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Live Action Neon Genesis Evangelion Concept Art
Xzan writes "CGNetworks has released some concept art pictures of the upcoming feature film of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. I think the characters look really ugly, especially "Ray"(Rei in the anime).
The concept art is made by Weta Workshop, who also did the special effects for Lord of the rings."
Nice eva. Can we just see the eva and screw the whiny pilots?
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
Will Harry Potter play Shinji :D?
...not the finished product. I'm sure that if you email them that you don't like the concepts (of "Ray" as you say), they will at least make an effor to take into account your feelings on the matter. (Esepcially if enough people do it.)
;)
However, I suspect that it will likely be that many fans of the original will be disappointed unless everything in the original is replicated exactly...
libertarianswag.com
Am I mistaken of will the cast of this movie NOT include any japanese actors?
If so... I already hate it.
Only Images mirrored. here
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I agree with the article submitter. In the anime the eva pilots are all teens correct? (Even Rei...sorta. )...the concept art Weta presented makes them all look like dumpy 20 or 30somethings IMHO. granted the anime style in general presents females as perhaps over-thin, but thats part of the character in some isntances--for examle Rei, who seems so frail and wispy and so forth.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
But have you seen the early concept art for LoTR? Some of that was remarkably poor too - that's because they were sketching it to get an idea of one aspect of the whole, and you're looking at it as a finished product. Combine that with the fact that they produce literally hundreds of sketches working toward a single character or creature simply to explore all the different (some good, some bad) possibilities. Anyone who has seen all the concept sketches of the Cave Troll, or the Slime Balrog (not used in the films) will know what I mean.
Give them a chance to work through their ideas, and judge their finished product. I have a lot of faith in Weta Workshop (partly because I know some of the people who work there), and I'm sure they'll have something spectacular by the end.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
*cough*
Character name changes. Massive rumors are currently circulating as to whether Rei Ayanami has been christened "Ray" and similarly Asuka as "Kate Rose". There is nothing concrete to suggest they have - as these names appearing on the images are very likely to be the names of the artists or costume designers who produced them. However, a few points to consider are; no other pictures have a similar name appearing on them, Rei and Ray maybe too similar to be a coincidence and why would an artist put only a first name down, especially if it's a signature? On the other hand, on the image it does say "Kate Rose plugsuit" and "Ray plugsuit" however these maybe concepts drawn by another artist to simply incorporate and show a costume design by Kate Rose / Ray. "Kate rose plugsuit" would then be required to distinguish which plugsuit design is being viewed. Kate Rose is a costume designer (i.e. the images were not drawn by Kate/Ray but they are an interpretation of their current designs).
That site has loads of other info on the movie as well.
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
I, for one, would love a movie of nothing but Shinji's psychedelic dreams as in episodes 25 and 26 of the series.
"Kate Rose"
"Susan Whitnall"
It's just not the same... and the poor children who are doing this will probably never realise they're filling tohe roles of characters that have been the fantasies of many, many sad, depraived anime otakus out there...
As a big fan of the series, I'm interested how they're going to deal with the story line that is more suited to a series e.g. the many angels/sentinals/apostles (what have you)
And are they going to carry the story through right to the end where its just shinji and asuka on a beach with everyone else presumably dead?
How is the complex storylines and references to christianty and some judiasm going to fit in?
I hope they dont spoil the memory of one of the greats in anime.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Did they forget that the three pilots are supposed to be about 14 or 15? The concept drawing of Asuka makes her look like she's about 40. That, and the fact that they're calling her Kate Rose. There is no Kate Rose in Evangelion. They've also taken a few too many liberties with the architectural design, to the point where it completely changes the atmosphere.
How dare they spell a word which was written in JAPANESE originally differently from the way I've seen it written using latin characters before!!
Fans of the series will hate the live-action movie no matter what happens, so why even bother? It might be a good movie to people who dont already dream of fucking Ayanami, and with the best of luck it will bring the Giant Robot Genre into mainstream Hollywood.
If you already know what Eva is, this isnt worth keeping track of- just see it when it comes out, hate it, and then complain about how they changed things and took out all the subtle religious symbols that you need to be intelligent to pick up on.[/sarcasm]
I liked Eva, but shouldnt the moderators kill any post that's "Hopelessly Fanboy"? It's CONCEPT ART, moron. It's a LIVE ACTION MOVIE.
Would you prefer Jake Lloyd and Emma Watson?
It's not going to be the same. Deal.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
The cartoon was superb especially for the concept art and the design... I don't think there would be anything worth changing. Anyway, the EVAs look good (they're quite similar to the anime, while the costumes are simply orrbile (too many hamburgers anyone?)... I'm sorry I have to disagree onto the weta W (sorry for the guys working there): the LOTR was a real disappointment for me and for anyone who saw the tons and tons of incredible images done in the past 30 years on the subject.
but hey, Kate Rose sucks too obviously, and the cityscapes look like those from 50's Sci-Fi. All designs are very old, destroying near-future images of Evangelion anime. Weta, you should replace your concept designer with one who can handle cell phone.
Ok, so the subject of my post has flamebait/troll written all over it. But that is not intended to be the case.
So often with films, be it this project, LOTR, Star Wars, we get into a "Ah, this is going to be crap, this is wrong, this will never be right."
Why not give them a chance to get things together, wait, see the film, and then start getting rabid over the problems you see with it.
Give these people a chance, maybe their vision will add something to your experience.
-- You don't shoot to kill, you shoot to stay alive.
