[Potential SPOILERS ahead for Power Rangers.]
-
The upcoming feature film reboot of the Power Rangers franchise has been making a lot of changes to the mythos, designs and casting of the original 1990s incarnation of the ongoing series, but the names and broad characteristics of most of the main characters and villains are largely expected to remain. One such returning villain is Goldar, the main henchman of Elizabeth Banks' Rita Repulsa.
Recently, new details about the film and its supporting characters have emerged, revealing some surprising changes to key players like Zordon, Rita Repulsa, and Alpha 5. It looks as though there is also a different role in store for Goldar in the new film as well.
As has been the case with all subsequent seasons of the series, the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was created by editing English-dubbed footage from a Japanese "Super Sentai" TV series (Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger) with new scenes featuring English-speaking actors. In keeping with traditional Sentai formula, the series featured a main villain (Rita Repulsa) who maintained a crew of regular henchmen in addition to "monster of the week" threats. Goldar, a blue-skinned humanoid ape-like creature with wings and a suit of golden armor, was typically framed as the most powerful of these.
According to The Wrap, Goldar will serve as the primary giant-monster threat at the center of Rita's evil schemes. In the new storyline, Goldar is a powerful monster whose "molecular essence" was spread across Earth after his defeat in the prehistoric battle where Rita herself also fell. Now, in the present-day, she's attempting to re-assemble him from said scattered essence (some rumors have suggested this involves robbing banks and mines in search of gold, implying that the metal itself is actually Goldar's remains) and the new Power Rangers have only 71 hours to prevent this.
While Goldar's analog on Zyuranger, Grifforzer, was framed as one of the series most dangerous foes; like most other Power Rangers villains his personality was reworked with a greater focus on physical comedy and frustration with his employer than actual menace. The series also removed a Zyuranger romantic subplot between the character and female villain Lamy ("Scorpina" in Power Rangers) that resulted in the birth of a son midway through the series.
No details have yet come to light as to whether the film's version of Goldar will resemble that of the series; which was accomplished via a series of creature suits with animatronic facial expressions. Notably, Grifforzer was designed based on the mythological gryphon and/or manticore (half lion, half eagle -- sometimes with a scorpion-like tail); while Power Rangers mythos typically refers to him as being an ape -- analogous to a "flying monkey" to Rita's witch a la The Wizard of Oz.
Source: The Wrap