f13.net

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw5vcUPyL90

This desperately needs to be a thing.

I fucking hate Power Rangers... but goddamn. That needs to be a thing yesterday. That was better than anything the Waschowskis have done since the Matrix 1, or most of Hollywood for that matter.

Whoa.

Look for the NSFW version. It used to be up at Vimeo.

That seemed pretty unsafe for work to me.

NSFW is less safe. Vanderfivehead helped write it, apparently.

Can't find the even more NSFW version, but the regular version is still amazing and needs to be a full movie asap. Holy shitballs

Am I the only one who was thinking... is that James Van Der Beek?  Yeah, it was James Van Der Beek.

Made me wish i had ever watched power rangers so i knew wtf was going on.

Have a son. You'll get to watch all 22 seasons some month and a half.  :awesome_for_real:

Well that was Van der Dark.

I watched maybe half an episode of power rangers, you don't need to watch much to get the gist.

Unfortunately the guy isn't interested in a longer movie even if they handed him 100 mill to do it.

Why would they hand it to you ?

Auto-correct its a hell of a drug.

Hey, just while we're here :  Can anyone tell me what or who the fuck the Power Rangers were actually fighting against ?

I never really understood that from the seizure inducing minutes that I watched of the original show.

Am I going to be the only one to point out that was really crap?

It changed quite a bit over the years, as there was over 20 odd seasons of the thing. The one shown in the film was the first villian of the series, Rita Repulsa.

(http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/powerrangers/images/9/9e/Tumblr_n33hmx587W1rxbov4o1_500.jpg)

http://powerrangers.wikia.com/wiki/Rita_Repulsa

A Space Dumpster.

ok.

Forget I asked.

Be thankful I only quoted the first paragraph.  :oh_i_see:

An oasis appears in the desert!

Seriously...they took Power Rangers, stripped out everything about Power Rangers that is fun and endearing and replaced it with generic grimdark shit.

This is exactly like how DC approaches their properties - with embarrassment for the source material. The people who are like "this needs to be a real move" - let's just say our tastes differ!

I thought it was ok for what it was. I Think the beginning parts where they were running about facing a huge invasion of badness was what a power reanger movie really should go for, but the rest was kung fu crap. I thought it WAS very nicely done and very well acted by everyone involved, but I would have no intention of going to see something like that.

I think something that had the charm of the TV series and its toung jammed firmly in its cheek mixed with a little more of the grit would do very well and be very enjoyable to watch, but this thing would be a "Hitman" style forgettable movie.

I think that was pretty much the point Margalis.  The Director dude even said so.

It was funny.  I laughed.  It took a really stupid kids show where there's never any danger and applied some reality to it. 

I think you either missed the point a little or didn't care for the point.  I'm really, really not sure you're meant to take it that seriously.

For Fucks Sake, it had Starbuck and Mr 90210 in it. 

And don't even be comparing it to DC who do that shit without any irony whatsoever...

I liked it because its dystopian view of the power rangers. Sure it "could" have fun with the property but I was a kid when I watched the power rangers. Barely able to color within the lines and there's a reason why most people who watched it as kids promptly dropped it after they turned 10-11 years old (while continuing to watch anime, western cartoons like batman and jlu, etc). Besides I saw the potential for a lot of subjects that I don't find preachy, which is rare in my syfi.

My only complaint is that this type of work tends to go the easy way and kill everybody. I'm afraid that if made longer the movie wouldn't have much room to showcase the adult version of said characters or even have them live long enough for additional stories. Which is a complaint the director of this short kinda sorta touched, he doesn't feel like he has the creative juice to extend this past 14 minutes because it may ultimately go nowhere.

Also the comparison to DC isn't apt. You can make something "darker" as long as your not
A. Coming from the perspective of someone who doesn't like the source material
B. Coming from the perspective of someone who doesn't like the genre
C. Coming from the perspective of someone who given a mandate to imitate another properties success

That's certainly an opinion.

What, you're gonna argue they spoiled the high art that was Power Rangers with a short film ?

Hey, you know more than me about it, so I'll take your word for it.  Seriously.

It's a neat idea that's fun to watch for just about 15 minutes because nobody (likely including the people who made it) actually gives enough of a shit about Power Rangers lore to want to see it extended any longer than that.

I'm saying that what they did is the equivalent of making a grimdark version of Scooby Doo.

