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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Any word on Akira?

Except that when it came down to it, The Matrix failed to have a story that really ended well or had any meaning. They may have been inspired by great stories, but they could not make their own story quite as good. I liked Matrix I and II, but the third movie was a huge letdown. I thought that the whole showdown with the Architect was going to lead to something monumental, but in the end, it just petered out. What did we get? A lame fistfight between Neo and Smith that ripped off Superman vs Zodd in Superman II? Those guys really didn't know where they wanted to take their story in the end - and of course, that is the hardest thing.

The stories we are talking about here are world-class. I would put either Nausicaa or Berserk on par with Greek mythology. I'd say the same for the original Star Wars trilogy.

People who are disciples of Joe Campbell know that there are only so many stories out there. Humans have basically been retelling the same stories to ourselves for thousands of years. So when you have a chance to sort of re-package those themes into a new and relevant story for the times, that is one of the highest forms of art. That's what "Homer" did. Just because something has been done as a comic or novel or anime or whatever, doesn't mean that making a live-action film of it is a "remake." I mean, was Gone with the Wind a remake?
 
Tom said:
Except that when it came down to it, The Matrix failed to have a story that really ended well or had any meaning. They may have been inspired by great stories, but they could not make their own story quite as good.
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Not taking the sequels into account, I totally have to disagree with you here. The Matrix is my favorite action film and one of my favorite flicks of any genre.
 
I was talking about the overall trilogy's story arc. I liked the first two pictures a lot.

Another example of my point is Lord of Rings. I loved those novels, and I certainly would not consider Jackson's movies a "remake", even though there was an animated film of LOTR.

Brandon have you seen the two "Ghost in the Shell" movies?
 
"Ghost in the Shell" rocks!

I'm a huge anime fan and it was one of the reasons I decided to relocate my life to Japan, in order to study them more and learn the native language in order to better enjoy them.

Totally agree that directors like Miyazaki, Oshii etc take the art form to a whole other level. I want to direct a live action adaptation of anime one day and GITS would be an amazing one to do if I were able to pull it off.

Cheers,

Paul
 
Paul, that's really awesome that you moved to Japan to soak up the culture. Do you have a blog or flickr account or some way to follow your exploits there? I saw your twitter account, but not much there about Japan and Japanese life.
 
Tom said:
Except that when it came down to it, The Matrix failed to have a story that really ended well or had any meaning. .....but in the end, it just petered out. ....Those guys really didn't know where they wanted to take their story in the end - and of course, that is the hardest thing.
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absolutely right tom, and i do agree with you on the surface of your comment, however, considering the philosophical construct and nature of the story (and that is what solidly anchors the original film, and indeed the trilogy, in my opinion), part of the debate is the idea that the matrix story didn't have to have an end.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................
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hole? :)
 
I loved Matrix 1, 2 and 3.

But 1 was the only one with a good story. ;D

The car chase in reloaded I can watch on loop for days.

And the siege in Revolutions is the greatest battle in a film ever. Revolutions is still my favorite theater experience ever. It's not in my top 10 favorite films. But just seeing it on the big screen was awe inspiring.
 
i saw Matrix 2 like a gazillion times. that movie has a very high rewatchability factor.

in terms of endings though, you have to point to return of the jedi as probably having the best ending ever for any major film like this, even if the overall film itself has some lag (Ewoks, etc). it's a textbook of example of wrapping things up quickly and epicly. ROTK, i thought, dragged out its finale with a ton of false endings. they should have taken a cue from ROTJ.

endings are really the hardest thing to do in writing stories and making films, IMO.

the end of Nausicaa is very, very well done, with the "golden field."
 
I had just about persuaded myself that the only way to make successful scifi removed from ordinary reality was animation -- live action being too literal and lumbering to embody conceptual notions, no matter how good the vfx may be; or the vxf are so good they end up looking like animation -- when this thread came along. Seems like all the interest runs the other direction....

If Oshii had done Solaris, it probably would have succeeded, unlike the Soderbergh and Tarkovsky versions, bound to earth by the material world and emotions which, among human actors, overwhelmed the speculative interests....

Anyone interested in Japanese anime in a realist dramatic tradition, have a look at "Grave of the Fireflies", which concerns the U.S. fire-bombing of Japan during WWII, and its effect on two children. It's some piece of work, painterly, moving.
 
Grave of the Fireflies is a great work of art.

Have you seen Whisper of the Heart, jpp? It's not as serious, but it's a very solid film.
 
Whisper of the Heart is a great little flick, maybe the best non-Miyazaki Ghibli film. Highly recommended!

Tom, I would agree about the Matrix sequels, I tend to try and ignore their existence. ^_^ There likely wasn't any planned story arc for those. Just another example of "sequelitis"...

And of course, as good as it was, I don't think the first film surpassed its source, GitS. The W. brothers over-literalized Oshii's themes of "society as illusion," which were much more subtle originally.

Have you seen Oshii's live-action film Avalon? It was his way of responding to The Matrix. A flawed movie to be sure, but quite intriguing visually, and much more focused on philosophy than action.

