Warning: SPOILERS for Power Rangers are ahead!
Rita Repulsa was responsible for bringing the Green Ranger into play in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, but the Power Rangers movie opted to go into a different direction by making her the Green Ranger. Rita was only seen morphed at the beginning of the movie, but she continued to use the Green Power Coin upon being reawakened in the present day. When asked by he decided to Ranger up Rita for the reboot, director Dean Israelite said it was so they could create a closer connection between her and Tommy Oliver, the modern Green Ranger. Israelite said:
When I first came up, that is what we started to talk about is that she was going to be the Green Ranger. We were trying to figure out a mythology for her, and it felt like there was real evidence in the cannon because she ultimately ends up giving Tommy the coin. That there was evidence in a way that she could be the green ranger.
Although Rita obtained the Green Power Coin before Zordon could in the original TV series, she was never seen using the power for herself. When one is a space witch leading an army of aliens and monsters, I suppose being a Ranger on top of that is overkill. In any case, Power Rangers decided to go the full distance with her as the Green Ranger, and Dean Israelite noted that it worked well with the mythology already set in place. The director continued to Comicbook.com:
So it fits really organically into the mythology that is already there, and when we came up with that idea, it was very exciting, because we felt like we had kind of opened up this whole new prologue in a way.
When Power Rangers images started being released, many fans suspected that the green jewel in the center of her staff was actually the Green Power Coin. Sure enough, they were right, and in the movie's prologue, Rita was seen betraying her Ranger teammates so she could take over the universe. Zordon, the original Red Ranger, hid the other Power Coins and incapacitated her when he ordered Alpha 5 to hit Earth with a meteor strike, but her reign of terror began anew in the present day, and this time she made sure her face was seen by all. Rita was knocked into space during the climactic battle, but it's unclear where the Green Power Coin ended up. That said, since Tommy Oliver was name-dropped in the movie's mid-credits scene, it's only a matter of time before it makes into his (or her) hands and a new Green Ranger emerges.
Power Rangers is now available on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD and 4K Ultra HD. There are currently talks about making Power Rangers 2, but a sequel has not yet been officially greenlit.
