Appleseed the movie

[jwinges]

I watched Appleseed the movie today. The story was pretty good but the CG was a lot poorer than I thought it would be. It pales by comparison to FF Spirit Within and a lot of PS2 and X-box CG Cutscenes.

[Akilae]

IMHO, it depends on what you're looking for. Most CG as we see it (FF, MGS, etc..) aim for that 3D CG look.

Appleseed went for the cell shaded look, it has its merits I think.

[LePoseur]

The story was pretty good but the CG was a lot poorer than I thought it would be.

Oddly, I had almost the opposite reaction. I thought the CG was the best thing of the show (then again I had the shitty "preview discs" of the toys to fully lower my anticipation beforehand). On the other hand I thought the story was tripe and a real spit in the face of the source material.

Oh well, I hope with the TV show rumors/news we will end up with something like GitS did, ie ignore a lackluster movie version and backtrack closer to the characters of the original book.

[Radd]

I thought the story was complete garbage. Nonsensical, pretentious dialogue that makes Mamaru Oshii's work seem humble and straightforward.

Deunan conviniently forgets several characters from her past, she forgets that she's holding onto the very thing she's sent to find, I mean if this was the movie 'Momento' I'd be able to forgive how bad her memory is, but it's not, and it's absolutely ridiculous.

The Elders' and Gaia's plot to do away with mankind and replace the world with stable, emotionally neutered bioroids steps up to the border of nonsensical and leaps forward into the abyss, not this plan itself but how they went about putting it in place. Were six giant walking cannons firing at point blank range really neccessary?

I read the manga after seeing the movie, so knowing the book was better didn't cloud my judgement or ruin my appreciation for the movie at all, but knowing that the plot was completely different for the book only made my indignation at having wasted my time watching this movie all the greater. The section of the story that the movie is oh-so-loosly based on is fairly short, and I don't see how a competent writer would have much problem turning it into a screenplay. But no, instead they had to completely change the plot, completely change why things happen, and completely change...well, damn near everything but the character names.

I did not care for the CG animation, however it didn't bother me that much and would have been easy to overlook had the story been up to measure.

[magicsp00n]

I grew up reading the manga, which I liked very much. I just saw the movie last night, and I think it's The Hotness. The only problem I had with it was that I didn't much care for the English voice actors.

[bandit29]

I watched Appleseed the movie today. The story was pretty good but the CG was a lot poorer than I thought it would be. It pales by comparison to FF Spirit Within and a lot of PS2 and X-box CG Cutscenes.

I had the opposite reaction. I thought all of the visuals were great but the story was kinda lame. Nothing really new or original about it. A very shallow story but then again this is an action anime film. None of them are ever really deep. Overall I did like the movie though.

[bandit29]

I thought the story was complete garbage. Nonsensical, pretentious dialogue that makes Mamaru Oshii's work seem humble and straightforward.

Ya some of the dialogue is pretentious and annoying but Oshii's still the king of dialogue like that.

[bsu legato]

It was good but not great. Its definitely closer in spirit to the original manga than anything Oshii has produced in the last decade, and certainly far less pretentious. I hope they can make the promised two sequels to finish the story. Its not as if Shirow will be returning to Appleseed in our lifetimes, so somebody might as well do something with the story.

[JELEINEN]

I'll agree with the story sucking. There were plot holes big enough to drive a Mac truck through. By the end of the entirely too long scene on top the oil rig, I was yelling at the screen for the characters to just shut the f*ck up and shoot each other already. And all the cannons can be shut down from just one? Who's the moron who made that brilliant defense strategy?

The action figure was pretty cool though, if a bit over priced.

[Hikuro]

I didn't think the movie was bad, I just picked it up yesterday. The animation was MUCH nicer than that of Shadow Skills 3D Cel Shade style..........................MUCH nicer.

I can almost see this as a prequel to that other Appleseed OAV from years back.

[yellowlightman]

I liked the 3D animation well enough, but the story utterly killed it for me. Painfully contrived, unecessarily removed lots of the good bits from the original manga and changed around Deunan and Briaeos' relationship, which seems to me like shooting yourself in the foot in terms of sequels.

[Ghadrack]

I too thought the CG looked beautiful, the mecha looked fantastic in my opinion, but the story...... sheesh.

Spoilerish alert......

I almost fell out of my recliner laughing when they did the flashback to her mother just before dying handing her the pendant and saying, "Make sure you give this to Athena!" the glowing blue pendent she has been carrying in her gun..... Yeah, convenient amnesia sucks....

Edited May 18, 2005 by Ghadrack

[Jawjaw]

Personally, I don't like CG animation that tries to look too realistic. Flaws like stiff movements become much more obvious. I agree that some of Applessed animation could of been better but overall I thought it looked awesome - especially the action scenes. The storyline was pretty flat but that is more of the norm these days.

[bandit29]

Spoilerish alert......

