Live Action Akira coming in '09

[Rackhir]

Apparently Katsuhiro Otomo (creator of the manga and director of the anime movie) is attached to the production as an executive producer. Which is a good sign and they are apparently doing it as two movies. So they should have room to fit in more of the story from the manga. On the other hand, the track record for movies shot back to back is not inspiring. The location is being changed to New York from Tokyo though, but there really wasn't anything that "tokyo-ish" in the original film.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/21/akira_movies/

I'm skeptical, but willing to give it a shot.

 

[Arnwyn]

Same here. Skeptical, but I'll take a look.

If it's futuristic enough, the location change may not bother me (though I generally prefer the asthetics of Tokyo to New York).

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I hope its as good as Fist of the North Star!

 

[Rackhir]

Same here. Skeptical, but I'll take a look.

If it's futuristic enough, the location change may not bother me (though I generally prefer the asthetics of Tokyo to New York).

Well it's actually going to be New Manhattan or something like that, since the original city is of course going to have been destroyed in the incident that started WWIII. The only "tokyo" building in the original story was the olympic stadium and there's no shortage of similar buildings in the NYC area.

I hope its as good as Fist of the North Star!

The saddest thing about that movie is that you could tell they were trying really hard to be faithful to the original story and just failed completely at making a good movie. The scene that summed it up for me was where Kenshiro was unleashing one of his mega death attacks. Now typically in the manga/anime after he'd use one of those attacks often the villain would often say something to the effect of "Were you trying to tickle me?" just before they die horribly from the delayed effect of the attack. The thing that was so sad about the scene in the live action movie was that it did look like Kenshiro was trying to tickle him.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Interesting. I hope it's good, but... well, I hope it's good.

 

[Mark]

The idea of live-action anime brings to mind the idea of tofu turkey.

 

[frankthedm]

Heh. Moving it to America... well that is one way to preempt any fan complaints about the inevitable watering down the manga’s anti-American sentiment.

Would anyone else be willing to see what Ron Perlman could do for the role of Colonel Shikishima?

 

[Rackhir]

The idea of live-action anime brings to mind the idea of tofu turkey.

Akira is not a great example for this argument. One of it's defining characteristics was it's live action like attention to detail and "realisim" in depicting things. The main reason why a lot of stuff has been animated in the past, is that they tended to tell stories where the SFX either didn't exist to do them or it would have required budgets that simply aren't available to non-US film makers (the most expensive Japanese movie ever made has a budget in the 10s of millions).

 

[Joker]

Akira is not a great example for this argument. One of it's defining characteristics was it's live action like attention to detail and "realisim" in depicting things. The main reason why a lot of stuff has been animated in the past, is that they tended to tell stories where the SFX either didn't exist to do them or it would have required budgets that simply aren't available to non-US film makers (the most expensive Japanese movie ever made has a budget in the 10s of millions).

Hollywood movies are overpriced when compared to what lower budget movies can accomplish.

 

[Rackhir]

Hollywood movies are overpriced when compared to what lower budget movies can accomplish.

I've seen all of those movies, plus a number of other Japanese and Korean SF films. Of the three you mention, only the Host had even vaguely impressive special effects and that only had a remarkably well animated CGI creature. But even that wasn't anything groundbreaking. There's nothing produced overseas that comes within even a 1/10 the visual spectacle of something like the Star Wars movies, Titanic or Lord of the Rings.

CGI has dramatically lowered the cost of doing SFX that would have been inconceivable just 10-15 years ago and will eventually do a lot to level the playing field, but I doubt it will ever completely equalize it. Simply because US films can count on earning more than other countries films ever can, because they can reach a world wide audience and other countries can't.

Granted a substantial chunk goes to pay salaries for stars in the 10s of millions and for famous directors. But they get those prices for the most part because they have proven they can deliver movies that can gross 100s of millions world wide.