Slashdot Mirror
Live-Action Remake of Akira
GusherJizmac writes "Looks like Warner Bros. is looking to remake classic anime, Akira, as a live
action feature-length film. Will current computer generated special effects be enough to bring this masterpiece to life?" We touched on this earlier, but now it looks closer to production, since Norrington has finished shooting for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
no way this can ever be as good as the anime. there's something about anime that just can't be done right with live-action and real actors.
zing
the actors will have to be very good at stressed-out grunting and making their *grrrrrrr* faces. on the bright side, anna nicole smith can play tetsuo when he grows into that blob in the stadium.
Wow, this is one DVD I wouldn't mind seeing bastardized via DRM. The fewer people who see this the better.
What will the cash cows think of next? I mean this is just an attempt to capitalize on an already successful movie. In other words, no matter how shitty this movie is a lot of people will go to see it anyway. And it will probably be pretty bad....
All apologies to the CGI geniuses out there, but there is no way in hell your graphics will match the insanity that was Akira.
Akira isn't just a movie, it's a work of art. There are just some things that don't translate from comic books to live action, and at the bottom of that list is Akira.
You can get it on Kazaa or Morpheus...
"In the process, the biker must do battle with anti-government activists, greedy politicians and irresponsible scientists."
How about dealing with the societal and ethical impacts of forced and natural evolution and experimentation? Or maybe I was watching a different movie...
Think about it a second. Making an animation from live action probably that bad. For example, the Star Trek cartoons told their stories as well as the original live action TV series. It's also not hard to imagine Planet of the Apes as a cartoon.
But going back the other way? It gives me the willies. There's so much that can be lost, and it's just a hard problem in general. It's a little like a cryptographic one way function. Easy to compute y = f(x), but coming up with x = f(y) is hard.
Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape
...that makes us have to redo a cartoon as live action? I just don't get it. The rest of the world doesn't view cartoons as just something for the Saturday morning kiddies, but here if you watch anime, most people look at you like you have two heads.
It would actually be nice if Disney would just release all of those old Japanese Anime titles they bought up as DVD's with English Sub and Dub tracks. Instead they bastardize them into some multi million dollar flop. *sigh*
- No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades really cramps his style.
If there was ever a bad idea, this has got to take the cake. Possibly the only way to make a better movie than the original anime is to do a trilogy that goes into greater depth and goes back to the original comics for material.
"League," set in a version of Victorian-era England where fictional characters like Dr. Jekyll, Capt. Nemo and Allan Quartermain band together to fight crime for the queen, is scheduled for a summer 2003 release via Twentieth Century Fox.
Do we really want this guy to do Akira?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
I hope they are doing this one better than that poor Tomb Raider movie. Jon Voight's daughter, whatever is her name, just did not have large enough boobs to be Lara Croft. And the plot was a real sleep inducer. By the time any really interesting F/X hit the screen, I couldn't hear the soundtrack over the snoring.
That's going to be one bloody movie. I swear there was more blood and guts in Akira than any other movie I've ever seen (granted there are worse out there, but I'm not about to see them). I think I'll just stay away from this version. Akira won't be the same without the gore, and I won't be the same after seeing it again. Thanks, but no thanks.
"No manual entry for woman."
I don't think messing up anime into films is a good idea.. The only thing good i can think of that is that it will get greater exposure, but as in the case of Dragon Ball Z, Pokémon, and countless other victimized animes, is this really what we want? These animes were just fine until some media exec decided to pay the language translation & dubbing people the minimum wage..
I argue for animation because I believe it provides an additional dimension for film art; it frees filmmakers from the anchor of realism that's built into every live-action film, and allows them to visualize their imaginations. Animation need not be limited to family films and cheerful fantasies. The Japanese have known that for years....
The thought of what a live action Akira might be like scares me.
"I've been a fan of the anime for many years and understood which elements would have to be brought to a live-action translation of it," Robinson told Daily Variety.
I really hoped that the interviewer would have asked Robinson if he read the manga, because the manga is epic compared to the movie. A lot of first time viewers, and rightly so, complained that alot of Akira didnt make sense. And thats because it was a movie that that tried to capture a story the size of the Bible in just two hours. I really dont see how he can stay true to Akira if he never read the manga, and from his comments, he gives no indication that he has. Personally I think the money could have been much better spent creating a high quality Akira animated series, like the GITS2 series being made now.But then again hollywood is going ape over superhero movies, and they figure they should give anime/manga a shot, but for a live action movie, especially for the first anime live action American movie, I think Ghost in the Shell would have been a better fit. It would have been much easier to accomplish visually, it is on many levels an equal to Akira, and it is certainly more understandle for the larger audience, even without reading Shirows manga.
