Forum - View topicNEWS: Book of Eli's Albert Hughes: Warner Wants PG-13 Akira
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TokyoGetter
Posts: 416 Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards. |
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Also, to whomever was speaking on the "why are depictions of violence integral to the plot?" topic: the violence is integral in that it's a great narrative tool for this particular story.
Look at it this way: these characters are undergoing scary, dark, and terrifying changes in their lifestyle, psyche, and physiology. Meanwhile the society is undergoing cataclysmic change as well. In this way the intrinsic and extrinsic are both covered via really striking visual elements and metaphor. At the risk of getting to Film Master's Degree(tm!) on you, I consider that to be one of the biggest reasons why the film still resonates: Akira's about change. Neo-Tokyo's about to E*P*L*0*D*E*... |
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Fletcher1991
Posts: 514 Location: Long Island, NY |
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Im just glad to see it start moving. PG-13 doesn't mean it's going to be bad. Hopefully this turns out well.
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ArsenicSteel
Posts: 2370 |
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Worse then the 1988 film, implying that one was bad?
Okay. Attempting to tone down material that is not pg-13 for an adaption is another excuse to tamper with the source material. |
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The Xenos
Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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I'm reading about the producer's comments here.
http://www.collider.com/2010/06/17/producer-andrew-lazar-interview-jonah-hex-akira-get-smart-2-joe-namath-one-finger-salute/ Again, who in their right mind thought mentioning Jonah Hex after it bombed this past week is a good way to get talking about future projects? "Jonah Hex was a smash hit... right? We should mention that movie to nitpicky rabid anime fans to ease their fear about Akira... right?" Of course, ten to one the interview was done and set to print before it bombed this past weekend. Ouch. Bad timing.
I'm simply pointing out that adapting comics into movies has a long jaded history of failure. Even as recently as last week the studio has proven they don't know jack about adapting a comic book into a good film. Really, can you provide any proof why Akira will not be another in a long line of failures? None of the comments made by the director or this horrible producer point otherwise. Hell, only Green Lantern has a glimmer of hope in that Warners and DC finally has an actual writer of the books working with the film to make it resemble the comic. Wow. It took them this long to think of such a revolutionary idea? So hopefully the days of Bat-credit cards is behind us.
"And the proooooom's tomorroooooow!"
Yet it can't be denied that Watchmen totally underperformed in sales. It didn't tank, but it didn't soar like Warners wanted it to. I agree with comments that its under performance is very likely a reason why Akira is not getting an R. |
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Altare
Posts: 37 |
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". . .The trick for me is to simplify everything for the audience because you can't come in with that complexity."
So they're dumbing it own for kids. Can't wait. |
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KanjiiZ
Posts: 661 Location: Central Coast |
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Just stop Xenos. You're making huge posts about stuff you know nothing about dude.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Warner Bros. does not care about whiny fans. Warner Bros. cares about creating a film that appeals to a broad enough audience to justify the film's budget. You complaining means nothing to the executives greenlighting the film. Nothing at all.
X-Men X-Men 2 Batman Begins The Dark Knight Iron Man Iron Man 2 The Incredible Hulk (2008) Watchmen Kick-Ass ...were all just fine. Comic book movies have had a renaissance lately. Yes there have been some bad ones. No they are not all bad. No it is not reasonable to just BAWWWWWWWWW and spew negativity out your blowhole in excess every time they announce an adaptation.
No, neither can you "provide any proof" that it's going to suck other than spinning wildly out of control with kneejerk fanboy outrage based on a handful of comments. Oh, and speaking to my earlier point about you apparently not knowing anything about how films like this get made, you're foaming at the mouth over this one producer because he was involved with Jonah Hex. Jonah Hex had 12 producers. TWELVE. One of them was TV's Matt LeBlanc, who you may remember as the lovable Joey on the hit show Friends. But you're 100 percent sure that all the problems with Jonah Hex were caused by this one guy! Yep, everything wrong with that movie boiled down to Andrew Lazar!
Are you living in 1998, where referencing Batman & Robin as though that's still the standard for comic book movies is a relevant thing to say?
Oh, I figured out what's going on here! You escaped from your natural habitat! Back from whence ye came, wretch! |
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triangle_man
Posts: 67 Location: Texas, USA |
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I enjoyed Watchmen for most part as well, except for the repeated shots of Dr. Manhattan's blue junk, which was only shown in the book once. Anywaay.....
Also, I kinda liked The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Never read that one, but it's not a requirement for enjoying a movie. Yes, I own Akira the anime. I never read Akira the book(s). So, I intend to watch this with as open a mind as possible and see if I enjoy it for what it is. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15279 |
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Zac: Kick-Ass sucked. But geeks like it because it's *supposed* to suck, so waddya gonna do? And Watchmen was good up until the ending. Iron Man 2, OTOH, suffered from "too many supporting characters" syndrome. Anyway, it's not comic book movies which have problems right now as much as Hollywood adaptations of anime and manga. And Akira's going to fall flat on its face because they not only have to make it pallatable but also Westernize some of its ideas.
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ArsenicSteel
Posts: 2370 |
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I thought the concern was about WB comic adaptations(excluding Batman) and not Paramount, Universal, and Fox. Anyway there will always be some sort of concern from the existing fanbase of a franchise when a movie adaptation is made. Reasonable fans should give the producers some leniency when it comes to making a movie that is intended to be enjoyed by fans and the general public. For every Dark Knight there is also a Batman & Robin. Fans just read, wait, and hope for the best. |
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Charred Knight
Posts: 3085 |
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The Akira anime skipped most of the second half of the manga. Akira is about the rebellion of youth, and the corruption of Goverment, you don't need onscreen graphic violence for that. I should also point out that going overboard like haing Testuo just constantly explode people could get silly, like 8-Bit Theater the movie. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15279 |
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Getter: I think Freeman's a better actor than he gets typecast for, but he's still wrong for Akira. And if you recall, Bruce Almighty's one of those times where he was in charge.
Charred: Actually, the anime sort of spliced parts of the second half of the manga into the middle and end of the film, and cut out most of the espionage and post-apocalyptic stuff which padded the story. I think if there were any real personal gripes about that adaptation, it's that Miyako wasn't given as much depth as she had in the source material, and I'd kind of like to have seen what they could do with Chiyoko. I never got why they didn't go the tv show route, but it's probably also because Otomo wanted to be true to the content of the manga, and couldn't get away with that stuff on Japanese tv back then. |
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TokyoGetter
Posts: 416 Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards. |
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That may be your reading, but it's not mine. You're entitled to your reading of it but I think you're possibly dismissing a major reason why the film was creepy and scary in the first place and conflating it with a splatter film at the same time. Those elements were, indeed, there. I think the bummer signs are more along the lines of the following: Hughes has said that he doesn't want to get into the complexity of it, yet at the same time he doesn't want to make it R, and he's not into the idea of a sequel. So NOBODY goes home happy? |
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enurtsol
Posts: 14746 |
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Nah, they're probably cutting down the conflicts and/or themes. Kinda like a physicist simplifying the theory of relativity to a layman - it still requires an adult to understand it, but not a science man. Or as I mentioned before, the Ghost in the Shell movie. The GitS manga is not just all about the "puppeteer," y'know. But to fit a 2-hr movie, they focused on just those chapters of the manga. |
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Sunday Silence
Posts: 2047 |
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And I thought the concern was good adaptations of comic books. AFAIK, X-Men actually had a few insults to the fans of the comics, not to mention the usage of enough leather to make a Gay biker bar look like rejects from Joanns. |
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