Opinion Prone

Earlier this week, Japanator posted about how the Latino Review got a hold of a working script for the upcoming live action Akira movie. Apparently, it comes down to this:

Good news: They appear to be sticking very close to their source material, even taking the initiative in incorporating parts of the manga that never made it into the animated version. This is fantastic because even though I’ve yet to get around to reading the manga, it’s obvious that there’s a lot of storytelling and explanation missing from the movie. To make room for all this extra stuff (after all, the manga is kind of long), they’re making two movies. I’m a little more skeptical about this if only because I feel like they might shit out on a second movie if the first one doesn’t fly far, but if they film them both at the same time, then it might not matter all that much. But in any case, sticking to the script and being faithful to the source material is usually the #1 concern of existing fans, and it seems like things are so good so far.

Bad news: Regardless of how faithful any adaptation is, there are always at least a few changes, minor as they could be. [View the rest of this entry…]

OMG FANGASM NOW.

OMG TAKAHIRO SAKURAI IS HAINE. AKIRA ISHIDA IS BADOU. JUST LIKE THE DRAMA CD. OH MY GOD. And Taneguchi of Code Geass will be involved. Holy shit. This makes me so happy.

I swear I don’t normally post this kind of fantarding nonsense. But I make the exception for DOGS because I love DOGS. I really need to get off my ass, reread everything that’s out and review the sucker because it really deserves more love.

My only concern is [View the rest of this entry…]

You know. I’m actually surprised about the number of posts I’ve already made about the upcoming Dragonball movie, but I can’t seem to help making posts when stuff like this comes up:

If that’s Goku’s oozaru form, I think I’m gonna cry.

Okay, okay, so they say that it may not be a final shot, but if Fox requested that it be taken down, then it must be official in some way shape or form, right? Or they might just want the general bad impressions of the movie to slow their rampant circulation. Still… this screenshot makes Goku look more like a creepy lizard than a gorilla. I always wanna say this would have made a better Piccolo, but it wouldn’t really. I can live with Nosferatu!Piccolo all right enough.

In any case, I look forward to any follow-up screenshots that come from this and/or seeing the final product if this is indeed a work-in-progress…

Wow. I’m a year late on this news, but this was brought to my attention by the SEQALAB podcast: they’re making a World of Warcraft movie.

I can’t decide whether I should be confused, perplexed, amused, or exasperated. Or all four at once!

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What, two posts in one day? What is this madness??

A lot’s happened since I last talked about the upcoming Dragonball movie. Piccolo’s makeup job was revealed. Other people’s pictures were revealed. And oh, this trailer leaked sometime last week. Watching the trailer is a pretty sobering experience. The trailer outlines a movie that could be pretty much any other Hollywood movie — kung-fu masters are all the rage these days, and so are key words like “true” and “prophecy.” All of the shots and angles and colors and effects seemed so plain, so familiar, so overdone. Very little of it was reminiscent of the source material, and really, if it wasn’t for the kind-of-recognizable dragonballs themselves, it could be any other movie. I wouldn’t have known better if it hadn’t been labeled as the Dragonball movie. The “prophecy” thing bothered me a lot too… it’s just such a generic and over-used word that’s been used over and over again in dozens of other films. That they used it to present Dragonball is disappointing.

It’s been obvious for a while that they’re trying to capture something bigger than the niche audience. It wasn’t for the fans that they aged Goku up from a spunky, little Asian kid to a mid-twenties white dude. It wasn’t for the fans that they made Piccolo look like Nosferatu. Yeah, both Goku and Piccolo are technically aliens without nationality, but those are the little things that fan want to count on. Our Son Goku is one of a million incarnations of the character from Journey to the West; as such, he should remind us of a mischievous little monkey king.

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I can’t help but laugh a little (and maybe cringe a little too) at the idea that Marvel is teaming up with Madhouse to create an Iron Man anime. Or, it seems that Iron Man might be sharing the the same anime as Wolverine? There will apparently be four series in total, but other characters involved have yet to be announced. It all seems rather jumbled to me right now, though whatever it is, the first series is due out in 2010, following/coinciding with the releases of the Wolverine movie and the Iron Man sequel.

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I was pretty annoyed a month ago when that alleged Bones document was leaked. I haven’t seen Darker than Black, but I definitely knew that I didn’t want a Fullmetal Alchemist sequel. The ever on-going status of the manga is irrelevant because the anime veered away from it a long time ago. FMA is done. It had a shitty-as-hell ending, but it was an ending, and I was done mourning the fact that such a wonderful series should have such a crappy conclusion (one that was further supplemented with crap via the movie). So I breathed a sigh of relief when Bones came in to trump the rampant rumors… only come back now and say, “lol, jk, it’s true after all!” Seriously, what the hell? Why would you do this to us? Why??

I have yet to see an originally unplanned sequel that is not complete trash. Storylines that are tacked on later just because the original was popular just don’t work. Look at Gundam SEED Destiny. Look at Dragonball GT. It has been four years since FMA finished airing, three years since Conquerer of Shambala. It can’t be more obvious they’re just milking this.

(The rest of this entry contains spoilers for the FMA anime.)

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I wasn’t expecting the rumor mill to kick into gear so soon, but it looks like some “reliable source” has said that Keanu Reeves has been “attached” as the role of Spike Spiegal in the recently revealed FOX Cowboy Bebop live action movie. Huh. Well, that’s interesting. I don’t really think anyone expected any big name actors to sign on for any of these upcoming US-made anime live action movies. I certainly didn’t, anyway, and I’m not quite sure that I want Mr. Reeves to be Spike. I’m having a hard time picturing it — what about you?

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Yesterday was another horrible day for the economy. Everyone’s just about ready to sound the bells announcing the apocalypse, also known as a recession. I suppose that part of the reason I’m so tuned in on this madness is because I work at a company that provides financial software to all the big name banks and investment firms that are flailing around right now, but I do hope you can see why our horrible economy at the moment directly affects consumer spending habits, which obviously include our beloved media from Japan. I can’t decide how scared I should be though. After all, the lines are still long at the Starbuckses, where all of the customers are trading a gallon of gas for a cup of coffee.

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