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Crap. Forgive the self reply. I've no idea how I let Dark Horse Motion Comics slip my mind.

There is alot about Ghost in the Shell that defintely won't make it to theatres. It's like trying to make 4chan into a movie and not mentioning /b/. You just can't do it.
Masamune Shirow's work is great but if you've read the Dark Horse comic import (esp. Man-Machine Interface), things get very explict.

Secondly, Spielberg knows about as much about anime as most kids do about Naruto: NOTHING!

Anime fan's should know that somewhere between Japan and America, censorship puts Anime and Manga back on the barge to Japan.

If Spielberg wants to woo anime fans, he is going to have to do a better job than he did with Transformers.

He should make right all that he done and work on a project that has been in development hell for nearly a decade. (The following sentence is going to piss off alot of folks but he's got to do it.) He should work on the Neon Genesis Evangelion project. Since Robin Williams is a huge Eva fan, that takes care of finding one star willing to work on such a project.

In order for Spielberg to win back audiences, he needs to go back to what he did when he directed Jaws, Jurrasic Park, and Saving Private Ryan. He needs to get his hands dirty and start breaking the rules that Hollywood and the MPAA have restricted films from being: Outstanding. He needs to do what Ridley Scott did in movies like Alien or Blade Runner, the Wachowski Brothers did in movies such as The Matrix.

Hollywood is very afraid to go black, dark, or brooding. They are also frighten by cutures outside of the Western lifestyle. What Spielberg needs to do is tell Hollywood "I'm not afraid to cross the line and neither should you! And a bunch of Midwestern Biblethumpers who secretly have BSDM fetishes that the cover up with 'family values' bullsh*t is not going to stop me from making this movie the way Masamune Shirow, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, or whoever else envisioned it and what his fans want from me!"

-FL

well maybe contact [imdb.com], but contact comes second in my mind to blade runner

Contact is definitely first in my list, because of the "my daddy is an alien" and "your mind can't bear how we actually look" cop-out ending.

You gotta be very brave to masterfully build suspence for hours in this otherwise great movie, and end with daddy talking condescendingly to the main protagonist "honey, you're too stupid to even have a look at me".

I mean, what the hell could they be? Really ugly fat green gelatinous blob monster? Seen that. Gaseous purple clouds? Seen that, too (although the comic version looks kinda different).

I mean WHAT, what the hell did it look like? Maybe they all looked like middle-aged average dads and this is why all the lies. Outer space jerks.

Remember, there are 8 months of un-accounted for time between the series and the movie.

The Trade Paperback of the 3 Serenity comics by Dark Horse is coming out 2/01/06

http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=1 0-759

I think that the recent launch of the Penny Arcade book, Penny Arcade Volume 1: Attack of the Bacon Robots! is more the point of the article than the transcript of last September's MIT visit.

I'd suggest watching the first movie, then looking into the first manga (comic) for more information and some extra cool bits on the whole GITS universe.
Author's notes at the end of the manga alone are worth the trip. :P

After that, well... you could read the second manga - GITS 2 Man Machine Interface, or watch the second movie. Both will probably require repeated watching/reading because all of the philosophical and "over the head for average audience" part to be understood completely.

Keep in mind that movies were based on manga, they are not an exact copy of the manga to the screen. On one level there is much more in manga, and on the other there is a lot more in anime.
Plus, GITS manga is Shirow's original work, while the movies are mostly under influence of Mamoru Oshii, the director. So... they will represent a bit different images of the same world.

Now, GITS Stand Alone Complex and GITS Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG are exactly that - stand alone GITS universe, with its own story.
They are a not directly connected to the movie or the manga. Some of the same issues are discussed, and some parts are almost identical, but it is a story of its own.

-Small spoiler warning-

Near the end of 2nd series, they tried to kind of connect the events in the first manga with the GITS SAC universe, so you should recognise some events and characters in the end of 2ng GIG from GITS the movie and even more if you have read the manga.
But again, its a separate universe, so what happened in the manga does not have to happen in the series. ;)

A small advice.

Watch the subbed version.
a - voice actors are better.
b - voice actors are the same for all of the GITSes. So, when major Motoko Kusanagi appears in the second movie, it IS her. A different body with only her voice - but its Motoko.

