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NEWS: Producer Lazar: Live-Action Akira is 'Priority Project'


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Lonecow



Joined: 08 Jun 2007
Posts: 52
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:22 pm Reply with quote
Just curious but does anyone here actually care about Akira? I know me and all my friends appreciate it, but don't really like it and find it pretty boring. I didn't know if that sentiment was shared by other anime fans.

I hope the movie gets made and gets made well, to pave the way for other mature anime films (like the original did), but a bigger part of me wishes they would just adapt something more recent and currently popular (trying to ignore the Dragonball banner ads).
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sanosuke32



Joined: 19 Dec 2007
Posts: 454
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:33 pm Reply with quote
Akira was and will always be one of it not the best anime movie ever. If you cannot think outside the box, then no you would not enjoy this film at all. I hope this get's done soon and is still faithful to the manga. It's good they got the manga creator involved.
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SleepyMithos



Joined: 22 Dec 2007
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:39 pm Reply with quote
Personally Akira is my favourite manga, i don like the movie tho, 'cause has a story too different from the original manga.
Im not a fun of live-actions but maybe it'll be good Wink

Anyway talking with friends i found that im the only one that cares about akira Anime hyper.. but the manga really is something that everyone should read Wink

(lol at the dragonball ban)
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 2:07 pm Reply with quote
I previously assumed that the "dead as a doornail" news was indicative of WB's lack of enthusiasm to continue. Still, at least those wishing to see Kaneda and Travis (sic) on the silver screen can be optimistic as a result of this news.

As for myself, I hope 2011 will be an otherwise pleasing year for me.
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TokyoGetter



Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 416
Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards.
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 2:10 pm Reply with quote
Lonecow wrote:
Just curious but does anyone here actually care about Akira? I know me and all my friends appreciate it, but don't really like it and find it pretty boring. I didn't know if that sentiment was shared by other anime fans.


Seriously? Confused
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Faceman



Joined: 11 Jul 2005
Posts: 300
Location: Boston
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 2:11 pm Reply with quote
I actually bought Akira on Blu-ray this last Friday. I don't even own a BR player, it was to watch at a friend's. I have to say the quality was amazing - even more so when you know that the the film (sans a scant few graphics) were all hand-drawn. Though it's from the 80s the film holds up well. I've seen it before, but it's been a few years since I last watched it. This time around I was able to appreciate the light humor the characters had even amiss the horrible circumstances they were in.

I'm just weary of trying to over-hype the futureness of it all with over the top CGI. I'd look forward to something a little more Blade Runner in tone.
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vashfanatic



Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 3495
Location: Back stateside
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 2:13 pm Reply with quote
SleepyMithos wrote:
Personally Akira is my favourite manga, i don like the movie tho, 'cause has a story too different from the original manga.


I too love the manga more than the movie (in fact, I consider the manga to be one of the greatest of all time), but remember: it may have hacked down the manga (which had at least three movies' worth of stuff), but it was directed by the manga writer himself, Katsuhiro Otomo. So as an abbreviated version of the manga, its the author's won abbreviation. Still, you have to squint pretty hard at the movie to get what's going on, whereas the manga spells it all out much more clearly - not to mention having some of my favorite characters that didn't make it to the movie.

I have a request, ANN: for your next poll, maybe have it be about live action adaptations and what we think about them. Personally, the only live action adaptation of Akira I'd want would be one that tried to incorporate everything from the manga in a multi-movie format ala "Lord of the Rings."
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21stcenturydigitalboy



Joined: 20 Aug 2008
Posts: 103
Location: Virginia Beach, Virginia
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 2:35 pm Reply with quote
God dammit I thought the live action Akira had been cancelled?! RAGE.

This is the worst of all ideas of anime to be made into a US live action production. Akira is one of the most fundamentally Japanese anime there is, and I can't even partly see US producers doing it any justice.
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PhoenixHeart



Joined: 09 Dec 2008
Posts: 41
Location: Germany, Black-Forrest area
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 3:26 pm Reply with quote
21stcenturydigitalboy wrote:
God dammit I thought the live action Akira had been cancelled?! RAGE.

This is the worst of all ideas of anime to be made into a US live action production. Akira is one of the most fundamentally Japanese anime there is, and I can't even partly see US producers doing it any justice.