On a personal note, if the movie does not contain the
"KANEDA!!"
"TETSUO!!"
"KANEDA!!"
shout sequence at the Olympic stadium then it isnt worth watching.
I'm still waiting for the live-action Overfiend series.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
And why do they think making it live action would be worthwhile? You don't buy anything by going that way, despite popular belief. If anything, you put more strain on the audience.
Look at Inspector Gadget, for example. A cartoon man with a telescoping neck is quite acceptable. But when you do that in live action, like in the Inspector Gadget movie, it's DISTURBING. It doesn't even look right! You start asking questions like "How can a hat possibly contain a helicopter?"
While I'm on the subject, let's talk about Video Game to Movie licensing: Any game brought to the screen should be ANIMATED. Nobody has ever wondered what Mario would look like as a live human. And now that we know that, we regret having that question answered.
Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck star as Tetsuo and Kaneda, who will for the purposes of this film be given wholesome American names such as "Mike" and "Richard" (In the final act, Mike makes a humorous observation that Richard's name can be shortened to Dick!)
The two high school football players who were wrongfully accused and placed in a boys home (Not that there's anything wrong with that) do battle with the evil Osama Bin Akira (Played by Vin Diesel). The battle results in the evil leader using his mind control powers to send Mike battling against democracy by channelling previous generations of communists through dark rituals involving Lenin and Satan.
In the end, Mike is brought back down to earth by Richard singing the national anthem over a loud speaker and waving old glory. The two have a long embrace and make a joke about how they love each other but aren't gay.
5 stars!
s200.org - visit it (me), love it (me).
Apparently, Will Wheaton will star, Natalie Portman will make a brief appearance (her first "full-frontal" scene), the special effects will be rendered on a Beowulf cluster of Ti notebooks running whatever the latest beta Linux kernel is available, a new character will be created who can only say the words, "cowboy" and "neil", and the movie will end with Yoda using the force to make the entire universe disappear.
Well between the all-star cast and the killer ending, I'd say we don't have much hope of any sequels...
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
A movie has both video and audio. I imagine that while the visuals will hard to improve on, we can look forward to an otherwise stimulating (more modern) soundtrack.
Wow. If you had included "BSD is dying," I could have gotten 100% of my recommended daily allowance of trolling by reading one easy comment.
That would have been cool.
I write in my journal
...if they keep the rape and bludgeoning of small deformed children
I wonder if they can get Mr Miagi to play the spazzed-out scientist?
Battle Angel Alita is also possibly going to become a movie (James Cameron possibly involved?). I think it has a better shot at being successful because at least that had sympathetic characters and a comprehensible plot.
At one level, this is true, there is no way that live-action can duplicate anime, but the re-creation of this classic is not about duplicating a piece of anime, but presenting a great story to an audience which would otherwise never experience it.
Also, providing conciencious marketing, attention can be drawn to the fact that the live-action version is based on an anime film, so it may draw new viewers for the original and perhaps anime as a whole.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
how about... "Wicked City"
If you concede that The Matrix was almost live-action anime, they might just be able to pull this off.
Think about the early chase sequence between the agent and Trinity. Now think about the chase late in the movie in the open-air market, complete with Ghost in the Shell-style exploding watermelons. They might just be able to make it happen.
I write in my journal
Not to troll, but why does Akira get all the attention that it does?
I enjoyed the film, found it interesting, but it did not "blow me away", like it seems to do for everyone else...
The animation was very well done, but other than that - I found the plot confusing, and that the characters were not developed enough. The main character was hardly introduced; it was difficult to get a feel for his character - his struggles, his motivations, etc. I have not read the manga, but from what I have heard, there is more depth to the story. (Granted there is only so much that can fit into two hours.)
I'm assuming that if this is actually done live-action, and especially if the western audience is kept in mind, many things will be changed - some for the better, some for the worse. In which case, more time may be spent developing character background. But, it also quite probable that the overall feeling may get lost in the translation even using computer graphics. Regardless, I'm still interested and will probably see it.
Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-anime. Miyazaki's films, especially US releases Princess Mononoke and My Neighbor Totoro, are some of the most amazing films I've seen.
