Keanu Reeves Negotiating for Lead Role in Akira

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Ensiferum

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Apr 24, 2010
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NONONONONO! If ever there was an anime movie that does NOT need an American remake, Akira is it. Why, just why do this, the original is a PERFECTLY GOOD AND FINE MOVIE AND DOES NOT WARRANT BEING REMADE! Half of the appeal of the original IS the animation itself; it was BREAKTHROUGH for its time.

Ah well next we'll have a live action version of Ghost in the Shell or Cowboy Bebop, so I'm not even sure why I bother....
 

kurokotetsu

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Sep 17, 2008
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OutrageousEmu said:
to make the characters more relateable by not making them in their mid-teens, to make the events more understandable by grounding them in a more universal tragedy instead of an event that was only a tragedy for the Japanese
Teo things.

having a character in their mid-teens doesn't say anything about how relatable it is. It depends on how well written the character is more than anything.

And are you kidding me? Universal tragedy? Talk about being egocentrical. As neither Japanese nor American (Mexican and Spanish nationalities), Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem like bigger and more universal tragedies. More lifes were lost, and simply that reason is enough to make them more heart felt. Also, they were a bigger game changer for the world, as terrorism is a big thing, but the threat of global destruction by the hand of the human race makes a bigger impact (and the Cold War lasted half a centry, almost, so not even in time is the war on terror in the same scale). Also, long term consquences and deformities are in a larger radious and to more people, even unborn children, still make the atomic bombs a bigger trafedy. The only thing that the Towers have is that they are more recent, but in almost every other astpect, to a citizen of the world, the atomic bombs are more of a tragedy. Sorry to break the news, but a tragedy to the USA isn't a tragedy to the world. It even has non-human consequences like the fact that carbon dating isn't possible for artifacts after the event.

And I don't really care about Keanu's casting. I wasn't going to see the film and I'm not going to change my opinion. I hate that Hollywood feels the need to adapt every single famous foreign movie to Ameircan audiences. They usually suck.
 

The Grim Ace

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*bangs head against keyboard continuously* Why the hell must this be?!?! Akira is one of my favorite mangas and the amount of Americanization that's been thrown at this adaptation is terrible enough. The possibility of Keanu is just every kind of worse. Just leave the plot intact or -- even better -- the Akira movie was already great and doesn't need a live action remake.

Clearly the Japanese need to take vengeance against a beloved American film if this happens. I'd say make a Japanese version of The Godfather but that actually sounds like a good idea. Maybe a Japanese version of Easy Rider would drive the point home?
 

kurokotetsu

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Sep 17, 2008
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OutrageousEmu said:
kurokotetsu said:
OutrageousEmu said:
to make the characters more relateable by not making them in their mid-teens, to make the events more understandable by grounding them in a more universal tragedy instead of an event that was only a tragedy for the Japanese
Teo things.

having a character in their mid-teens doesn't say anything about how relatable it is. It depends on how well written the character is more than anything.

And are you kidding me? Universal tragedy? Talk about being egocentrical. As neither Japanese nor American (Mexican and Spanish nationalities), Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem like bigger and more universal tragedies. More lifes were lost, and simply that reason is enough to make them more heart felt. Also, they were a bigger game changer for the world, as terrorism is a big thing, but the threat of global destruction by the hand of the human race makes a bigger impact (and the Cold War lasted half a centry, almost, so not even in time is the war on terror in the same scale). Also, long term consquences and deformities are in a larger radious and to more people, even unborn children, still make the atomic bombs a bigger trafedy. The only thing that the Towers have is that they are more recent, but in almost every other astpect, to a citizen of the world, the atomic bombs are more of a tragedy. Sorry to break the news, but a tragedy to the USA isn't a tragedy to the world. It even has non-human consequences like the fact that carbon dating isn't possible for artifacts after the event.

And I don't really care about Keanu's casting. I wasn't going to see the film and I'm not going to change my opinion. I hate that Hollywood feels the need to adapt every single famous foreign movie to Ameircan audiences. They usually suck.
You really don't understand the concept of war, do you?

I think its at the point where you say the suffering of an Axis power is more relatable than the WTC attacks that you just don't understand, well, anything about human beings.
What I understand is that people died. People that where doing the same thing, working for their country. That they were tha Axis of USA or whateer I don't care. They were not soldiers, they were civillians that died. Be it Dresden or London, Hiroshima or the WTC, I mourn the deaths. More relatable? They were more dead people, so I mourn more. They were no less and no more than other peopole because they were on the Axis or not. Sad that you can't see it, but I will not argue with a man that can't see that. Keep seeing things in terms of "they were evil" or "they diserved it", but I will mourn for the dead. Say what you will about me. I don't care for the words of such an egocentrical man. (Also, the muslim fundamentalisthave been in war for a long time, if that is the point the WTC is only an act of war).

And don't say universal, in teh rest of the world we don't care that much for the USA as you seem to beleive.
 

fulano

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theultimateend said:
unabomberman said:
Uh...I dunno about this. Akira has always been like Harry Potter: a story about dumbass kids.
I liked both (the latter more than the former, I know I know) but I must say that is a pretty solid review.
It's all about personal predilection mein freund. Either way, if they somehow managed to make it a grown up version of Akira then that would rock, but I doubt it. Pulling a Departed is gonna be hard (that film was an adaptation of not one but three Hong-Kong films).
 