Oh.. and Yoko Kanno's music in the series... Excellent!

Both mangas are available from Dark Horse Comics.
http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=1 0-029
http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=1 3-288

The third manga ( GITS 1.5 ) which is actually original GITS manga stories, not published before outside Japan, will also be published by Dark Horse later this year.

I'd suggest watching the first movie, then looking into the first manga (comic) for more information and some extra cool bits on the whole GITS universe.
Author's notes at the end of the manga alone are worth the trip. :P

After that, well... you could read the second manga - GITS 2 Man Machine Interface, or watch the second movie. Both will probably require repeated watching/reading because all of the philosophical and "over the head for average audience" part to be understood completely.

Keep in mind that movies were based on manga, they are not an exact copy of the manga to the screen. On one level there is much more in manga, and on the other there is a lot more in anime.
Plus, GITS manga is Shirow's original work, while the movies are mostly under influence of Mamoru Oshii, the director. So... they will represent a bit different images of the same world.

Now, GITS Stand Alone Complex and GITS Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG are exactly that - stand alone GITS universe, with its own story.
They are a not directly connected to the movie or the manga. Some of the same issues are discussed, and some parts are almost identical, but it is a story of its own.

-Small spoiler warning-

Near the end of 2nd series, they tried to kind of connect the events in the first manga with the GITS SAC universe, so you should recognise some events and characters in the end of 2ng GIG from GITS the movie and even more if you have read the manga.
But again, its a separate universe, so what happened in the manga does not have to happen in the series. ;)

A small advice.

Watch the subbed version.
a - voice actors are better.
b - voice actors are the same for all of the GITSes. So, when major Motoko Kusanagi appears in the second movie, it IS her. A different body with only her voice - but its Motoko.

Oh.. and Yoko Kanno's music in the series... Excellent!

Both mangas are available from Dark Horse Comics.
http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=1 0-029
http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=1 3-288

The third manga ( GITS 1.5 ) which is actually original GITS manga stories, not published before outside Japan, will also be published by Dark Horse later this year.

They're published by Dark Horse Comics so you can find them there. It's where I got mine.

Or perhaps like this?

Each of the three issue is available with three different covers. I pre-ordered them all. Was hoping to be reading issue one tonight, actually, but the post office apparently wants me to wait until Monday. In the meantime, Dark Horse does have a preview online.

http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=1 2-882

...The Escapist (http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku= 12-882) from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. It's a great book, you should read it...(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/ -/0312282990/ref=pd_sxp_f/002-6535993-6624867?v=gl ance&s=books)

Honestly, I don't see why this is news. This is virtually how ALL comic artists and companies came into exsistence. The great thing about comics is that they are relatively cheap to produce (not including the time required to write and draw them). Almost ALL comic book companies started as small independent publishers "bucking the system." What makes these companies big is the quality of their content. And certainly, there are a LOT of crappy comics out there. But there are a good number of small, quality comics publishers out there, and new ones are created every day. Popular indie favorites are Top Shelf, Monkeysuit, Dark Horse, and Fantagraphics, among others. In June, check out the MoCCA show in NYC, or the SPX show in September, for two big conventions celebrating indie comic publishers. The overall level of quality never ceases to amaze me.

So, will Serenity jab Fox in the side for more episodes? My wife and I just got done renting the DVD's, and were shattered when we realized it's abrupt end.

There's a 3 issue comic from Dark Horse coming this summer and a movie by Universal released sept.30, though some lucky browncoats got to see it already in preview screenings.

The future will be decided when the movie is out.

Which approach is better?

I can remember first reading about this fusion concept in the "the two faces of tomorrow" from Dark Horse comics. At the time I thought this was just some ancient sci-fi writer's relic idea on how to achieve fusion, we had tokamak (donut) magnetic fusion reactors now. However, after I read about the real life version of it, I first thought WOW and after that I realized that it might be much simpler to ignite a fusion reaction and then back off to let it run wild than to try to contain a fusion reaction in a magnetic bubble. The concept sounds simpler. They're having trouble with manufacturing the hydrogen pellet however, so the tokamak reactor might have a steadier flow of energy coming out of it if they get the concept to work smoothly.

old-energy corporations

Oil, gas and coal companies might not want this to work. I remember the piece in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" about the corporate spy who told his own story. I think he came clean out of guilt over what he'd done in the past. Point I'm trying to make is, there might be a lot of opposition to this project and I hope that they have a lot of security on site. They probably have because this is mostly a military project.