And, on top of it all, the name change isn't definite. It's probably a temporary thing stuck on by the Weta guys/gals. I doubt they've decided on names this far in advance when there isn't even a script to speak of as far as I know. So, don't cry just yet, Tyrdium. They may keep Asuka as Asuka.
What do you think they'll call Pen-pen?
I've been playing a lot of Casual Romance Club lately in an effort to learn how to interact with women.
Once I bag one of the chicks in the game, I go out and use the same lines on women in the real world - guess what? It works!
I'm knee deep in snatch now since I started playing Hentai dating sims.
Why would they want to americanize Evangelion? Much of its cool factor comes from simply being Japanese.
I can see it now... turning Nerv into the "Department of Homeland Security" with Johnny Depp playing Gendo Ikari..er.. "Tom Ridge".
Perhaps they will make a series of movies, similar to what was done with LOTR or Harry Potter, and release them over a period of time. That seems to be the format these days (e.g. Kill Bill) although I guess there aren't many others that match my analogy. But oh well, the possibility is there.
As a long time fan of the series, I personally think it all looks pretty good (minus the characters and their names of course). The design of central dogma seems to be very different and yet still serves it purpose and has the right atmosphere for this movie. I think this could be an excellent movie, but I really do hope those characters end up looking alot more like they do in the series.
Someone forgot to tell them it's not a Bladerunner sequal. Make it a shiny geek paradise, not some depressing dump that only an artist would live in.
removing this: * www.goatse.cx from /etc/hosts will probably solve the case :-)
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fugly little fuckers, aren't they?
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
While I am really glad that this is actually getting some hopefully serious attention and wont be a cobbled together movie I am seriously worried about how they are going to portray Shinji.
The reason I love evangelion is that Shinji neither wants to be a hero nor has the qualities of one. That single characteristic is what makes the series incredible because you see the emotional development of Shinji in a situation he doesn't want to be in. The only reason he stays put is not out of valor or a sense of justice but by the deep feeling of loneliness which he supplements by trying to please the people around him. ie an extremely normal person this day in age.
The thing that I am worried about however is that they might portray him as a hero and not the messed up person that he is (Anyone remember in the first few shots in Evangelion the movie where he wanks off to Asuka comatose in a hospital bed?)
Never could figure out why my girl liked my bitch tits, then I found out she was a lesbian.
You guys that are complaining about the look of the people are missing the whole point. The art is about the suits. They obviously do not "design" the people. It's all up to the casting person and the director. WETA is just doing the effects and designs. They could draw a 45 year old italian dude in the suit, but that doesn't mean they are going to cast him!! The suit designs look cool and the majority of this stuff looks very faithful to the series. I am excited personally.
Is it just me or does the title of the article sound like another bayesian-poison spam?
we have concept art of a live action version of an anime, which, after all, is based on...
Throw CG into it, then it's a bigger mess. Since it will be likely that they will use CG for parts of this.
Why does every American remake of a Japanese movie/series have to replace the Japanese names with anglo ones? Its like some insecurity complex. America is not the centre of the world. Get over it.
There are Evangelion art books out there not to mention all the printed manga and the anime itself. The concept art that Weta Workshop is showing seems to be nothing more than some non-anime drawings of the same thing... which is exactly what they should be. Only I don't think they should bother since plenty of the art already exists.... However, I don't see why they have to go to such lengths to change the character names so drastically. I mean, granted they're not going to get Japanese actors for Misato, Rei, Asuka (who's supposed to be half-Japanese half-German anyway)... but changing such a detail would be akin to Lord of the Rings if Frodo were renamed to "Mike", Aragorn to "Steve" and Elrond to "Smith"... it's just wrong.
The anatomically impossible proportions of anime characters have nothing to do with reality! Seeing as real women need internal organs and space inside their skull for stuff other than their eyes, and actually have gravity affecting their breasts, you will never find a human being that doesn't look "dumpy" next to a hyper-lithe anime plaything.
My cut on this movie is that in the long run, it's going to fall through. Evangelion is pretty esoteric - it has a large fanbase amongst people who like anime, but there just ain't that many of us to support a blockbuster film.
Yes, anime sells, but it doesn't sell THAT much. Sure, last year an anime film won the academy award, but it still didn't make nearly as much money as "Elf", let alone "Finding Nemo". That means the film isn't going to get the $100 million in financing it needs to avoid looking like a bad episode of Doctor Who.
And I think that's a good thing, because Evangelion is way the hell too complicated to condense into a two hour film - and even if they narrow the scope of the film down to just the first few episodes, it's not going to be enough. Think about when you actually watched Evangelion (I'm assuming you wouldn't bother reading this thread if you didn't). How long did it take for you to figure out what the hell was going on, if you ever did? There were so many mysteries as yet unsolved after episode four that a four episode arc cannot stand on its own without radical changes to the storyline - the movie would be a giant robot rocket-sockem, but wouldn't really be Evangelion.
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The movie will most likely be nothing like the series if Hideaki Anno doesn't direct it. He is the source of a lot of the series' bizarreness.
That's not to say it won't be good. It'll just be a different work of art than the series.
~To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. -Yann Martel
The film is live action -- so who cares if the characters look ugly in the concept art. Whether or not the characters are truly ugly will depend on the actors hired to play them and the skills of the makeup artists.
Hmmm.. As someone on CGNetworks has already noted, if you look up Kate Rose on IMDB, you get: "Filmography as: Costume Designer, Notable TV Guest Appearances".
My guess is that Kate Rose just signed her concept sketches of Asuka. And the same is probably true about "Ray". So, don't freak out about those names just yet..