Reaper195

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To hell with Keanu, why the hell is anyone making an Akira movie? I watched it a few months ago after my flatnate pestering me that I've seen the Matrix movies, a bunch of other anime and not this. So I got it on DVD aaaaaaand it's gone. In the goddamn bin. None of the characters were interesting, the plot made about as much sense as why people listen to Justin Bieber, and the last half hour of that move was so fucking weird I was surprised no one was actually raped on-screen by...whatever the hell that thing was.

Animation was nice though.
 

VondeVon

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OutrageousEmu said:
Was it shockingly racist when the cast of The Karate Kid got replaced by an african american kid and a cast made up of Chinese people?
I'm not sure The Karate Kid was quite so racially strict, though. It felt much more like a generic 'American youth gains wisdom and strength from an Asian martial arts master' story to me. Which is essentially exactly what the latest Karate Kid delivered.

I dunno. When it comes to Anime remakes, my general rule of thumb is 'if the character's last name indicates a particular race, try and cast within that race'. This isn't absolute, of course, but considering how many talented actors there are in the world, surely it's not a terribly difficult thing to try and do.

And if you can't find that perfect Japanese guy? Well, branching out to Chinese or Korean actors is no different than a German or British actor slapping on an American accent for an American role, right?

In the end, I wouldn't actually mind Keanu Reeves being the actor, so long as they actually tried to source an Asian actor first.
 

lettucethesallad

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Nov 18, 2009
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I can _kiiinda_ see Joseph Gordon-Lewitt in the role, but that's pushing it. Keanu? Sorry Sad Keanu, can't make you happy by agreeing with this today.
 

roguetrooper96

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King Crab said:
at this point it doesn't even matter. go on, get justin bieber as tetsuo and just be done with it.
Now now I still have my faith in...

Arslan Galeyev said:
This + the fact that Mr. Reeves is going to play Spike Spiegel in the Cowboy Bebop Live Action film just undermines my faith in humanity entirely...
Wait where did my faith just go?!?
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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OutrageousEmu said:
Gingernerd said:
Maybe it would be a good idea to leave this in the hands of the Japanese. And if it's there choice not to blemish an almost perfect anime/ manga with an unecessary Live Action, then so be it.
"almost perfect"? Its one of the most generically japanese things I've read in years. People can mock it for changing the symbolism to 9/11, but trust me, there is no way it could be less subtle than the original was about being about Nagasaki and Hiroshima. "But those were major events in Japanese history" I hear you say. Yeah, cause there was nothing remotely signifigant about 9/11.

Well in that case wouldn't it be better to make a movie about an alternative history where the world dove into nuclear war, starting with the War on Terrorism after September 11 and tell the story about two of the survivors in the ruins of New York? Therefore you don't have to put up with Anime's worse fans, you save the trouble of translating the themes from the Japanese manga and you can cast whomever you want.

I'm a fan of Akira, and I'm pretty sure that this adaptation would suffer severe decay to the point where it would be a waste of money and time for the people making it and would please no one.
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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OutrageousEmu said:
Gordon_4 said:
OutrageousEmu said:
Gingernerd said:
Maybe it would be a good idea to leave this in the hands of the Japanese. And if it's there choice not to blemish an almost perfect anime/ manga with an unecessary Live Action, then so be it.
"almost perfect"? Its one of the most generically japanese things I've read in years. People can mock it for changing the symbolism to 9/11, but trust me, there is no way it could be less subtle than the original was about being about Nagasaki and Hiroshima. "But those were major events in Japanese history" I hear you say. Yeah, cause there was nothing remotely signifigant about 9/11.

Well in that case wouldn't it be better to make a movie about an alternative history where the world dove into nuclear war, starting with the War on Terrorism after September 11 and tell the story about two of the survivors in the ruins of New York? Therefore you don't have to put up with Anime's worse fans, you save the trouble of translating the themes from the Japanese manga and you can cast whomever you want.

I'm a fan of Akira, and I'm pretty sure that this adaptation would suffer severe decay to the point where it would be a waste of money and time for the people making it and would please no one.
You can't just reject a movies right to exist based on there hypothetically being a better one doing something else, thats the perfect solution fallacy applied to movies.
I just honestly thought it would be a simpler process for the writers and seem less of a money risk by the studio. Instead of adapting something that really is very Japanese, make something from the ground up from the Western perspective. Means a lot less hassle I would have thought.

I'm open to the idea that this would actually be a success; I mean stranger things have happened in my lifetime so I'd like to be surprised but I won't hold my breath.
 

Zing

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Oct 22, 2009
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I've never read/watched that anime. But unless the character is an emotionless wooden plank, Reeves is bad for the part.
 

Nihilism_Is_Bliss

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Oct 27, 2009
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This will fail.
1. Overrated movie
2. Feels too Japanese for me to think it'd go over well for a general western audience without straying severely from the original.
3. They're gonna pitch it at kids...which is going to fail. Anybody who's seen Akira will agree with this, also, point 2 again.

Also...why adult actors for the main role? He's supposed to be ~15years old. They're obviously planning on deviating a lot.

Lucifron said:
Akira and Cowboy Bebop...

Just kill me now.
And Trigun! Mustn't forget Trigun!
Oh and I heard they're trying Bleach. Bleach isn't really a classic like the others, but the fail will be hilarious.

And is my memory playing tricks, or do I remember them announcing a western bastardisation of GITS?

Unless you were making reference to the fact Reeves is in both. But still, they're ruining everything.