"Kaneda!!!" "Tetsuo!!!" (Akira Adaptation Plot Outline Leaked)
By
BrandX,
Posted on: 2011-11-29 21:17 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
It's hard to believe that you could mess up a guy getting experimenting on some bikers and it goes completely wrong when one of their subjects goes nuclear... but they did. I'm impressed... at least they did that.
I've never seen Akira, but this sounds like instant fail.
Goodbye, I guess.
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The beginning portion of it sounds as fine to me as the first part of the plot of the original movie.
Neither really makes sense as to why Tetsuo needs to be experimented on. At least to my recollection of the original anime.
At least the ending sounds a bit more understandable compared to the ending of Akira, which felt like they really didn't know what to do with it and just cobbled together *something* to make the movie end.
As for casting, I personally don't care either way what color of a person's skin plays what character, so long as the story and acting are good.
Let me get this right...before there were complaints that the color of one's skin should be a factor in casting...
Like in casting Spider-Man!
...now, complaints about not casting to match the counterparts.
Seems to be some back and forth thinking on this subject.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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You should see the animated movie, if for no other reason than that it is a classic.
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Originally Posted by Lord_Nightblade
I've never seen Akira, but this sounds like instant fail.
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Dude...
Thread title gave me hideous flashbacks of Inuyasha...
"Inuyasha!"
"Kagome!"
"Inuyasha!"
"Kagome!"
"Inuyasha!"
"Kagome!"
"Inuyasha!"
"Kagome!"
Repeat for 200 episodes... 
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It's been a while, but as i recall Tetsuo had an encounter with an escaped psychic and apparently exposure to the psychic's abilities affected him. Sort of like being bitten by a radioactive spider. So the experimenting was a response to Tetsuo's exposure after he'd been injured at the scene of an encounter with a top secret military project incident and brought along as part of the clean up/cover up.|
Originally Posted by Tannim222
Neither really makes sense as to why Tetsuo needs to be experimented on. At least to my recollection of the original anime.
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| As for casting, I personally don't care either way what color of a person's skin plays what character, so long as the story and acting are good. |
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Originally Posted by BrandX
Let me get this right...before there were complaints that the color of one's skin should be a factor in casting...
Like in casting Spider-Man! ...now, complaints about not casting to match the counterparts. Seems to be some back and forth thinking on this subject. |
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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Yeah, I should probably see it at some point. It's just that I have a hard time watching anime from the '80s.
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Originally Posted by Zikar
You should see the animated movie, if for no other reason than that it is a classic.
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Goodbye, I guess.
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nightblade7295@gmail.com if you want to stay in touch
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That's pretty much what did happen. Otomo was still writing the manga when they started making the film and they needed *something* to end it.
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Originally Posted by Tannim222
At least the ending sounds a bit more understandable compared to the ending of Akira, which felt like they really didn't know what to do with it and just cobbled together *something* to make the movie end.
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However, it turned out that Smith was not a time-travelling Terminator
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For me it's generally a matter of aesthetics, a sense of which is developed to different extents with different characters/series. The pictured characters from Akira (and a lot of other anime/manga, for that matter), for instance, could be of European and/or Asian descent just judging from their presented appearance. But without having that picture on hand I would only have the vaguest sense of what I wanted to see because I'm not a big fan of Akira and it's been many years since I've even seen it.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
Let me get this right...before there were complaints that the color of one's skin should be a factor in casting...
Like in casting Spider-Man! ...now, complaints about not casting to match the counterparts. Seems to be some back and forth thinking on this subject. |
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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While Caucasian recasting is an issue in a lot of Hollywood live-action adaptations of anime/manga, this Akira movie goes further by unimaginatively moving the setting to kinda-future New York City. It's neither preserving the original material nor reworking it into a science fiction epic of its own. This is like, say, a French film company remaking Watchmen except transferring it from 80s Manhattan to contemporary Paris.
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Originally Posted by Schismatrix
Well, it's probably more because to this day the American movie industry insists on turning most protagonists caucasian regardless of original ethnicity. (Airbender, Akira, et al.)
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I really don't have much trouble with the idea of them "re-imagining" the Arika story to be set in New York or if the characters are "Americanized" with Caucasian actors. To use Shakespeare as an example his plays have been translated into hundreds of different forms over the years. It does leave me to wonder if they are changing the setting why any of the characters would still be left with their original Japanese names though. That just seems weird somehow. *shrugs*|
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
While Caucasian recasting is an issue in a lot of Hollywood live-action adaptations of anime/manga, this Akira movie goes further by unimaginatively moving the setting to kinda-future New York City. It's neither preserving the original material nor reworking it into a science fiction epic of its own. This is like, say, a French film company remaking Watchmen except transferring it from 80s Manhattan to contemporary Paris.