I just haven't seen the fascination with Akira yet. Perhaps I may, if I read the multi-volume manga, and watched it again...
--
jason
I disagree. I find Angelina Jolie (cache names in my brain) to have quite ample tracts of land for the character. Hell, I'm sure Billy Bob felt the same way.
... If Mini Me will get a role ...
As far as I'm concerned, the Akira soundtrack is among the finest scores ever created for a film. It's quite perfect as the background discourse for the overall feel of the production.
Kaneda's bike - I've *got* to see the real thing!
We've already got the limited edition DVD of the animated Akira, so why not a live action? It'll be interesting to see what they can do. I just hope they have the budget to actually make a credible attempt.
Apparently they are going to be making Tetsuo and Kaneda brothers in the movie for some stupid reason.
Don't forget where the Wachowsky brothers got their inspiration from...MANGAs ! Now I agree that Akira is a work of art as anime but with the current technology at the hands of the right people this could really be something.
Tell me I'm not the only one who noticed the reference to Ghost in the Shell when agent Smith lands on top of the building on one knee with his gun pointing up as the roof cracks at the impact. That was a good example of a pure manga-style anime scene which looks quite good in live-action in fact if you watch the Matrix documentary its obvious that this was a Manga turned live-action and what a surprise...it was a major breakthrough.
People were saying the same thing about LOTR and that's not half as bad as people feared (even the hardcore fans of Tolkien). If we keep an open mind and judge this film for what it will be (not what we *think it will be* then we'll at least give them a chance to try and bring another dimension to Akira...I personally hope that it'll be as good as the Matrix in terms of effects and that we'll get that Manga/anime feeling that made the Matrix so different (for me anyway)
Everyman dies, not everyman really lives. -W.W
How about instead of making live action out of cartoons we do cartoon versions of live action movies.
Been done. In fact, they're doing a similar thing to the Matrix. I, for one, am looking forward to it.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Actually, the "League" comic book is a pretty good concept by Alan Moore (Writer of "Watchmen" - arguably one of the best comic books - and the "From Hell" comic books).
It's one of those indepth comic books and draws various literary characters from the Victorian-era. I mean, someone has even posted a panel-by-panel annotation for it. The second series has a martian invasion of earth similar to War of the Worlds.
So we really want this guy to do Akira? I don't know. But that doesn't mean you should dismiss the "League" concept so quickly.
Final thoughts.... Hopefully The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen won't be butchered like the "From Hell" movie. Hmm... IIRC, Sean Connery is going to be Allan Quartermain.
While I loved Akira, I don't think making a live action version will be a good idea. Let's go through the list of similar (near) failures:
1. Super Mario Brothers - Boy, didn't that one screw up. Only good thing about that movie was John Leguizamo, who is awesome no matter what.
2. Final Fantasy - While a good film in my opinion, it didn't do too hot at the box office. Not to mention the story could have been way better, and should have been more along the lines of classic FF.
3. Resident Evil - Good flick, but still didn't do too hot in theaters. Saving Graces: The ladies, of course. Hot hot HOT!
4. Tomb Raider - Too much Angelina Jolie. Good story, but could have been better. This one did OK at the box office, but still not _that_ big.
And here's the big one...
5. G Savior. I'm sure alot of you are saying "What the hell is G-Savior?" It was a live action attempt at a Gundam movie. And boy, did it tank. Not one mention of the word Gundam, and even less big robots blowing stuff up.
It's easy to see why a fan of a masterpiece like Akira wouldn't have their hopes set too high for a live action flick. If it does work, though, I'm sure we can expect to see alot more Anime translated to live-action. I can see Mononoke Hime, Ghost In The Shell, hell FUNimation might go for broke and try to do Live Action DBZ. Wouldn't that be interesting (and frightening).
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
disney has always made a point to release thier anime with subs and original voice track.
in my opinion, disney does a bang up job of bringing legitamacy to japanese anime in the USA. not only do they release these movies with superstar talent to bring attention to the picture, they always have maintained a steady release schedule.
i really dont see where you can call what they do 'bastardization'. there are very few above-par english dubs on anime, so them bringing thier own into the mix doesn't affect consumers.
if anything disney helps by exposes the art to a wider audience. good for them.
Two in particular that caught my attention.
1. Cris Rock playing Inspector Cleusau in a Pink Panther Remake.
2. A proposed remake of the classic caper film 'The Italian Job' set in Los Angeles!
Whoa!
