Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Hollywood Blues
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GATSU
Posts: 15317 |
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P.S. As I noted in the Retail thread, if you missed GITS in theaters, it's out on video on all current formats in a couple of months.
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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I thought the live action Space Battleship Yamato was amusing in an embarassing kind of way. The lead actor is terrible & is clearly quite self conscious of how old he is compared to his co-actors, because he jut's his head forward in every shot to hide his double chin as well as having a hairstyle that screams dad trying to hold onto his youth. All the old actors seem drunk & the younger ones are "entertainers" rather than actors.
There's a fair few good manga adaptations out there. Kazuo Koike manga were the basis for three of Japans best 70s exploitation film series (LW&C, Lady Snowblood & Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion). Miike's Iichi the Killer (the less said about some of his other manga adaptations, the better) & Park Chan-wook's Oldboy helped kick off the fad for violent Asian cinema in the early 00s & Lam Nai-choi's Riki-oh; The Story of Riki is imfamous for its absurd levels of GAR & gore. I'm also quite fond of Hiroshi Ando's Blue, for an example of something that isn't violent shlock. I think where a lot of Japanese manga adaptations, paticularly some of their more recent Hollywood on a shoestring attempts, stumble is their attempt to translate some of the wackier elements of manga into live action, paticularly in stories that are otherwise trying to be more serious. Fumihiko Sori's adaption of Tomorrow's Joe was like watching The Karate Kid occasionally be interrupted by scenes from Raging Bull. They also have a habit of losing the plot in the final 20minutes, often one suspects because a producer put a gun to the directors head & demanded a big CGI extraveganza for the final climax, or simply because nobody planned how to end it to begin with. Tokyo Tribe goes completely to shit at the end for just this reason. |
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Enner
 Posts: 91 |
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Came here for Wacowski Speed Racer validation, was not disappointed.
It's a shame about the live-action Ghost in the Shell. I really wanted it to be good, even with the mild disappointment of Scarlett Johansson's casting (so, I guess you can chalk me up as an Asian-American that was at least a bit bummed about that whole thing). Instead... the movie was a pretty, mediocre thing. Still, I hoped it made enough money to not scorch the earth it landed on (doesn't seem like it). As underwhelmed as I was with the film, I would be interested in seeing a second try. |
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ninjamitsuki
 Posts: 591 Location: Anywhere (Thanks, technology) |
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I'm just worried that there might never be an anime adaptation that does well.
We've had adaptations of very well-known franchises that all bombed. Granted, most of them were terrible, but there are tons of terrible movies that perform well. Short of Pokemon, I don't think any anime really has that sort of name-recognition power. |
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SaitoHajime101
 Posts: 283 |
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The disappointing part is while Mary Elizabeth McGlynn does voice work in Arise, it wasn't for the Major. They replaced her with another VA. I can kind of understand it because Arise is its own thing, separate from GitS SAC, with a younger Major, but it was still saddening to not hear Mary as her. I'm definitely in the minority when it comes to the live action Ghost in the Shell. I actually somewhat enjoyed the film, despite some pretty ridiculous flaws and lackluster "mastermind" behind the entirety of the conflict in the movie (amongst other things). Was it good? Nah. Was it the worst thing out there? Not even close. I think the biggest thing to take away is it was watchable and an improvement over Hollywood produced films like DB: Evolution (which exists, despite us wanting to forget it does). |
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CatSword
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Jesus Christ. I've thought about watching the live-action Death Note films for years, but that Ryuk CG design is going to give me nightmares. I know he's meant to look like that, but it's for whatever reason much more pleasant on the eyes in traditional animation rather then CG. (That's my general consensus for everything CG, though...)
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11376 |
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I'm kind of thinking the only way to get anime stories into Hollywood live action films without all the blowback is to go the old route of making adaptations of the stories rather than trying to just adapt to live action. It's not like the "brand" recognition is providing any advantage, rather the opposite. So change the name, change the setting, change the characters, but tell the same story, a la Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven, or Yojimbo/Fist Full of Dollars/Last Man Standing.
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Shar Aznabull
 Posts: 236 |
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Fist of the North Star is a cinematic masterpiece.
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Desa
 Posts: 285 |
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And here I was thinking I would never encounter another who also liked the Speed Racer film outside of immediate family. It's as if people don't like to have fun.
