Adi Shankar has produced some pretty damn amazing movies, most notably The Grey and Dredd, both of which kick ass. In addition, he’s created a series of “Bootleg Universe” one-shot shorts in which he uses famous IPs in ways the rights holder would never do. The most famous of these is Power/Rangers, a dark reimagining of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that lit up the internet on its 2015 release and was quickly (and ineffectually) suppressed by Saban.
Clearly, Shankar likes the Power Rangers, but in a new interview with ComicBook.com, he’s gone to so far as to claim that it’s far more complex than the Star Wars franchise, which he seems to hate with a burning fury:
“I literally think Star Wars is not as cool as Power Rangers. Power Rangers is not about good versus evil. It’s not and never has been. It’s the lens through which the stories are told to us, through the lens, the narrative lens, but really it’s about shades of gray, and it’s always been about shades of gray, and it’s about people working together to overcome those shades of gray, through a single point of view. That’s why the Power Rangers are super powerful.
Star Wars is about good versus evil. I don’t know what the empire did wrong. I still have no idea. I still don’t know, they got up and they dress the same and then they (the rebels) kill them because they dress the same, like, I don’t understand it. Yeah they blew up a planet, but that’s a cheap reason to want to hate someone. The point is Power Rangers is way doper than Star Wars.
Dude, I think Star Wars is fucking horrible. I think Star Wars is a terrible franchise. It has terrible values. What are you teaching people with Star Wars, right? ‘Oh yeah, we’re the rebels and we’re just gonna blow up people who dress the same?’ Like it’s good versus evil? It’s terrible because there’s really very little evil out there. The evil is taught to us through a narrative, but the evil has a point of view, the evil has a perspective., and if you don’t get to know the perspective of the evil then how do you know you’re not evil?”
Now, I’d normally be hesitant to pass judgment on someone I don’t really know that much about, but based on this quote, it’s pretty safe to assume that Adi Shankar is a moron that has no idea what he’s talking about. Star Wars isn’t at all difficult to understand. The Empire and the First Order are a thinly fictionalized version of the Nazis and are an easy stand-in for any domineering fascist state.
Are fictional characters fighting tyranny really that hard to comprehend? Saying that you “don’t know what the Empire did wrong,” that the Rebels are fighting them “because they dress the same” and that blowing up a planet is a “cheap reason to want to hate someone” sounds like the kind of drug-fuelled ramblings you get when the party has wound down, it’s 5:00 am and you’re stuck listening to some moron vomiting a word salad all over you.
Given that Power Rangers couldn’t be more black and white in terms of morality if it tried, I’ve got to assume for the sake of my sanity that Shankar’s taking the piss. Surely, surely nobody could be this dense? Then again, this is 2018 and each week the bottom of the idiocy barrel gets one hell of a scraping.
What do you guys think, though? Is Power Rangers “way doper” than Star Wars, or is Adi Shankar talking out of his ass?
