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http://www.shadowlocked.com/201103231641/news/akira-casting-macavoy-and-fassbender.html

Ok, I'm going to hold off on the cries of "RACEBENDING!!" until we have more info.

I just think it's a terrible idea overall. This is why we can't have nice things.

Obligatory re-post:

SpecialKO said:

Ok, I'm going to hold off on the cries of "RACEBENDING!!" until we have more info.

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Please, PLEASE don't fuck this up like Last Airbender. Because that movie was terrible.

This is old shit; with new actors being thrown into the rumor mill. This project was canned years ago, it keeps getting revived, like the Evangelion live-action movie. I don't think they know what to do with it.

escushion said:

I don't think they know what to do with it.

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Trying to cast old white guys was your first clue?

AshburnerX said:

Please, PLEASE don't fuck this up like Last Airbender. Because that movie was terrible.

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HOW CAN YOU MAKE FIGHT SCENES THAT INVOLVE USING THE CLASSICAL ELEMENTS AGAINST THE OPPONENT BE THE MOST BORING THING EVER? HOW?

How can you take non-Asians and make them pretend to be Asian? rofl I didn't bother watching the movie...

heatherling said:

How can you take non-Asians and make them pretend to be Asian? rofl I didn't bother watching the movie...

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Easy, Hollywood's been doing it for ages...

Now making those fight scenes boring, that takes special talent...

heatherling said:

How can you take non-Asians and make them pretend to be Asian? rofl I didn't bother watching the movie...

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(To be fair, Alec Guinness was great in Lawrence of Arabia.)

heatherling said:

How can you take non-Asians and make them pretend to be Asian? rofl I didn't bother watching the movie...

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Ugh, don't even bring that up... I brought it up months before the movie came out and it lead to a flame war.

I must have missed that one.

SpecialKO said:

I must have missed that one.

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It was like 6 or 7 months ago. I think it basically boiled down to three groups:

- Those who thought the cartoon cast weren't white because everything in the world was modeled/inspired by East Asian and Native cultures, and that it was insulting to white wash the cast and deprive Asian Americans of leading roles (which we can all agree are few and far between).

- Those that agreed with the first group in principle, but figured that the Hollywood suits cast white people for the majority of the roles because they (the execs, not the posters) thought it would bring up the grosses and that this was an okay compromise to have the story be told.

- Those that thought there was no way to prove that they weren't white, because they were cartoon characters and most people would self-identify due to the exaggerated animation style anyway. This happens a lot in anime too, where many anime characters tend to look white because of the exaggerated style, despite the fact that like half of all anime is set in Japan, where the non-Japanese/non-native population is only 1.22% (and most of those are Korean or Chinese). They also don't have this identity problem in Japan, where it's usually more clear where they are from due to accents and such.

The thread wasn't enough to get locked or anything (I think) but it was a lot more intense than we usually get outside the Politics sub-forum.

I still don't understand why the fans consider all these remakes and adaptations as some kind of insult. For me, an adaptation is good or is bad and that's it. Next please.

Cog said:

I still don't understand why the fans consider all these remakes and adaptations as some kind of insult. For me, an adaptation is good or is bad and that's it. Next please.

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If the adaption HAD been good, it would have been less insulting. Instead, it was terrible... and it's STILL getting a sequel because the foreign gross was incredibly high. Personally, I'm just glad that M. Night is ether going to be removed from the project or at least tightly controlled, as he's finally lost his Protection from Editors status.

Last Airbender was bad. Transformers 2 was bad, Dragon Ball was incredibly bad. I understand that. But I forgot about those movies almost immediately. I never considered any of those as an insult.

Cog said:

Last Airbender was bad. Transformers 2 was bad, Dragon Ball was incredibly bad. I understand that. But I forgot about those movies almost immediately. I never considered any of those as an insult.

