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Appleseed World Preview Minireview
darrellberry writes "We went to see the World Sneak Preview of Masamune Shirow's Appleseed at the ICA tonight. Complimentary sake and sushi, a loving but silly flipchart presentation from the producer about the politics of the world in which it is set, then the film. The animation is amazing the rendering of the city of Olympus is beautiful, the battle set-pieces are fluid and very well choreographed, and the fine line betwen genre conventions and attempts at hyper-realism is treated with respect. Although the first few minutes owe too much to The Matrix-meets-Avalon, and in parts (to my eye) the human characters suffer somewhat from traditional anime styling, Appleseed is something genuinely new in animation. Detail everywhere, lovingly rendered. Way too much exposition, in the style of some Russian epic from the 60s, and music supervision that was entirely wrong: it was nice to see Basement Jaxx turning up for the premiere, but their music and that of Oakenfold and the rest on the soundtrack made no sense thematically or emotionally. I can see that they are going for a big international release with Appleseed, but the music is just wrong. On the plus side, the motion capture-based character animation is very convincing, and the Mobile Fortresses out-scale any other city-stomping weapons platform I can remember. And lovely to see anime at a high frame-rate, not jumping in triples. Go see it at a big cinema with decent Dolby when it's on release next month, or get it on DVD (evidently on release in July) and turn up the sub-woofer." I don't know if we linked to the official site in our last story.
its pure eye candy!!!. Last thing i've ever seen like this is ONI FPS game. Cant wait to watch it, although it means i have to wait like 8 months till it gets to Chile. 2 years if you are thinking of a legal copy.
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."
I was going to see this movie but since you gave away the frame-rate I might as well stay home.
Anyone got Bittorrents for the Trailer(s)?
I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines.
Sounds like something to check out... but on a side note, PLEASE use the "Read More..." link! That writeup eats an entire page on my browser, I thought the Ruskies dropped the bomb when I first loaded the page.
IMO ... Appleseed was the beginning of the wave of bad anime that unfortunatly became the dominant style of the 90s. Everything about it is just as boring and contrived as American superhero comics. The last Appleseed movie nearly put me to sleep 10yrs ago, I assume this will be no different.
Im hoping they include the trust Gong 10-gauge pistol from the original in this one. That thing was bad-ass (Though in reality would result in broken wrists).
"Hand me the bullet-shooty-thing and a box of little hurts" -Overheard on a USMC Rifle range
http://www.a-seed.jp/trailer/mov/aps_to-1000.wmv
http://www.a-seed.jp/trailer/mov/apy-1m.wmv
Just in case you were hoping to get some information out of it. Head thee to Babelfish first!
-jls
Techno-pagan
There's a cool association called MPAA (Moviez Pirate Association of America). You may want to google for it and try asking them.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
DVD release is supposed to be in July, but is this the Japanese release or NA with English subtitles? I would have RTFA, but it's all in Japanese :)
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
come on people! how come any form of media that involes sci fi elements is ripping off the Gaytrix....the Matrix ripped off so many other things that is stupid to compare to anything.
http://www.filerush.com/torrents/appleseed_trailer -anime.mov.torrent
The Apple Dumpling Gang?
Upgrade to at least a 14.4 modem, and maybe it will load in less than an hour! ;)
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
Way too much exposition, in the style of some Russian epic from the 60s
What series isn't filled with way too much exposition? I mean... Have you ever seen Gundam W?
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
It's funny how the Japanese appears on the site when you don't have the fonts installed. Looks like a fanboy forum. :)
? ?
????1995?????
Ghost in the Shell?????????
???3D????
2004?????????
CG?????
The Gaytrix! Thats so funny, because homosexuality is so lame and so is the Matrix!
Personally I would call it the Dorktrix... or maybe "Slashdork."
postmodernsideshow.com
They decided to do a remake of the original all in CGI. I don't know I kinda liked the original even thou it sucked this remake doesn't look that good I'm not a huge fan of pure CGI so I am biased.
--
Those that fart in elevators with other people should be shot.
Innocence, the new Ghost In The Shell movie, is playing this weekend:
The Theatrical Release in Japan (English Subtitled Version)
Roppongi Hills -Virgin Cinema-
Released from March 6th 2004 (Late Show Only) LInky
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
...we get that. But I really want some of you to take a look at this guy's rant about Anime nerds. He's spot on. Sure, I've got my DVD of Akira, some old VHS tapes with Ghost in the Shell, Armitige, etc... I've enjoyed Totoro, Iria, and the like. I even took Japanese (long before I watched anime with any regularity) because I am into it. But, you wouldn't catch me anywhere talking about the philosophy behind an anime film and how it applies to the real world. I will never get into heated discussions about the balance of good and evil in a cartoon, or come to the defense of my favorite anime character (must admit that I don't have one) when someone else assails them for being a weak person. Get a life people! Oh... and the link I referred to above is hillarious. Check it out. Really.
