Forum - View topicNEWS: Gary Whitta Discusses Live-Action Akira's Early Drafts
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GATSU
Posts: 15356 |
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giascle: No, they were planning to make it into a series of movies. But either way, it's not a manga/anime property which would work as a remake, because it's uniquely Japanese.
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Except that Otomo's biggest influence was Moebius. And Moebius is French... |
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Sven Viking
Posts: 1039 |
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About adaptations requiring changes: This is brought up in any discussion of adaptations, and is generally quite true. However, it's most commonly just used to excuse unnecessary and/or ridiculous changes.
Regarding the success of The Lord of the Rings: It's also extremely faithful to the source material, as film adaptations go. About Watchmen: As I've seen little evidence to suggest that mainstream audiences would appreciate even the original work, I'm not sure its lack of success proves anything about faithful adaptations. Sin City also came close to a frame-for-frame recreation (closer, probably), and it did OK. If filmmakers want to make a thoroughly different film, why pretend it's an adaptation? Apocalypse Now is a good example. If it had been called "Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness", many would have complained. It's more inspired by the book than an adaptation of it, hence the title. (Also, it "draws elements from Michael Herr's Dispatches, the film version of Conrad's Lord Jim (which shares the same character of Marlow with Heart of Darkness), and Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God"). In contrast, something like Deliverance stays close to the book, and keeps the same title. This just makes sense... except when you want to cash in on an existing following. Crazy example: If Pirates of the Caribbean had been titled The Secret of Monkey Island, fans would have (rightfully) complained. As it is, I expect most can appreciate it as a similar but different film. 
As far as Akira goes, there's obviously not much to go on yet. Seems like a difficult thing to adapt into live-action, though -- if they do it well, it'll be quite an achievement. (And quite surprising). |
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GATSU
Posts: 15356 |
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Moomin: Otomo has a lot of Western influences, but the manga and anime are still uniquely Japanese. Hell, you look at Taiyo Matsumoto, who's also inspired by Moebius, and you see the TK manga, which is probably the least challenging "Japanese" concept to adapt, and the American ex-pat director still blew it. And it's clearly not enough for the talent to have experience with the genre, either. They have to be able to sell the concept while retaining enough of what makes it appealing in the first place. And sometimes, as Alan Moore pointed out, things are specifically made into comics for a reason.
Sven: POTC was based on the theme park ride which preceded the Lucasarts game. Though I wouldn't be surprised if some of the writers weren't fans of the latter franchise, not to mention One Piece. |
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Baltimoron
 Posts: 43 Location: Charm City |
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I mentioned the squidmonster. Aside from that, it's a slavishly faithful adaptation. The number of shots in that movie that are direct reproductions of panels from the comic is mindboggling. Other than the occasional Shakespeare movie that uses the Bard's script, you will never see a more faithful Hollywood reworking of any pre-existing piece. Seriously, Zack Snyder went so far as to include Bubastis. He spent money on CGI for a pet that only the most die-hard of fanboys cared about and that mainstream audiences thought was weird and stupid. |
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Ryo Hazuki
Posts: 363 Location: Finland |
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Visual influence. At least I haven't read anything similar to Akira by Moebius. |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Sure. Thematically, his biggest influences were Philip K Dick, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling...still not exactly "uniquely Japanese", huh? |
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GATSU
Posts: 15356 |
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Moomin: Have you actually read the manga and seen the anime? If so, can you spot the Western influences?
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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My personal opinions aside, the challenge of making this sort of venture a profitable one must require a lot of careful experimentation with the source material. As a financial exercise, I'd compare it to the walking of a tightrope. (To a certain extent however, I'd expect the same could be said of many Hollywood endeavours.)
I like this notion. One retains access to all the source material one wants, without being seen as stepping on any sensitive toes, so to speak. Of course, the lack of nominal connection between the new work and the established one may restrict the degree to which the pre-existing popularity improves the endeavour's monetary gain. |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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He may have blown it - I don't actually think the film is bad but I grant you it's nowhere near as good as the comic - but that's hardly proof that he blew it because he's an American. That's not causality, it's just a manifestation of your self-loathing and inverse racism.
Quite so. But given that Otomo already made a cinematic version of Akira 20+ years ago, that's hardly relevant in this instance.
Yes, yes and yes. Cyberpunk was a North American invention. Every single Japanese cyberpunk anime / manga / film of the '80s and '90s owes its very existence to those North Americans who pioneered the genre and, to a lesser extent, to those European artists who pre-dated cyberpunk but whose style melded so well with it. If there'd been no Blade Runner or Neuromancer, there'd have been no Akira and no Ghost in the Shell. Deal with it. |
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HellKorn
Posts: 1669 Location: Columbus, OH |
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I'd also like to say that people invoking Snyder's Watchmen as a "faithful" adaption of the comic seem to really have their priorities misplaced -- and the giant squid is not the issue here. The movie is just a superficial of Moore's ideas, and also totally misses the detached tone of violence in the original, along with Moore's OCD-like attention to panel, page and chapter compositions for framing his story.
Akira, while a big success largely due to Otomo's perfect understanding of how an action comic should be done, also works just because the story itself is compelling. It's not tied to moral or societal commentary, so there's less of a chance for any director and/or producer to screw up. |
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Sven Viking
Posts: 1039 |
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Just to note that I wasn't entering the faithful/unfaithful argument there. I was questioning whether any faithful adaptation of Watchmen would be a commercial success. Many classic or popular works do not have this problem (i.e. they already appeal to mainstream audiences). I think the most common problem may be that people involved with the film want to do something more creative, but are stuck doing an adaptation for financial reasons. So they try to make it their own by changing whatever they can get away with. This may be why bad books often make for good films. (Edit: Though Snyder deserves a lot of credit for attempting a faithful adaptation, imho, even if he did miss the point.) |
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Ryo Hazuki
Posts: 363 Location: Finland |
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[quote="Moomintroll
Cyberpunk was a North American invention. Every single Japanese cyberpunk anime / manga / film of the '80s and '90s owes its very existence to those North Americans who pioneered the genre and, to a lesser extent, to those European artists who pre-dated cyberpunk but whose style melded so well with it. If there'd been no Blade Runner or Neuromancer, there'd have been no Akira and no Ghost in the Shell. Deal with it.[/quote] I haven't read Neuromancer but except for having a large metropolis (already an element in a movie Metropolis in 1927) Akira doesn't have much to do with either Do androids dream of electric sheep? or Blade Runner. The themes in Akira have more to do with post-war rebuilding and evolution, young generation vs. the old generation(also present in Gundam and Toward the Terra) than identity, questioning what defines humanity or virtual reality. |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Otomo isn't much interested in the technological - or even philosophical - underpinnings of cyberpunk (certainly not in the way that, say, Shirow is) but the aesthetic, the gritty near-future dystopia and the tone are all there. It's cyberpunk-lite. I'm not sure where you're going with the Metropolis thing - cyberpunk has its own roots, same as any other genre, and Metropolis is certainly somewhere in the mix. The point is, Akira's narrative strengths are in no way tied to the nationality of its author or of its setting. It's composition and construction owes as much to France as to Japan and its aesthetic owes as much to the USA as to Japan. And, no, I really, really don't see Gundam and Toward the Terra in its lineage. Yes, there are some common themes but those same themes are explored in thousands upon thousands of other works from around the world and those themes certainly aren't "uniquely Japanese" or inherently beyond the abilities of Westerners to comprehend as GATSU would like to believe. |
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HellKorn
Posts: 1669 Location: Columbus, OH |
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