Forum - View topicNEWS: Live-Action Death Note Director Wingard Discusses Possible Sequels
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GATSU
Posts: 15336 |
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grigo: They make money by selling it to multiple territories and through the number of views they get for it. Plus, the usual sponsors front part of the costs.
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Puniyo
 Posts: 271 |
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Bloody good movie. It still felt like Death Note while also being a fresh new story. The trailers were admittedly pretty bad at showing what the film actually was, because there was no unnecessary action like I was expecting.
They definitely took more than a few pointers from the Death Note drama, but seeing as I love the drama, that's not a bad thing |D Ryuk was an absolute perfect fit, and to be honest so was the actor for L. Natt Wolf was also a lot better fit than I'd ever thought he'd be. I wasn't too hot on then changes to Watari but I see why they were necessary. spoiler[only thing I thought was really missing was the original's criticism of the death penalty and the media. But seeing as this is a short film and it is an American version, I can live with that. I loved that scenes with the Kira supporter though! We're always just told how much everyone admires Kira, but never really shown it like that. ] |
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Woomy
 Posts: 110 |
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Just finished watching the flick with my brother and as a pretty avid fan of the series, I thought it was fine. Nothing all that spectacular, but don't see how this really crapped on the series and was some abomination.
A lot of what they were going for could have really worked to shape this particular vision for Death Note's story as while it is very much its own beast, it still has core components backing the spine of this story. The thing that seems to drag it down though is its constricted run time. Clocking in at only 100 minutes doesn't allow the first act much room to breathe. The second and third acts feel more streamlined, but the establishing one needed more time to develop.Nearly all those scenes could have been better if they only slowed it down. That being said, there is still quite a bit to appreciate. Willem Dafoe is as great as we all expected him to be, and I even like Adam Wingard's touch to apply a horror movie-ish angle to some of those scenes. Keith Stanfield while definitely a little more passionate than the original, still very much seemed like L to me. I'm inclined to believe him in that interview where he said he watched the anime and fell in love with it coming on set being L exactly, only to have the crew give him initiative to still be a little different. Keith gets L despite the script wanting to differentiate him a little bit from the original. I liked him. Mia is also to me the more interesting character to watch over Misa. While her motivations definitely needed more establishing, her role is just more compelling than the dumb tool loyal to a fault that became a plot device more than anything. It almost makes me wonder just how interesting the series would have gotten with Misa if she WASN'T so blindly loyal to a sociopath that clearly showcased how much he viewed her as expendable and was more independent. But yea, while Misa's motivations are defined better, and it does explain her role, Mia is just far more interesting to actually follow here despite her motivations lacking. Funny how it worked that way. Light was OK, but his characterization needed a little work. He was still a serial killer going about a crusade of justice with a killer notebook who had no qualms in offing criminals but was also more empathetic. I still don't feel like they made him seem like a hero or a good guy, but his resilience to lose sight of his mission later in the movie kinda is a little weak when he killed a bully almost immediately in the beginning in brutal fashion. Even if this Light does stray from the source a bit, there's still traces of a compelling lead in his own right here. He just needed more focus. That runtime really limited so much. That climax Light set into motion at the end though, was pure Light and I don't think how you'd feel any different. The revelations which I did suspect was the moment I truly felt like I was watching Light again. Maybe a sequel will focus more on that stuff. Also, I find Light's dad to be a little more interesting and believable here. He still has his convictions to justice, but it was more realistic to me in how he reacted to L's borderline harassment when it came to suspecting Light, instead of like his dad in the show which is clearly annoyed by it all, but also gives this guy he barely knows the benefit of the doubt due to a reputation. But yea, overall this is the second best Death Note movie to me after The Last Name. It pushed forward with confidence with a new twist on a story that's been adapted plenty of times at this point, but also still preserved things that made me never think I still wasn't watching a Death Note movie. It's a competent, and solid effort with even a foundation for potentially better sequels. I can talk about all my speculations but I don't wanna spoil for those who didn't see the film. So maybe some other time. |
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razberry_yum
 Posts: 169 |
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It was more horrible than expected. I already set my standards really low based on the previews, publicity and even ANN's review of the movie, and the movie still didn't meet those low standards. I've been saying this again and again, but really, why did Adam Wingard even bother keeping the characters of Light and L when he had absolutely no intention of staying true to the characters? Why not just create three original characters and name them something else so he can make his own original stupid teeny boppy romance movie which just happens to involve the Death Note? With those names, comes reasonable expectations, so why even give himself that kind of grief? But putting that aside, the acting was pretty bad in terms of Light and L (the Mia actress was just a little better but still not what I would call good), and the use of the soundtrack was obnoxious and completely inorganic to the scenes. The voice performance on Ryuk was the best thing in the movie, but the look of Ryuk was really uneven. Sometimes he looked good, sometimes he looked like a B movie prop. It was odd. Ugh, I need to go watch something actually good to erase the memory of this awful movie from my brain.
