Massive intergalactic warfare. Heaps of cussin’. Lethal force up the wazoo. Threesomes. Yup, you’ve probably never seen Power Rangers look like this.
This short film by Joseph Kahn re-imagines the Saturday-morning staple as something a lot closer to Mortal Kombat. Casting James Van Der Beek as a traitorous former comrade and Katie Sackhoff as a grown-up version of the Pink Ranger is a nice bit of fan casting, too.
This might feel like sacrilege but it turns out that hearing a musical callback to the classic Power Rangers theme music while a guy bleeds out after being stabbed by one of the sentai-derived superheroes is… kinda awesome?
Comments
34 responses to “Power Rangers Get A Mighty Gritty Reboot”
Well it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, and the casting was pretty good too.
Why is your starting baseline negative?
Are you one of those cool to hate type of people who automatically disses reboots and remakes and sequels without even considering if it has its merits?
The hulk reboot was really good. BUT I GUESS IT WASNT AS BAD AS IT COULD’VE BEEN
the circlejerk is real
The potential for it to be bad was much much higher than the potential for it to be good, because the source material was BAD. Cringe worthy and embarrassingly bad. The complete opposite of gritty and realistic.
Same with a lot of properties. A man who dresses as a bat and runs around at night fighting crime, especially another man who dresses up as a clown? Pshaw.
It’s all in how it’s handled.
Yeah absolutely. Which is also why Nolan’s Batman was such a pleasant, unexpected surprise. Now imagine if the only previous Batman in all the preceding years was camp 60’s Batman, without ANY gritty comics or any other representation. Straight from “Shark Repellent Bat-Spray” 60’s Batman to “I’m going to make this pencil disappear” Nolan Batman. Then imagine that 60’s Batman was even MORE cringe worthy. That’s why my expectations for Power Rangers wasn’t particularly high.
Wow. Cool your anger jets. They only expressed an opinion and even gave it a compliment, and you’re already off being judgmental. Are you one of those jump-the-gun types?
GO-GO-FANBOY-RAGER!
You have no idea how much that made me laugh.
I’m stealing this.
Did you watch Power Rangers as a kid and think “Geez this would be so good if it was serious…”?
Nope. I love most reboots/sequels (Tomb Raider, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc)
And you seem mad you weren’t invited.
I would watch the fuck out of this.
WOW…. holy crap. That was FANTASTIC. Someone hand the Power Rangers series over to that guy ASAP. That was just… wow. That blew my mind. 100%. Damn. Loved it. 😀 😀 😀
Tanchaeron’s MK series, then this… damn. We need more people with fresh takes and fresh visions of older properties if remakes are going to happen. That was stunningly good.
You might have read his blog where he says he has absolutely no interest in making a full length Power Rangers film, and that this short film is all he has in him.
Yeah, one of his biggest complaints is they definitely want a PG-13 rating and a 200 million dollar budget. Given the effects he managed, the Deus Ex look to it, I think with that original cast who cost nothing (Amy Jo Johnson would be the highest costing) and using Jason David Frank who’s a fantastic fighter, you’d have a lower budget, great little movie on your hands with high possibilities. A pity we’ll never see it happen. *sigh*
Rita creeped me the f*** out at the end too…Why? Not every superhero is Batman and not IP needs the dark n’ gritty treatment. Otherwise, we’d get more ponderous, self-indulgent nonsense like Man of Steel. This video was enjoyable but substitute it with virtually any other vaguely sci-fi property and it would work just as well. Does it necessarily have to be Power Rangers? Why do they need to be space marines?
I liked Power Rangers too, but a blockbuster based on this premise would just be cynical, Michael Bay-esque brand exploitation, engineered to get the sort of easily impressed people on this thread to hand over their money because of a tenuous connection to ‘Power Rangers.’
I didn’t say everything needed to be dark and gritty, I said they needed to have fresh takes and fresh visions, which is absolutely, undeniably true.
Hmmmm comment 9002 on Kotaku…
I’m literally…
OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!
A small plug – a friend and I do a Power Rangers podcast, where we go back and watch an episode of Mighty Morphin’ every week. (We’re also covering Dino Charge, the newest season) as it airs. We put out an episode last night to discuss this that’s up at http://rangerdangerpodcast.com/podcasts/special-powerrangers/.
The short version is: it’s absolutely not what I want from my Power Rangers, and I think from reading an interview Joseph Kahn would agree with me on that, but it is incredibly well-made and well-produced and he deserves a lot of credit for that.
I think it’s a fun idea to play with, but it’s just not Power Rangers. I’m a relapsing, remitting fan of the show (every once in a while, I just binge a random season). Without the campiness, it just feels off. Almost like they were trying to invoke the latest Dredd film.
Where do you watch Dino Charge? My son is really big into the power rangers at the moment and since Go has cut it for Teen Titans he is sad. This series would be great for him i think.
Torrents or if you don’t like torrenting, i know some seasons of PR are on Hulu and Netflix.
The unfortunate answer is, yeah, there’s not any legal way that we know of in Australia at the moment.
I was waiting for Jason David Frank to appear, considering he’s awesome enough to appear in your video if you just ask, just like… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap8r3AA0PIk
Wasn’t he recently charged for assault or something? Could be wrong, just recall hearing something at some stage.. by someone.
There was a ‘backstage scuffle’ that occurred in 2011 at a Legacy MMA Show where Jason allegedly punched a staff member who got in his face for accusing one of the fighters under his ‘Jesus Didn’t Tap’ label of stealing gloves with the clever but obviously inflammatory “C’mon man, Jesus didn’t steal gloves”. Supposedly a police report was filed afterwards, but I don’t think anything came of it.
Who your friend might have been referring to was Ricardo Medina Jr, the Red Ranger in Wild Force and Deker in Samurai/Super Samurai. In February of this year, he was arrested for the murder of his roomate with a sword, which occurred after an altercation where the roommate physically attacked him in their kitchen. He’d barricaded himself and his girlfriend in his bedroom afterwards, but after his roommate forced entry, he stabbed him with the sword. He was released and not charged, as it was pretty clear his actions were in self defence, but the idea that a Power Ranger had killed someone with a sword blew up all over the news for a while.
I liked that better than this thing.
That, was totally awesome
Pretty sweet – was that Bulk and … the other guy that sold out the ranger/Kim in the car?
They’re meant to be Bulk and Skull, good representations of them too!
0/10 nobody exploded
haha it isn’t Fist of the North Star =P
Very well done though! Obviously very different than the 90’s teenagers i remember when watching the show, but it was high entertaining for sure =)
The internet strikes again with fake misleading headlines
Did the bad guy get bigger after initially appearing to be defeated? No. Therefore, not Power Rangers.
Why were they using assault rifles instead of their laser blasters? And those fight scenes were even worse than the original series. Goddamn.
A lot of fun though. Not as good as Dirty Laundry, but still good.
gritty reboot of a kids tv show? where’s michael bay when you need him