Animated Castlevania Movie Sounds Promising

Via GameSetWatch, a link to the official blog for the animated film Castlevania: Dracula's Curse. The story for the film is being written by the iconic Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Planetary), and the blog has tidbits of information from the writer about what we can expect with the film. Encouragingly, the movie is very much not aimed at children, will probably be just the first of a planned trilogy, and is generally based around the story from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. From the GSW post: "He explains, grinning: 'To make it work as a film, I had to introduce new backstory, and I went through five drafts of the premise and three of the full outline to get the material where [Koji Igarashi] wanted it. He remains absolutely passionate about Castlevania. After eight rewrites of pre-production material, I remain absolutely passionate about beating the crap out of [Igarashi] in a dark alleyway one day.'"

Comments

I'll be the first to say it...

[ProppaT]

Certainly sounds more promising than the live action movie in the works, which should promise to be as true to the source material as...well...it won't be. Ugh...too bad Warren Ellis isn't writing the live action movie script...

Warren Ellis

[Cy Sperling]

I couldn't care less about Castlevania; but Warren Ellis is, hands down, required reading. No self respecting Slashdot reader should pass up reading Transmetropolitan. It is truly fantastic futurist fiction, and damn funny to boot. Spider Jerusalem is my hero.

Advent Are-you-fucking-kidding-me

[CelticWhisper]

...And the complete lack of a plot?

Advent Children was among the worst movies of the year, and you are spot-on in your recommendation to watch it muted. With all due respect, however, your suggestion of switching to Japanese dialogue is, in this geek's eyes, a shade misguided as watching in Japanese solves nothing--the problems run deeper than voice-overs or language itself. I saw both the English and Japanese versions, having fallen prey to fans of the film telling me "it's better in Japanese, trust me, see it that way." So I gave it a whirl, figuring at least the worst that could happen is I'd lose another 90 minutes of my life.

Fool me once (The Grudge/Ju-On), shame on you. Fool me twice, just shoot me in the head.

Now, before you revoke my geek badge, I have nothing against Japanese culture or media, my J-console-game collection is extensive, and I watch anime from time to time (albeit not as much as I used to, but still a fair amount--recently it's been Ergo Proxy, which is amazing and available in 720p as icing on the cake). However, no amount of appreciation for Japanese pop culture could salvage this frelling pile of dren.

It was nothing either way but 90 minutes of pandering pointlessness with a slick CG shine.

• The heroes were all superhuman and I never once felt the slightest hint of suspense. Is it asking too much to have these characters whom we have come to know and (presumably) love overcome some real adversity and demonstrate some strength of character, whether it be in intelligence, creativity, quick thinking, resourcefulness, or something other than flying through the air in slow motion and smiling/winking at the camera?
• The writers failed to make me care about Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo's motives, due in part to making them so implausibly, unrealistically man-gorgeous that I was completely unable to take them seriously as antagonists (I know, I know, it's a Japanese cultural thing and it's all over games/anime/manga, but all I can say is at least people know not to fuck with Dr. Doom or Emperor Palpatine), and also in part to the jarring (lack of) introduction we were given to these characters. It's one thing to throw the audience right in the middle of an action scene with the hero facing an unknown villain and then follow the hero as he finds out about who they are, what they want, etc. The way it was done here, though, had all the characters acting as though they had some existing knowledge of the villains and it made me feel as though I'd missed some crucial part of the plot.
• The Geostigma/SSS was poorly explained almost to the point of passing lip-service instantly forgotten at the onset of the next fight scene. Also, its apparent cure was similarly contrived and forced, feeling like yet another way to stuff in a fan-pleaser.
• Speaking of fight scenes, some of the camera motion threatened to forcefully reintroduce me to my lunch. The spiral down the side of Orthanc in Fellowship was bad enough, but at least it was over in a couple seconds...almost a full half-hour of it in FF7AC's final motorcycle-chase/action/fight sequence was just unforgivable.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, for as panned and reviled as it is by the fanboys, is at least a respectable exercise in filmmaking even if it has few ties to its namesake game series. This stems from the film taking the time to properly introduce and develop characters, make the audience feel for them, make them seem human, and then string events together in a cohesive, meaningful fashion to form that elusive animal called a "plot." Poor game adaptation, but a decent film with a moderately engaging plot, some funny moments, and characters that seem far more real personality-wise than the planks of wood in AC. I know the character models bungee-jump in the Uncanny Valley, but at least they act, talk, and sound real. Far better than the overabundance of brooding stares and unconvincing overly-emotionally-charged conflict of AC.

AC, on the other hand, is a "thank-you" to FF7 fans and a "fuck you" to anyone else interested in seeing an enjoyable movie.