Because it's NOT an anime, it's a "real" movie.
I agree with the article submitter. In the anime the eva pilots are all teens correct? (Even Rei...sorta. )...the concept art Weta presented makes them all look like dumpy 20 or 30somethings IMHO. granted the anime style in general presents females as perhaps over-thin, but thats part of the character in some isntances--for examle Rei, who seems so frail and wispy and so forth.
Anime character typically have exagerated traits, most notably the proportions of the legs, and most obviously the large eyes.
Those concept art pictures depict normal humans with proportions that actually occur in nature and not just on paper. The kind of humans that are likely to actually show up for casting.
You can't take the sky from me...
The appeal of anime goes beyond the fight scenes and robots.
It's about human beings and how we live today.
Something you'll never see, even in a metaphor like Eva, in Hollywood.
Not enough e's, n's, or g's in that otherwise semantic-free name. They should call it
eggnog gegeben engineering
if they really want to frot your glottis.
The 'geeks' who are supposed to love this movie and provide the revenue these guys are hoping for at the box office are already slamming it from every angle they can. Even by hooking a few curiosity seekers at the theatre, it's hard to imagine anyone shelling out for a DVD to remember this attrocity by, thereby padding out the numbers to anything resembling profitablity.
What's that you say? Geeks can't possibly account for their entire target demographic for this still born failure? You're right. They will no doubt try to "broaden" the movie's appeal beyond it's fan base to bring in more revenue and will end up failing both fan-boys and joe-six-pack alike. And it will be a disaster.
"But how can you say that?! The movie's not even out yet!" one might say. Yes, they may have time to fix some of these things before things go full-bore on production.
But when they're making so many obvious mistakes so early on (obvious to me, at least and I'm only a casual Eva fan) it's hard to believe they can be entrusted to ensure me a pleasent movie-going experience for my 1800 yen.
Gainax, to me, is such a cornerstone of quality Japanese animation it's a shame to see that they've sold out such a decent series to the foaming-at-the-mouth Hollywood execs...
*sigh* Can't anyone just leave something that people like alone?
I can only hope for another Impact...
It will likely change radically by the time they start production.
Sheesh...
Morons, your train is leaving.
I'm pretty sure that a lot of anime fans do not, in fact, think that it's okay to have a woman raped by a multi-tentacled creature. You can't sweep all anime under the rug of pornography any more than you can with American cinema. "Anime" itself isn't really a genre any more than "novel" is - it's more a creative medium that people can use to tell any story they want.
So what exactly are we talking about here? G-Saviour, but with better special effects? (God...that movie was SO BAD...Even the so-so CG Gundams didn't make up for how completely BAD it was....) "Best low-budget, Canadian, B-movie, with a cast consisting of bad anime dub actors, EVER MADE!"
I atleast had hopes that the NGE movie would be cool to watch.....but I don't think I'll get past the names....not that they changed them...but the names are just STUPID.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
after watching the end of the anime series (at 2 am.. alone.. in the dark..) I seriously couldnt sleep for a week. Thus I was really suprised when i heard they were going to try to make a live action adaptation (first rumors were about a year ago) usually it seems live action adaptations of anime dont work if they try to keep it still anime-ish in some way or another. the whole project is ADV's idea.. ADV knows anime and knows what anime fans are looking for, and I don't think ADV has really messed too much up in the past.. thus theyre probably going to be doing research as to how to make it so that non-anime fans would come and see it as well. I also have trust in weta digital, since their work in LOTR was probably the best blending of CG into live action i think ive ever seen.. not sure what theyll cover in the story line i think that will be what's going to be the hardest thing.. since the only finality at all in the series really is only at the end.. it wouldnt be good just to have a few angel battles and then leave people wondering "well what the heck are the angels anyway.." considering how many comments ive seen in various places about how people think this is a terrible idea i'm sure ADV has heard some of it.. and it seems like theyre going on with it still.. meaning that maybe they are really determined to suprise people and make something that actually is good even though no one is expecting much. It's gonna be interesting.
(Anime Fan 1): Damn this sucks. I mean, they gave them American names for god's sake!
(Anime Fan 2): Yeah... but wasn't some of the character not even japanese? German, etc.?
(Anime Fan 1): So? What's the point?
(Anime Fan 2): Nothing, just my brain trying to think a bit, it's ok now. Anyway, I'll only watch the movie if the character's names stay in japanese.
(Anime Fan 1): Yeah. And if they shoot it in japanese only...
(Anime Fan 2): Subbed. Oh yeah, and count me out if they do not follow the serie to the letter, all XYZ episodes and fit them in 2 hours without anything missing or added.
(Anime Fan 1): Oh! Oh! And it must be all anime, I mean, Live Action will just suck you know? Will lose all the exagerated proportions and all.
(Anime Fan 2): Yeah... Hey, lets just go watch the serie again.
(Anime Fan 1): Ok.
In the same position as the name "Ray" and "Kate" is the "name" "Eva 01" on a different drawing.
The first second I heard of this, I was excited -- and then I lingered over the term "live action." No matter what they do, the producers are going to try and market this to a wide-spread audience.. which means it's most likely going to suck. Even if the names aren't changed (and I have a bad feeling that they are.. we're "americanizing") there's no way they're going to hold true to the complicated storyline and themes involved in the anime and cram it into a 1 1/2 to 2 hour move. As someone commented before, if they do it won't make sense at all and it'll bomb - probably won't even make it to the box office. The 'general public' considers anime another form of cartoons.. they're going to try to get a kid audience for it, I just know.