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Yeah, but just how big of a fan would you call yourself? The guys and gals who do fan art, write fan fiction, go to conventions in costume... they put a lot of themselves into these series. These series matter to them. When they see someone do a half-assed attempt at re-creating their favorite series, while simultaneously removing the things that made it unique and special, they understandably get upset.

Do you do any of those things?
I am a big fan of comics, manga and anime. I skipped classes in college to see Dragon Ball Z. I know everything about that series, and still don't see the problem with bad adaptations.

Cog said:

Last Airbender was bad. Transformers 2 was bad, Dragon Ball was incredibly bad. I understand that. But I forgot about those movies almost immediately. I never considered any of those as an insult.

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Bad products usually damage a brand and affect what happens to that brand... if it does badly the brand will likely be put on hiatus and you can't enjoy watching the film again, and if it does well you'll get more bad films that you can't enjoy.

Cog said:

Do you do any of those things?
I am a big fan of comics, manga and anime. I skipped classes in college to see Dragon Ball Z. I know everything about that series, and still don't see the problem with bad adaptations.

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No, I don't, but I have many friends who do for other franchises (mainly Star Wars and Warhammer 40k). This is how they've explained it to me and I agree with their thinking.

@Li3n said:

Bad products usually damage a brand and affect what happens to that brand... if it does badly the brand will likely be put on hiatus and you can't enjoy watching the film again, and if it does well you'll get more bad films that you can't enjoy.

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Basically this. When an installment is bad and flops, it can kill a franchise. When a bad installment succeeds, it can take the franchise in a direction that alienates the original community that supported the product.

When did that happened? Star Wars is still here, Airbender is still here, Transformers is still here.

Cog said:

When did that happened? Star Wars is still here, Airbender is still here, Transformers is still here.

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Star Wars is still here because somebody other than Lucas is helping write these days and has opened itself to other writers who are more than welcome to add tot he universe. Besides, I'd hardly call the prequels TERRIBLE movies.

Airbender is barely here. The new series is only getting 12 episodes unless it gets great ratings and the movie is only getting a sequel because it did well in Asia (mainly due to it's effects). Even then it's being heavily supervised and has to make up for the short comings of the first movie.

And the less said about Transformers the better. The second movie was worse than the first, Transformers Animated got canceled without resolving the plot and Transformers Prime is on a digital channel that many services don't carry. If it's not on a standard cable package, it might as well not be on.

And what about Akira?, There is no new anime, no new manga, or anything new about Akira. So the choice is a possibly (very) bad movie or nothing at all. I prefer to give the movie a chance.

We all want to give it a chance, but we'd rather have it done right than not done at all. There's a reason it took 20+ years to get a Watchmen movie.

In my personal case, it has nothing to do with brand decay (though it's a valid point), it's a lack of trust in hollywood being able to make a movie worthy of the source material. Akira is a lot more than a story about kids blowing shit up with their minds or whiny emo kids with superpowers (lot of examples with this one), but considering the treatment a lot of comic book movies have gotten, there's a good chance that's what we'll end up with, and I'd rather they just do something else.

If they really want to make a movie that's only about whiny goths destroying cities with psychic abilities, they should make an X-1999 movie starring Robert Pattinson as Kamui.

SpecialKO said:

In my personal case, it has nothing to do with brand decay (though it's a valid point), it's a lack of trust in hollywood being able to make a movie worthy of the source material. Akira is a lot more than a story about kids blowing shit up with their minds or whiny emo kids with superpowers (lot of examples with this one), but considering the treatment a lot of comic book movies have gotten, there's a good chance that's what we'll end up with, and I'd rather they just do something else.

If they really want to make a movie that's only about whiny goths destroying cities with psychic abilities, they should make an X-1999 movie starring Robert Pattinson as Kamui.

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I might have to hurt you.
Plus X-1999 have a lot of Manga and back story that the OVA/Movie doesn't really cover.

Cog said:

I prefer to give the movie a chance.

