AKIRA LIVE ACTION MOVIE = Life Support?

[Vic Mancini]

Man, you can't give a straight answer, can you? Go ahead, keep living in your butt hurt, fanboy fantasy world.

BTW, all you people who are sooo up in arms over this, you guys do realize that a big part of the target demographic for this movie are people who weren't even born when the anime came out?

This bemoaning of, whatever it is you're bemoaning, is blown so out of proportion. The number of remakes to original properties doesn't hold out and you guys go on and on about all these other remakes, like True Lies, like The Thing, as if they were the greatest thing ever.. newsflash, those were someone else's favorite movies when *they* were growing up... so in order to preserve their fragile sense of childhood, should you have been denied your chance to experience the same story, told for your generation?

Get over it. Stories get retold, it's what keeps them alive and culturally relevant.

^

I like you Eug, but I'm pretty sure you're the one who's butt-hurt. (So much hostility in those bolds).

- I'm allowed to voice my opinion that I think remakes are generally cheap and unimaginative if I want to, especially in cases where the original was so good as is the case with Akira. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm "sooo up in arms over it", I'm just reminding people that the original is pretty darn good, and perhaps it doesn't need to be remade.

- Also, just because remakes happen all the time it doesn't mean I have to be OK with them or that I have to "get over" something.

- And even though remakes are very occasionally good it doesn't mean I'm a hypocrite for disliking remakes in principle, or that I have to jump the fence to your side and start endorsing them.

If disliking remakes and preferring originals makes me a "fan boy", so be it. I don't even know what that means, but whatever.

At the end of the day you don't see paintings being repainted, or albums being rerecorded, or books being rewritten, to nearly the same extent that you see movies being rebooted/remade/whatever. Perhaps where we disagree the most is that I don't think stories need to be retold to stay culturally relevant. I think it could be argued that retelling stories instead of creating new ones is what makes culture stagnant.

[Penguin]

Perhaps where we disagree the most is that I don't think stories need to be retold to stay culturally relevant. I think it could be argued that retelling stories instead of creating new ones is what makes culture stagnant.

There is an interesting discussion to be had on these topics... because it's not an all-or-nothing proposition.

To your first point, some stories are so couched in the idioms of their time that they can become incomprehensible to later generations. First they lose subtlety and wit that is based on the colloquialisms they employ as these fall out of use, then history itself can leave the time frame far enough behind that people cannot relate to the setting, and then the language itself can change enough that it's barely understandable. So, I think it's arguable that some stories can reach a wider audience and keep their ideas relevant by being retold. Understanding The Taming of the Shrew as originally written requires a study guide. Watching 10 Things I Hate About You gets across the same themes. (Arguing the artistic merit of either presentation is another matter entirely.)

Second, a vast number of movies are themselves retellings of stories. If you want to talk cultural stagnation, then an adaptation may not be any better than a remake. You aren't making any new statements or expressing any new ideas. However, it can be argued that adaptation can help a culture grow by making those ideas accessible to different segments of the population. Akira would be a good example of that. I'd wager that more people in North America have seen the anime than read the manga, so the adaptation helped the story's ideas reach a wider population, and by extension that helps the culture grow. But, if adaptation across media is valid because it helps original ideas reach a larger audience, then retelling within the media with changes to help it reach a new audience has to be equally valid.

So, if we're going to reduce things to the point of absurdity, either no story should ever be moved from its original form or medium as doing so doesn't add any new ideas to the culture, or remakes have to be as valid as adaptation if it helps ideas reach new audiences.

Of course, none of this necessarily excuses Hollywood, as they're just doing it to reduce financial risk, not to expand the cultural consciousness. If I may make a suggestion Vic, perhaps your ire may be more effectively aimed not at remakes on their own merit, but at a corporate culture that may suppress or prevent original ideas from getting a chance to reach a wider audience in favour of repetition as a means of securing profit. Updating and retelling stories CAN make them more culturally relevant and help a culture grow. Remakes aren't inherently evil or culturally bankrupt. Hollywood is.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Penguin

[Vic Mancini]

Second, a vast number of movies are themselves retellings of stories. If you want to talk cultural stagnation, then an adaptation may not be any better than a remake.

I see where you're going with it, and I actually do partially agree because I think that most adaptations are unoriginal and unnecessary, but I think you're pushing your point too far here. An adaptation of a book to a movie is taking a story from one format and putting it into a brand new format where the story/ideas can be explored in new and original ways. Example: 300. Even though 300 was kind of a stinker of a movie, it did allow the director to use the tools of film/computers to add things that Frank Miller simply didn't have at his disposal when telling his story through ink and paper. You can't lump remakes and adaptations into the same pile, because adaptations inherently allow for new avenues of creativity to be expressed.