I looked through the concept art, and some of the stuff looks prett cool (Tokyo 3 and NERV Headquarters, especially). One of the pitfalls of creating a live action movie from an anime is that anime can do anything - it's not limited by technology or special effects. I am curious to see how fight scenes between the Evas and the angles turn out (assuming they're sticking to the original plot..).
Let us all hope it's never made - but we can't count on that. We can always hope that there are Eva fans involved in the creation of this film, as well as those who helped create the anime. Who knows... it might be great. Currently, I'm pessimistic.
Do the words "first" and "post" have some kind of magical quality indicating bad faith on the part of the poster?
Anyway, did you LOOK at article, mods? Did you SEE how lame the characters look, and how Shinji's mirror character looks even MORE like a girl, but the other two less so?
OTH the eva concept art is amazing. I just hope they dominate the movie/screentime.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
The appeal of anime goes beyond the fight scenes and robots.
:
It's about human beings and how we live today.
Something you'll never see, even in a metaphor like Eva, in Hollywood.
Right right, I do not deny the quality of Animes (I enjoy them myself). But don't fall in this Hollywood=>crap business please, it is total non-sense. There are plenty of hollywood movies dealing with the human condition, society and psychology, as soon as you notice that Hollywood is not only {Daredevil, Starwars, Terminator, etc}.
Here are a few hits if you want interesting, deep hollywood movies
- American Beauty
- Donnie Darko
- The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola's latest excellent Lost in Translation is more japanese than hollywoodian, but still worth watching of course)
- Apocalypse Now
- 2001, A Space Odyssey
etc.
theefer
Parent just posted a completely valid inside joke that noone seems to understand and moderates down because they are scared.
The joke in question refers to a magazine where they posted the actors they wanted for the live action EVA movie. Daniel Radcliffe was suggested for Shinji.
I'd be surprised if it had any ASIAN actors in more than a bit part. I don't recall any in the American version of Godzilla either, which is what this movie will probably turn out like (lots of eyecandy, and a total crapfest beyond that).
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Actually, for the most part, its a money reasons that they make remakes are made this way. Every foreign film that isn't released in the US is seen by the studios as a kind of trial run, the foreign country being simply a rather large focus group. Thus, the Ring, and various others.
American studio budgets, and attendant risks are a lot larger than virtually any foreign film anywhere. Thus, when studios want to make movies, they want a tried and true (with the American audience) approach. And you know what, you can send these remakes with higher production values back into the world and make even more money.
The film market is such that picking a foreign film in its original form, distributed in the US, will chances are make nowhere even a close amount to making even a mediocre American movie with decent distribution.
Me, I personally like better reasons for remakes. But I don't have millions to spread around and risk.
I think you do an injustice both to anime and American cinema by generalizing like that. Just as anime isn't all specifically intended for fanboys to sit around and jerk off to, American live-action movies aren't all intended to make a quick buck at the expense of someone who doesn't know better.
Just like books, radio, and any other form of expression, they tell a story that can have meanings on multiple levels. None are inherently bad, or have any other inherent qualities beyond the superficial. It's what the author makes of it.
It's those kind of generalizations made by slack-jawed yokels that makes half of the people who enjoy watching good anime scared to admit it.
Totally Mod Parent Up, Nice Research
Dammit! I only liked Eva because Misato had insanely large breasts! :P
:o. And is it just me or does 'Ray' sound like a guy's name?
Anyway, jokes aside, I have a bad feeling what this is gonna turn out to be. Changing the names, changing the age, this is gonna suck. And Rei was actually sorta-unique because her hair was nice light blue, and I know many fans like her cause of that. And from this link, it seems that they will only focus on the first couple of series. That means a sequel could be possible, maybe more. Why dumb it down? One of the reasons the Matrix was interesting because it made you THINK! I agree with the characters being ugly, but I'm not set my mind in stone until I've seen the movie.
They better make Rei/Ray hot or a lot of fans will riot
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
Crap, those characters are ugly. But it is concept art and hopefully it stays as just that and doesn't creep into the film.
Really, how difficult would it be to keep the characters somewhat looking the same. The evas are very similar.
Why mess with the ingredients of something great?
As has already been pointed out, Kate Rose is listed under IMDB as a costume designer.
:)
Not only that, but this is CONCEPT ART. Concept art is normally carried out before the script is written - a writer may not even have been assigned yet. Concept art is there to see whether the thing's going to work on screen. It's exactly that, a "concept". Nothing's final, so quit complaining
Yes, yet another example of *wood not being able to create anything original in the last 30 years. Leave anime alone, dammit, it's the only thing that's worth spending money on for entertainment.
Sometimes people just have to learn and adapt to change, it is one of the requirements of being a living thing.
DISCLAIMER: not affliated with Studio ADTRW in any way.
..of the ugly concept art, I'm pleased to announce that Girlfriend of Steel 2 is being scanslated by Studio ADTRW. Some of you hardcore NGE fanboys would have heard of the Girlfriend of Steel, or even played the game, where you play through visual-novel-like game set in the middle of the original NGE timeline, where a new girl joins the fray, named Mana. Yes, it's romance, but wait! There's more!
Girlfriend of Steel 2 is a manga that is based off the short alternate-universe clip at the end of episode 26, where everybody is happy, no Angels around to destroy the place, and Shinji looks at Rei's panties. Yes, the last bit is true, and Misato's their teacher, Kaoru makes a comeback (and retains his homosexual tendancies) but there's no sign of Kaji yet. And Gendo's still a bastard, and still runs NERV... But the manga has done a pretty good job of it so far. Only 3 chapters have been released so far so get it quick and use the torrents!