Un-news
Although the first few minutes owe too much to The Matrix-meets-Avalon
Um, you do realize that Appleseed was conceived long before The Matrix, and The Matrix stole much of its styling from Anime in the first place, right?
the human characters suffer somewhat from traditional anime styling
HAhahah. The next thing you're going to tell me is that film noire is just too dark and brooding. I mean, seriously, "This Anime is too Anime-ish!"
Way too much exposition, in the style of some Russian epic from the 60s
Part of what makes Anime in general and Shirow's work specifically interesting is the utter depth of the universe in which it takes place. I wouldn't put too much stock in this review at all.
How dare you mock the one with the lowest SLashdot ID?! A little respect, please, for both his 14.4 modem and 14in monitor...
This article's comments have the lowest signal to noise ratio I've seen in a long time.
Does anyone have a link to still shots of the movie? I can't get streaming media through our company's proxy.
"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." - Democritus
Pretty pictures, pretty girls, and entirely empty. At least The Matrix was filled with something which captured the imagination; was filled with human reactions.
They presented a flow chart to explain the politics in the story? Oh dear. That sounds like an exciting time.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of Shirow's art and design. I loved the early Appleseed books, (which actually HAD some story and some interesting characters. For a little while, anyway. .
Frankly, he isn't fooling anybody, and his shyness at just openly loving the stuff which he clearly loves, (Pretty picture of Pretty girls and Big Technology), without trying to justify it through important sounding horseshit, is the very thing which is going to make people look down upon him.
One should leave the ego alone. It'll take care of itself when you follow the things you love without worrying about how others judge you.
And most interestingly. . . I think Shirow actually likes story and character most of all! --Yes, I know, there's virtually none of either anywhere to be found in his work. But I remember reading an old, old interview where he said that when he was young, he preferred reading girl's manga over the boy's manga. And then he quickly promised that there would be no drama or love in his work, as though that were something shameful.
The guy grew up in Japanese society and he's got a repressed personality? Well, there's a shock!
One of the best insights into human nature I ever heard was this:
"Judge the potential by the inhibition."
I hope Shirow grows up soon. He's spent an entire career so far avoiding himself.
-FL
I bought and loved the Appleseed books back in the early 90s, but I'm not generally an anime person, so the idiot-level questions that I have aren't really covered by this article or the links. Can someone translate into stupid for me?
1) If there's a "world sneak preview," does that mean this will come out in US theaters anytime soon?
2) Will the July DVD release be Japanese only, subtitled, dubbed, what?
In other words, how soon - if ever - can someone who's not that big on watching a movie in just Japanese see it?
Yes, it's true, I am a nerd
-Redundancy Man strikes again!
This movie looks amazing! Personally I can't wait to see it.
As a 13 year old American kid who read mostly Marvel, DC and Dark Horse, Appleseed struck a chord with me in a way no other manga series had before or since. With a combination of Masamune's amazing art, a complex story, and intriguing characters, this is a comic which was more than the sum of it's parts, and has always deserved a movie that lives up to it's promise, as the origional did not do it justice. Can't wait for the US premier!!
didn't realise slash can't cope with unicode tags for proper punctuation -- it all looked ok in the preview!
Well, I have a DVD of the original movie so it can't be the same thing! It must be the remake.
SF: Give me Evangelion
Comedy: Give me Excel Saga any day
Drama: Give me Narutaru.
If you only watch the tentacle-monster infested Hentai titles, you will really miss the real beauty of this wonderful genre.
No, it is called Read or Die.
Actually, I went to go see Spirited Away. I didn't see a single type of the person he mentions. In fact, there were a number of older couples, and a lot of normal teenybopper middle school kids. Plenty of people went to see it here in Boston because it got a great review in the Globe.
The guy has more pent up anger than I've seen in ages. You want a perfect example? How about this. He's mentally ill, complaining about people who go "Hmmmm" while thinking about things, for example- and speaks of murdering women by bashing their heads against walls. A very disturbed and dangerous individual who needs psychological help, much more so than any of the individuals he described.
Please help metamoderate.
Well, I can call myself a nerd as well but watching good anime can't be something bad. Read or Die OVA's were just beautiful and I really like the TV series.
