General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20266 min read

Power/Rangers

Power/Rangers is a 14-minute unauthorized fan film based on the children's television series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, released online on February 24, 2015. It was directed by Joseph Kahn, a music video director known for Torque and Taylor Swift's "Blank Space", and produced by Adi Shankar, producer of Dredd and The Grey, as part of Shankar's "Bootleg Universe" series of unofficial shorts. Its creators described it as a "deboot" of the franchise: a dark, violent, profane reimagining that follows the former Rangers as traumatized adults decades after their teenage adventures.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	February 24, 2015, on YouTube and Vimeo; 14 minutes long¹
Creators	Directed by Joseph Kahn; produced by Adi Shankar and Jil Hardin; written by Kahn, Dutch Southern, and James Van Der Beek¹^•³
Cast	James Van Der Beek as Rocky, the former Red Ranger who betrays his teammates; Katee Sackhoff as Pink Ranger Kimberly; also Russ Bain (Tommy/Green), Will Yun Lee (General Klank), Gichi Gamba (Zack/Black), and Yves Bright (Billy/Blue)¹^•³
Premise	The grown-up Rangers, scarred by being weaponized high schoolers in an intergalactic war, are disbanded and systematically hunted down⁴^•⁵
Copyright dispute	Saban Brands had the film removed from YouTube and Vimeo; after public backlash and negotiation it returned with disclaimers and an age restriction⁶
Audience	Over 2.5 million YouTube views in two days; 15,148,271 YouTube views plus 1.3 million Vimeo views by July 9, 2015¹^•⁷
Funding	Self-funded by Kahn, free to watch, with no Kickstarter campaign and no payment accepted⁸

Spoilers

Premise and production

The film imagines what happened to the Rangers after the show ended. Kahn and Shankar's framing, in the American Society of Cinematographers' production account, honors characters and storylines from the show's first few seasons and "catches up" with them decades later: their hopes have been shattered, the troop is disbanded, and they are being systematically hunted down.⁴ Shankar explained the premise in personal terms: as a child he loved both the X-Men animated series and Power Rangers, and he came to believe that high school students weaponized to fight an intergalactic threat would become seriously disturbed adults with severe PTSD.⁵ The story centers on Rocky, the former Red Ranger, who now works for the Machine Empire and has imprisoned Kimberly, the former Pink Ranger.⁷

The production carried professional credentials unusual for fan work. James Van Der Beek, known from Dawson's Creek, and Katee Sackhoff, from Battlestar Galactica, starred; the crew included cinematographer Christopher Probst and composers Brain Mantia and Melissa Reese.¹^•³ Kahn stated that every image in the film was original footage, that nothing pre-existing was used, and that he paid for it himself and refused any payment, comparing the work to drawing a picture of the Power Rangers on a napkin and giving it to a friend.⁸ The film's own disclaimer read: "Not a pilot, not a series, not for profit, strictly for exhibition. This is a bootleg experiment."¹

Release and takedown

Kahn posted the film on Monday night, February 23 or 24, 2015, and it spread rapidly; the safe-for-work YouTube version passed 2.5 million views within two days.¹ Vimeo removed the NSFW version on its own, and Saban Brands' lawyers then notified YouTube that the film violated their copyright and did not fall under fair use; both hosting sites pulled it.⁶

Kahn responded publicly, arguing on Twitter that the short was protected as parody under the fair use doctrine of United States copyright law and alleging that Saban was harassing him.⁸^•¹ Internet reaction largely sided with Kahn, with many users framing the takedown as a free speech issue.⁹

Resolution and legal questions

Following an agreement reached late on Friday, February 27, 2015, the film returned to both platforms. The YouTube version came back with an age restriction, and the Vimeo version carried a disclaimer from Shankar stating that it was an independently produced "Bootleg Universe" video not associated with or endorsed by Saban Brands, SCG Power Rangers LLC, or their affiliated companies, and that it claimed no rights to the characters.⁶^•⁷

The dispute never reached a court, so no ruling settled whether the film was fair use. Legal commentary at the time noted the tensions on both sides: the film used no Saban footage and differed sharply from the franchise's family-friendly tone, but it used the same characters and costumes, was made by professional directors and actors, and could lead a viewer without background knowledge to take it as an authorized continuation rather than a parody.⁹ Commentators also observed that a fair use claim, however strong, cannot by itself prevent a DMCA takedown on major video platforms.² Kahn himself later suggested the controversy had benefited the franchise, saying "I think it gave them a lot of publicity and revived its pop culture awareness."¹⁰

Reception

The short drew both large audiences and divided responses from the franchise's own community. Within the original cast, reactions were mixed: some actors considered the film well made, while Jason David Frank, the original Green Ranger, posted a video objecting to its tone, saying "You can't take a brand like this and reboot it so dark and gritty... We have to be responsible and know this is still a kids brand."⁹^•⁸

Among critics and fan-film commentators, the short was widely treated as a benchmark for what an unofficial production could achieve. Vimeo's staff blog wrote that rarely does a fan film outshine its source material, but that Kahn's does, reimagining a children's series for an adult audience.¹¹ The Guardian placed it in the growing world of professionally made short films whose production values and star power give them legitimacy and that have begun triggering conflicts with rights holders.¹²

References

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026