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
Consider alcoholism as an alternative.
Anime character typically have exagerated traits, most notably the proportions of the legs, and most obviously the large eyes.
Those concept art pictures depict normal humans with proportions that actually occur in nature and not just on paper. The kind of humans that are likely to actually show up for casting.
Way to generalize. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's character designs on Evangelion were purposely made more realistic than typical anime - the eyes and faces are in more or less correct proportion, and except for some too-perfect bodies on the adults, the overall proportions are pretty much right as well. No, you don't generally see chicks walking around in real life with blue hair and red eyes (well, unless you live in the East Village in NYC, as I used to), but for the most part the characters in Evangelion look pretty plausible. At least as plausible as any characters you'd see on western animations like The Family Guy or King of the Hill; just more in fitting with Japanese body types than American.
And yes, I do think the characters in these concept sketches look "dumpy". Part of it's the difference in cultures - it's a fact that average heights, weights, and body fat percentages (not to mention obesity rates) are lower in Japan than in the west. People are just shorter and thinner. I always thought Asuka looked a bit too thin in the series (her character grew up in Germany) but there's no reason that Rei, for one example, would be anything but the perfect ideal of what a young teenage girl should look like. That's actually a big part of the plot.
Also, I don't know when the last time was that some of you visited your local high school and looked at the freshman class. They're small. Really small. Shockingly small, considering the fact that most people seem to consider high school the age when children become adults (hence their use in Evangelion). This is irregardless of culture. Last time I visited my high school I couldn't believe how young and little these kids looked; I remember thinking I was a big man back then.
So I guess I do have a problem with some of these designs. And I don't think it's an excuse to say "the kind of humans that are likely to show up for casting" - that's a cop-out. Find some actors and actresses that fit the plot; that's the whole point of casting. These kids have to be small and thin to fit inside the plugs - there's not supposed to be a lot of room in there.
I'm impressed with your ability to see through the paper and determine what the face of Ray looks like, given that the concept of her is entirely from behind.
If you decide to manufacture X-ray specs that allow you to see through the paper and directly into the artists brain as to what the backside of the image is supposed to look like, let me know. I'll totally buy a pair.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Way to generalize. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's character designs on Evangelion were purposely made more realistic than typical anime - the eyes and faces are in more or less correct proportion, and except for some too-perfect bodies on the adults, the overall proportions are pretty much right as well.
I have here the Evangelion concept art book and a human anatomy book.
The evangelion characters' legs account for two thirds of their body lenght. Normal humans are about 50% leg in height.
You can't take the sky from me...
But it's relevant primarily(exclusively?) to those who watch anime. It should be listed as anime, and therefore blocked from my main page (I'm not looking for any flames about the merits of anime. But get it off my main page).
starring: Haley Joel Osment - as the whiny kid
However, I'm curious as to what other anime should also recieve the Live Action treatment, or if any other anime has been made into a Live Action movie in Japan that we haven't heard of. My vote is already for Love Hina. Just to see who they cast as Naru.
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Slashdot seems to be a little slow on the up take for this. I had these images up on 14th. http://eva.trivialbeing.net/index.php?c=images (thanks for the links to my site folks). Anyway the point: A couple of extra images are available there now including a strange scan from one of the japanese issues of Newtype depicting a brown-eva-angel figure and an image of Unit 02 firing at an unknown target. (I hope to be providing a torrent of various large files for people to download in the near future containing wonderful things from the DVD. If I can ever get it sorted.)
I lean towards the movie being good, and here's why: everything that's officially Evangelion-related thus far has been awesome. If you've picked up the manga, it's a retelling of Evangelion's story that is just as compelling as the original, despite the fact that they change some of the plot.
"But that's Japanese! Americans and foreigners have no idea how to make a good adaptation!" You might say. That isn't always accurate, and I can think of numerous examples, too many to name here. Plus, Studio Gainax is creatively involved. Perhaps not director Hideki Anno, but he wasn't involved in said manga, either.
I can't believe some of these other complaints: if they want to make any money at all, they can't make all of the characters or the setting Japanese. Preview audiences would see that and believe that Evangelion was a bad Godzilla rip-off and not give it a second thought.
As for the costume designs, I'm personally relieved they are remarkably close to the original, and not black leather dominatrix rip-offs. As another here has said, no woman with internal organs is going to have the proportions of an anime character.
Regarding the "Waterworld" futuristic design, remember that in the storyline, Antartica was blown up. I like the concept; This is a realistic city, not some "designer's utopia", that has been flooded by water.
While these pics have little bearing on plot, from a design standpoint, these are awesome designs and remarkably close to the original. Be thankful for that.
A rolling stone is worth two in the bush!
But it would take a LOT of skill to handle the character development, along with the angel attacks, along with the origin of NERV along with the ending.
And without that, the movie would probably be another Hollywood disaster. Just like the US version of Red Dwarf was.
NGE is complicated. If you broke it up and arranged it chronologically, it would be about Gendo on the mission that found the first angel which led to second impact which led to the development of the Evas which led to Yui's (Gendo's wife) death which led to Gendo hijacking the Human Instrumantality Project to re-unite him with his wife and being willing to sacrifice his son to do so.
Now, watch the series and compare Gendo's screen time with Shinji's. Shinji is the protagonist in the show. But everything happens because of Gendo.