The techno group Boom Boom Satelites are on the soundtrack for this anime and they recently released a music video to promote this with scenes from the anime and some original footage. It is in perfect quality and is probably the best quality video you can see of this on the net. You can download it with bit torrent at this page:
http://bunko.theppn.org/details.php?id=4151
Can't read worth a damn at their website... But.. I know it's a remake.. Did they keep the original characters??
;-)
People like Arugess, Brontes, Athena, Nike, Fang Berylbone A10F, Briareos Hecatochires and of course.. Deunan Knute...
Appleseed Rocks!!
Will sys-admin for food
Aside from the comment about "Way too much exposition," I didn't catch any reference in this review to how the story was- all they talked about was the animation and music. I'm taking this as a bad sign... I've seen lots of anime that had amazing visuals and great music but was painful to watch because of the horrible dialogue/plot.
Oni was third-person.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
If you only watch the tentacle-monster infested Hentai titles, you will really miss the real beauty of this wonderful genre.
I'll be the judge of that, thank you very much.
Freedom: "I won't!"
As far as I know (which, I admit, isn't as complete as I'd like), this is the first feature-length movie which renders its human characters completely using cel-shaded CGI. (The buildings and machines are rendered more realistically using 3-D shading.)
Cel shading is used extensively for humans in some other media, most notably MTV's "Spider-Man" series, but this movie looks like a step up. The more common cel shading becomes, the more I think we can expect traditional animation to fade into a quaint and over-expensive technique. (I wouldn't be surprised if this is already the thinking at Disney's studios, now that they've closed their traditional animation departments.)
There's no reason why this story needs to be three times bigger than every other story on the front page.
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
Saw Apple, Mini, and review, and my brain somehow inferred quite independently of actually reading that Appleseed was a new video player device from Apple. After having read the actual post and visited the website, I have to say that an Apple video player was a heck of a lot more exciting, although it would probably really be named iSeed if it were truly an Apple product.
Oh well.
If you're insistent of watching crap, I can't help you sorry. It's your loss, not mine mate.
England - the Debian-Stable of anime...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Uhhhh... right. First of all, if you don't like big-breasted women, you might want to consider a genre other than anime. Secondly, this anime is based on the second Appleseed graphic novel, the core of which is simply an incredible set of ideas, and not a particularly compelling drama (go back and actually read the boring political stuff - there are some interesting ideas there). There are other satisfying genres out there if drama is your thing.
Is Shirow immature, or perhaps the question would be, more so than his contemporaries? Have you read any other sci-fi (I'm thinking Stephenson, but one could just as easily point to Asimov)? Lastly, take a look at where you're posting; accusations of immaturity don't hold much currency around here.
- Bachelorhood is the father of necessity.
Deadpan humour loses a lot in a text-only medium.
Freedom: "I won't!"
"turn up the sub-woofer?"
What the hell? That eliminates any pretense of accuracy. I suppose a lot of people gladly trade accuracy for something that's just loud and boomy.
Oh well.
As a fan of the manga I really wish to see this new Appleseed - the old movie was quite awful.
;-)
Half the fun in the old one was all the Engrish. I think they spelled "Olympus" about 8 different ways in various scenes. Olumpis, Olumpas, Olimpus, etc. I think they finally got it spelled right towards the end of the movie
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Accusations?
Sounds like you're taking my observations personally. Don't waste your time. It makes no difference to me or anybody what you like or dislike. Watch and enjoy whatever you want.
Fact is, I find Shirow and his work fascinating, and I think my observations are probably quite valid. I enjoy trying to understand what makes a creator like Shirow tick; by sifting through his head, I learn more about myself. If this makes you feel threatened, then that's for you to deal with.
Try to enjoy the process. It's called, 'growth'.
-FL
About time someone did Appleseed AGAIN. The first effort was not so good, I didn't like it at all. It's very, very difficult to pull off Shirow's style in animation, you would almost need him to draw every 10th frame to get it right. I was just thinking yesterday that if someone where to animate Appleseed , they should use the book's illustrations as a starting point and build it out from there. I don't know why the characters have to be completely redrawn for animation, it seems like it would be less work to use more of the original art. Fans would love it if the characters 'came to life' off the pages instead of being restyled for the screen. In short, too bad Shirow does not have more to do with the artwork when his works are put on screen.
TallGreen CMS hosting
I'm sorry that you can't follow Shirow's stories. Perhaps if you realise that he askes questions but doesn't answer them, that might help you cope. Appleseed, Orion and to some extend Dominion Tank Police are all questions about sustainable society, spirituality and militarisation of the police, repectively. No, the movie may not contain as much story as his comics, but "Shirow to the core: Pretty pictures, pretty girls, and entirely empty" is just wrong. If he was born in the english-speaking western world he'd be a Sci-Fi writer in the order of Gibson or Stirling (somewhere I personally place him already).
