Movie review
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always is a 2023 family action movie set in Angel Grove about the original Rangers returning as adults. Billy Cranston and Zack Taylor lead the team after Robo Rita kills Trini Kwan while she saves Billy. Trini's teenage daughter Minh struggles with anger and grief as she learns that her mother was a Ranger. The team must rescue captured Rangers, stop Robo Rita, and help Minh choose whether to become the new Yellow Ranger. The tone mixes bright, silly superhero fights with a more serious story about death, family, and memory.
The special gives Minh a central hero role, but her identity is tied to the family story because she is Trini's daughter. She trains with Zack and Billy, faces Rita, and earns the Yellow Ranger power through courage and teamwork. A short action scene shows Minh helping a man and his boyfriend, and the couple is treated as an ordinary part of the town. The story does not turn that moment into a speech, and most of the movie stays focused on loss, revenge, loyalty, and passing a duty to the next generation.
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Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always.
Woke representation / casting
The returning Rangers keep the original show’s Black, Asian, and white mix, and those roles fit the long-running Angel Grove setting. Minh is Asian because the story makes her Trini’s daughter, so her casting follows the family plot. The special also places a man and his boyfriend in one short fight scene. That brief LGBTQ casting choice supports a low score.
15%
Woke political dialogue
Not present. The special has no spoken argument for identity politics, DEI, or activist causes. The brief couple scene uses ordinary action dialogue instead of a political speech.
0%
Identity-driven story themes
Minh is a teenage girl who becomes a hero and takes her mother’s place as the Yellow Ranger. The special also shows a man and his boyfriend as a normal couple during a short rescue scene. Those choices are easy to notice, but the story uses them inside a family and legacy plot. The main themes are grief, revenge, courage, teamwork, and passing a duty to the next generation.
24%
Western institutional / cultural critique
Not present. The story does not attack government, religion, men, family, or Western culture. Zack’s job as a congressman is shown as a way to help people, and the main conflict is a normal fight against Rita.
0%
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant. The special adds Minh as Trini’s daughter and gives the older Rangers new adult lives. Trini’s death and Minh’s arrival change the plot, but they do not change a legacy character’s race, gender, sexuality, or established hero role.
0%
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
The Western Journal called the gay-couple scene woke and said it was added to broadcast a message. Breitbart also singled out the LGBTQ content and linked it to a wider culture-war complaint about children’s entertainment. The X research pass found no anti-woke reaction, and fan forums mostly discussed grief, nostalgia, pacing, effects, and continuity. The reported backlash is real but limited to a small group of right-leaning articles.
24%
Creator track record context
Charlie Haskell’s public work is varied and has no known identity-activist record. Becca Barnes and Alwyn Dale have worked on later Power Rangers stories with queer and gender-representation choices. Simon Bennett has openly supported queer representation and helped guide modern gender choices in the franchise. Hillary Zwick Turner’s public work is mainly industry-focused and has no clear activist pattern. The creative team therefore has a mixed record, with Bennett and the two writers providing the main representation signal.
33%
Production
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