Joseph Kahn, director of Torque and Detention, and Adi Shankar, producer of Dredd, The Grey and Lone Survivor, have teamed up to produce a “bootleg short film“ of the popular 90s children’s action show The Mighty Morphing Power Rangers.
The short film, titled Power/Rangers, features Dawson’s Creek‘s James Van Der Beek and Battlestar Galactic’s Katee Sackhoff as Kimberly. The film takes place well after the high school teenage years of the power rangers and focuses on what became of the various intergalactic fighters as retold by Kimberly in an interrogation.
Watch Interview: Joseph Kahn, Director of “Detention”
The short is action packed and filled with impressive visual graphics reminiscent of a Michael Bay film.
This is Adi Shankar’s third live action bootleg short film. He previously produced a short with Thomas Jane reprising his role as The Punisher in Dirty Laundry and featured True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten as Spider-Man villain Venom in Truth in Journalism.
Mighty Morphing Power Rangers was one of Adi Shankar’s favorite shows as a kid and he wanted to explore the aspect of “high schools students being recruited…to fight this intergalactic war that they really have nothing to do with. How is that any different from child soldiers?…They’re going to have PTSD…” The film has an overall dark tone that echos this sentiment.
After the video was released online, Vimeo pulled it from their website even though it’s still available on YouTube. Joseph Kahn responded on Twitter writing:
1. @vimeo Everyone is noticing you took down the short but youtube didn’t. Tons of fan films exist online. Free speech/fair use.
— Joseph Kahn (@JosephKahn) February 24, 2015
2. @vimeo Every image in POWER/RANGERS is original footage. Nothing was pre-existing. There is no copyrighted footage in the short.
— Joseph Kahn (@JosephKahn) February 24, 2015
3. @vimeo I am not making any money on it and I refuse to accept any from anyone. It was not even kickstarted, I paid for it myself.
— Joseph Kahn (@JosephKahn) February 24, 2015
4. @vimeo This was made to be given away for free. It is just as if I drew a pic of Power Rangers on a napkin and I gave it to my friend.
— Joseph Kahn (@JosephKahn) February 24, 2015
5. @vimeo Is it illegal to give pic I drew of a character on a napkin to someone for free? No. The world is watching your actions right now.
— Joseph Kahn (@JosephKahn) February 24, 2015
6. @vimeo If you are going to brand yourself as a place for filmmakers and shorts, then protect. Otherwise, we all go elsewhere. Soon.
— Joseph Kahn (@JosephKahn) February 24, 2015
