To be fair, it will be easier to follow...the question is, if it's anything like DragonBall Evolution or Airbender...Kitsuna10060 said:
...Do we want to?
Warner Bros. Officially Greenlights Live-Action Akira
- Thread starter Earnest Cavalli
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...Do we want to?
I have to say I'm curious how they're gonna do this, with all the mandatory crap movies have in them these days (hot female lead (she was ugly as hell, they all were); obvious love interest (least we forget they didn't kiss at all in the anime); PG-friendliness (yeah... No. The whole thing was sick).
That said, I kind of liked Akira. It was batshit crazy, but it was fun and the animation was very well made. Calling it a masterpiece, however, is like saying Nicholas Cage is the second coming of Jesus. Sure, he's kind of cool, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
That said, I kind of liked Akira. It was batshit crazy, but it was fun and the animation was very well made. Calling it a masterpiece, however, is like saying Nicholas Cage is the second coming of Jesus. Sure, he's kind of cool, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
For one simple reason: Nothing translates well between mediums. Film and animation are two very separate beasts. In animation, you can have 40 300 foot tall monsters fighting 40 300 foot tall robots, shooting lasers and nukes, for the same cost as 4 people eating lunch (I realize that's not entirely accurate, I'm using hyperbole). In film, even with the shittiest, outdated, free CGI technologies, you can't have a half-decent looking lizard. In addition, the characters and themes aren't very current, so instead of putting time and money into a faithful recreation/re-imagining it'll be an easier business decision to keep the name and make a different movie, because at the end of the day, it's all about money. Nobody gives a fuck about Akira at Warner head office. They simply don't. They are concerned with a solid opening weekend and nothing else.
Yeah i will happily admit that fist full of dollars is an exception, but the majority of remakes ive seen have been worse, but then they have remade some of the worlds classic films, so its hardly surprising.BonGookKumBop said:
But there are excepts to the rule, just not enough for me to see why they bother doing it still.
There are a couple of reasons why most people say Akira is incomprehensible. The first is that the original US dub of it, not to put too fine a point on it, sucked enormous donkey cock, and is pretty much the poster child of bad dubbing.Sir Shockwave said:
The second is that the film was made when the manga was still only 3/4 of the way through it's run, and therefore just sort of stops halfway, and still doesn't have time to explain a whole lot.
There's also the way that Japanese storytelling does not tend to feature much exposition. You are expected to pay attention and make sensible deductions from the facts on offer. (the midgets are a government experiment to recreate the powers of Akira, who they dissected. It is quite possible to discern this from the film, if you are paying attention and don't have the shitty dub version)
Akira was the first anime I watched, and I very much doubt I would be a fan without it. (This is probably true of most people my age from the UK, who would have had their first exposure when BBC2 showed Akira, subtitled no less because it was BBC2, back in '94. It managed to grab over a million viewers too, they made quite a big deal of it.)
As always I shall defer judgement untill I see the trailer...
Although if they hire that plank from Tron I'm going to lower my overall enthusiasm to near nil. CHRIS PINE is your man... He would have bumped Tron's imdb up a whole number single handedly had he played the lead in that movie...
I'm frankly more upset at the idea of an Oldboy remake... Can a film as iconic and crazy as that be remade?
Although if they hire that plank from Tron I'm going to lower my overall enthusiasm to near nil. CHRIS PINE is your man... He would have bumped Tron's imdb up a whole number single handedly had he played the lead in that movie...
I'm frankly more upset at the idea of an Oldboy remake... Can a film as iconic and crazy as that be remade?
I'm probably going to ruffle a few feathers by saying this but I feel that it just has to be said.
Akira is a terrible animated feature.
Not only is it terrible but anyone who has ever tried to make another human being sit down and watch it outside the nineties is a terrible, terrible person. In 1988 animation was the only medium of film available that could compentently deliver on that sort of spectacle and it did it on a reasonably modest budget as well. Quite a bit of anime relies far too heavilly on what they can animate at the expense of almost everything else and Akira isn't an exception. Of course the problem with spectacle is that it has a pretty limited shelf life, and I'm afraid after so many years the original animated film is pretty damn well rank.
No, I don't arbitrarily hate anime. I've just seen far too much of it to honestly say that I've liked all of what I've seen.
Akira is a terrible animated feature.
Not only is it terrible but anyone who has ever tried to make another human being sit down and watch it outside the nineties is a terrible, terrible person. In 1988 animation was the only medium of film available that could compentently deliver on that sort of spectacle and it did it on a reasonably modest budget as well. Quite a bit of anime relies far too heavilly on what they can animate at the expense of almost everything else and Akira isn't an exception. Of course the problem with spectacle is that it has a pretty limited shelf life, and I'm afraid after so many years the original animated film is pretty damn well rank.
No, I don't arbitrarily hate anime. I've just seen far too much of it to honestly say that I've liked all of what I've seen.
THAT was funny.Earnest Cavalli said:
I remember Akira from when I was 15. I liked the dirty/urban looking animation but the characters just pissed me off, they were all such dick heads. I dont even care if they were kids, I was rooting for the orbital laser beam. Also the way it ended for the girlfriend (whose name I forget) was sad timez which was well done I suppose. Still, give credit where do, it was a fore runner in bringing Anime to a larger western audience so im thankful to it and its creators.
I dont see the remake going well, thats all I got to say on the matter.
