Katie Sackhoff Stars in R-Rated 14-Minute 'Power Rangers' Short

Previously we've seen a couple of impressive short films from producer Ari Shankar from the comic book universe. Joe Lynch directed Truth in Journalism , a take off on the Spider-Man character Venom, and Mike Pecci directed The Dead Can't Be Distracted, which was a bootleg version of The Punisher. Now Shankar is back with Power/Rangers , a gritty, R-rated, 14-minute short film directed by Joseph Kahn (Torque) that adapts "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers." The film certainly puts an interesting twist on the mythology of the Japanese imported action adventure, and it's much different from the eventual big screen take on the way. Plus, it stars James Van Der Beek and Katie Sackhoff, which is just completely surreal. Watch!

Here's Joseph Kahn & Adi Shankar's short film Power/Rangers (via HitFix):

And if you're wondering just why Shankar decided to make this movie, here you go:

Interestingly enough, Kahn wasn't even a fan of Power Rangers in the least, but he was intrigued by doing a completely different version of something he viewed as a silly property. He says, "“I think the trick that I really wanted to do with this was to make that dark and gritty version that everybody keeps talking about, but really do it. Really see if I could totally accomplish it with essentially a really incredible incredibly silly property.” So it's pretty self-indulgent, but that doesn't make it any less of an impressive short film and something fans may have been anxious to see realized.

However, if you're hoping Lionsgate will hire Kahn for the developing big screen version, don't count on it. First of all, Lionsgate would never go in this direction for a tentpole adaptation of Power Rangers. Second of all, Kahn just isn't interested now that he's done this short, "The irony here is that I wouldn’t even want to make Power Rangers: The Movie for real. Like if I had to make a ‘Power Rangers’ movie, this is it. It’s 14 minutes long and it’s violent and this is what I have in me. If they offered me the 200 million version, the PG-13 version, I literally wouldn’t do it. It’s just not interesting to me.” But at least we got this short. Cool?