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I'd prefer that Hollywood would give the film/story a chance...

SpecialKO said:

In my personal case, it has nothing to do with brand decay (though it's a valid point)

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Well i was just answering why people can be mad from a logical perspective when crappy adaptations happen...

Chibibar said:

I might have to hurt you.
Plus X-1999 have a lot of Manga and back story that the OVA/Movie doesn't really cover.

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Granted, but it's still mostly about whiny kids with psychic powers destroying buildings.

Plus, Tokyo Babylon sucked.

AshburnerX said:

If the adaption HAD been good, it would have been less insulting. Instead, it was terrible... and it's STILL getting a sequel because the foreign gross was incredibly high.

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I went to imdb and Google and find nothing on the announcement of a sequel to the Shammy movie; only people's predictions and talk of the sequel to the animated series, Legend of Korra. Source please.

Also, I agree with your sentiment and having a problem with what's going on with the Last Airbender, and the likely fucking up trying to do Akira if they ever get it off the ground (unlikely), but saying it matters because of fanart/cosplay/fanfic is BS.

escushion said:

I went to imdb and Google and find nothing on the announcement of a sequel to the Shammy movie; only people's predictions and talk of the sequel to the animated series, Legend of Korra. Source please.

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You do appear to be right. I thought they were simply waiting for the next tax year to start before they announced it, but they may be holding off because one of the actors (kid who plays Sokka) is involved with the Twilight series and they need to see if they can get her to commit.

Also, I agree with your sentiment and having a problem with what's going on with the Last Airbender, and the likely fucking up trying to do Akira if they ever get it off the ground (unlikely), but saying it matters because of fanart/cosplay/fanfic is BS.

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I never said it matters BECAUSE of those things. I said those things show it matters to them, which is why they get upset when bad adaptions come out.

AshburnerX said:

We all want to give it a chance, but we'd rather have it done right than not done at all. There's a reason it took 20+ years to get a Watchmen movie.

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And they still couldn't do that right.

AshburnerX said:

Airbender is barely here. The new series is only getting 12 episodes unless it gets great ratings and the movie is only getting a sequel because it did well in Asia (mainly due to it's effects). Even then it's being heavily supervised and has to make up for the short comings of the first movie.

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Actually, last I heard they ordered a full 21 episode season, and also already greenlit a second season. Can't confirm though.

checkeredhat said:

Actually, last I heard they ordered a full 21 episode season, and also already greenlit a second season. Can't confirm though.

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I haven't seen anything saying that all.

Cog said:

Last Airbender was bad. Transformers 2 was bad, Dragon Ball was incredibly bad. I understand that. But I forgot about those movies almost immediately. I never considered any of those as an insult.

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When people love a show or something like it a huge amount, they'll develop their own vision for it. What would they do if someone gave them creative control of it. This gives us crappy fanfiction and people with unrealistic expectations and unwillingness to compromise their vision of exactly how it should be. But I bet you already knew that... I just felt like typing.

You see, children, when a fan and a show love each other very much...

They have poorly-written mutant babies that we must hide away in the attic when company comes.

AshburnerX said:

I haven't seen anything saying that all.

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Like I said, can't confirm. Heard it from a friend of a friend kind of thing. I trust them on it though. Partially out of naive hope, and partially because they're actually out there in the animation industry and thus have more connections than I do.
*EDIT*
After some digging, I found ONE article that mentions Nickelodeon ordering another 14 episodes on top of the original 12. Can't speak for its authenticity.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/03/08/the-last-airbender-legend-of-korra-the-creators-speak/

Nickelodeon had picked up “Korra” for 12 episodes but recently decided to order 14 more shows.

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The way the creators talk about it in the interview in that same article seems to be at odds with that same number though.

On the original series we did our best to make it cinematic with a big immersive world. And on this series because it’s a tighter stretch of episodes–just 12 episodes–but Mike and I wrote all of them, there’s really no filler.