*Eye twitches*
*Vomits*
Is nothing sacred? Why not just remake every movie ever made and not produce new, original titles. Fuck effort!
*Vomits*
Is nothing sacred? Why not just remake every movie ever made and not produce new, original titles. Fuck effort!
Meh. Already saw the leaked script excerpts, so this just what I already figured would happen. Here's the basic rundown of the major points of alarm:
1. Takes place in America (not a problem in itself) and replaces the post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki symbolism with 9/11 allusions. Normally, I've no problem with an American setting being used for an originally foreign story, but this is deliberately cutting out and replacing a major cultural event with one of our own. Hell, most of the characters live in a 'Memorial Bunker' in New York.
2. The villains are condensed into mere 'corporations are evil' caricatures. Citizens have subdermal ID chips or something like that (the mark of any quasi-fascist corporation) and instead of a fight for basic survival like the original Akira, it follows the efforts of the protagonists trying to stop the evil corporation from...being profitable, I guess.
Oh, and did I mention that the head of this evil corporation has a posh British accent?
3a. All the characters are different. The two protagonists (Kaneda and Tetsuo) are now A) brothers B) in their early/mid thirties and C) are a cynical, sarcastic doctor and a trauma-ridden drug addict, respectively. The source I read this from made it clear that Kaneda reads almost exactly like Dr. House, which is about as far from the original character as a recasting of Mr. Miyagi with Ving Rames.
3b. The titular Akira: those of you familiar with the original Akira might remember him as...well, basically a young boy who's practically just as much a victim of his devastating powers as the actual victims. In the remake, he's basically a combinations of Alma from the F.E.A.R. series and the long-haired chick from The Ring. He's a non-character: just a convenient visual cue to explain why people are getting messily murdered on screen.
Oh, and besides the cold/detached creepy child thing, get this: he carries a worn stuffed animal, and hums fucking Frere Jacques as his stupid, creepy-child theme.
3c. The female lead has been what I can only describe as Megan Foxified: she's written into the script so ham-handedly as a piece of ass to put on tight clothing that it makes me wonder if Michael Bay isn't directing this film.
4. The End, spoiler free: if you saw the original Akira, you know that the original ending was rather...bleak. And if you didn't like all that subtext about the dangers of overstepping man's reach into the domain of gods, then the remake is for you! It involves a repentant villain, the power of love, and a sequel hook.
Yeah. This...this is horrific. I really think that Akira was a work of art and a reflection of the culture of its time, and remaking it like this is like remaking gutting so much of what made it what it was. This is Akira in the same sense that a man wearing the recently-skinned flesh of a guy named Bill is the original Bill.
1. Takes place in America (not a problem in itself) and replaces the post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki symbolism with 9/11 allusions. Normally, I've no problem with an American setting being used for an originally foreign story, but this is deliberately cutting out and replacing a major cultural event with one of our own. Hell, most of the characters live in a 'Memorial Bunker' in New York.
2. The villains are condensed into mere 'corporations are evil' caricatures. Citizens have subdermal ID chips or something like that (the mark of any quasi-fascist corporation) and instead of a fight for basic survival like the original Akira, it follows the efforts of the protagonists trying to stop the evil corporation from...being profitable, I guess.
Oh, and did I mention that the head of this evil corporation has a posh British accent?
3a. All the characters are different. The two protagonists (Kaneda and Tetsuo) are now A) brothers B) in their early/mid thirties and C) are a cynical, sarcastic doctor and a trauma-ridden drug addict, respectively. The source I read this from made it clear that Kaneda reads almost exactly like Dr. House, which is about as far from the original character as a recasting of Mr. Miyagi with Ving Rames.
3b. The titular Akira: those of you familiar with the original Akira might remember him as...well, basically a young boy who's practically just as much a victim of his devastating powers as the actual victims. In the remake, he's basically a combinations of Alma from the F.E.A.R. series and the long-haired chick from The Ring. He's a non-character: just a convenient visual cue to explain why people are getting messily murdered on screen.
Oh, and besides the cold/detached creepy child thing, get this: he carries a worn stuffed animal, and hums fucking Frere Jacques as his stupid, creepy-child theme.
3c. The female lead has been what I can only describe as Megan Foxified: she's written into the script so ham-handedly as a piece of ass to put on tight clothing that it makes me wonder if Michael Bay isn't directing this film.
4. The End, spoiler free: if you saw the original Akira, you know that the original ending was rather...bleak. And if you didn't like all that subtext about the dangers of overstepping man's reach into the domain of gods, then the remake is for you! It involves a repentant villain, the power of love, and a sequel hook.
Yeah. This...this is horrific. I really think that Akira was a work of art and a reflection of the culture of its time, and remaking it like this is like remaking gutting so much of what made it what it was. This is Akira in the same sense that a man wearing the recently-skinned flesh of a guy named Bill is the original Bill.
...if your goal was only to "ruffle a few feathers," your word choice seems to indicate that you're trying to burn down the whole tree to get at the bird's nest.Paradoxrifts said:
Wait...that your objective reason for saying that A) it's terrible and B) continued fans are terrible people for being fans? You said that anime in the 80s was used to create spectacle, but then you said that this somehow automatically detracts from everything else...and then didn't list anything that it actually detracted from.Paradoxrifts said:
Got some examples, maybe?