Power Rangers morphed into dark and gritty spoof

Dubbed as a ‘deboot’, short film bears no relation to the forthcoming 2016 reboot

Fans of the Power Rangers may be in for a surprise after music video director Joseph Kahn released a rather dark and gritty short film based on the popular children’s franchise. The 14-minute long film which is titled Power/ Rangers saw several renowned artists such as James Van Der Beek, Adi Shankar, Joseph Kahn and Katee Sachoff collaborating on the project, reported polygon.com.

According to The Telegraph the short film sees Van Der Beek play the role of Rocky DeSantos, the second Red Ranger transforming into a murderous traitor who claims the lives of his former teammates one at a time. The film depicts a dark future for the former members of the Power Rangers with several of them going into hiding while others continue to work as masked vigilantes.

Dubbed as a ‘deboot’ by the producers the short film bears no relation to the forthcoming 2016 Power Rangers reboot and is accompanied by a lengthy disclaimer.



The short film has already run into some trouble as it was removed from the video-sharing website Vimeo reported IGN.

The website told Kahn the reason behind removing his video from the platform in an e-mail that, “Vimeo is the host for your videos and as a host for user-generated content we are fully compliant with the notice and takedown provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It looks like your video was removed due to a copyright infringement claim by: Tim Quinlan, SCG Power Rangers LLC.”

On the other hand SCG Power Rangers LLC, the company that owns the rights to the 22-year-old franchise have demanded that the video be pulled off from YouTube as well.

Meanwhile TMZ stated that, “(Adi) Shankar... whose previous work includes The Grey, Lone Survivor and Dredd — isn’t backing down. It’s still posted on YouTube and Shankar’s rep, Ash Venkatram says he’ll keep it there until he gets a cease and desist.’

The legal battle seems to have caught music video director Joseph Kahn in the line of fire with the entertainment website Deadline reporting the director saying that he was being “harassed” by Haim Saban, the owner of the copyrights to the Power Rangers franchise and co-producer of the upcoming Power Rangers film.

The live-action Power Rangers film is expected to release in 2016 with Star Trek writer Robert Orci producing the film which is being penned by X-Men: First Class writers Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2015.

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