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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The movie was good, but not great. I was entertained and would watch a sequel. However, there were definitely some issues.
On the plus side, I liked how they changed the story from the original. I was surprised by who lived and who died. Also, the setting was used well. Seattle was portrayed as dark and rainy for most of the movie, and that definitely played well with the overall mood of the story. Ryuk's special effects were used pretty well also. He was shown just enough to look cool and freaky, but not enough to look obviously fake. On the negative, they really should have spread the story out in a mini series, because there was too much ground to cover, even with them telling a new story. Cramming it all into a single movie caused Light and Mia's character development to be extremely rushed. This reflected worst on Mia, who seemed far too capricious to be very believable. Light's development was also hurt, but I think the last act of the movie did a decent job making him more into the smart, morally ambiguous character that we know from the source materials. This movie did try to develop L more than the anime did, but they didn't do enough to explain why he was showing the increased levels of emotion in how things played out. I would have liked to see more of his backstory explored if they were going to make him more of an intense personality. But again, they didn't have time to do that since everything was crammed into a single movie. That being said, I think Mr. Stanfield did a good job playing the character written for him. His acting sold it fairly well. Likewise, I think Nat Wolf did a good job portraying his character, and really, it is hard to knock any of the actors here in my opinion. I think each of them played their role fairly well. I just think the writing didn't help them. Last but not least, it was kind of cool how the relationship between Light and Ryuk was different in this version, and Ryuk seems like more of a wildcard. That could have made this version better perhaps than the anime version, but again, we didn't get nearly enough of it due to this being a single movie. Overall, I would say it was better than the other anime to Hollywood live action adaptations, but somewhere around a B- as far as a grade. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5980 |
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Those reasonable expectations come from fans who all to often expect any adaptation to be a 1 to 1 adaptation of the source material and when it chooses not to be so, cry about the adaptation getting the message wrong or pissing upon the original work. And yet when a work effectively is a 1 to 1 adaptation gets crapped on for not being risky enough. |
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tzarye14
Posts: 8 |
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If he was thinking in a sequel and probably another one more film, way rush through the first one and skip and change the story? That's what happen when you don't plan what you want to do with your stuff...
People are already mad about this first, a sequel would be a disaster even bigger for sure! |
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IG
Posts: 60 |
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Personally, I think a sequel will b e better . Light seems to become like original Light. Now if they do a time skipped , and have Light still be Kira . |
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chaccide
Posts: 295 |
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Sorry kiddo. What you just described aren't reasonable expectations but rather unreasonable ones. The reasonable expectations are that there's some resemblance that lends itself to recreating the spirit and themes of the original story. This movie did not do that. |
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IG
Posts: 60 |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I think the only reasonable expectation was expecting there to be a person who gets a Death Note. More or less everything else is fair game and NOT necessary to make something a good adaptation, or at least a good film. The spirit and themes of something are changed in adaptations all the time to fantastic success and critical acclaim as well. The same can be said for characters and pretty much everything else. Expecting this to have even remotely the same themes was probably a bad move on your part chaccide, my sweet child.
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5980 |
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.....That's the joke. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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But they took him to a Ferris wheel to hilarious effect! Everything commendable of which this incarnation of the character was capable has been brought to fruition; no mortal effort can surpass such a feat. |
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razberry_yum
Posts: 169 |
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Can you actually cite an example of live action work that was a 1:1 adaptation and still got crapped on? I'm actually curious since this is the second time I've read someone say that in the last day. Personally, I wasn't expecting a 1:1 adaptation, that is nearly impossible considering the fact that they were trying to fit a series into the length of a movie. What I was expecting, was that since the name of the movie is still Death Note and the main characters are still Light and L, the nature of the story and the characters as they were presented in the source material would and should still be retained. I'll relent that the general concept of the Death Note was present, but where Wingard and his screenwriters failed miserably was in the characters of Light and L and the importance of their interaction to the original story. Maybe you didn't care about that aspect, but I think a lot of people do because it did make up the bulk of the story. Take that part out, and you're left with just the concept of the Death Note and death gods, which is FINE, but then why not just insert your own original characters and leave Light, L, and the others out of your story. He didn't so much adapt Death Note as he simply took the superficial elements of the story and reinvented the whole thing. I really don't think reinvention is the same as adaptation. If you want to see something that is actually a well-adapted product, even though the source material wasn't an anime or manga series, check out Bates Motel the tv series. THAT is a near perfect adaptation of an existing work: the characters and basic plot of the source material are still there, but due to the difference in medium, they also managed to expand upon the world and add their own unique touch to it while still retaining the nature of the source material and characters so that everything is still recognizable and the general trajectory of the story remains the same. |
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