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All that aside my main concern (as you imply) will be whether or not this will be a good movie regardless of the Americanization or not. I simply don't have much faith this'll turn out to be worth the effort as a movie in and of itself whether it stays true to the source material or not. It doesn't help that Kristen Stewart may be involved, because while I'm sure she's a great person I sort of consider her "damaged goods" actress-wise because of her involvement with that franchise that starts with a "T" and ends with a "wilight". I suppose we'll just have to see.
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There's nothing wrong with Shakespeare in modern dress if the updated setting has an interesting concept behind it and the production commits to it. Or, for that matter, someone could relocate A Tale of Two Cities to Berlin and Moscow during the Russian Revolution or Gone with the Wind to the English Civil War. To succeed with such a project, though, different yet appropriate analogs would have to be devised for the new setting. Even if the transplanted adaptation were sufficiently creative, the loss of much of the original subtext would be inevitable.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
I really don't have much trouble with the idea of them "re-imagining" the Arika story to be set in New York or if the characters are "Americanized" with Caucasian actors. To use Shakespeare as an example his plays have been translated into hundreds of different forms over the years.
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Right now, we're not seeing any such effort being put into the Akira adaptation. Jaume Collet-Serra's apparently working with the same playbook that Warner Bros. has been using with such little result on this interminable project. They're merely trading on the (deservedly high) reputation of Otomo's manga/anime while making perfunctory efforts to make it as blandly acceptable to a mainstream audience as possible.
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| All that aside my main concern (as you imply) will be whether or not this will be a good movie regardless of the Americanization or not. |
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If it helps any, the animation artwork is of excellent quality. Easily as good as any modern anime. The voice dubbing on the English version is very good also.|
Originally Posted by Lord_Nightblade
Yeah, I should probably see it at some point. It's just that I have a hard time watching anime from the '80s.
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The story, on the other hand, is a bit bizarre, and I'm not surprised to see it be mangled in an Americanized version. Of course everybody knew this was going to happen.
...
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*huddles in the corner* I thought I left that dark period behind me when I hid my wife's DVD collections...
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Originally Posted by Dark One
Dude...
Thread title gave me hideous flashbacks of Inuyasha... "Inuyasha!" "Kagome!" "Inuyasha!" "Kagome!" "Inuyasha!" "Kagome!" "Inuyasha!" "Kagome!" Repeat for 200 episodes... |
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That's too bad. With the current quality of cutting-edge CGI a remake of a movie like Akira has the potential to be mind-blowingly awesome (at least from a visual standpoint) as long as someone is willing to spend the money on it. This is the kind of movie that needs to be a top-tier priority as far as studio support goes. I'd hate to think we're going to get the cheapo "SyFy treatment" on this. |
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
Right now, we're not seeing any such effort being put into the Akira adaptation. Jaume Collet-Serra's apparently working with the same playbook that Warner Bros. has been using with such little result on this interminable project. They're merely trading on the (deservedly high) reputation of Otomo's manga/anime while making perfunctory efforts to make it as blandly acceptable to a mainstream audience as possible.
After reading a leaked earlier draft of the adaptation's screenplay, I'm pretty pessimistic. The most significant new development is that the budget's been slashed, which doesn't suggest Neo-Manhattan will look anywhere near as impressive as Neo-Tokyo. |
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Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
If it helps any, the animation artwork is of excellent quality. Easily as good as any modern anime. The voice dubbing on the English version is very good also.
The story, on the other hand, is a bit bizarre, and I'm not surprised to see it be mangled in an Americanized version. Of course everybody knew this was going to happen. |
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The anime really has stood up fairly well. Some of the bikes and biker gangs seem a little dated but everything else from the lasers to the space satellite hold up nicely.
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It's been said already, really, but this was head and shoulders above anything I saw in the 80s. My opinion on this might be suspect as anime I try and watch these days strikes as nearly the exact same thing I was seeing back then, but so it goes.
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Originally Posted by Lord_Nightblade
Yeah, I should probably see it at some point. It's just that I have a hard time watching anime from the '80s.
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Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
If it helps any, the animation artwork is of excellent quality. Easily as good as any modern anime. The voice dubbing on the English version is very good also.
The story, on the other hand, is a bit bizarre, and I'm not surprised to see it be mangled in an Americanized version. Of course everybody knew this was going to happen. |
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Originally Posted by Clave_Dark_5
It's been said already, really, but this was head and shoulders above anything I saw in the 80s. My opinion on this might be suspect as anime I try and watch these days strikes as nearly the exact same thing I was seeing back then, but so it goes.