On the other hand, I've watched the original Appleseed recently, and since it's around 10 years old, you can't compare the animation in that to the trailer. Appleseed was one of the first of Shirow's works, so that could explain the 'shoddyness' of it, as not everyone can get everything right the first try. Ghost in the Shell made up for all of that.
I'm reading Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface and I have to say, it's awesome. Full-colour, awesome techy-shiny-looking-stuff, panty shots, skimpy clothing, cool action scenes and cyberaction scenes.... yeah! Dark Horse is selling translated versions now.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
Shirow was never really about telling interesting narratives. His manga were always a lot more like Gibson in that they would paint a compelling picture of the future and then raise a few thorny issues to make you realize that all the advances had drawbacks and unintended consequences as well.
Basically standard sci fi. His depictions of mecha and guns in the future were definitely among the more compelling and interesting ones found in anime/manga and the stories he told were good science fiction.
I'm glad that finaly they have the CG abilities to properly realize his works on the big screen. Black Magic M66(or whatever it was called exactly) was a shameful pile and made me dread the release of any Shirow based anime. After Ghost in the Shell I realized it would only be a matter of time before we saw Appleseed, which was IMO a much better storyline.
Oh, I didn't say I couldn't follow his narrative style. I just wasn't very impressed by it. Appleseed started off on excellent footing; the trick is to marry interesting, engaging characters with an interesting, engaging story world. But over the course of 5 volumes, Appleseed rapidly slid into what I consider a classic problem; that of forgetting that the details of the worldbuilding should be in service to the people you put in the world. He seemed to forget that his people existed as vital beings at all. --Or worse, he deliberately tried to make them seem like a bunch of department store dummies in order to make a point. (Which, while a brilliant end lesson, I rather doubt was consciously intended. More like the result of working through a waking nightmare.)
Tolkien wrote the LotR and the Hobbit, and created a deep, rich history, the vast bulk of which, (thankfully!), he didn't make us read through. The world buoyed up the characters; I cared about Frodo and Sam and Gandalf and their struggles. Tolkien never forgot that it is the people who are important to an audience.
By the middle of Appleseed, Deunan seemed to have lost her wit and charm, her humanity, and became just a decoration while the politicos babbled a bunch of stuff I didn't care about. (Half the time with the excuse of showing oiled babes and violence without it seeming like a bunch of soft porn. "If they talk smart over top, then this isn't really just a bunch of masterbation fuel.")
--Sure, building the political workings of a world is fine for when you are building a world; it gives you a stage upon which your characters can perform. But don't show me the damned code!
I'll click, "View/Page Source" if I want to read that stuff. Most people are designed to consume assembled, smooth flowing content, not HTML tags and Java script. "Untold Tales" were untold for a reason!
But please remember, this is just my opinion. I feel Shirow could have told a much more compelling story, but I am not one to say that he hasn't done a lot for his art. Many of his designs and ideas are quite brilliant. I just think he's a weak writer. --And so was Lucas! Imagine Shirow paired up with a good writing partner! Remember "Twin Peeks"? Had Mark Frost not been sitting over David Lynch to balance his insanity, we would have gotten another "Lost Highway" rather than something which connected with such power to the audience at large.
-FL
I think the larger question, the one I was attempting to address, was that most sci-fi writers tend to be immature in some sense. Whether this is simply knowing one's market, or a byproduct of focusing too narrowly on one's craft, I couldn't say. As to taking things personally... yeah, you could probably level that criticism at me. But you're not exactly above it yourself, gauging from the tone of your reply.
On the other hand, I think you are absolutely right on several counts. But to deconstruct someone's psyche based on his or her work and some interviews you've read, and then present it as a (rather damning) criticism of the same author ('typical Shirow'; 'needs to grow up') is in many senses extraordinarily flippant. To truly understand someone requires a lot more information than you suggest you have. If you extrapolate to specifics from limited data, it tends to reflect more upon you than your subject. Had you been more upfront about this to begin with...
But you happen to be right about his work deteriorating over time... I didn't enjoy Ghost in the Shell nearly as much as earlier Appleseed, but I think this is partly his loss of touch with more profound, overarching ideas, and not his lack of dramatic flair (which IMO was never particularly good - all his character interaction ever did [well] was serve as exposition or sounding boards for his ideas).
Anyhow, sorry if I hit a nerve.
- Bachelorhood is the father of necessity.