“The implications of [Saban censuring and forcing the removal of the POWER/RANGERS short from Vimeo and YouTube] I think are obvious. But what are we really losing by capitulating? The scarier thing is the implication of story in and of itself. Story is the most fundamental building block of human civilization. It’s the historical scaffolding we build our moral codes on, and it ultimately synthesizes into mythology, religion, politics. For most of ancient humanity story was a malleable art form that changed due to the error proneness of verbal communication. Only in the modern age of the printed word do we expect perfectly influctuate narratives.
“This gets even scarier when you realize every story being told to you is copyrighted and owned by someone. And especially when it comes to the young, their stories are owned by corporations. Comic books, movies, television, whatever, the youth is only being told stories by businessmen. So when you combine this idea that the vast majority of morality tales told to young people are controlled by corporations with a legal restriction that these tales cannot be personally interacted with, there’s some pretty absurd results. Like if this were true, it would now easier to to change and start a new religion than tell an alternate story about Power Rangers. You literally have more control over Jesus than Tommy Oliver.
“Look, I make commercials for a living, so I know the shakedown. You may not agree with what we did with the Power Rangers, but you must feel more powerful as a human being if you live in a society that lets artists critique the imagery that dominates your lives. Whether it’s Banksy fucking with Ronald McDonald, Warhol with Campbell’s [soup], or us with Power Rangers, you want to let artists interact, test, and kick the tires being sold to you.
“Most people when they do projects always say they’re fans, but 90% are lying just to please the fans. I was already shaving in 1993 when Power Rangers came out. It was aimed at 12-year-olds. I would have been weird as hell if I was going into clubs raving about a reappropriated Sentai show for kids. I would have never gotten laid (which I didn’t anyway so what did it matter). It was an interesting experiment to play with reboot culture and tone control. When I finally made it I was fully invested in the characters and the property but I didn’t come into it to please a fan base, per se, but to experiment with pop culture.”
– Joseph Kahn
http://io9.com/the-truth-behind-the-power-rangers-short-and-how-you-h-1688907857
Update: Based on feedback from the Facebook group, here’s some additional context surrounding the short being removed from Vimeo and YouTube, as well as some insight on the rationale behind the making of the short by producer Adi Shankar, who at one point muses on the unsettling implication of the Power Rangers essentially acting as child-soldiers.
http://deadline.com/2015/02/power-rangers-fan-video-legal-fight-haim-saban-joseph-kahn-1201380926/
http://www.hitfix.com/motion-captured/world-exclusive-what-are-katee-sackhoff-and-james-van-der-beek-doing-in-joseph-kahns-powerrangers
http://badassdigest.com/2015/02/24/power-rangers-a-fan-film-from-a-guy-who-doesnt-like-fan-films/
Clippings Facebook thread courtesy of co-producer Renn Brown: https://www.facebook.com/RennBrown/posts/10100921098343727