I really don't think that would be a bad thing.

Watched the whole thing and don't get the appeal.  This brought me to two conclusions:

1) Anyone younger than me is fascinated by gratuitous gore and violence more than they ought to be.

2) I'm old. 

My son adored the Power Rangers and I didn't get that either.  All it did was make him want to kick EVERYTHING or hit it with a plastic sword.

That whole interrogation scene was beyond cringeawful.

Why would anyone want to watch the sparkly twilight boys club kill each other?  Oh wait.. Never mind.

But you still can't call it good unless there is something actually good in it.

Aren't you the generation that invented the blood squibs? Rambo? Terminator? Robocop? Nightmare on elm street, Jason, Halloween, Evil Dead, Arnold Schwarzenegger? Am I missing anything?

It has a catchy theme song, colorful villains and they form a huge robot. What else do you need? Also the black ranger was basically Protoman.


I suspect that imagining that in your head is more satisfying than how it would play out on film. It's a one-joke premise. Maybe it could work as 10 minute Adult Swim short.


These are all good things though. (Well - except for Friday the 13th) I'll gladly go to bat for the insane violence in Robocop because Robocop is a good movie. I'm no prude - I love violence if the violence serves any kind of point and doesn't exist purely for it's own sake. And even then I'm down if it's just so outrageous that that becomes the point.

But this was none of those things.

Apparently the original green ranger agrees with you.

Its also probably better the LESS you know about the original lore

I mean "Machine Empire" I mean, fuck, that sounds awsome its like massive computers and Skynet robots and Terminators and...

(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/powerrangers/images/7/7c/PRZ_Machine_Empire.png/revision/latest?cb=20130721002853)

Um... nevermind.  :why_so_serious:

To be honest shorts like this are like short stories. They set up things in your head about the before and after scenarios that are probably better than any film would convey. So, enjoy that.

Hahaha. You guys are nerd debating about power rangers. Just think about that for a second.

IT'S ALL WE HAVE!!!

Aside from nostalgia - and I don't have any great nostalgic feelings for Power Rangers - I couldn't find much in this film to like.

Starbuck was tied to a chair, being menaced by Dawson ; I'd pay full price just for that spread over 90 minutes.

Starbuck.  Tied to a chair.  Being menaced by Dawson Leery.

Bear in mind this is coming from a chap who loves Veronica Mars.

It was as long as  it needed to be. I didn't enjoy it beyond, "Hah! Gritty Power Rangers, what a premise!" but wasn't going to ruin the nostalgia trip for those who did.

Hell, I still enjoy the fuck out of Robotech (no, not Macross, the 'butchered' US version; Robotech) and that's pretty much crap.

You can be, but everyone knows you're a dire fucker so no one cares.

It's about a billion times more interesting than Power Rangers ever was to me, had good effects and cinematography and the actors did well with it.

It's not for you.

Friday the 13th was a great movie.

The generation before me made 2 decades of appalling shit with exceptions to the rule much like every generation. They also had more notorious serial killers. The 70s were a grimdark version of the 90s.

Grimdark Scooby Doo would be fucking awesome.

You're all insane. Take some geritol and have a good poop. You'll feel better.

Weird, I went back and rewatched it a while back and was surprised at how well it stood up.  Especially compared to the other shit I was watching at the time (He-Man and Transformers and stuff) which today looks... uh, slightly less well done.  Voice acting is a bit awkward, but the writing and story was surprisingly solid I thought.

I have recently come to the conclusion that the 90's well and truly-sucked monkey ass in entertainment. Music, movies, TV... there was interesting stuff buried in a morass of utter, utter shit.

The arcs held up, sure. However, watching as an adult in my 30s who'd actually been through relationships, all of the Rick-Minmei-Lisa stuff was utter drek. Utter, utter, utter drek.

It was believable to pre-teen me but adult me couldn't reconcile this guy in his 20s being so inept at relationships.  Rick Hunter was 19 when the series started and he was as savvy as your typical 15 year old from the 'burbs, despite having lived circus life, a life pretty much centered around people and understanding them.

Mark me, He-Man, TF, etc were craptacular in their own right. Robotech, however, was worth it only for the 'big story' not 90% of the relationship bits that made up the better part of the series.

You're wrong, but since you're doing the whole cyberpunk warren ellis agenda thing I'm just not gonna argue about it.