I don't think Hollywood would be able to handle a story that complex. Instead, I think we'd get a standard boy-hero saves world movie.
It's nice that they were able to make the assumption that the character was ugly from just a rear view.
There are a bunch of comments expressing fears of Hollywood pushing up the ages of the actors/actresses, and with good reason.
It's culturally understandable that the movie studio wouldn't want to put 14-year olds in tight-fitting lates plugsuits, playing roles with some sexual tension and innuendo (sometimes creepy and yet plot-vital, like Gendou/Rei/Ritsuko), and showing them off to an army of otakus with a reputation for keeping a subset of the porno industry alive on the basis on hentai doujinshi of EVA and similar series....
Having them "just turned 18" would be a very convenient cop-out, allowing them to hire appealing nymphettes for the lead roles and market their sexual appeal to a larger crowd.
The problem is, a large part of the emotional complexity of the series had to do with the fact these were Children with the weight of mankind's survival on their shoulders. Immature Children. Very screwed up Children, as a matter of fact. Still having to deal with classes, bullies, family, puberty, and oh, wait, another big monster appeared and is going to rip your robot's arms off and you're going to feel everything because that's the kind of technology we use and that's the kind of guy you are.
Young college-age adults, specially the young precocious 18 year olds that Hollywood can cast as tragic heroes, would be more prepared to deal with those issues and concentrate on the big-robot-fight-to-save-the-world part of the job. They would look childish having some of the emotional crisis that made EVA's characters believable.
This could turn the movie into a typical big-robot movie, an update to the likes of Ultraman. It would miss the point of EVA, and the truth is there are plenty of more simple/typical robot-series they could adapt better, and more easily, to that format.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Anime 1, Reality 0!
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Anyone who thinks the girls in those images look "dumpy" needs a good quick reality check.
Agreed. The "Kate Rose" sketches look particularly hot. I really worry about the folks that lust after Rei Ayanami. She looks about twelve.
That being said, I think that people are seriously misunderstanding the intention of this concept art. When you're drafting concept art for a live action film, you're trying to produce designs that will work in live-action, with real people. They totally changed the costume designs for the X-Men movies because brightly colored spandex suits didn't look good in the real world. Those movies still turned out pretty darn good.
Folks are freaking out about nothing.
This
Firstly, It's pretty much a given that the age of the core characters will be raised. 14 year olds may be fair game in Japan, but 'round these parts they're jailbait. The mere thought of teenage sexuality in any sort of realistic context (AKA outside an over-the-top horror or teen sex film) sends modern America into a panic over pedophilia. Sorry Misato. In America, adulthood isn't something you're allowed to practice or learn under the age of 18.
Unfortunately, the whole premise of EVA rests on adolescent issues writ large - sexual, existential, personal, and especially parental - most significantly manifested in the central characters' immaturity.
This is not to say the movie wouldn't get made. It would, but it would probably just be a confusing mish-mash of the flashier parts of the series with an abrasive touch. Like the American Godzilla, a crapfest of eyecandy.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
If the names were the only thing to go, I wouldn't care. But judging from the willingness to change something as stupid as character names, just so it can roll off the tounge easier or something, makes me realize they'll scrap everything else important about the series. The ages of the children, Shinji's character type, all the important themes of the series, etc etc etc. All gone. It's going to be bad. Very bad.
But the worst part is that no one will want to actually watch the series anymore. The series is a true masterpiece; it's really a work of art. It's certainly better than any television series I've ever seen in America, especially since it creates a complete narrative from beginning to end. American TV just doesn't work like that, instead choosing a "premise" and writing stories from there. I don't think anyone out there can come up with a series that is better.
Most people out there who don't like it either haven't seen it, don't get it, or just have a prejudice of either science-fiction or cartoons.
So you can see why I might be upset.
--Stephen
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
was it really necessary to reply to that?
Let me ask my fellow Anime fans *this*
What would it take for you to accept this film? What would they have to accomplish in order for you to accept it? Now think, is it really that important those things you just listed?
I have seen firsthand what can go into bringing a work from Japanese to English, and some of the choices that have to be made for translation sake. There is *no* way of getting something in the same mental/emotional concept ratio exactly like the Japanese. But we can come close, and the parts that we miss are usually so small as can be left out. But this does turn into a balancing act: lose too much of the smaller concepts and the series begins to change. Now think of having to re-imagine parts of the series as a whole, based off of a cultural set of constructs that we don't posess. Some might say to not attempt it, but I don't think so. These people aren't translating, they are creating a whole new work, which has its own pitfalls and perils, but I'd like to see them try.
Personally I want to see something different, something new in the Evangelion story that maybe hasn't been seen before, yet reminds me of the original story enough for me to picture that universe. People bitched about LOTR, saying how it changed this, changed that, things that I tried to see being important. But when I saw it, (and yes, I have read the books) all the changes just didn't matter to me. This was a telling of the story new, in a new way, and I found myself enjoying the books all over again due to that. The people became more human to me, the story more cohesive. The same may be done here with Evangelion, but we have to give it a shot first. I don't envy these guys: they have one hell of a project to try, not because Evangelion is deep, but just like LOTR, the fans putting them under a microscope.
In the end, isn't the whole purpose of entertainment to gain something, to make you think of things in a new way, and to enjoy yourself? Why in fandom do we so easily forget this?
Why do you assume that the words mean the same thing on each picture?
They all would have been drawn at totaly different times under different circumstances. It does seem likely that the words are the character names, but that doesn't mean it's definitely the case.
There's no point in getting worked up about it until there's some real proof.