You could make a case that live action and animation are different enough formats to warrant a remake, but I don't agree with that, and it's been a long time pet peeve of mine to see this thirst in society for live-action versions of everything, as if animation is not good enough. I don't think Gary Oldman's live action face and some CG effects is going to contribute anything to Akira that wasn't already beautifully depicted with animation.

If I may make a suggestion Vic, perhaps your ire may be more effectively aimed not at remakes on their own merit, but at a corporate culture that may suppress or prevent original ideas from getting a chance to reach a wider audience in favour of repetition as a means of securing profit.

That is part of what I'm saying, definitely. That's why a few posts up when I was musing about Kurt Vonnegut re-writing Lord of the Rings I included in brackets that maybe we would have been cheated out of Breakfast of Champions or Slaughter House Five if the publishing industry worked the same way the film one does. But stifling original stories is not my biggest problem with remakes. My biggest problem with them is when remakes are made for films that are already amazing and don't need a remake for any reason other than for a production company to avoid some financial risk on investment. And the apathy I see in people about that, and their thirst for summer blockbuster live action remake popcorn flicks, is something I resent.

Updating and retelling stories CAN make them more culturally relevant and help a culture grow.

So if The Beatles' White Album was rerecorded and released by Rhianna, would it help culture grow? Would it maintain the cultural relevance of that album? It would certainly expose a few million young casual music listeners to The Beatles, but is that the same as contributing to culture? Is that something we really need or want? I dunno, I think it would border on sacrilege. The White album simply doesn't need to be rerecorded, IMO. It's already good. And it certainly doesn't need to be rerecorded by someone who probably wouldn't even understand/love/appreciate the source material.

[Penguin]

You can't lump remakes and adaptations into the same pile, because adaptations inherently allow for new avenues of creativity to be expressed.

So if The Beatles' White Album was rerecorded and released by Rhianna, would it help culture grow? Would it maintain the cultural relevance of that album? It would certainly expose a few million young casual music listeners to The Beatles, but is that the same as contributing to culture? Is that something we really need or want? I dunno, I think it would border on sacrilege. The White album simply doesn't need to be rerecorded, IMO. It's already good. And it certainly doesn't need to be rerecorded by someone who probably wouldn't even understand/love/appreciate the source material.

I wouldn't neessarily lump them together, and note that I did say can help a culture grow, not always. I think that if all a remake does is reiterate the original, then it may still have value if it encourages people to seek out the original and expand their horizons.

Two comparisons I'd like to present. Firstly in film, I think something like Gus Van Sant's Psycho was without value. He did nothing to explore that story in any different way, and it didn't inspire any new interest in Hitchcock's works at the time that I noticed. It inspired a lot of scorn and derision. John Carpenter's The Thing and David Cronenberg's The Fly (two oft-repeated examples of good remakes) I'd argue added tons of value over the originals, presenting much more sophisticated themes (and with the help of modern special effects, a more visceral experience) than the originals. In a different way, Kaufman's 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers is closer to a reiteration of Segal's original, but a change in setting (time and place) and more depth of character allowed the ideas of the original to gain new relevance by making them a comment on the interpersonal isolation of the modern era, rather than the earlier being taken as a comment on Anti-Communist paranoia.

Secondly, since you brought up music, one of my favourite comparisons is on an a fun little album called "Saturday Morning Cartoons' Greatest Hits". It features a bunch of cover versions of classic cartoon themes by modern artists. Matthew Sweet covers the old "Scooby-Doo" theme. Though it's well-performed, it is so spot-on to the original you have to think "why bother"? It adds nothing to the music. However, I get a real kick out of hearing the Ramones perform the classic 60's "Spider-Man" theme in their signature style. Actually, Matthew Sweet I find to be a repeat "offender" in this regard. He and Susanna Hoffs have done a couple of albums titled "Under the Covers", which are all covers of their favourite 60's music. In general, Sweet's versions are so close to the original I tend to think "then why not just listen to the original?" But when Type O Negative covered Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze" in goth metal style on their Bloody Kisses album, it's such a different take on the original that I'd argue it does add something to the pop music cultural lexicon.

I realize that both of these speak more to the artistic or personal growth a remake can generate than a fuzzy notion of cultural relevance. To me, that's a more useful discussion since relevance just means "bearing on or having connection to the matter at hand". You can argue whether any work or idea has relevance from dozens of perspectives. If the matter at hand is contemporary culture, is "Back in the U.S.S.R." still culturally relevant? Not verbatim, since there is no U.S.S.R. anymore. You could argue that some of what it expresses may still apply to the state of modern culture. Could it be relevant from a historical perspective? Sure. Would a Rihanna cover of it be culturally relevant? The ideas would be just as relevant, no matter who recorded it. Would I be in favour of it? No, but who cares what I think.

[BeyondTheGrave]

Um.. prequel?