I remember reading Crying Freeman years back. Really great manga. Very different from most manga nowadays. Had no idea they made a live action version, though in retrospect it does seem like a good fit. One of those strange exceptions that seem to work better as live-action than animation. |
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Beansprout Midget
Posts: 145 |
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I don't care what anybody says or thinks about it, that Casshern movie is one of my biggest guilty pleasures ever. I love it to pieces.
  The scene with the people coming out of the water had this weird, creepy vibe to it! The suit was cool-looking! I could gush about it for days!
I've been meaning to watch the Kenshin trilogy; I've always heard good things about it, and it's nice to see that this article solidifies it. Lastly, It blows my mind that someone made not one, but TWO Guyver live-action movies. I've seen the first movie (which was 'eh'. It's more fun for me to say to other people that Mark Hamill was in that movie.) but I haven't seen Dark Hero, which I've heard is better. For both movies though, I think they got the Guyver armor down. It looks awesome. The special effects were just as awesome. |
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BlastoidFromThePastoid
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Personally, I think we need directors and producers who are just familiar with the medium of Japanese animation and how it's made. The Wachowskis nailed the visuals (actually, pretty much everything) for Speed Racer, and technological advances must mean that we can pull stylized CG off cheaper and faster.
It looks like we might have films with lower budgets now that big-budget projects are flopping and two of Jason Blum's films have found enormous success. (I have to take a moment to laugh at the fact that Jordan Peele was approached to direct Akira.) If we dialed back the budget and instead promised actors a cut of the grosses, we could probably see a butt-load more creative films that can be profitable  .
I know that there are rumors of Neon Genesis Evangelion and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service adaptations floating around, but hopefully they won't come out without good production crews by their sides. Sad that del Toro never got to adapt Monster for television though. My pick for the live-action remake to adapt would be Eureka Seven. Honestly, it's perfect. - Already received huge critical acclaim and commercial success when it first came out. - Fulfills the four-quadrant demographic marketing, so it appeals to the suits. It's a sci-fi bildungsroman with the romance between Eureka and Renton driving the plot. Plus giant robots surfing in the sky. - The series takes a massive inspiration from skater, surfer, and American 60s' counterculture, not to mention all the references. As far as I recall, all the characters have Western names and don't look like they're Japanese, so it'll be hard to argue Mads Mikkelsen or Michael Fassbender being cast as Dewey is whitewashing, for example. In short, American audiences would be at home while still watching something they can see as novel. - Awesome soundtrack. - The original series aired more than a decade ago, so there's bound to be nostalgia among old fans. - The colorful palette of the series would bring to mind Studio Ghibli films for more casual anime fans. - It's not like Studio BONES is against revivals and reinterpretations of the property, they're on their third try for pete's sake. - Don't tell me you don't want to see CG giant robots skysurfing on the silver screen while an English cover of Supercar's Story Writer plays. Honestly, I want to die trying to become a producer just to see this happen properly. |
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ximpalullaorg
Posts: 396 |
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The most recent "adaptation" from Japan I saw was Cutie Honey - True Tears....and let's say it's pretty awful.
First of all, I have to say I didn't like the other live adaptations as well, because they cover the later appeareances of the character, who went from someone who fought a lot of bad guys (seriously, try to find on youtube her death count video) with a semi-sarcastic attitude to a general parody. However, this particular movie does the exact opposite choosing the gritty style, also opting for a more SF background. The script is quite problematic and the performances are wooden.... As far as the GiTS movie... I didn't watch it. Not because of the choice of the character, but because the obsession, as the article notes, to follow Oshii's movies. However, iconic as they are, they're too different from the manga for my tastes, while SAC really captures what made the manga interesting for me. Crying Freeman did have a limited release in Europe, I'm pretty sure I saw some trailers in my country back then, however it was released in early August which, unlike North America, is used for movies that are guaranteed flops. While not really an "adaptation" there's also Boogiepop Phantom's live action movie to consider, which was written by the same writer as the anime (Sadayuki Murai) and unlike the anime is very faithful to the first novel. Unfortunately, the effects and the performances by the actors are really terrible and ruin the experience as a whole (especially Nagi's actress, who looks nothing like the character). |
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GATSU
Posts: 15317 |
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Oh, and last time I checked, there is another Ghost in the Shell adaptation in the works, and in anime form, no less. So they did benefit from the film.
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Covnam
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I thought the Detroit Metal City live action movie was pretty good.
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Stuart Smith
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The show takes place in the 1960s while the American movie takes place in a stereotypical futuristic neon-lighted city. The movie couldn't have missed the aesthetic of the source material more if it tried. -Stuart Smith |
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