As the 90's fan base has grown we've learnt to see the franchise for what it is and that's over the top action, colourful costumes, intricate models and epic choreography. Even though there has been countless spin offs to the original series the show has never lost its stigma of being childish until the 23 February 2015 when Bootleg's Power/Rangers was uploaded.
If you've seen Dredd, The Grey and Lone Survivor then you'll know that the producer Adi Shankar doesn't do cheesy and childish. This man along with Director Joseph Khan made it their mission to reinvent Power Rangers and give the franchise a darker more gritty twist.
Starring none other than Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff as the pink ranger and the voice of Pazu from Castle in the Sky James Van Der Beek as the betraying Red Ranger, With this nice combination you can't go wrong.
These two characters tell a story of how the once young Power Ranger have grown up and have now seen that they were simply weapons in an intergalactic war. This then leads to us learning that all of the Power Rangers have been killed except for the Red, Pink and Green Rangers. Rocky the Red Ranger gone bad has captured the Pink Ranger Kimberly to interrogate her for information on the Green Ranger Tommy.
The short movie features an incredible amount of awesome action sequences, including the Black Ranger taking on an entire room of Korean mobsters, all of the Rangers battling the Machine Empire with the Megazords in background and a brutal showdown between the Green Ranger and Red Ranger.
I've talked alot about the pros of this short but it does have it's cons, what first stuck out to me was that the chronology of the short film was screwed up, Rocky talks about the invasion of the Machine Empire and that he's sided with them. The problem with this is that King Mondo and his Empire (to the left) didn't arrive until the Power Rangers Zeo series. Even though Zeo was the continuation of the Mighty Morphin series, the outfits and style were completely different, and as a purist this bugged me.
The only other moment that had an issue with was the reveal of Rita Repulsa at the end of the film, first off they needed a woman that was intimidating and actually scary, don't get me wrong the original Rita wasn't that bone chilling either but at least she had a wicked witch of the west theme, but this Rita just wore all black and had two wonky horns coming out her hat, sorry for not crumbling in fear but I'm glad Tommy takes a blade to her face.
With pros and cons aside this short film didn't come without its controversy, as soon as it was release Saban Entertainment had the video taken off Vimeo, and have now claimed the movie for breaking copyright laws. The issue here is that both Adi Shankar and Joseph Khan paid for the production of Power/Rangers out of their own pockets and carefully made sure that no icons that Saban owned were used in the film.
I found this rather childish from Saban entertainment, it isn't a secret that they only claimed copyright because they don't want any competition during the making of the Power Rangers reboot movie, this logic is stupid because Bootleg's Power/Rangers have actually proved to the world that the franchise can be made realistic and can be taken seriously. This short movie is actually a fantastic promotion for Saban and helped them create an audience ready to pay to see their product on the big screen.
Controversy aside I'm truly grateful to Adi Shankar and Joseph Khan for creating such a master piece that proves the Power Ranger franchise is a force to be reckoned with and can take itself seriously. And as parting gift to you all there is a link to Power/Rangers below.
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