The need for fusion

I do think earth will eventually need fusion reactors, at least the USA needs it. Earth can source it's current level of energy consumption from wind, wave and solar plants if we clad most of the planet with these kind of renewables but it would not be as efficient as a lot of fusion plants. The giant solar tower in Australia and the Sterling motor solar plants look promising but fusion reactors would need less room. A lot of countries just don't have the living space to fill with low producing plants like solar and wind farms. That's what I understand from reading a lot of articles. Fusion would also work on a windless cloudy day and a world filled with fusion reactors would give us a lot more energy to play with than a world filled with other kinds of plants. With oil supplies running out, there will be more wars. To think that politicians ares still fighting over where the ITER tokamak fusion reactor prototype is going to be built (Japan or France) is unbelievable. Every hour they waste could mean a human life they could have saved by preventing an energy war. The bastards responsible should be jailed.

Ridicule of sci-fi

The "The Two Faces of Tomorrow" comic made me realize that we need more science-fiction in our lives. It's weird that sci-fi isn't more popular because it can help us think up solutions to problems that absolutely need to be solved. Humankind would be dead meat if science stopped completely this second. Most people would die without even an animal skin or a house to protect themselves from weather. Fusion is just the continuation of the process that gave us bear skins.

I think it can be explained psychologically. If you don't have knowledge of something like science, it's a good tactic for you personally to ridicule it. That way you can still keep some of your social status because the thing you don't know about is "not important anyway". I hear there are a lot of attacks on science in the USA, are these attackers also renouncing clothes? Ofcourse this phenomenon is everywhere but why is it so big in the US? Not as smart? More fundamentalist? Both? I want every smart person on earth to realize that they are more in the right than fundamentalists who oppose science or stupid people with more determination to make themselves heard. Don't cower, ridicule THEM instead.

July 6, 2005

http://darkhorse.com/search/search.php?frompage=us erinput&sstring=serenity

Can be found in the comic books adaptation of sith, by darkhorse... Judging by the plot I read in these magazines and what I have been reading this movie will be worth watching... I already got my midnight tickets and I am looking at my list of excuses to see which one is next, since I got "the phantom flu" a few years back

Meh.

They already come for the bears. I don't think this would attract much more attention. Too big to go after hand-to-hand and where's the fun in just killing a Dinosaur with a plasma rifle combine this with Jack Horner's theory that they were scavangers and I think they don't add any real marginal risk.

God I am *such* a fucking geek.

Pretty pictures, pretty girls, and entirely empty. At least The Matrix was filled with something which captured the imagination; was filled with human reactions.

Pretty pictures, pretty girls, and entirely empty. At least The Matrix was filled with something which captured the imagination; was filled with human reactions.

The last thing you want is a hacker breaking into your brain and controlling you.

Of course, if manga isn't your thing I guess Shirow wouldn't be much fun to read.

Dreamworks announced a while ago that they would be giving GITS: Innocence a spring 2004 release (april, i think they said, but i don't have a link to that reference).

And what do you mean by Stand Alone Complex manga? Do you mean GITS2: Man-Machine Interface?

That's not true.

The first AvP Comic was released on Nov. 1, 1989, and appeared in "Dark Horse Presents" before that.

Predator 2 was released over a year later, on Nov. 21, 1990.

-lw

http://www.darkhorse.com/products/profile.html?sku =91166

IIRC the first AvP encounter happened in a short story in one of the Alien series books from 1988 (but that MAY be a complete fabrication on my part).

http://www.darkhorse.com/products/pg_profile/sku_9 1044/sec_products/sub_pubdate/index.html

Heh, yeah right. Lucas and Ford have kept wistfully remarking that "yeah, we'd like to do a fourth movie one of these days, that'd be great" for 15 years now without ever getting around to it.

In the meantime, Harrison Ford has reached retirement age and isn't getting any younger. Sorry, folks; I'm afraid various video games and comic books are as close to "Indy 4" as we're going to see.