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Meh... it'll likely mean it'll have more than one arc. Which is good, because the original show managed just fine with it's multi-arc style.

GeorgeTakei tweets
"Live action of anime classic Akira will use white actors. In related news, remake of Roots to star Mel Gibson. #ShameOnWB "

I can't tell if this is real or a parody...but if it is, we are in deep trouble.

My god.

Covar said:

And they still couldn't do that right.

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So what did they get wrong? The actors captured the characters just about perfectly, the effects were incredible, and a giant fucking squid would have looked retarded, plus the subplot involving it would have added another 50 minutes of otherwise useless story.

LittleSin said:

I can't tell if this is real or a parody...but if it is, we are in deep trouble.

My god.

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...There is no god.
Added at: 21:44

Null said:

So what did they get wrong? The actors captured the characters just about perfectly, the effects were incredible, and a giant fucking squid would have looked retarded, plus the subplot involving it would have added another 50 minutes of otherwise useless story.

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Can we not have this topic again? The last when went on forever and it was probably the same people on each side arguing the stupid points.

LittleSin said:

I can't tell if this is real or a parody...but if it is, we are in deep trouble.

My god.

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W...T...F?!

SpecialKO said:

Plus, Tokyo Babylon sucked.

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you mean I am not the only one that saw it!?

Bones said:

you mean I am not the only one that saw it!?

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I actually only read the manga...so yes, you're the only one who saw it.

Null said:

and a giant fucking squid would have looked retarded,

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Says the guy with the Cthulhu-faced apartheid metaphor alien avatar pic...

SpecialKO said:

I actually only read the manga...so yes, you're the only one who saw it.

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my brain imploded from the DURR! so yeah not a classic...

They're planning to change Tetsuo's name to Travis? Barf. It's probably the least of the things they're doing to the story, but still...

Actually, I suppose the name change makes sense if they're going to have a white cast, but then what about Akira? Is he going to stay Japanese? I'd be feeling a little salty about it if what the article says is true and they turn Akira into the villain, but then keep him as the only Japanese character.

drifter said:

They're planning to change Tetsuo's name to Travis? Barf. It's probably the least of the things they're doing to the story, but still...

Actually, I suppose the name change makes sense if they're going to have a white cast, but then what about Akira? Is he going to stay Japanese? I'd be feeling a little salty about it if what the article says is true and they turn Akira into the villain, but then keep him as the only Japanese character.

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At this point, why bother calling it "Akira"?

Two of the major themes of Akira are adolescence, and the clash between the individual and civilized society. Tetsuo and Kaneda are 15 year olds in a violent motorcycle gang, and they're actually introduced to us committing violent acts against a rival gang. Kaneda gets involved with political dissidents through Kei, who doesn't appear much older, and the Espers are oddly childlike as well. Tetsuo's rage and uncontrolled transformations are symbolic of adolescence as well. Meanwhile, we see that the political leadership of Neo-Tokyo is weak, cowardly, and self-serving, and that the people are looking for any figure that seems to promise change, so much so that they follow Tetsuo during his rampage, even though it leads to their death.

The problem is that if you change the characters from wild youths to established adults, that changes the entire nature of the movie. Tetsuo only works sympathetically because he's a teenager who doesn't have a place in society, and when he gains his psychic powers, his only motivation is to go on a destructive rampage against those he thinks have slighted him - society, the government, his rival youths.

Another factor is, if you look through all different series of Japanese entertainment, the wholesale destruction of cities is almost a running gag. All the kaiju movies feature it, many anime series feature it, it's kind of a given that cities are impermanent, easily erased by the powerful. In the aftermath of the recent earthquake and tsunami, it's sort of clear why that is.

The American psyche isn't geared the same. New Orleans is still being rebuilt, still something of a mental scar on the landscape. Even Ground Zero in Manhattan, which in some ways, society is still trying to recover from.

