Breaking The Internet with Director Joseph Kahn and Power/Rangers
Not many have the ability to break the internet. Kim Kardashian, of course, but also director Joseph Kahn, who has unleashed the R-Rated fan-film homage to Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers you never knew you wanted, while also opening a potential WW3 in fair use laws...
This latest "bootleg" from producer Adi Shankar, who previously made The Punisher as bad-ass as he always shoulda been, pivots on a perfect premise: What if you viewed the Power Rangers as the story of child soldiers enscripted to fight a horribly awful war, and what happens to those kids when they grow up amidst that insanity. Suddenly, a colorful and ridiculous TV show suddenly seems like downright evil.
Welcome to POWER/RANGERS, which lets Joseph Kahn loose to make the sci-fi gorefest that he should be getting millions upon millions to make for worldwide domination. Instead, you need to content yourself with this short freebie — which looks it cost a pretty penny — and hope you can handle Kahn Unbound. If you're a fan of his Spaghetti Western romp "Knights Of Cydonia" but wished it weren't boxed in by having to be a music video for Muse, this is for you. If you like your sci-fi with a touch of ultra-violence and just the right amount of ADD, this is for you. And, perhaps most importantly, if you're a fan of sticking a middle-finger to the many inconsistencies of copyright law, then this is definitely for you.
One entity apparently not enamored by this revisionist homage is Saban Capial Group, which owns the Power Rangers rights. Based on the flurry of takedown notices — see this explanation of DMCA legalities that foreced Vimeo to remove the video, — Saban seems to be deadset on getting it removed from the Internet, which of course means that it will just get bigger and bigger.
The real fun will come if and when Saban decides to use the courts to determine whether Power/Rangers is parody or satire, fan film or professional creation, or just another example of how the Internet is making copyright laws increasingly irrelevent and unenforceable.
Pass the popcorn. This could be good.
