Nostalgia is clearly in right now. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers was my absolute favorite show as a kid. I remember going home on the school bus when I was in Kindergarten and 1st Grade looking forward to my afternoon dose of the evil-fighting teenagers. Don’t even get me started in the pure ecstasy I experienced watching the 1995 film adaptation in the theaters. Well, a 15-minute short film was released earlier this week (sorry we’re a little late to the party!) visualizing the original Power Rangers (Kimberly, Rocky, Tommy, Billy, Trini and Zack) as much older, experienced adults. Needless to say, some things have changed and the Power Rangers have become a bit more…intense.
Starring James Van Der Beek and Katee Sackhoff as two of the Power Rangers, the short film comes to us courtesy of Joseph Kahn, a music video director (Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” is his most recent one) who filmed the short just for fun, and that makes me like the film even more. It is not associated in any way with Lionsgate’s reboot planned for next year. Saban Entertainment, the creators of the original series adaptation, are also not involved with Kahn’s vision. Kahn did not hold back in the production department at all. If this is what comes from a lack of studio tampering, I’d say this needs to happen more often. This could be the start of a brand new trend in the film industry!
In the video, Van Der Beek’s Rocky is interrogating Sackhoff’s Kimberly (props for going back to the original team) about Tommy, who has gone missing and has seemingly been murdering the other Power Rangers. There is a pretty fantastic twist at the end that has to be seen to be believed.
Apparently there was a darker, more NSFW version released on Vimeo, but it has since been pulled from the site. Color me extremely disappointed that I didn’t catch it in time. The video below is just the SFW version on YouTube, but it’s still pretty incredible.
If this is the SFW version, I can’t wait to see what the NSFW version looks like. What do all of you think? Does Lionsgate need to step up their game with their Power Rangers adaptation? I think so!