Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-04-09 (Wednesday)

On 4/10/2025 2:32 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

shawn <nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 19:47:14 -0000 (UTC), Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:

shawn <nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:

10 Apr 2025 08:18:16 -0700, Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org>:

 

Hollywood Demons (HBOMax) - "Dark Side of the Power Rangers" - Episode 3
of this documentary series.  This episode is the reason I even took
notice of this series, it focused on "The Power Rangers."  I was a
little older when the show came out, but still enjoyed watching it as a
teenager.  I've only ever heard horror stories from the cast about
making this show, and this documentary was no different.  I had
forgotten they shot the pilot with a different "Yellow Ranger."  They
interviewed her about the pilot.  She said they were in the middle of
some dessert in heat when one of the stuntmen in a rubber swimsuit had
heat stroke.  She said the guy was on the ground flopping around and she
insisted they stop filming and get the guy an ambulance.  But the
producers refused to stop filming and offered $100 for anyone to take
off the costume and put it on so they could keep filming, and someone
took the $100, took the costume off the man, and left the guy there
still shaking, but now in the his socks and underwear, and they kept
filming.

 

Sheesh, sounds like the producers should have been arrested for that.

 

You say that like there are producers who shouldn't be arrested.

 

They didn't even need to stop filming to get the guy proper medical
attention.

 

True.  They did call an ambulance.  The point of the actress was she was there in person seeing the man in medical distress in front of her, and didn't want to pretend it wasn't happening.  And the other slap in the face was they couldn't keep acting anyway because the man was wearing the costume, so the producers offered $100 to strip him so they could keep acting.

Seriously, it's not always a matter of criminal law if someone fails to
render assistance. Yes, there's liability and industrial hygiene
requirements, but that's civil law. Refusing to stop filming doesn't
prevent anyone else from rendering aid. If someone is physically
prevented from rendering aid, then it could be a crime.

 

In this case, unless someone ceasing to perform his job would create a
hazard on its own or make the emergency worse, like a grip in the
process of securing a piece of equipment, there are plenty of P.A.s and
actors not needed for the scene just standing around. Fuck all of those
people for refusing to assist.

 

That's the thing. Since there are quite a few people involved in any
production like this I find it unlikely that no one was willing to
help unless otherwise being ordered not to bother.

 If you are in a position to render aid, what does being ordered not to
bother have to do with whether you render aid? If you could assit but
choose not to, that's on you, not some other asshole.
 

And that's not even close to the most shocking story they told in the
documentary.  There were so many shady things happened on that show.
Giving them contracts to sign, but telling them they had to sing almost

 

Sing for their supper. :)

 

Apparently that too.

immediately with no time to let an agent review it first.  The terms of
the contracts had the actors working for almost nothing while signing
away their likeness.  Keep in mind, Power Rangers is a mutlibillion
dollar franchise.  They were putting the actors faces on products,
selling the products, and not giving the actors any of the money.

 

Though the problem is how many other actors did they have lined up if
someone demanded to get paid for the use of their likeness. Which is
always a problem if there aren't legal protections in place.

 

How is that a problem? We have a word for performing labor and not being
compensated. Don't contractually engage in slavery. Let someone else do
it. Famously, Disney isn't allowed to use Giselle (Amy Adams) from
Enchanted (2007) in displays of Disney princesses as the actress refused
to sell rights to her likeness. It wasn't conditional on casting.

 

It's a problem if you are wanting to pay your bills so you need this job.

 You seem to be ignoring the main point that performing work for no
compensation doesn't get the bills paid.
 

I agree they shouldn't have signed the contract. That said many
people sign bad contracts the first time around because they just want
to have some rent money and either don't know what to look for or
aren't given the time to review the contract. Hell, even Taylor Swift
ran into some issues because of her first contract and she's proven to
be a savvy businesswoman.

  The contract she signed may have been unfavorable to her -- she didn't
own the master recordings of her earliest songs -- but she wasn't
uncompensated. When she decided to re-release her earliest songs, she
made new master recordings in order to do so.
 These actors were agreeing to give up something of value -- commercial
exploitation of their own likenesses -- for no compensation. They were
also performing stunts for which they had no training and I'll bet the
producers wouldn't have paid for rehab if they were injured.

The doing their own stunts part caught me off guard.  I think in the back of my mind, I generally knew that, but still they're wearing masks.   There was no reason the actors needed to be doing dangerous stunts. And the second the show went union they brought in professional stunt people.  And the hours they were working them, doing both stunts and acting, were well beyond the industry normal.  One of the anecdotes they told was of Amy Jo Johnson who played the original "Pink Ranger" would walk off and shake and cry uncontrollably for a moment, then compose herself, put a smile on and keep acting.
Most of them never had a professional job before.  They were happy just to be there.  And the producers structured the handing them the contracts and getting the signatures in such a way that they couldn't have had them reviewed before signing.  These were nonprofessional teens handed contracts to star in a TV show and only given a few hours to review and sign.  They weren't thinking cereal box and toy likeness, and even if they were they had *no* leverage.  The original "Yellow Ranger" said she could see from the start it was shady.  She spoke up.  And she was fired after the pilot.  Then famously when the contracts came time to renew they all demanded more money.  Three of them backed down and the three who didn't were fired.
In later seasons even people who kept their mouths shut and didn't complain were being replaced.  One of the actors interviewed said she showed up to work one day and one of the other actors asked her if she knew about the open casting call for her part.  They didn't even bother to tell her they were casting her replacement while she was filming.
One of the behind the scenes studio people who was interviewed made a snide comment against the actors for claiming they created the characters and said the actors didn't create anything the studio created it.  Except, the show wasn't original.  It was an existing Japanese show that the studio was reusing the footage from.  It was the faces of the American actors selling the product.  And they weren't just acting on the show, they touring nationwide making personal appearances too.
For me as a fan who watched the original show, and for lots of other fans it was absolutely specific actors that kept us coming back.  When the last original actor from the show left, that's when I stopped watching.  They even talked about that how some specific actors were wildly popular and the ratings revolved around those specific actors/characters.