Last year, around the time Saban and Lionsgate announced they were working on a new Power Rangers movie, I wrote up a few ways to do it properly. One of those suggestions is to keep the grimdark stuff as far away as possible. I don’t understand the obsession folks in my generation have with turning Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers into a bloody mess, but it’s been the subject of fan videos for years.
Now we have the best argument for it. Produced by Adi Shankar (who also produced Dredd), which means it joins his Bootleg Universe alongside Dirty Laundry (his Punisher short), Judge Dredd: Superfiend, and Truth in Journalism (his Venom short), and directed by Joseph Kahn (who directed one of Alec’s most favorite films, Detention), Power/Rangers is Shankar’s most ambitious short yet.
A straight fan film, and not some sort of pitch, we’ve got all sorts of risks like James Van Der Beek and Katee Sackhoff talking about ridiculous things, lots of violence and foul language, and slick looks. Fan wise, it mixes up some of the mythology (mixing Zeo with MMPR stuff), and it’s got some fun goofy stuff. But it skews too dark for me overall, so I’m not a big fan of this. It’s kind of boring without the colorful soul of the show.