When you change those factors, you don't have the same story and with it being so widely different, it's less harmful to not saddle it with the baggage of something it no longer is.

Null said:

At this point, why bother calling it "Akira"?

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To cover their asses if it flops. Studios are highly risk-averse: if an exec greenlights an entirely new story, then if the movie goes down in flames, he gets the blame for making the gamble on an unknown quantity, and that could cost him his job. Pushing through an adaptation of a story with a successful track record is a lot less risky since in case of failure, blame can be assigned to any number of factors. At least, that's my understanding of how the system works.

Even if it's hardly an adaptation.

I love being right.

Keanu Reeves turns down the role of Kaneda, pre-production studio shuts down. Studio says "this is NOT over. We didn't even begin yet and we're still planning to." Hah.

There's nothing like obstinate perseverance when it comes to crapping stuff out.

Even if they had pictures, I don't think it would be all that representative. Things look different in stills than in action. Take the Transformers, for example. Some of them look really stupid in stills, but in action, they actually work pretty well. The Ghost Rider bike looks awesome in stills, but kind of crappy in motion.

However, it is definitely for the best that the project has essentially failed.

Now, if only someone can resurrect HALO out of development hell...

Null said:

Now, if only someone can resurrect HALO out of development hell...

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HALO's problem is that the directors wanted to change a lot of it, but Microsoft and Bungie wanted to keep it true to the games and wanted final say on EVERYTHING. Because this would handicap the director too much and because it essentially meant the movie studio would be fronting all the risk on a property it didn't own, no one's been willing to do it.

They also had trouble getting a star, as Master Chief is a role where your face is never shown (and Microsoft/Bungie wasn't willing to budge on that) and it's hard to promote your role when no one sees your face. I heard V for Vendetta had similar problems.

AshburnerX said:

They also had trouble getting a star, as Master Chief is a role where your face is never shown (and Microsoft/Bungie wasn't willing to budge on that) and it's hard to promote your role when no one sees your face. I heard V for Vendetta had similar problems.

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Obviously they need to be informed of TVTropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitlews9vjxau4x1j

@Li3n said:

Obviously they need to be informed of TVTropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitlews9vjxau4x1j

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Ugh. That's the trope I hate in anime dubs. It's like the same 10 actors, and none of them are very good.

I'm going to say this, and to hell with the backlash: Akira was boring and unnecessarily convoluted in a way that added nothing to the story or the spectacle. Yeah, I get the metaphors, etc. Still boring.

fade said:

Ugh. That's the trope I hate in anime dubs. It's like the same 10 actors, and none of them are very good.

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But that has little to do with the trope and it's just using bad voice actors...

fade said:

I'm going to say this, and to hell with the backlash: Akira was boring and unnecessarily convoluted in a way that added nothing to the story or the spectacle. Yeah, I get the metaphors, etc. Still boring.

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I hate to admit this, but I more or less agree. It's too rooted in Japanese culture to translate well - it's like the scene in Ghost in the Shell that's two or three solid minutes of people walking in rain and the soundtrack scream-singing in gibberish, where more or less the movie's taking a goddamn break, before getting back on with the story. I'm sure that's a deep, meaningful, perhaps even beautiful scene if you have the right background to appreciate it. Personally, I just asked, "What the fuck is this shit, did the movie need a smoke break or something?"

That's one of my favorite sequences from Ghost in the Shell. *shrug* Different strokes for different folks.

Null said:

I hate to admit this, but I more or less agree. It's too rooted in Japanese culture to translate well - it's like the scene in Ghost in the Shell that's two or three solid minutes of people walking in rain and the soundtrack scream-singing in gibberish, where more or less the movie's taking a goddamn break, before getting back on with the story. I'm sure that's a deep, meaningful, perhaps even beautiful scene if you have the right background to appreciate it. Personally, I just asked, "What the fuck is this shit, did the movie need a smoke break or something?"

