Power Rangers Reveals First Shot Of Elizabeth Banks As Rita Repulsa

And there goes another little bit of your childhood.

She might not have been very well acted, or a particularly good villain in the original TVshow (ignore the later versions where she gets married and reimagined as some sort of hippie Tina Turner from Beyond Thunderdome), but Rita Repulsa had something about her. Decked out in her ridiculously large horned hat and outrageous shoulder pads, she was the pantomime villainess the multi-coloured Rangers needed.

She was brash, screechy and ludicrous, and it was hoped that Elizabeth Banks' casting for the forthcoming Rangers film was going to follow closely to the original. That might at least have allowed for some forgiveness for the white-washing of the character.

But the first reveal of the character has stripped away all of Rita's original look and replaced it with a Return To Oz vibe (complete with a BillMurray in Lost In Translation hand over face pose). It's not great, but at least some of the design choices seem to suggest she's still going to be a sorceress or witch of some sort. They're obviously just a lot more keen to push the alien message.

According to Banks (via People):

"It€™s definitely a modern and edgy re-imagining of the original Rita Repulsa.We wanted to give her a backstory that connects her to the new Rangers."

Presumably, that means the Ranger had something to do with bad Poison Ivy cosplay as well.

Power Rangers comes to cinemas on March 24th 2017.

What do you think of this new look for Rita Repulsa? Share your reactions below in the comments thread.