Chris Nolan next film might be Akira

[happyninja42]

My only worry is if they whitewash the cast, which while not a complete deal breaker for me, as I've said many times that I feel getting the right actor for the job is more important than getting the right ethnicity for the job. I would like to have the material be accurate to the source. If the movie is all white actors, and it's in like Los Angeles or something, I'm going to be annoyed, but it won't make me instantly hate the movie.

But if the right actors are white actors, surely moving the setting to a locale more befitting the "right" actors would be a good thing, n'est-ce pas?

Yes, if you're going to have it in America, then at least in the mind of Hollywood, that means it should have white actors. I'm not saying I don't understand their logic in this regard, I just don't like it. But, given the size of the Asian film industry, and how many Asian actors work today, I would find it unlikely that they couldn't get a cast of actors to accurately portray the ethnicity. Again, I'm assuming they will actually have the movie take place in Tokyo.

I'd like for them to be true to the source material, but I'm also a realist when it comes to how Hollywood thinks, and it wouldn't surprise me to see them pull something like this.

But, I also think that Nolan is a better filmmaker than that, and wouldn't do it. It's all speculation at this point, as we don't even know if this rumor is even true or not.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Cautiously optimistic about this one. I just hope he doesn't diverge too hard from Akira's story, I friggin love it in its current monstrosity of a form. *reads a little more* OH GODDAMN IT ANOTHER TRILOGY

 

[Something Amyss]

Yes, if you're going to have it in America, then at least in the mind of Hollywood, that means it should have white actors. I'm not saying I don't understand their logic in this regard, I just don't like it. But, given the size of the Asian film industry, and how many Asian actors work today, I would find it unlikely that they couldn't get a cast of actors to accurately portray the ethnicity. Again, I'm assuming they will actually have the movie take place in Tokyo.

I'd like for them to be true to the source material, but I'm also a realist when it comes to how Hollywood thinks, and it wouldn't surprise me to see them pull something like this.

But, I also think that Nolan is a better filmmaker than that, and wouldn't do it. It's all speculation at this point, as we don't even know if this rumor is even true or not.

But why should the "right actor for the job" be from the Asian film market?

I guess what I'm trying to subtly hint at is that your arguments seem at odds with one another, and actually seem to form a sort of special pleading in which this one should take a different tack because reasons.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Oh, dear... must we, really?

There has been an Akira movie, in 1988. It was about as good as any Akira movie can reasonably be expected to be - in no small part because Otomo himself was directly involved - and still didn't do the manga justice.

Seriously, let go already, WB.

Well to be honest, having a trilogy would at least give more time to adapt the story. 2 hours vs. 7,5 hours is kind of a no-brainer when you think which one would have more space to adapt a manga that's so long you can beat people to death with individual volumes of it.

Eh, if we're bound to get a western adaptation of it, better at least pick a visually accomplished director. But really, making an Akira adaptation for western audiences would be like India making a film about the Holocaust. Its themes are strictly bound to Japan's history. The only way I could see this working is to take just the superficial aspects and the most vital things (like the experiments, gang violence and the insane climax), and make a completely different story out of it, at which point you might as well call it something else entirely.

 

[kazall]

But will it have a tesseract and Matt Damon?

 

[happyninja42]

Yes, if you're going to have it in America, then at least in the mind of Hollywood, that means it should have white actors. I'm not saying I don't understand their logic in this regard, I just don't like it. But, given the size of the Asian film industry, and how many Asian actors work today, I would find it unlikely that they couldn't get a cast of actors to accurately portray the ethnicity. Again, I'm assuming they will actually have the movie take place in Tokyo.

I'd like for them to be true to the source material, but I'm also a realist when it comes to how Hollywood thinks, and it wouldn't surprise me to see them pull something like this.

But, I also think that Nolan is a better filmmaker than that, and wouldn't do it. It's all speculation at this point, as we don't even know if this rumor is even true or not.

But why should the "right actor for the job" be from the Asian film market?

I guess what I'm trying to subtly hint at is that your arguments seem at odds with one another, and actually seem to form a sort of special pleading in which this one should take a different tack because reasons.

Where in the hell did you get that from what I said? I said two separate times I would rather they stick to the source material. How do you take that and twist it to say "I want them to have white actors" ? I pointed out what Hollywood does, and I pointed out that I would prefer that they stick to the source material. My point was that given the size of the Asian acting world, it should be pretty easy to find ethnically appropriate actors who could actually act the parts well. What I suspect Hollywood would do instead, is use white people instead, because that's just what they tend to do. The fact that they might pick white actors doesn't mean they are the right actors, that would be decided by the actual acting itself. If they did a good job, I would still like the movie. I wouldn't be 100% happy with the whitewashing, but if the end result was an actual GOOD adaptation of Akira, then I would at least appreciate that they did that part right. From the standpoint of "I would like to see more diversity in enterainment", I would be disappointed, but at least it wouldn't be something like The Last Airbender. Where they whitewashed the cast, AND made a shitty movie with shitty actors.