I almost fell out of my recliner laughing when they did the flashback to her mother just before dying handing her the pendant and saying, "Make sure you give this to Athena!" the glowing blue pendent she has been carrying in her gun..... Yeah, convenient amnesia sucks....

lol there was a collective groan in the theater when that whole scenario happened....ridiculous.

[Radd]

I thought the story was complete garbage. Nonsensical, pretentious dialogue that makes Mamaru Oshii's work seem humble and straightforward.

Ya some of the dialogue is pretentious and annoying but Oshii's still the king of dialogue like that.

I'm far more forgiving of pretentious dialogue when it actually makes some kind of sense. Circular logic, backwards moral justifications being spouted back and forth, and being wordy just to make it seem like you're intellectual rather than posing actually well thought out reasoning makes it far more offensive.

[Skypoet]

Regarding CG, I liked the mecha but strongly disliked the CG characters, since the techniques used only allowed a very small palette of facial expressions and body motion was very inexpressive and artificial. Oshii indeed made a much better job in Innocence, where characters were made out of traditional anime techniques and the background (objects, cars, houses, buildings, etc...) was CG.

I found that the story in "Appleseed 2004" was terrible and did not make justice to Shirow Masamune's manga at all. The story in the manga is dense and complex... That of the movie is simplistic...

Last, the colors chosen for some landmates and characters were atrocious (the purple hair of Yoshi, Deunan's landmate...). I definitley would have prefered to wait one or two more years and have a movie made by Oshii, even with a few superfluous quotes from Descartes and Spinoza.

[the white drew carey]

I think it's great. The story, while it has it's weak points, flowed better than Oshii's work. I love the guy, and he tells great stories, but his work has zero flow, which hurts a lot.

I thought the cel-shaded characters vs. the cgi world was great. It roots the movie straight into it's source, ultra-realistically drawn manga with obvious manga characters.

Radd- while most people think that the "convenient memory-loss" was absolutely terrible, I beg them to actually learn about how traumatic experiences can cause self-imposed amnesia, especially among children, but no less among adults. After looking at that stuff, I think you'll see it in a different light.

As to the English voice actors... I thought they were OK. Sadly, it was some of the best I'ev heard, but that's not saying much (In my minf, nothing compares to the work done on Patlabor: The Movie). I really didn't care for Hitomi's voice at all, though.

Overall, I think the movie was great. It lives up to the basic spirit of Appleseed.

[Waffen]

I watched Appleseed last night on a UMD on my PSP and I have to say I was completely blown away.

I thought it was leaps and bounds above Ghost in the Shell.

I also grew up reading the manga and have all the technical books and I can tell you the movie definitly did not follow the comic that well, but most movies don't anyways.

and all though people are complaining about the story I pretty much expected it going in.. I mean its an anime, not a Ridley Scott movie.. its got the usual "what is love? I wish us bioroids could feel it" crap but the action was incredible. I can't remember the last time i saw a movie that was so visually impressive.. the scale of the walking gunships, the colors, textures, reflections and detail all the landmates a machinery had, all the buildings and details in the pan shots of Olympus.. maybe my tiny PSP screen didn't reveal all the CG problems you guys saw where in the movie but I was totally amazed.

[bsu legato]

I'm still a bit puzzled at the writers decision to invert reasoning for the whole Gaia's spider gun platform rampage. In the manga, Gaia wanted to do away with Tartarus and bioroids in general, as it perceived that the council's plan to "bioroidize" us naturals as being a threat to humanity. Conversely, the movie gave us a Gaia that wanted to end humanity since bioroids were so much cooler. However, this may possibly tie into whatever ideas the writers might have for successive movies, and in that case I say why the hell not? Shirow himself dropped the whole story thread of humans vs bioroids in books in favor of rather dull political intrigue, muslim extremists and hot oil massages before he gave up on Appleseed altogether, so somebody might as well pick up the ball and run with it.

[GreatMoose]

I loved it. The visuals were great, even if the characters were a little awkward, and the story was on par with just about everry other anime out there (ie. a bit over the top, but, hey, it's anime). Well done. Give it an A-.

[cobywan]

I couldn't stand watching the animation. I had to turn the thing off at the street fight with the Bubblegum Crisis drones. The ones with the whips. The floating characters made me queezy. I fell for the hype and bought the movie. I felt ripped off.

[ColdHeartedKiller]

are you serious? I thought it was a great movie. slicing the car and the guns up then herself? then her head comes rolling up? that was tight man.

[cobywan]

The first Ghost in the Shell movie was great. The CG sucked. It lacked any finnesse at all. Even my animator friend couldn't stand it. The faces were empty and lifeless. Hanna Barberra did better characterizations than that. Both our wives though it looked like a video game. We kept talking about how the film is the longest cut scene in history.

Yes I am serious. Give me the Manga any day over this horrible movie.