Advanced users are users too!
interesting.. the english names are definatly a bad idea.. it's definatly not the artist signing the pics, thats a stupid assumption i'd definatly be concerned about how much this will be watered down, not so much how it'll be changed
I knew I was gonna get modded down for this one. And there it is. Honestly, how is this flamebait? I honestly couldn't care less about anime. I dislike anime so much that I blocked it from showing up on my front page. Why should the editor's mistakes go against a decision I delibrately made? For having the audacity to complain, I've been modded down like a troll.
As the saying goes, "have crack, will moderate." This is the first time I've had a -1 Flamebait. Go me! The bastard had better get it in metamod.
I damn well adored evangelion and its screaming utopia of dying innocence. If they can retain the same attention to detail and RESIST explaining every damn mystery instantly (the Hollywood insecurity complex) they may pull something off.
Top of the head:
The evangelions are good little boys and girls. They are well trained animals/soldiers and move with a speed according to their mass. They even stand straight. Until things get tight and they can't afford to pretend anymore...
and then the facade drops along with all that futile housetraining.
They stop standing straight the jaw drops open and might snarl a bit I spose (the mouth MUST stay shut until they lose it - part of the facade), the shoulders go forward and they hunch a bit. The muscles are more obvious.
They stop moving with a speed that should be possible and the poor special effects/CGI team have to deal with a whole new physics of large objects moving through air at high speed.
Sudden air pressure changes from fists passing cause vapour streams and maybe optical distortion from the much denser air. I don't want to think about sonic boom shockwaves. Sound will be appropriately delayed by the distances involved (though this will cause confusion unless used sparingly for its impact only)
Basically, all those things Anime SFX artists do because they can do anything, and all those things film SFX artists don't do because they can't do everything.
Next, the city.
Regarding the name, Tokyo 3. I vote for it. It underlines a few things for the audience. Tokyo is gone. They're dead. Do you understand? Millions! They're all DEAD! And this is the THIRD.
Americans would go all 9/11 on you if it was a US named city. They don't give a fig if it's anyone elses, but it would have no effect if they didn't know of it beforehand. And Tokyo 3 trips off the tongue very nicely ta.
Don't mention what happened to America in the cataclysms tho - let them worry. Sets the scene nicely.
The new city is nation INDEPENDENT! It's made from the brightest of the leftovers. Nobody CARES about nationality now, and nobody mentions the past as everyone knows it.
As for the city construction, one of the shots looked a little victorian or LXG with lots of lumpy steel. No, that's too 'old'.
Tokyo 3 is a monument to the dead, and to their hopes of the future. It looks like utopia. No expense is spared. Lots of shiny shaped steel and glass (the glass shatters nicely and the shiny steel buckles and picks up grime well).
When an eva walks among the buildings it damages things that aren't massively reinforced like the ground. When it leans round a corner SWAT stylee it crushes the building a little. Nobody cares. They all know it's a fake, a facade, a weapon laden trap for angels. There are other divisions dedicated to keeping it shiny and repaired, but it's not the EVA team. To them it's thoroughly expendable.
Regarding explanations. If anyone stops to explain things to Shinki as he is torn from normality, taken underground and dropped inside a terrifying monster I shall be very annoyed. They can explain things to him once he's proved himself to them. Until then he gets treated as a new recruit. Screw the audience. They're seeing things through Shinji's eyes.
Those receptors they put on their head? Don't explain them. Just have a tech shout over that they have signal and drop Shinji in the tank (I can't see how they'd attach, myself, so take a pair of sunglasses, wear them on the back of your head and morph them a bit. You will have contact with brainstem and temples. Sorted. Maybe wrap around the throat for voice synthesis, or just pluck what he's trying to say out of his head. That'd scare him)
If they can preserve the comcenter chaos - the exquisite graphics that you only glimpse fast enough to know they're screaming themselves, while everyone is shouting relevant information back and forth, that'd be nice.
I fully expect Hollywood to put a 5 minute ego war in the comcenter as people bicker about what they should d
First we have a dork ricing out his car with R2-D2 and "X-Wing Laser Cannons", now we have anime about Dodge's entry into the rice-burner ranks.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
One piece of praise I have heard about the LotR movies was how they stayed fairly true to the original novels. Now, you can all berate people and call them fanboys, but I'm sure if they renamed "Frodo" to "Brad" or something like that, it would have bothered quite a few people. Look at all of the bizzare names and concepts that were left alone in the LotR movies. No one had any problems with these staying true in LotR, so why can't we have a bit more faithfulness in other adaptations?
Now, why would they make these changes? Unfortunately, one theory is that Westerners might find Japanese-sounding names to be inaccessible. This is a sad reality of culture in the US. Yes, there have been major strides made in racial tolerance, but the fact is that certain ethnic groups are still looked down upon by the mainstream culture.
I'll hold off final judgment until I see the actual movie, but for a fan of the series, it's a bit disheartening when you start seeing changes like this.
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
Not me. I'm almost freakishly tall, and part of that is dur to my legs being almost 2/3 of my body height.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I'm a big fan of NGE. I'm sure the movie won't be anything like the anime. But I don't care. I have seen LoTR, and I really like the special effects, especially the big monsters. So, if they want to do a movie with big robots fighting, I want to see it, just for the fighting scenes. I'm smart enough to be able to keep it as a totally different thing than the anime.
I enjoyed the Anime series but I feel that the movie will not accurately convey what the series conveyed. One of the reasons is because the anime series had 26 episodes to explore the characters, setting and plot.
