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Live Action Ghost in the Shell


Iceheart
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careful, Poe. Driver's fighting with pictures now.

 

Well, I was more annoyed that it's essentially prevented contemplating a real Evangelion movie for awhile than thinking it was the first giant robot show.

 

I think that was Driver's point anyway.

 

:p

 

The whole power cable thing was a pretty blatant rip-off, I'll give you that. But Japanese entertainment has decades worth of robots fighting monsters. Besides, Evangelion is way to complex for a stand alone movie-- I'd rather it be a miniseries... and then there's the question of which version given they've rebooted and/or retold the story three or four times now.

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I'd rather it be a miniseries...

 

It's in a weird place, which is probably why it's never been done. The time constraints of a movie are problematic, but WAY too expensive for a small-screen show.

 

Thing is, I believe that it CAN be done well for the big screen. It wouldn't be able to tell everything, but it could be done. But audiences would be confused as all heck and probably reject it.

 

 

 

and then there's the question of which version given they've rebooted and/or retold the story three or four times now.

 

Just once. And they STILL haven't finished those Rebuild movies.

 

Evangelion's production is weird. They only just finished the original manga a few years ago after almost 20 years of sporadic publishing. Even if they wanted to, I doubt they could retell the story four times before everyone involved dropped dead.

 

As for which to use, it'd be too much to ask for them to be faithful, but I prefer Asuka's portrayal in the original, so I'd go with that.

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Just once for the whole thing-- but I was counting the fact that the original series was remixed into standalone movies and given a different ending. But you're right-- way to FX heavy for TV.

 

I have to think at some point the FX/time/money gap between TV and films will eventually disappear.

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You're probably having difficulty because it's both.

 

My personal view on this issue is that I couldn't care less about a performer's race, gender, sexuality, abilities and disabilities, culture, etc. so long as it make sense. Almost always, it is going to make sense no matter what, but sometimes it doesn't, or can be tricky.

 

I can break this down into 3 categories:

 

1) OMG SUPERIMPORTANT CATEGORY: media where a specific race, gender, sexuality, culture, (dis)ability are absolutely necessary for a character to work -- usually biopics or historical fiction with themes of identity.

 

EXAMPLE: Casting a teenage Japanese girl to play Nelson Mandela would be distracting past the point of ridiculous; a studio is welcome to try, of course (good luck with that!), but I just can't imagine it ever working in a serious film. Race is an intrinsic part of that man's story, and a lot of the most important events in his life happened after age 70! In a situation like this, as much as I wanna say "It doesn't matter," it just does, because how do you make a fricken' movie about Nelson Mandela with somebody who cannot convey the man, his race, and late-life accomplishments without people smirking?

 

2) PAY ATTENTION BUT DON'T FREAK OUT CATEGORY: media where the story relies in part on a character's experiences as a specific race, gender, sexuality, etc. (try for a moment to imagine Thelma and Louise as dudes). If you want to gender or race swap, it's doable, but it's probably going to create a lot more work for you (as well as piss people off), and special care has to be made to present the character(s) with challenges unique to their experience..

 

EXAMPLE: Casting an actor who is not a white male to play William Foster in a remake of Falling Down would be tricky but doable. Privilege and loss of stature in an increasingly politically correct and multicultural landscape are important themes in that movie, so a Pakistani man who has recently immigrated to Los Angeles might not make any sense on the surface... but wait -- there are tons of ways to convey loss of privilege and stature, and surely there are many instances where an immigrant feels that sting? Especially one who comes from a homogeneous (97% Muslim), male-dominated society? It could actually make for a very interesting movie. Only trick would be getting the audience to believe a brown person could survive to the end of the film wandering through the city waving around weapons...

 

3) IDGAF CATEGORY: media where the race, gender, sexuality, culture, etc. of various characters may -- and in competent hands, should -- provide them with color and background, but are otherwise of little to no importance in relation to the main narrative.

 

EXAMPLE: Pretty much 90%+ of all films made, and in these cases, an author has absolutely no reason to explain themselves to me regarding their characters's races, genders, sexuality, culture, etc.

-------

 

My personal view on this film is that this will end up falling somewhere between "PAY ATTENTION BUT DON'T FREAK OUT" and "IDGAF." On a storytelling level, there is no reason Johansson's character needs to be/look Japanese for it to work. None. So I'm not worried about that. But at the same time, Asians are an underrepresented minority and the stories came from Japan, so you can't deny it kinda stings as a missed opportunity.

 

But of course, if you ever go onto these tubes called the "Internet," you would be hearing that race and culture actually are the only thing that matters about this movie, which is where my sarcastic (but also kinda true) comment came from...

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Casting a teenage Japanese girl to play Nelson Mandela would be distracting past the point of ridiculous; a studio is welcome to try, of course (good luck with that!), but I just can't imagine it ever working in a serious film.

 

Well, there's the cast of Hamilton. Or Peter Pan for that matter.

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Casting a teenage Japanese girl to play Nelson Mandela would be distracting past the point of ridiculous; a studio is welcome to try, of course (good luck with that!), but I just can't imagine it ever working in a serious film.

 

Well, there's the cast of Hamilton. Or Peter Pan for that matter.

 

Tiger Lily - especially Rooney Mara's recent portrayal - is one of the most pointed to and contested instances of whitewashing in modern Hollywood. Mara has even publicly stated that she regrets taking the role.

 

Hamilton seems like the race-reversal is more about subversion than complete obliviousness. idk, I've only ever seen stills and listened through the soundtrack once. But it seems like an intentional move, like the new Ghostbusters. An example of Pong's Pay Attention but Don't Freak Out category done right.

 

I'm usually in Pong's IDGAF camp, as long as lots of actors audition and they cast on chops alone, cool. But I think this does fall into the Pay Attention but Don't Freak Out category, especially if they're keeping the original character name and setting intact. If the story takes place in, like, Neo London or Neo NYC and the character's name is something like Mary Smith, I'm down. But seeing as how that rumor about making a white woman Asian in post-production is getting bigger now... this is weird.

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  • 5 months later...
  • 1 month later...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUtG93BebJ4

 

I first saw this trailer last night on my twitter feed, and because I didn't have headphones with me and was in a loud room, I watched it with no sound, and visually, it was fantastic.

 

Add the dialogue in, and I'm underwhelmed.

 

Edit: of COURSE the cover still is robot nudity. Because why not?

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Doesn't seem like its adding anything that couldn't be had just by watching the original. Not getting the feels it must be said. And sorry to sound like an old curmudgeon but the music they're trying to pitch the film to us with is appalling. Im sure ill torrent it (the film, not the music) at some point.

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I THOUGHT THAT LOOKED LIKE KUZE IN THE TRAILER!

 

Well, damn, now I'm in... 2nd Gig was my favorite GITS story arc, and the story of the little boy and the thousand cranes makes me cry every damn time.

 

Not that I expect them to do any less than ****ing it up like whoa... but still.

 

Re: the music, to be fair, if you're not hiring Yoko Kanno to compose the soundtrack, it's gonna fall flat on general principle.

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  • 4 months later...

Doesn't seem like its adding anything that couldn't be had just by watching the original. Not getting the feels it must be said. And sorry to sound like an old curmudgeon but the music they're trying to pitch the film to us with is appalling. Im sure ill torrent it (the film, not the music) at some point.

do. not. torrent. films.

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