I've only seen a few anime films in my time. One of them (The Ghost in the Shell) I liked immensely. On the other end of the spectrum, a friend loaned me Dragonhalf recently and I couldn't get through more than about fifteen seconds of it. The high-pitched, squeaky voices drove me insane. My friend loved it, though.

Even though I didn't know that it was in some special category at the time, I was an addicted watcher of Speed Racer when I was a kid. It wasn't until I saw a clip of it on Cartoon Network that I realized it was anime.

I would love to see more animated films with the quality of Final Fantasy and a story line that appeals to someone over 18. Actually, that's not a good way to put it, because my wife and I really enjoy the animated films that Hollywood keeps cranking out like Shrek and Monsters, Inc.. But I sure would like to see something like Matt Wagner's Grendel on the big screen, particularly War Child.

There's just something about the medium of animation that allows artists to do things that can't be done well in live action yet, such as zero-G work (though they're getting better at it). And, at that, the latest installment of Star Wars was mostly animated.

Battery dying. Gotta run... Cheers.

For some time now! Behold and drool over another preview/interview.

More info on the sequel:

Dark Horse Comics

--
ekrout

1. The Akira animated film was an adaptation of the far-superior manga epic. (The film could only squeeze about 1/4 of the full story into the two-hour format).
2. Despite its divergence from the original format/story, the film still kicked ass. There's no reason that a further adaptation to a different format won't also be successful (Actually, based on what I've read about LoEG and my knowledge of Hollywood in general, there are several, but I'm willing to reserve my judgment until I see it).
3. Read the original Series! 6 hefty volumes of insanity, drugs, mass destruction, and clown gangs. If you are lucky, your local library might even have it (request it if they don't).

...GameCube would be Marvel: continuously re-introducing old popular titles in the hope that old fans with new incomes will buy them and restore the company's fortunes.

...Sega would be Image: beautiful graphics time after time, but slow to realize that's not enough to keep them from crashing and burning.

...Sony would be Vertigo: late to the party, but chock-full of great stories with some truly radical, if not entirely beautiful, graphics.

...Microsoft would Dark Horse: rather than creating anything great on their own, buy up everyone else's popular ideas and market the hell out of them.

There is a Buffy comic book series already, as well as one called 'Fray' which is pretty similar. Ripper has been in the works for some time (this is why Giles left BTVS this season).

No one does good vs evil better than Joss Whedon, IMHO.

There is a Buffy comic book series already, as well as one called 'Fray' which is pretty similar. Ripper has been in the works for some time (this is why Giles left BTVS this season).

No one does good vs evil better than Joss Whedon, IMHO.

For those interested in the manga on which the film was based, Dark Horse Comics has been finally reprinting (for the first time since Marvel released the colorized version) the entire series in nice chunky volumes. Very cool! Check it out!

Some of you may remember the Epic Comics release of Akira back in the 80's that Hemos referenced... Well, Dark Horse Comics has gotten the rights to this fantastic series, and is going to reprint the entire run, in the form of six HUGE trade paperbacks. Granted, these are not in color, (the original japanese version wasn't either, I think..) but they have a new, more accurate and understandable translation than the Epic run.

Dark Horse is also publishing Trade Paperbacks of the truly awesome Lone Wolf and Cub, another comic that was all over the place in the 80's. This one is the complete, in-order run. (And its supposed to be on the order of 6000+ pages long!) Dark horse is bringing it to america in its a original, paperback-sized format that it was released in Japan. Both of these are not to be missed, and are worth every penny.

Some of you may remember the Epic Comics release of Akira back in the 80's that Hemos referenced... Well, Dark Horse Comics has gotten the rights to this fantastic series, and is going to reprint the entire run, in the form of six HUGE trade paperbacks. Granted, these are not in color, (the original japanese version wasn't either, I think..) but they have a new, more accurate and understandable translation than the Epic run.

Dark Horse is also publishing Trade Paperbacks of the truly awesome Lone Wolf and Cub, another comic that was all over the place in the 80's. This one is the complete, in-order run. (And its supposed to be on the order of 6000+ pages long!) Dark horse is bringing it to america in its a original, paperback-sized format that it was released in Japan. Both of these are not to be missed, and are worth every penny.