;D)
However, I do have hope for this movie and I expect it to be more of an interpretation at least of the Anime's story line. To be honest, I couldn't care if they had changed the names to "Kate Rose" or "Ray." Just makes their names easier to say.
The only thing that will really get me down about this movie is the acting. Other than that, I'm just expecting a Hollywood action movie based on an Anime (which is pretty cool). I mean, at least it'll be better than that live action of Fist of the North Star!
(Nice to see a few names from the NZ comic scene on some of the concept art
What do you think they'll call Pen-pen?
Perhaps they can call it Tux....
Ummm, one of the big features of the series was that the KIDS were born on or near or near Second Impact. Then everything happens 15 years latter.
So why does everyone look so old? And doesn't Rei have blond or Blue hair? How are they getting around the fact that everything was to start in 2000, a year that has come and gone?
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
That doesn't change the fact that the pilots were all teens in the anime, and in fact the plot's timeline REQUIRES it. The only ways to change that would be to break the plot or change the timing.
Umm.... Why are the Evas' mouths open....?
I think the parent poster was more annoyed that, by casting 20-30 year olds, they simply wouldn't look like teenagers.
something other people seem to have ignored is how much of the feeling of Evangelion is tied into experiences and emotions someone would have as a young teenager. If this movie gets made and they decide to cast adults...they can do that--but I won't watch it, because it'll probably just be a mindless action/scifi flick.
hehe, I love this song. I think the original version is the best. Sidenote: The Evangelion ending song was what got me hooked on Frank Sinatra. Funny that.
While very nice paintings those look NOTHING like the Nerv command center. Eye-Candy, the character designs are TERRIBLE and defidently not like the original characters. Asuka IS german after all NOT Japanese. The fundamental problem of squeezing 24 episodes plus 3 movies means the flow will be very strange, and doing film adaptations of some of Evas acid-trip phillosphy sequences (part of what makes the series so unique) seems almost impossible as well.
If Gainax were to make more Eva, they'd have to commit to a definate interpretation of what the end actually meant. This would piss a lot of people off, as their pet interprestation would become wrong.
That's a fan-centric view. Gainax doesn't care that many people may be pissed off. They care about making money. My point is that if an Evangelion movie is going to be profitable (and I don't think it would be), then it would be profitable for Gainax to have made additional Evangelion anime. The fact that they haven't bothered to do this is, to me, indictive that Evangelion isn't as market-worthy as fans think. It's a great anime, one that I love, but I don't think that the anime fanbase is large enough to support a decent Evangelion live-action film and I don't think that the general public would be interested in it enough to see the movie. That's ultimately why I don't think the movie will be made.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Hollywood should do a live-action version of Riding Bean instead.
They could fuck that one up all they liked and it'd still be fucking hilarious.
I am an eva fan, and I belive that the movie will have its problems. but in the long run, I think im gonna see it. What freeks me out is that in the art, you can openly see teeth and tounges of the evas, just a little odd in my mind.
Seriously, what's with the hair on this 'kate rose' character? And why does she look like a prostitute?
Of course, everyone is complaining that the characters are being given western names instead of keeping the Japanese ones.
Why weren't the anime fans complaining that the characters who are drawn to look like westerners in the first place, some of whom are even described as coming from Germany, don't have western and german names??
I'm going to have a hard time dealing with white actors on a live action show having japanese names. It would be easier to puzzle out who each of the live action characters is portraying.
Since this is a remake of the story, who's to say they aren't going to change a few things? They won't make *exactly* the same story, that wouldn't work. Just look at Battlestar Galactica! It was a remake. But it wasn't the same as the original series. Nonetheless it was a very good show. I still like the original. I like the new miniseries too.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
You do know that concept art never looks like the actor they haven't cast yet? : )
You can't take the sky from me...
But THIS time, the giant robots aren't really robots at all. . ! Ooh! It's like, a WHOLE different story now! (Ever since Genetics became the cool new science.)
In the West we have our superheros, (also now genetically altered. Iron Man is so passe.)
And somewhere in the middle of it all, the fans read and watch and dream. .
Where is it all going, I wonder. . ?
-FL
rei and asuka need some workout... :-)
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
So with this much computer generated imagery in a "live action" film, where do we draw the line between animation and film?
These kids have to be small and thin to fit inside the plugs - there's not supposed to be a lot of room in there.
Not true. The plugs will actually hold two "passengers" (as seen in the anime, in the episode where Ikari Shinji saves his two classmates by taking them into the plug with him). This does, however, cause problems with synchronisation between the pilot and the EVA unit.
- Peter Ravn Rasmussen
Yeah but the frail appearance of some of the characters, especially the kids, was really important to the presentation. Rei was supposed to look like she was barely there, and in spite of her fiery personality, Asuka was anorexic.
These are just concept sketches, but to me the figures and faces make me feel like they missed the important parts of the characters. If Shinji shows up as some well-built, brooding abercrombie model, it'll be pathetic. The whole point was to have a space opera where the heroes were desperate, neurotic kids.
I mean, I hate to chime in on the "it'll never be as good as the sacred original" threads, but did anyone watch EVA and say, "Man, I wish this was live action!"? So much attention already went into the visual, even a successful project would just be a rehash.
Gotta say, though, I love all the landscape scenes they've got up...
Certainly Evangelion spawned a whole genre of shows ripping off itself (along with a broader category of anime addressing more esoteric and philosophical themes, with mixed results), but RahXephon pretty much takes the cake. Nice music though, and I would add that it hung together better but had much less passion.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?