Power Rangers : Dark and Gritty

[Kaeb]

http://spinoff.comicbookresources.c...r-beek-star-in-gritty-power-rangers-fan-film/



So, this happened.

I like a lot about it, the style and everything is great, but I don't know about the whole ''Machine Empire overthrows and occupies the Earth bullshit'', that seemed like too much of a writing effort to ground the story when they don't need to.

So yeah, there's a lot I love and lot I ****ing hate (the very end particularly....you'll see why), but I still thought it was fun and worth a share/discussion.

Thoughts?

 

[Bee]

You're insane. That ending was awesome.

 

[Kaeb]

I just thought their take on Rita looked like dogshit. Every other costume, set and prop design looked great considering the level of budget and the talent/producers onboard, except for her costume, which looked like 60 cents cosplay.

There's a way you can mix the Sci Fi and the mystical that isn't the goofy tone and mood of the original show so it's ''cooler'' and works better for modern audience consumption, that way is called Star Wars.

Just have her be an ethnic looking chick with serious eyebrow game, eye shadow and a dark cloak and I would have liked her more. Everything else was grounded except for her.

I thought the actual rangers costumes looked kinda meh too tbh, they could have gone a little further there but I'd call it a concerted effort at least. I think from a writing perspective, they were too constrained by attempting to match the full on continuity of the show's universe, had all the exact same people been on board, but the writers decided to make it a full on reboot, I think it would have afforded them the opportunity to make something really incredible for people who grew up with the show.

The show if you go back is genuinely terrible, no question, but it's good bad like The Room, it's pure wholesome, fun and entertaining shlock.

Reboot it though?

With the concept of an ancient alien giving a group of people advanced technologies to fight aliens, monsters and robots?

That's some ****ing cool pulp shit right there.

 

[Phil]

I get the feeling this is the closest you lads will be getting to a good Power Rangers film.

 

[Kaeb]

I reckon so.

Which is a shame.

There's potential there to make a decent popcorn flick, X-Men meets Pacific Rim meets The Raid, but it'll never happen.

 

[Cortan]

I'm the kind of person who can see and appreciate why it exists, but ultimately is not my cup of tea - and certainly, not the desired model I'd use for a more 'modern' power rangers.

Partly because, as Kahn admits, its an experiment in parodying/pushing the concept of the 'dark and gritty reboot' to its limit whilst starting from a show that had a fairly silly premise at its core. Partly because the franchise has done more than just Mighty Morphin/Zeo, and has already included a fair amount of dark stuff (character deaths, racial terrorism, nuclear holocaust, so forth) whilst not overall missing the point of the fantasy, which a reboot in this vein would. Mind you, they could always still use the improved budget (particularly for their CGI, yikes).

For me, the most interesting thing about the whole project is just seeing the variety of responses to it. A hypothetical 'dark and gritty' power rangers has been talked about for years, but seeing it realised has put people off more than they might have expected to be, whilst others have embraced it as interesting and awesome. At the very least, its a good way to try and measure what it is people particularly loved from the franchise, depending on how they each respond to each alteration.

 

[Kaeb]

For me, it took it too far.

If you're revisiting an old franchise even simply just any pre-established concept in entertainment, you have to respect what the essence of the thing was. A simple example I would give, is in the Star Wars prequels or even the most recent Star Trek reboot films. A specific Star Wars one, would be the lightsaber fights in the prequels compared to the originals, it's like they take place in two separate universes, but if they had a written a scene, let's say hypothetically it's a training scene, between a young Anakin Skywalker and a young Obi Wan Kenobi fighting with sticks. The fight could start off slow, shaky and awkward JUST like the OT, but then it progress further and further into entirely new form of combat, thus acknowledging and respecting what came before, but refreshing the material.

I think they should have done the same here, and in some respects they did, but in the wrong ways. Keeping the same cloth costume but a Sci Fi helmet was ****ing dumb, so is Power Rangers fighting generic SWAT mercenary dudes and a Korean gangster. That's not interesting, we see that shit all the time in action movies, Power Rangers as a concept affords you the opportunity to embellish in much more interesting ideas....like martial artists in sci fi armour fighting aliens with their fists and giant robots.

Make the kids older for sure, **** maybe even make up completely new characters, I don't think they were that essential beyond the storyline of the Green Ranger and the soap opera melodrama of the show that they used for shitty filler anyway, so dump that and concentrate on what people liked in the first place.

Kids like the technology, the elements within the world, the grandiose and powerful nature of it all.

I wrote a Power Rangers film mock up on this forum before, I'm not arsed going and looking for it, but it followed that same logic.

 

[Cortan]

And that is why the franchise has survived as long as it has.

Heck, with the exception of a couple seasons - most notably with the, I will be blunt, rather terrible and generic 'Megaforce' series - there mostly haven't been many 'kids with attitude' since In Space/the seventh season, with the rangers mostly being made adults, and actually having to hold some kind of a job. Some have been straight up employees of the government. Others were criminals before getting to reform. Having the powers not technically be inherent to the person (or consistent in origin) means you can basically do what you want background wise and have someone stumble into them.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

I enjoyed this. Literally, this is canon to me now.

That was the same Rita from the show too. The actress, that is.

 

[Shiuzu]

[youtube]prOo21F9NTE[/youtube]

 

[Joy Carleec]

I get the feeling this is the closest you lads will be getting to a good Power Rangers film.

This.

