,” forcing the team to dramatically change the fight. “Now that the movie is out on DVD and digital release, I would like to share with everyone the hard work our team put in to trying to bring the spirit of the source material while playing around with new action set peaces [sic] and reasons for why some of the Rangers fight the way they do,” Toney writes.
Thing is, Toney isn’t just paying lip service to fans. This version of the fight is not only packed with more intricate and creative choreography, there are also plenty of homages to the TV series. For example, when the Rangers charge into battle against the Putty Patrollers, the camera angles up to catch the Rangers doing somersaults — a frequent image from the show.
There’s also the fun part where Blue Ranger evades Putty attacks like a total goof, but pulls it off like a boss.
Overall, this fight scene is just way more fun to watch than what appeared in the movie. Each Ranger shines performing moves that better reflect their personalities; the Black Ranger is brutish and strong, the Pink and Yellow Rangers are graceful, the Red Ranger fights with strategy and instinct. Even the Red Ranger introducing his Power Sword is more fun here than in the final version.
Big budget filmmaking is a long, exhausting process full of hard-working people, and there are perfectly good reasons why complex fight scenes such as these have to be cut down. Still, watching this original version, one can’t help but wonder what could have been.
See the original planned fight scene below.
Saban’s Power Rangers will be available on Blu-ray on June 22.
