Times are changing in the wild world of the Power Rangers. The series is not just coming off 25th anniversary celebrations, but transitioning to new ownership, under the auspices of toy giant Hasbro. For the first season of the show under Hasbro’s watch, however, Power Rangers is reaching back into the recent past—and we’ve got an early look.
Full disclosure: the Power Rangers franchise was created, and previously owned, by Haim Saban, who has ownership interest in Univision Communications, which itself currently owns Gizmodo Media Group, the network of websites io9 is part of.
Just debuted at the Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel panel at Power Morphicon in Anaheim, io9 is proud to exclusively share the first trailer for Power Rangers Beast Morphers, set to air on Nickelodeon in 2019.
Using footage from the 2012 Super Sentai series Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters—initially skipped over by Power Rangers in favor of turning Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger into Power Rangers Dino Charge—Beast Morphers is set in a near future where scientists have harnessed the power of the Morphing Grid (the energy field that transforms Power Rangers into their mighty heroic selves) itself to create powerful new technology.
This is all well and good until a corrupted computer virus named Evox gains sentience and threatens to destroy the Earth. Combining the power of the Morphing Grid and animal DNA, only one fighting force can come together and stop Evox once and for all: the three new Beast Morpher Power Rangers and their Beast Bot sidekicks!
Although the trailer doesn’t show off too much of just what Beast Morphers will bring to the table, outside of its use of the Go-Busters footage that primarily makes up this early look, given the Sentai show’s intriguing departures from the typical franchise formula, it’ll be interesting to see just how different a show its Power Rangers counterpart ends up being, too.
Beast Morphers heads to Nickelodeon next year.