 

[Kaeb]

If the costumes had of taken influence from the armour in Pacific Rim, and they were fighting monsters/machines instead of gangsters and generic SWAT guys, I think this could have been incredible.

 

[Logan]

If the costumes had of taken influence from the armour in Pacific Rim, and they were fighting monsters/machines instead of gangsters and generic SWAT guys, I think this could have been incredible.

Monsters/machines would have probably been more expensive to put in and not look like shit, perhaps it was merely a budget thing?

 

[Johnnysaurus Rex]

Monsters/machines would have probably been more expensive to put in and not look like shit, perhaps it was merely a budget thing?

That and I kinda thought the no monsters thing in addition to the Machine Empire having humans do the work for them mostly was fine.

I kind of didn't like much about this. The Sackhoff and Van Der Beek scenes were nice.

 

[Kaeb]

Monsters/machines would have probably been more expensive to put in and not look like shit, perhaps it was merely a budget thing?

And yet, look what was possible with the budget constraints of the original Star Wars.

That being said, the reason behind it doesn't matter, the result is generic.

That and I kinda thought the no monsters thing in addition to the Machine Empire having humans do the work for them mostly was fine.

I kind of didn't like much about this. The Sackhoff and Van Der Beek scenes were nice.

I thought that story decision turned the story from wacky sci fi bonanza (Power Rangers) into generic sci fi shlock (SyFy channel for the last several years) and was just a weird move overall.

I'm on the same boat in that all I really appreciate about this is the fact that at least someone finally ****ing tried to do it y'know?

 

[Johnnysaurus Rex]

I thought that story decision turned the story from wacky sci fi bonanza (Power Rangers) into generic sci fi shlock (SyFy channel for the last several years) and was just a weird move overall.

I'm on the same boat in that all I really appreciate about this is the fact that at least someone finally ****ing tried to do it y'know?

Fair enough. Given the Zeo stuff I kind of like the inclusion while it still nodded to the alien/magic stuff still having been present in the universe. Which I would like to think about timeline wise, but I feel like that is already too much work than this short really wants you to do.

But yeah, like you said, they did something. There are elements I really like here (bringing up the moral ****edness of teenage super soldiers, taking the characters in a scattered or more layered dimension, and making some of the action more visceral) and of course some of the stuff I could have done without. But yeah at least it's here.

 

[Logan]

And yet, look what was possible with the budget constraints of the original Star Wars.

That being said, the reason behind it doesn't matter, the result is generic.


I thought that story decision turned the story from wacky sci fi bonanza (Power Rangers) into generic sci fi shlock (SyFy channel for the last several years) and was just a weird move overall.

I'm on the same boat in that all I really appreciate about this is the fact that at least someone finally ****ing tried to do it y'know?

I highly doubt this director had access to 11 million dollars.

 

[Kaeb]

Monsters/machines would have probably been more expensive to put in and not look like shit, perhaps it was merely a budget thing?

That and I kinda thought the no monsters thing in addition to the Machine Empire having humans do the work for them mostly was fine.

I kind of didn't like much about this. The Sackhoff and Van Der Beek scenes were nice.

Fair enough. Given the Zeo stuff I kind of like the inclusion while it still nodded to the alien/magic stuff still having been present in the universe. Which I would like to think about timeline wise, but I feel like that is already too much work than this short really wants you to do.

But yeah, like you said, they did something. There are elements I really like here (bringing up the moral ****edness of teenage super soldiers, taking the characters in a scattered or more layered dimension, and making some of the action more visceral) and of course some of the stuff I could have done without. But yeah at least it's here.

I think if Rita's costume was simply a dark cloak in keeping with the established look and tone of the universe, I would have liked the ending more. I think if they had included more of a nuanced intergalactic backdrop as opposed to it just being generic man vs machine bullshit, then I probably would have been more interested. If they were trying to be funny by dropping the Black Ranger into North Korea, I didn't laugh. I would have been more entertained where the Black Ranger fighting robots or monsters, because that's the whole reason people want to see this property rebooted. It's a team of super powered ninja's using advanced technology to fight monsters, aliens and robots. It's what makes it unique from other properties.

I highly doubt this director had access to 11 million dollars.

An average episode of Game of Thrones costs 6 million dollars.

Primer, one of, if not the best time travel movie ever made, had a budget of just $7000 dollars. Remember that Mortal Kombat short that came out awhile ago? Yeah, that only cost $7500 dollars.

Budget can effect story in negative and positive ways, but it's ultimately up to how valiant the director of the project is and how insistent they are on executing the concepts they want to execute without having to make too many compromises.


In summary, your excuse is flimsy and doesn't carry much weight. If the director wanted to have Power Rangers fighting monsters, he could have.

That being said, seeing the Power Rangers running around with assault rifles like all of those Halo web shorts was pretty dumb too.

 

[Raider]

-snip-

TL;DR: Why does is this fan film not have millions of dollars like one of the most expansive TV shows currently airing, so they can do better CGI? These two other fan films cost only thousands and look at all the CGI that they...oh.

Pro-tip to all. Star Wars cost $44 million in today's money. 1 1977 dollar does not equal 1 2015 dollar.

 

[Kaeb]

TL;DR: Why does is this fan film not have millions of dollars like one of the most expansive TV shows currently airing, so they can do better CGI? These two other fan films cost only thousands and look at all the CGI that they...oh.

Pro-tip to all. Star Wars cost $44 million in today's money. 1 1977 dollar does not equal 1 2015 dollar.

I literally can't understand a single word of this post.