Today, a new photo of Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa in the new Power Rangers movie was revealed, and it looks pretty bad.

It looks like some kind of Green Goblin costume. And it worries me that they’re going to try to make Power Rangers “dark” or “edgy”.

I honestly don’t know what they’re going for with the costume.

In the ‘90s Rita Repulsa looked ridiculous and over the top. Power Rangers was a kid’s show that was silly but exciting because of the fighting and stunts.

Making something darker or edgier seems to be the path directors are taking now when rebooting franchises or making nostalgic properties into movies.

Above the fact, most franchises from the ‘80s and ‘90s should just be left alone; making them darker isn’t going to make them better or more interesting.

There is something to be said about things getting too silly or out of control being bad as well.

The new “Ghostbusters” movie looks really bad so far, and the jokes in the trailer fall flat. But overall I would take a fun silly movie over a grimdark joyless reboot any day.

Dark can work for some franchises. Christopher Nolan’s Batman films were dark, but they weren’t defined by how dark they were.

They had interesting characters and well filmed action.

Batman in “Batman v Superman” doesn’t quite work, because they went for a super dark movie where Batman murders people and has dubious reasons for wanting Superman dead.

They managed to make Superman a boring edgy character too.

Blatantly making him threaten people’s lives with how much more powerful he is and debating bad pseudo philosophical reasons for his existence in our world.

Overall, I think we need to leave franchises of the ‘80s and ‘90s alone and start making new properties.

Why are we still making “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Transformers” movies in the 2010s?

Those properties were made to sell toys in the ‘80s, so why can’t we have that much money and effort spent to make something fresh and new?

I understand people love nostalgia and some remakes and reboots end up being good and on rare occasions better than their predecessors.

But there are just so many sequels and remakes being made now.

A few years ago, I would have considered them novel at best, but now it’s getting obnoxious with how unoriginal we’ve gotten with films.

I mean look at what happened with “Jem and the Holograms.”

They didn’t try to make it dark, but they tried to make one of the most ‘80s movies ever into a modern day ABC family film and it tanked super hard.

No one cared about a remake of the film and even less so about a cynically made one.

Some sequels end up pretty good years after the original.

“Mad Max: Fury Road” is great in part because it had the original director, and it was creative and filmed well. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was good because it captured the original feel and didn’t try to be darker.

All in all, I think the film industry needs to start making more original movies again. And if they really want to do remakes and reboots of some franchises, they should try their hardest to strike a balance between the original and something new.

Mace Mackiewicz is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or mmmackiewicz@eiu.edu.