'Power Rangers' Reveals The New Bill Hader-Voiced Alpha 5

A Power Rangers movie was always going to be a hard nut to crack on the creative side and a tough sell for a general audience. How do you even begin to update something as silly as this without spiraling into a realm of overly self-parody (which was the entire point of Joseph Kahn's Power/Rangers short from last year)? How do you convince audiences that you've truly done something exciting with material that looked cartoonish and cheap in 1993? While nostalgia played a huge role in turning the Transformers movies into box office juggernauts, I wonder if that will be enough for director Dean Israelite's new take on five teenagers (with attitude!) gaining super-powers and defending the planet from an alien menace.

In any case, everything that is familiar about Power Rangers have received a radical redesign for the new movie, from the Ranger armor to the villainous Rita Repula to the hulking Megazord. And now, we have our first look at the redesigned robotic sidekick Alpha 5.

Like everything else, the new Alpha 5 shares some basic similarities with previous versions, but he now looks...busier. And weirder. The B-movie robot seen in the show is gone, replaced with something more alien, something that looks like it was built out of materials not found on earth and designed by an extraterrestrial intelligence. I have no personal stake in Power Rangers, so I can only greet this image with a shrug. From my vacuum, I can only say that it's fine. The fans will have to let me know if this is Perfectly Okay or Something Worth Getting Outraged Over.

power rangers alpha 5

The great Bill Hader will supply the voice of Alpha 5 for the film, which is pretty inspired casting. Alpha 5 was the comic relief in the original series, so why not cast one of the funniest people on the planet as your robot sidekick and hope for the best? If nothing else, Power Rangers will feature an alien robot played by Hader interacting with a giant floating head played by Bryan Cranston and that may be something worth your time.

Power Rangers opens on March 24, 2017.

Saban's Power Rangers follows five ordinary high school kids who must become something extraordinary when they learn that their small town of Angel Grove – and the world – is on the verge of being obliterated by an alien threat. Chosen by destiny, our heroes quickly discover that they are the only ones who can save the planet. But to do so they will have to overcome their real-life issues and band together as the Power Rangers before it is too late.