No I'm not.  :heart:

Also I'm far from alone on this one!

I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. :headscratch:


It was utter drek in the '80's when I saw it as a teenager. Anyone with half a brain could tell that Minmei was a fucking cocktease and a space cadet at that, while the actual space cadet was the one worth saluting.

Love triangles like that are one of the things that really tweak my tits about anime.

(http://forums.f13.net/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=6389;type=avatar)

I had to Google image Ellis. I dig his writing, but I've never actually seen a picture of him. If anything, I was aiming more for this:

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1739972/web-images/josh-reddick.jpeg)

And ended up with the Alan Moore instead.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1739972/web-images/Alan-Moore-007.jpg)

Just watched this and really enjoyed it.  I only ever watched the first season of Power Rangers, which this is basically a targeted nostalgia trip for.  Schild is right, you're all crazy.  It was good fun for what it was.  Making an entire movie out of it would probably end up being absolutely terrible, but the grimdark re-imagined short was great.

Grimdark reboots of goofy shit for kids are pretty much always stupid. By their very nature they strip out what made the property compelling to the people who found it compelling in the first place.

Grim dark reboots from people who don't like the original source material generally fail. Grim dark reboots happen all the time in comics, the most successful example being Batman. The least successful being the entirety of the 90s dc/marvel era comics and the entirety of the"we hate superheroes/british new wave" inspired dredge that spewed forth in the 2010's and onward. 

Grimdark Sesame Street

What?

The early '90s were amazing.  Alternative, punk, metal, and rap/hip hop all pushed right into the mainstream.  The whole Indie cinema movement hit the big time in the early 90s, really shaking up how movies get made while giving us directors and film-makers that are very relevant today.  The '90s saw the growth of cable and birth of niche TV programming, and even the networks pushed boundaries with things like the Simpsons and NYPD Blue.  HBO formulated the high quality strategy they are known for now, and other cable outlets have adopted.

The late '90s did see a big retreat into manufactured mass-market crap, but holy shit did the beginning of the decade shake things up.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/704172/F13%20Photos/o-BERT-ERNIE-570.jpg)

That's just Boondark Sesame Street.

Scooby Cthulhu. I'm down.

Also, this:

http://youtu.be/2ePpagc6L1Q

That actually sounds awesome (http://geektyrant.com/news/2013/8/9/scooby-doos-mystery-team-takes-on-the-zombie-apocalypse).

--Dave

That is awesome.

Damn, Daphne. Holy shit.

He's actually 16 in Macross and it was a flying circus/air show thing. He wasn't like a carny or anything, he understood how to fly planes pretty good, that's about it.

The big thing about Robotech/Macross is it is so very very 80s, like neck deep 80s. The 80's through the lens of the Japanese. If you can get past that, it holds up very well otherwise.

Is it just me, or does Fred the only guy who just completely screams: one of these things is not like the others.   Everybody else looks a decent bit like their cartoon counterpart except fred, who looks more like Michael Cera then anything else.

Its like you all forgot the He-man movie.

A horrid kiddies grimdark fusion.

He-Man? Always relevant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh7lp9umG2I

That and two decades of aging, which strips out the 'compelling' bits pretty well, too.

Masters of the Universe.

Warner Brothers is working on a reboot (lol) with the director of Kick-Ass 2 (sucked) and the guy who wrote the script of Lone Ranger (sucked).

Seriously, who greenlights this shit?

I'm still not sure why anyone involved with the Long Ranger movie gets work again.

I finally tracked down a mirror of the NSFW version, in case anybody wants to see it.

http://power-slash-rangers-nsfw.atxmirrors.info/

I watched it, and as far as I can tell, the absolute only difference is that the two girls in Zachs bed (who are both porn stars incidentally) are topless instead of wearing bra's.  Not that thats a bad thing, but if you were hoping for anything more than a couple seconds of titties, don't bother.

How about Grimdark "Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird" - parts of it were already a little grim for a kid's movie.

There are some of the cartoon movies that go a bit darker for Scooby Doo.

Also, I think if you are going to make a grimdark Power Rangers you don't call it "Power/Rangers" which makes it pretty easy for Saban to get your video pulled across various platforms.

Grimdark Power Rangers works for about 15 minutes - not even the length of a standard Power Rangers show.

Roughly the amount of good in any given 5 episodes of Game of Thrones - aka Dinklage's on-screen time.