POWER/RANGERS Bootleg Proves That Fans Don't Know What The Hell They Want

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Billy Donnelly

 February 25, 2015

 Features, Movie Features

If you set foot on the internet yesterday, you would have had a hard time avoiding this Power Rangers fan film/bootleg from director Joseph Kahn and producer Adi Shankar. It was like the plague infecting everything, and, while there did seem to be a pretty rabid minority voicing their displeasure about how nothing contained within this short entitled POWER/RANGERS even resembled the franchise they had come to love in their younger years, the overwhelming opinion seemed to be of squealing glee over how awesome this thing was. Now you won’t find me sharing in that mindset. I will give Kahn all the credit in the world for making a film that looks that good with very little money, but I was ready to slip into a snooze coma about three minutes into this exercise in dull exposition. Granted, I’m not a Power Rangers fan… but this certainly didn’t do the brand any favors in trying to make me one either. In fact, it went so far in the “dark and gritty” direction that it just became violence for violence’s sake.

Now, based on what Kahn told Drew McWeeny at Hitfix, that may have been what they were going for in order to counter the usual company line of “dark and gritty” that is nothing more than sanitized PG-13…

“It’s not just Lionsgate but all of Hollywood, they all keep toying around with this ‘dark and gritty’ concept, and they’re all PG-13. I mean…. look at the gunshots. You have a guy going in there shooting a bunch of people and it’s just like puffs of smoke. There’s no repercussions to these gunshots, which to me is even more dangerous than when you actually show some blood. You’re teaching kids that you can shoot a gun and there’s no repercussions to it. It just looks like you fall down. So when I did the dark and gritty version of this, I mean, we go full out. There’s blood, there’s brains, there’s gunshots, there’s sex, there’s violence. I mean, basically we made the version that Hollywood could never ever make. If I had to watch the ‘dark and gritty’ reboot, then this is the way I would want it. This is the version I would personally want to see, but I also know this is the version that could never, ever be made in Hollywood. They would be crazy, it would be financially irresponsible, but this is what I personally would like to see out of a Power Rangers film.”

…But there really needs to be a balance between actually telling a story and just throwing brains at the screen to give your gunshots more oomph. POWER/RANGERS never seems interested in finding that line. But the thing that struck me most about POWER/RANGERS was watching that fan reaction flowing in, because as I read a ton of comments and thoughts on what Kahn managed to accomplish and the choices he made with the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, it became crystal clear to me that fans don’t know what the hell they want.

Lionsgate may be working on developing a POWER RANGERS film of their own, but it’s still a ways away, leaving a sizable void in the Power Rangers fandom. This short merely filled that hole, and because it was a surprise, it was easy to get behind all the momentum Kahn’s film was gathering the more it circulated. There was no time for fans to be outraged, because they simply took it as it was and embraced their kneejerk reaction. But if Kahn was involved with Lionsgate’s picture and this was the announced direction that the studio was taking, fans would have been out with their pitchforks and torches calling for someone’s head, both literally and figuratively.

Changes to established material that fans have accepted and love is largely unacceptable in geek circles, and “dark and gritty” are rejected buzzwords that fanboys have figured to mean “just like THE DARK KNIGHT in order to take a shot at all that box office money.” And if you look back in recent time, you’ll find plenty of instances where fans were disapproving of other known properties that were being taken down this path. Check out Josh Trank’s FANTASTIC FOUR reboot… you’ll find no shortage of people bitching about the fact that it’s not the traditional Fantastic Four (it’s more along the lines of the Ultimates) or that they changed Doctor Doom’s origin story or Johnny Storm’s ethnicity. Most of it has overwhelmed the idea that maybe this could still just be a good movie, which too many people will already dispute, even though they’ve seen nothing more than a trailer and some unfinished set pics. However, if 20th Century Fox would have somehow managed to keep their superhero franchise relaunch a total secret (an impossibility in this day and age, I know), I wonder if geeks would have been more open to the different if it just showed up and gave them no opportunity to react negatively. The same for last summer’s TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. The second people heard they were changing the look of the Turtles, it was as if the world’s biggest asshole just took a huge shit in TMNT fans’ collective cereal. And if you take a look at that film, which isn’t very good, its saving grace is the Turtles themselves, who behave just like the Turtles people have loved for years… But they just couldn’t get past the different. Now if you slashed that film down to a short and just surprised with it, I get the feeling there would have been much less shit given to what the shelled foursome looked like.

Now there is something to be said about quality overcoming all obstacles. If you have a good quality product, you can’t keep it down from the predetermined hate in the long run. Geeks will have no choice but to see something if they hear it’s good. Hell, they’re still going to see most of these bigger properties anyway, even if they think they’re bad… but once again, it all harkens back to the idea that they don’t know what they want. The POWER/RANGERS is as dark and gritty as they come, but, based on most of the reactions I’ve heard to films like THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and MAN OF STEEL, that isn’t really want anyone wants to see. They want fun and exciting, not drab and serious. They want something closer to the source material. They don’t want too many alterations. They want everyone to do what Marvel is doing, except on a widespread scope… until someone’s not doing any of that, flying in the face of the fans, and it’s eaten up anyway. Go figure, right? What’s the difference between POWER/RANGERS and any of them? Nothing but time.

So what’s the lesson to be learned here? If you’re looking to get a read on fans and where their heads are at, you’ve come to the wrong place. There is no way to wrap your head on their ever-changing desires and wants when it comes to the treatment of their beloved properties. So maybe that’s what we can take away from all this – just know the direction you want to take and stick with it, completely disregarding what the fans think. You can’t please everyone all the time, so you might as well just tell the story you want to tell as best as you can tell it, and don’t worry one bit. The fans are coming one way or another… but if you spring things on them, you might just have a better chance of getting them to buy in. As the POWER/RANGERS showed, if you can make it look cool enough, they’re in for anything, whether they have said ahead of time they’d like it or not.