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Goodbye, I guess.
@Lord_Nightblade in Champions/Star Trek Online
nightblade7295@gmail.com if you want to stay in touch
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I think in the manga and the anime also do to all the street drug as well were doing some stuff with his mind the goverment just pushed it alot further..
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Originally Posted by Tannim222
The beginning portion of it sounds as fine to me as the first part of the plot of the original movie.
Neither really makes sense as to why Tetsuo needs to be experimented on. At least to my recollection of the original anime. At least the ending sounds a bit more understandable compared to the ending of Akira, which felt like they really didn't know what to do with it and just cobbled together *something* to make the movie end. As for casting, I personally don't care either way what color of a person's skin plays what character, so long as the story and acting are good. |
"And for us this is the end of all stories, and we can mostly say they lived happily ever after. But for them it was the beginning of the real story. All there life in this world and all there adventures in Narnia had only be the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of The Great Story which no one on earth has ever read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before" - C.S Lewis, The Last Battle.
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Originally Posted by Lord_Nightblade
Yeah, I should probably see it at some point. It's just that I have a hard time watching anime from the '80s.
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Originally Posted by Lord_Nightblade
Ah, that does help. It's usually the voice acting on the '80s dubs that I can't tolerate (I still can't get all the way through the first episode of Voltron).
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The 1988 movie still surpasses most other anime in terms of visual quality and dubbing even by today's standards. And it probably also has amongst the highest built-in "name recognition" for Americans. What I mean by that is if you were to ask the average American to list off anime titles the ones who could actually name -any- titles would probably be able to at least give you Akira as one of the few they were aware of. That alone makes it viable as something that average American audiences might want to see a remake of.
Now I'm still dubious whether this remake will be any good but at least I understand why they chose Akira for this attempt at it.
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Let me play devil's advocate for a moment here.
It might just be me, but I personally don't see such a big problem with removing the Japanese cultural perspective of the original and applying an American perspective. I mean yes, there's respect for the source material and all, I get that, but the original Akira was so deeply seeped in a Japanese perspective that a lot of the points it was trying to make would be lost on an American audience (hell, they were lost on me the first time I watched it). The original Akira was all about how fragile Japanese civilization really is, and how easily it could all fall apart, and America is kind of finding itself in a similar position right now. If the remake just tried to stay 100% faithful to the original then a lot of that message would be lost, but by moving everything to America I think this has the potential to be a much more poignant film.
And hell, aside from the change in location it sounds like they got the basic framework of the plot spot on. Call me cautiously optimistic.
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Potentially, perhaps, but unlikely to be realized. The fragility of Japanese society - not only due to politics, but also because of its geographic instability (i.e. the Pacific Ring of Fire) - is only one of many major themes. Another is post-World War II Japan beginning to feel a sense of its own international power and the problems involved with that, a theme that certainly doesn't seem present in the Americanized remake.|
Originally Posted by Mr_Squid
The original Akira was all about how fragile Japanese civilization really is, and how easily it could all fall apart, and America is kind of finding itself in a similar position right now. If the remake just tried to stay 100% faithful to the original then a lot of that message would be lost, but by moving everything to America I think this has the potential to be a much more poignant film.
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| And hell, aside from the change in location it sounds like they got the basic framework of the plot spot on. |
If Warner Bros. were serious about this remake, they'd throw out everything they'd produced so far and try to start fresh. Instead, this mediocre project is all about recovering whatever development costs they can after pouring so much money into it.
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That sounds pretty cool.
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Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
This is like, say, a French film company remaking Watchmen except transferring it from 80s Manhattan to contemporary Paris.
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Always remember, we were Heroes.
The plot summary for the whitebread Americanized live-action adaptation of Akira has been leaked during its casting calls.
Here's the outline:
Desperate to get his brother back, Kaneda agrees to join with Ky Reed and her underground movement who are intent on revealing to the world what truly happened to New York City thirty years ago when it was destroyed. Kaneda believes their theories to be ludicrous but after finding his brother again, is shocked when he displays telekinetic powers.
Ky believes Tetsuo is headed to release a young boy, Akira, who has taken control of Tetsuos mind. Kaneda clashes with The Colonels troops on his way to stop Tetsuo from releasing Akira but arrives too late. Akira soon emerges from his prison courtesy of Tetsuo as Kaneda races in to save his brother before Akira once again destroys Manhattan island, as he did thirty years ago.
In short,