My bottom line is to make good product. Things like having the characters be as accurate as possible is a happy bonus, but it's not required. To me, the mindset that ONLY certain actors can play certain parts, because they match the description of the character, runs the risk of typecasting. Where we now only have say, gay actors playing gay characters, or only people who are mothers playing mother characters. Where there isn't any "acting" anymore, you are just being you on stage with a different name. To me that sort of undermines the idea of actors learning how to portray other people. I don't require people in my movies to accurately match their character 100%, as that makes things like Will Farrell and Adam Sandler, who only play the same character over and over, because that's basically who they are. Let actors play different roles, if they can actually play the role.

I'll use Sense8 as an example. A show I really enjoy, and the cast, in at least one certain character, is actually a transgender, playing a transgender character. I think that's great, and I'm glad she's got the job, but I wouldn't be mad if they just got a cisgender woman to play her. If all of the transgender women who auditioned were just simply shitty actresses, and the only actress who could portray the character right was the cisgender one, I think it's fair to hire that person. There is another character who is gay, but I don't know if the actor himself is gay. And I don't really care. He plays the character convincingly, and he's enjoyable to watch, and he does (I think) a good job of conveying the humanity and depth of a gay man who is in a socially difficult situation. Same thing with Akira. I would LIKE for them to be ethnically accurate, but if that means they end up shitting out a steaming turd of a movie, because they overlooked, or passed over actors who might have been better able to portray the character, then I think that is a loss to the entertainment industry. It makes shittier quality stuff, but hey, at least the cast is ethnically true right? That last sentence was said sarcastically, just to be clear.

Maybe that clarifies for you what I'm saying, if not, feel free to message me, I don't want to derail this thread any further from Akira.

 

[Dizchu]

Trying to remake Akira would reveal to everyone that Akira wasn't as good as we all remember, for reasons you've pretty much outlined.

Well the appeal of Akira to me is in terms of its production. The story is so-so, at least the way it was portrayed in the film.

You can't replace the hand-drawn cels of the original and the painstaking attention to detail without losing a key aspect of what made it so good. It's like remaking Jason and the Argonauts. Sure you can make something that's more technically impressive with modern technology and it'll probably look a thousand times better too. But it loses that charm of craftsmanship. Take a classic album from the 70s or 80s, re-record it with shiny new equipment. It might be clearer and flashier, but it loses that analog warmth and the cultural significance it had at the time.

I can understand updating really old films and games that were severely limited by the technology of the time, to the point where it was detrimental to the final product. But Akira is perfectly watchable as it is, so's Ghost in the Shell. While we're at it, so's Citizen Kane, the original Mad Max, the pre-special edition Star Wars, Koyaanisqatsi, Snow White. They all show their age but they haven't "lost" the qualities that made them good, either.

 

[Ogoid]

Well to be honest, having a trilogy would at least give more time to adapt the story. 2 hours vs. 7,5 hours is kind of a no-brainer when you think which one would have more space to adapt a manga that's so long you can beat people to death with individual volumes of it.

Eh, if we're bound to get a western adaptation of it, better at least pick a visually accomplished director. But really, making an Akira adaptation for western audiences would be like India making a film about the Holocaust. Its themes are strictly bound to Japan's history. The only way I could see this working is to take just the superficial aspects and the most vital things (like the experiments, gang violence and the insane climax), and make a completely different story out of it, at which point you might as well call it something else entirely.

Agreed. But thinking about it, I think even the most superficial aspects of it don't really lend themselves to live action.

I mean, even if they somehow managed to make all the gleefully over-the-top destruction convincing in CGI, Akira is absolutely soaked in 1980's manga aesthetics; I really can't see those working at all with real people, and I don't think you can have anything that so much as resembles Akira without them.

 

[FFHAuthor]

Meh. I've been hearing about a live action version of Akira for over a decade, I'll believe it when I see it.

But it's going to be whitewashed, anything original is going to be ironed out, and the entire point of the story and context is going to be lost because Japanese Culture in the 1970's and 1980's is radically different from American/ Western Culture in the year 2015. At best it's going to be a big budget Sci-Fi special effects extravaganza. At worst it's going to be another entry in Hollywood's book of misunderstandings "Well, they didn't like that so I guess viewers don't want to see that."