Umm.. I don't get this, what's so fundamentally Japanese about Akira? Ok, there's the Japanese names... there's Kaneda's fighting spirit which could be a samurai-comparison, there's a religious belief in the Akira spirit involved, which can be linked to shintoism - true. But other than that? It's pure dark philosophical Sci-Fi at it's core and much like Blade Runner's it's a lot about atmosphere and the cynical outlook on human evo... uh.. development (carefully avoiding the "evo.."-word)

If it was so fundamentally Japanese, it wouldn't have become such a broad success - Akira was a breakthrough success especially *because* it was not that obviously Japanese and western audiences were stunned by the visuals, dynamic action, moody characters, the intense and believable setting and all the elements that don't have the Japanese connection.

So I even dare to believe Akira is maybe the best and most fail-safe material to be adapted into live-action, as it's full of elements that have allready been incorperated into several succesful and good sci-fi movies over the last decades. Things *can* go horribly wrong though - considering what Warner Bros. is doing with the Harry Potter franchise, I could cringe in pain. But in the wrong hands, any good story can be trashed - but the potential is super-hot in my eyes and easier to faithfully adapt than any upcomming or failed anime adaption so far.
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AnimenexuS





PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 3:37 pm Reply with quote
Live Action going to be many levels of suck
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15583
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 4:00 pm Reply with quote
Otomo's probably as much a producer and consultant as Stephen Chow was for DB:E. Rolling Eyes The thing is that WB has had the rights to Akira almost as long as Speed Racer. And Akira's got as many problems working on the big-screen as Watchmen. People already bitch about the anime movie being lacking, compared to the manga, and Otomo worked on both of those versions. So it doesn't matter who directs, if the studio's not willing to cough up the dough for the scenes which count. (*cough* giant squid *cough*) Anyway, as long as this doesn't become a reality, I might give the company the benefit of the doubt. But they already wanna make the Japanese characters white, so no dice.

Cow: Yeah. Who needs Akira when got Death Note and Eva? Razz But man, being told it's "old" makes me understand how Cyborg 009 fans must feel. So I'll just say this. Buy or Netflix Crows Zero and Kamikaze Girls, and you'll see why Akira is so appealing to people tired of the goody-two shoes sitcoms we had to endure throughout the 80s, and which you most likely had to endure throughout the 90s.

vash: I guess you'll dig this.
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taster of pork



Joined: 11 Nov 2008
Posts: 596
Location: My House
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 4:03 pm Reply with quote
After I herd about some of the changes they were going to make to the story, I was glad that the movie was going to get dropped.
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Blindmonkey



Joined: 28 Jul 2009
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 4:14 pm Reply with quote
Personally speaking Akira is one of my all time fav anime and I also highly rate the Manga. I do think its fair to say that it is a fundamentally Japanese film as the narrative and cultural psychology of the film is greatly informed by the social revolutions of 60's Japan that Otomo witnessed in his youth. And although its fair to say that the 60's were a pretty fairly revolutionary time globally, Aikra mixes this with another factor particular to Japan; the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Akira is as much about a country dealing with such a disaster and rising phoenix like from the ashes to claim its place as a global super power as it is about psychic teenagers.

But Also, while in this sense it's very Japanese, I think it is fair to say that the film is universal in its appeal, hence its international popularity and its importance in developing knowledge and understanding of anime in the west. I fear a live-action version not because i believe it will automatically be bad; in fact here's enormous potential for a fantastic live-action film in the manga, even considering the enormous cultural and geographical shift the film will endure through the inevitable shifting of the location from Toyo to L.A. or where-ever. My real fear is just that it would be so easy to get so much wrong and all that will be left is a stylish and violent yet hollow shell where once stood a work of vast complexity.

Also I'm a huge Dragonball fan so live action anime adaptaions and me have a bad history...
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Delpheno



Joined: 31 Mar 2008
Posts: 59
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 4:44 pm Reply with quote
The beginning of Akira was absolutely fantastic. Then it went all sci-fi on me and I didn't enjoy it.
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Rolando_jose



Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 240
Location: Ahhhh it's vacation time again!
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 4:54 pm Reply with quote
Please God, dont let 'em "Dragonbolize it"
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