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Dude, that's the obligatory groping break...

fade said:

I'm going to say this, and to hell with the backlash: Akira was boring and unnecessarily convoluted in a way that added nothing to the story or the spectacle. Yeah, I get the metaphors, etc. Still boring.

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I doubt you've seen it in 20 years, otherwise you'd remember that it didn't get like that until the last 15 minutes of a 2 hour movie.
Added at: 18:49

Null said:

I hate to admit this, but I more or less agree. It's too rooted in Japanese culture to translate well - it's like the scene in Ghost in the Shell that's two or three solid minutes of people walking in rain and the soundtrack scream-singing in gibberish, where more or less the movie's taking a goddamn break, before getting back on with the story. I'm sure that's a deep, meaningful, perhaps even beautiful scene if you have the right background to appreciate it. Personally, I just asked, "What the fuck is this shit, did the movie need a smoke break or something?"

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It's atmosphere.
Added at: 18:49

drifter said:

That's one of my favorite sequences from Ghost in the Shell. *shrug* Different strokes for different folks.

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That was one of the few sequences I even liked from Ghost in the Shell, which I thought was preachy and overrated. But then, I only saw the terrible original dubbed version, so for all I know it's actually a much better movie even when the characters are talking.

@Li3n said:

But that has little to do with the trope and it's just using bad voice actors...

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Why not? It's all over the examples.

This what I always think of when I think of Akira.

Spoiler warning, I guess.


Added at: 00:53
also this:

fade said:

Why not? It's all over the examples.

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Because all americans are human =/= all humans are american...

wut.
Added at: 13:21
I think you're overinterpreting what I said. I said "I recognize this trope in english dubs" AND I am also saying "I recognize it because these particular actors stand out to me as annoying". I'm not saying "this trope means bad dub actors".

Ahem: "That's the trope I hate in anime dubs."

When i over-interpret stuff i damn well know i'm doing it, thank you very much... and that's why i'm a brain on a tripod and you are a bunch of lines drawn with a pencil...

There's nothing in that quote that refutes what I said. It is the trope I hate in anime dubs. Then I explained why I hated it. That still doesn't mean I think that trope is exclusively describing anime dubs.

fade said:

There's nothing in that quote that refutes what I said. It is the trope I hate in anime dubs. Then I explained why I hated it. That still doesn't mean I think that trope is exclusively describing anime dubs.

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You'll never win this argument. @li3n is impervious to logic.

fade said:

There's nothing in that quote that refutes what I said. It is the trope I hate in anime dubs. Then I explained why I hated it. That still doesn't mean I think that trope is exclusively describing anime dubs.

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So you where saying all anime dubs are badly done...

Then what was your problem with my assertion that "But that has little to do with the trope and it's just using bad voice actors... "

Tress said:

You'll never win this argument. @li3n is impervious to logic.

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It's my superpower...

What? I don't understand the issue. I said, "I know this trope, because it stands out in bad anime dubs. I dislike that because it is especially prevalent in my own perception in bad anime dubs." In fact, it's the badness of the actors that makes the trope especially apparent.

It's your disdain.

For all things.

Really, I have no idea what the hell is going on.

I think he's just messing with me.

Quotemander Prime said:

It's your disdain.

For all things.

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Well, yeah. It's Fade. He was forged from an ingot of pure disdainium.

fade said:

What? I don't understand the issue. I said, "I know this trope, because it stands out in bad anime dubs. I dislike that because it is especially prevalent in my own perception in bad anime dubs." In fact, it's the badness of the actors that makes the trope especially apparent.
...
I think he's just messing with me.

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And as i'm not a mind reader it wasn't clear to me how you meant it... and then after you responded by saying the examples on the page also include bad voice acting in anime instead of something like >I meant, "I know this trope, because it stands out in bad anime dubs."<, while i was clearly talking about the trope itself (at least it was obvious to me ), i started messing with you...