Behold James Van Der Beek's R-Rated 'Power Rangers' in This Viral Short Film

Kevin Polowy
·Senior Correspondent, Yahoo Entertainment
Updated

This isn’t your kid self’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. A gritty, hyper-violent, blood-soaked, profanity-laced, drug-tinged short called POWER/RANGER is getting plugged everywhere you look on the Interwebs today, and it’s well worth the 12 minutes of your time if you haven’t seen it yet. Oh yeah, and it stars and is co-written by James Van Der Beek.

After a stylized opening sequence featuring giant robots and Rangers on the run (imagine Neil Blomkamp directing a Transformers movie), the film settles into a shouting match between The Beek (who plays the scar-faced, traitorous Rocky) and Battlestar Galactica's Katie Sackoff (as his captive, Kimberly). One-by-one we find out the fates of other Rangers: Jason was slain in a Kill Bill-style wedding massacre, Zach became a hip-hop dance instructor who still has plenty of bloodlust, etc. There are mentions of Billy Cranston and Machine Empire, which apparently got into the meth game (Breaking Bad is omnipresent, people).

In short, being recruited into the Power Rangers as kids messed these folks up bad.

Fans generally appear to be pretty bowled over by Joseph Kahn’s dark take on the historically family-friendly franchise, though a pocket of Power Rangers purists (news flash: there are Power Rangers purists) aren’t loving the blood, sex, and violence.

Either way, buzz over the short presents an interesting quandary for Lionsgate, which is planning a reboot for theatrical release for summer of 2016. It’s hard to imagine the success of a web short will influence the studio’s plans for a film that appears to stick to the series’ PG roots (though it still hasn’t attached a director or cast), but crazier things have happened. Like James Van Deer Beek writing and starring in an R-rated Mighty Morphin Power Rangers short.

10:15 p.m. UPDATE: Kahn tweeted Tuesday afternoon, instructing fans to watch the film while they can. It proved to be prophetic as a legal battle is now brewing over POWER/RANGER, the filmmaker reports via Deadline. Kahn says he is being “harassed” by the man who owns the rights to the Power Rangers franchise, Haim Saban, who is also producing a new Rangers film with Lionsgate. As of this update, Kahn’s video was taken down from Vimeo, following alleged complaints from Saban, but remains live on You Tube, where it has received more than 3.5 million views.

(Also check out producer Adi Shankar’s explanation for the bootleg here.)