Producer Adi Shankar responds to Saban Brands yanking down his Power/Rangers reboot film while applauding Facebook for standing up and supporting his fight…
The Power/Rangers reboot project, which pulled in more than 12 million views in less than 48 hours, was pulled down from YouTube on Thursday amidst a copyright complaint from Saban Brands, who own the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers brand.
The film — funded independently with no profit being made from the project — depicts a dystopian future with an adult spin on the classic children’s martial arts series with Katee Sackhoff and James Van Der Beek in starring roles.
As soon as the short fan film was released, Saban Brands immediately had the video pulled from Vimeo and then a day later did the same thing to the version on YouTube.
Now producer Adi Shankar is fighting back and he released an exclusive statement to Nerdcore Movement following Saban Brands latest move to pull the movie from YouTube. The good news is Mark Zuckerberg — founder and principle owner of Facebook — stood by the project and has allowed the video to be hosted on the social networking site instead.
Today, I was deeply disappointed to learn that Saban Brands decided to attack my Power/Rangers “Bootleg Universe One-Shot” film. To all the viewers that enjoyed this film, I consider this an outright infringement on freedom of expression and individualism. I set out to make this film because I am a childhood fan of the Power Rangers.
As children our retinas are burned with iconic images and as we grow older these images come to represent crucial moments within the trajectories of our own lives. This film is a homage to the original creators of the Power Rangers, and a parody of a television series we all grew up loving.
Films like my Power/Rangers “Bootleg” are vital expressions of creativity in our troubled world. If we suppress this creativity and become passive participants in the consumption of the culture we live in, we implicitly allow a dangerous precedent to be set for the future of the internet.
Warm Regards,
Adi Shankar
P.S. Thank you Mark Zuckerberg for hosting Power/Rangers and taking a stand https://www.facebook.com/theadishankarbrand
Nerdcore Movement asked Saban Brands for a response to the matter, but as of this publication they have not answered our request.
For now, watch the full Power/Rangers reboot courtesy of Facebook
