Friday, May 15, 2009

Bubblegum Crisis live-action movie

Apparently we're getting another live-action anime adaptation: six companies in six different countries have come together for the production.

That shouldn't be taken as a sign of quality, though - there's a serious risk of design-by-committee there. They've already announced some changes (such as the inclusion of 2 male leads) but the mention that the film production will leverage a bunch of international treaties to make use of government funding makes me skeptical of the proposed 2012 release window - and the hope of getting it distributed through mainland China kills any hope that it'll be anything too innovative.

If it doesn't collapse from organizational chaos (How many fingers in that pie? With governmental policy involved too?) it'll end up being a big-budget action movie that probably borrows little more than the power armor and boomers from the original.

I've got a lot of fond memories of the old series (which hasn't held up as well as you might hope) and the subsequent spin-offs were intermittently entertaining if not actually good ("Mm! Let's get a bager while my partner is killed by boomers!" "Are there any words (like boomer) we should avoid during dinner to keep Sylia from going completely bug-nuts?"). With any luck we'll get some laughs out of this production too.
via ICv2 with more detail (including the mention of what's already been changed) at io9.

12 comments:

  1. Is "shitty live-action anime redo" the new "shitty live-action superhero adaptation"? Looks like the Wachowskis didn't pour enough poison into that well.

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  2. Speaking of eye-poison, did anyone actually see DragonBall?

    I couldn't bring myself to actually spend time (let alone money) on it.

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  3. Man, I don't even like the ORIGINAL. How many times has a transnational remake of ANYTHING been any good? I can only think of The Departed offhand.

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  4. Oh, there's absolutely no doubt it's complete shit - I'm just morbidly curious just how bad it got, and if it managed to reach any level of so-bad-it's-good.

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  5. Do no speak ill of Speed Racer where I can read it, foul churl!
    It is a GIFT from the GODS and must be worshipped like the FEAST of AWESOME it is!

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  6. Speed Racer was awesome, but it was neither art nor heavenly ambrosia :)

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  7. To cross our threads a bit, I feel exactly the same way about the Wachowskis' previous films as you do about Kio Shimoku's old work. Matrix Revolutions ensured I will never, ever again waste either my money or my time on anything they're even peripherally associated with.

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  8. I've managed to avoid the third Matrix film. I was surprised by how well the first stood up, but the second was a huge disappointment (as was V for Vendetta).

    I think I enjoyed Speed Racer largely because it was so ludicrous and not really making any pretensions of being anything other than silly.

    I think I'm pretty neutral on the baggage their name brings - they're hit and miss (though more the latter these days), just like Hollywood as a whole.

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  9. "Oh, there's absolutely no doubt it's complete shit - I'm just morbidly curious just how bad it got, and if it managed to reach any level of so-bad-it's-good."

    http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/dragonball-evolution

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  10. I just couldn't work up the energy to hate either Matrix sequel, not after hearing the hate so long before they came out.
    And both Bound and The Matrix were very strong; it's easier to give more chances to people who have done good work, just not recently.

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  11. I didn't see Bound, and as previously stated I now plan to actively avoid it. The Matrix was an OK movie with a clever conceit to justify the wire fu; despite the higher budget, it's no Swordsman 2 or Chinese Ghost Story. The true horror of the sequels was realizing the directors thought the fu was actually a Trojan Horse for their first-year philosophy student meanderings, and dividing up the screen time appropriately. I do not trust them to write characters I find interesting or appealing, and if I want a special effects blockbuster I can just go pick one of the many made by people who haven't burned me before.

    And that's entirely too much time spent thinking about things I hate.

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