[505thAirborne]

I agree I saw this preview for CHRONICLE a days ago and thought, this had a dash of Akira in it.

Andrew.... my name is Tetsuo.

[Keith]

Or perhaps a hybrid between Akira & "Zapped."

[the white drew carey]

You did not just go there.

[azrael]

‘Akira’ On Hold (Again) as Warner Bros. Looks at Budget and Casting (SlashFilm)

[peter]

Maybe they decided that they could market Cronicle as the North America remake of Akira?

[Einherjar]

It's obviously because of Robotech.

[EXO]

Well they know it's gonna be a shitty movie anyway... why not make it that much shittier?

[soul.assassin]

‘Akira’ On Hold (Again) as Warner Bros. Looks at Budget and Casting (SlashFilm)

Even when that proposed movie was first announced, I wasn't quite interested, having seen too many cartoon-to-movie/anime-to-movie adaptations fall flat or wind up dead before actual shooting could commence.

[azrael]

Well they know it's gonna be a shitty movie anyway... why not make it that much shittier?

Or they can just shelf it till they're willing to spend more money.

$60-70M? That sounds like WB doesn't have a lot of faith in this production to begin with. Yes, they could make a movie on that budget, but yeah, doesn't sound like they want to invest heavily. Not saying that's a bad thing cuz the probability of failure is probably gonna be high anyways, but who knows...maybe WB is actually listening to the Interwebs. Of course, WB is reviewing the budgets of 2 other movies (Arthur and Lancelot and Paradise Lost). Maybe the realized they should cut back on crap movies????

[Einherjar]

Oh well, at least we'll always have Kanye's take while WB makes up their minds about this again.

[azrael]

‘Akira’ Not Dead Yet, Despite Vancouver Office Closing And Test Option Expirations With Lead Actors (Deadline)

So WB wanted to make alterations???

[EXO]

Built in Audience should be a banned phrase in anything... it's pretty much means lazy. I'd say "good for the studio" for scrutinizing projects and scripts, if I didn't know they were doing it with calculators. They have to reign in these out of control music video and commercial directors but not due to budget. How can they look at a board game like Battleship and say Built in audience? I don't think I've ever played that game and thought I need a movie about ships and 4 giant red pegs landing on them.

[Lobizon]

Dark Knight And Green Lantern Writers Might Hold The Key To Saving Akira [ BleedingCool (rumor) ]

[Omegablue]

Next we'll probably read of Kevin Smith's involvement?

Or that Christain Bale has landed the lead role.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Omegablue

[EXO]

Tetsuo at the end has to be a total gross out, more than the anime. Something like Gary Oldman in Hannibal but 20 stories tall... But they'll prolly go the Fantastic Four or Green Lantern route and make him a huge cloud.

[electric indigo]

Maybe they can borrow one of JJ Abrams' skyscraper-sized slimey spider crabs for the role?

[505thAirborne]

They should just talk with Katsuhiro Otomo and ask for his help with a script, after all he did create the story.

[Reïvaj]

They should just talk with Katsuhiro Otomo and ask for his help with a script, after all he did create the story.

Absolutely. That’d be the most logical way, wouldn’t it?

[the white drew carey]

He'd be like: "Dude, I already told this story two different ways. Why add a third?"

[sketchley]

He'd be like: "Dude, I already told this story two different ways. Why add a third?"

One could argue that he's already done 3 versions...

manga - serialization

manga - collected version

movie

Would the colourized Epic translation count as a 4th version? (not the story per se; 'cuz that'll open the can of worms of all the non-Japanese, non-English translations counting as different versions.)

[Einherjar]

He'd be like: "Dude, I already told this story two different ways. Why add a third?"

Or maybe like Akira Toriyama was when Dragon Ball live action happened, silently polite about it while maybe dying a little inside.

[EXO]

I don't think they pay any attention to each other. If they asked Otomo for script assist, he'd slam down the mangas on the conference table and walk out, to which the producers will ask, "What are these, Storyboards? Do we have enough in the budget left to hire people to read these things?"

[Knight26]

There are translated Mangas, imagine a six movie deal, one for each volume of the Manga, now that would be freaking epic cool. Film them all back to back ala LOTR, then release them once every six months, that would be awesome.

[BeyondTheGrave]

No. They're not written for direct movie adaptation.

[Lobizon]

The Only 'Officially Recognized' Akira Bike Replica

[peter]

Edited April 7, 2012 by peter

[peter]

So awesome....

Edited April 7, 2012 by peter

[Lobizon]

Jaume Collet-Serra Returns to Direct 'Akira' Edited August 2, 2013 by Lobizon

[Loop]

Damn, I had hoped this was dead. I don't trust holly wood to make this good or right...

[areaseven]

This needs to be mass-produced.