Why would you 'remake' this classic? The Anime genre is as much about the style of the drawings as it is about the story. Remaking just the story part going to lose most of the appeal of the original. Sorry to say, but this looks like a typical Hollywood thing to do. I'm really a little upset about the stupidity of this project even though the final outcome might not be ... half bad.
"but other than that - I found the plot confusing, and that the characters were not developed enough. "
You haven't seen the restranslation. The original one was really, really shitty. You had to either get a fansub or know a bit of japanese to really enjoy it. The new retranslation that Pioneer has released is great. It's like a whole new movie!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
man no one here has any faith in hollywood. adn for good reason too! anyone see that shameful butching of "Fist of the North Star" live action deal? i damn near took a crap on my tv to show my distaste for that. And so with many things hollywood will make some cheesy cross between power rangers and godzilla which will only make anime that much more unatractive to the non anime watching crowd. Thanks hollywood for improperly using your galatic powers of influence adn mind control yet again. You do know that there is a special place in hell you yous guys for all of thecrap that you been putting out don't you? eh what does it matter just so long as you can make billions that you can't take with you when the reaper man comes for you riding tall on his mighty pale stead, Binky, you're happy right?
Yeah, you just know they're going to wreck Akira. Who knows, the Hollowood version might even make a whit of sense.. *BLASTPHEMY* !
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
we need live action akira like we need anime plan 9 from outer space...
akira looked "cool" but that was about it -- the story was total spaghetti.
I mean, Street Fighter was SUCH an awesome movie once they did the live action version of that.
How can it fail?!?! heh...
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
I am wondering why it is the fad of recent times to bring cartoons into Live Action. I for one, do *not* approve. In many cases, cartoons tell the story and character designs much better then live action could hope, unless they have huge budgets for computer graphics. Flintstones, for example, all the ways they had comparable technologies with their animals. The little elephant vaccumm cleaner... I feel bad for the actors, that have to stand and act with a blue screen actor, trying to imagine the blue guy actually looks a totally different... America should give cartoons more of a chance to be mature and for adults. In America's culture, it is so hard to find grown up plots and thoughts without sex and violence going along with it.
I don't want to change the music...I want to see an upgrade of the technical aspect of the audio in general. I love the OST myself, and I find no fault with the original audio. It was done well for the time.
Audio technology continues to improve and I'd like to see what can be done by today's standards. I see no reason to alter it other than technically.
As a fan, wouldn't you like to see a THX logo associated w/it? Right now it's DTS....how old is that?
How will they find actors with big enough eyes?
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I don't see this being done. Whatever Hollywood comes up with, good or bad, is going to be heavily compressed. Already people are saying that Tetsuo and Kaneda will be cast as brothers, which totally sidesteps the whole fraternity/pledge thing and replaces it with Saving Private Ryan.
Live action *could* be good. They could make the characters appropriately scary. As it stands, Kaneda's a goofball, and Tetsuo looks nine years old. In live action, they could give these characters some...oomph?
I doubt they will. In Hollywood, everything has to have neat moral meaning. Kaneda won't be slimy, just witty. The Marshal will start off distrusting his employers. Kei will stop being annoying and become literal. Tetsuo will probably have a redemption, at which point you are free to leave the theater, numb the pain with alcohol, and watch The Matrix and/or Fight Club for the 27th time.
The genius of Akira was the absence of clear answers. No single character had any idea what the fuck was going on. It was only when Tetsuo threatened the city that a bunch of people put aside their petty differences and focused on reality. Even then, some of them didn't.
Yet all their sudden goodwill couldn't save them from Tetsuo. They created an immature, ego-driven monster and it went right out of control . They had to open the bottle - Akira - to blow up the city and take away the evil for them.
Just like when we dropped the bomb.
The nuclear image frames the movie like a pair of bookends. The nuke, the "elephant in the room" for every Japanese debate about... self-worth, self-control, damn near everything.
For comparison, Saving Private Ryan is framed by scenes of old men paying their respects to fallen comrades. Awww...*sniffle* The bittersweet tears of the victor...competent, morally true, and assured an eventual victory. How nice for us. Ask the Japanese how they feel about themselves.
This project is comparable to Dune. Too much interplay of morally-neutral characters to do anything but pictoralize. Best-case scenario: Just as confusing as the original. Worst-case: Americanized.
I've been saying "Canada".
Why didn't anyone tell me? I've been making an ass out of myself.
Surprisingly, it played out extremely well as live action.
And with a story as compelling, thrilling, and entertaining as Akira, this *could* be an excellent film in the works, if it is done properly. I think good casting will play an important part, probably more so than the special effects. The Matrix did this right, they didn't get "good" actors, but they got the best actors for the parts.
We shall wait and see!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I'm thinking the clown gang could be played entirely by David Arquette and Jason Biggs. With aid of CGI! They could be wronged men from the circus, forcefed drugs by the severed head of Fidel Castro (Played by Fat Joe of MTV fame). Reese Witherspoon could be Fidel's daughter and spark a forbidden love with both the heroes! It can't fail!
s200.org - visit it (me), love it (me).
Dude, didn't you like watch Mission Impossible 2? The only thing I could think after walking out of that abomination was "Well, the cineamatography was probably as close as we'll see to Live action Anime".
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
Jesus H. Christ, can't hollywood write any original screenplays anymore? Bad enough they ruin the classics, now they're trying to remake animated ones (and TV series too) as live action movies. Name ONE movie that worked for. JUST ONE. Hey, how about Jim Carey's The Grinch? No, wait, that sucked enough for two films, it wasn't even bad enough for camp. And now they want to remake what was the most sophisticated animated film EVER when it was made? Hey, while you're at it why don't they remake a popular, not-particularly-great, but suitable-only-for-animation TV series like Dragon Ball Z as a live action movie too? Oh wait, they're already doing that.
Somewhere in Hollywood, an unscrupulous American producer needs killing, and somewhere in Tokyo a soulless Japanese producer ought to be committing seppuku. I can't imagine that Katsuhiro Otomo would approve of this.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Its a movie about these two kids and they run around screaming "Tetsuo!" and "CANADA!" and stuff gets broke and there are these scary toys that move.
I first saw Akira 3-4 times in japanese only: no subtitles, no overdub, no comprehension of japanese. Wait, you know, I've never seen it with any whiff of english. And I prolly understand the story better than all of you! (read previous paragraph if you don't believe me)
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
we need live action akira like we need anime plan 9 from outer space...
:-)
You swine, you utter, utter swine. Now I'm going to have a mental image of an anime Bela Lugosi pratting about with his cloak over his face... For the rest of my LIFE! Now they have to make an anime Plan 9, just to save my sanity!
Actually, the anime guy would probably look a lot more like Lugosi than the fellow they used in the original Plan 9
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Back when they remade "Psycho" a couple of years ago, someone made the astute observation that filmmakers should remake BAD movies, in order to try and improve them, not GOOD ones. What's the point in remaking a classic? Odds are, you're just going to fuck it up. With bad movies, there's nowhere to go but up.
(By "bad" I mean everything that isn't a classic, so remaking mediocre movies like "The Thomas Crown Affair" is fine.)
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Norrington can't capture the style.
The anime captured the manga's style because the same guy made the manga and wrote/directed the anime. Norrington's a different guy using a different style. The only director who I think can do Akira's style in live action is James Cameron, who has other plans and wouldn't do it anyway because it's too similar to Terminator 2. If Norrington is mainly interested in Akira's cyberpunk/post-apocalypse style, he should have stuck with Blade or another screenplay because this way he's up against Akira's baggage and The Matrix sequels.
What Akira's anime lost was substance: it only told about 1/4 of the manga's story, and what it kept it rearranged. If he made two 3-hour movies (split conveniently before and after the apocalypse), he could get most of the manga's storyline. That way an Americanized live action version of Akira may actually feel closer to the manga than the anime version did. But does he have the guts to do that?
And even if he had the energy to make it, could he withstand the bad PR? Akira stars a loser teen who gets to act out revenge fantasies and orgies (think Columbine) and its big event is another boy who shows his fear of murder by blowing up a city (think WTC). For Norrington to get the $100M or so needed to make Akira, he'd have to remove those parts, risking ruining the plot.
It's all of those assholes who saw the trailers for the live action Scooby Doo and said "Gee that looks good".
To the no talent hacks in Hollywood that's all they need to hear. They see a crowded market place and say "Me too!".
Ug.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
If he can't do it, no one can!
Actually, considering that I have a friend (Jeff Stan, film critic for "Dark Cinema" magazine and scriptwriter) who's in kinda tight with Norrington's circles, I can say with confidence that if anyone could pull this off, it would be Steven Norrington.
On the other hand, I sat through an anime version of Metropolis and came out almost in tears it was so bad. So it works both ways.
Colour me ambivalent.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.