I think this kind of dialogue between filmmakers through their work is very interesting; in the end you get three movies with actively similar themes, but different stories and styles. Since all art is response to previous art on some level, I guess the idea of a "remake" just seems kind of redundant to me. Re-using the same title and the same characters seems useful only in a commercial sense, "name recognition," etc. But the notion seems particularly dubious to me when Hollywood adapts foreign films (or anime, in this case) for domestic audiences; the implication is that the films need to be culturally translated in order to be better appreciated. I would much rather see a wider, more publicized release of the original, foreign film rather than a later re-make tailored for U.S. audiences.

As far as adapting themes or particular visuals that you love, I feel that there is plenty of room for that in an original work. I'm a huge fan of sci-fi anime, and really hope that its influence will be seen more and more in future Hollywood films.

Anyway, remakes are an established convention, and I know they won't be going away any time soon. But they do have a poor track record in terms of producing actually good films, and I doubt this is just coincidence. Many talented directors have made underwhelming remakes; I think maybe there is something creatively limiting about choosing to re-do the same story instead of taking the themes in a new direction.
 
Derek Van Gorder said:
Have you seen Oshii's live-action film Avalon? It was his way of responding to The Matrix. A flawed movie to be sure, but quite intriguing visually, and much more focused on philosophy than action.
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I have not seen that. I will check it out for sure!

By the way, just to be clear, I also abhor Hollywood's recent fixation with remaking older films.

I am trying to make a point that adapting a graphic novel, an anime, a literary novel, or a manga or comic book is not exactly "remaking," if a live-action film has never been done. "Gone with Wind" was based on a very, very popular novel at the time. Same thing is true of "Wizard of Oz." Those are two of the best and most legendary films in the history of cinema. I am not the hugest fan of the LOTR films, but I loved the novels and liked the movies. I wouldn't consider those "remakes," even though there was in fact an animated version of "Lord of Rings." So to me, tackling live-action versions of Nausicaa or Berserk would not be a "remake." The fact is that it would take incredible vision and talent to bring those stories to the screen in live action. And to me, it's definitely not about adapting them culturally for western audiences. It's about telling the stories in the most epic way possible. The visual possibilities alone are mind-boggling.

In terms of manga and graphic novels, yes there has been a glut of Hollywood crapola adaptations, mostly of Frank Miller's stuff in particular, but that doesn't mean a truly great film will not be spawned from manga. In fact, it is almost certain that one will, and soon.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
Wait. Tarkovsky failed with Solaris!? BLASPHEMY! :D That's like one of my 3 most favoritest films ever.
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A Tarkovsky failure (according to me, anyway) can still be a fascinating film, but I wonder if you know the novel?

"Failure as an adapation" is maybe the more accurate way to put it. The book is full of astounding visuals which, strangely enough, are completely absent from both film versions. And the romantic/tragic story-line is the least interesting element of the novel, but both T. and S. got caught up in it, which was probably inevitable in live-action and with flesh and blood actors. The book is a very brainy, conceptual work, which I think might have been translatable with animation, but not so, with live-action.

And do you really like all that sentimental paternalism of the Tarkovsky version? These Russians....
 
Derek Van Gorder said:
Whisper of the Heart is a great little flick, maybe the best non-Miyazaki Ghibli film. Highly recommended!
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Whisper of the Heart is wonderful, but it pales in comparison to both Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbors the Yamadas, as far as non-Miyazaki Ghibli films go IMO.

And JPP, I completely second you on the Oshii Solaris adaptation (even though I love both the Soderbergh and the Tarkovsky version). It's actually been one of the "wouldn't-it-be-excellent-if" projects occasionally kicked around by me and my friends for a few years since watching Innocence.

That said, I've thought for a long time that it would be a very interesting thing to take a number of very different directors and have each of them adapt Lem's Solaris, to see how each filmmaker's own aesthetic imprint and worldview affect the adaptation. Seems like it would be good material for that sort of experiment.

EDIT: Also, this seems to have been borne out in the two adaptations thus far. Also maybe Paul WS Anderson's godawful Event Horizon, which definitely teeters on Solaris territory in many respects. Except for the Solaris part.
 
Since we're making recommendations, another interesting non-Miyazaki Studio Ghibli anime is Pompoko ("Raccoon Wars"), about shape-shifting raccoon-like animals threatened by a housing development which is consuming their habitat. So they put on a spectacular shape-shifting Halloween Night/Day of the Dead/Macy's Day Parade display in the night sky, with huge apparitions which come in through the windows, etc. to frighten the residents into thinking the place is haunted. And the residents are indeed ready to pack up and leave, until the owner of the development, a resourceful capitalist, claims it was all his idea, as a publicity stunt. Meanwhile some of the old people wonder if it wasn't really those transforming raccoons from times past, the old animism of Japan and the human connection to nature, which is also being destroyed by "progress".

This one is a bit cutesy at times, but worth seeing.
 
Pom Poko is a fun movie.

I disagree about Whisper of the Heart paling in comparison to both Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbors the Yamadas.

Whisper is a very, very underrated film, IMO. I showed it to my mother a couple years ago over the Xmas break and she absolutely loved it. She bought a copy. And that's the first anime she's ever seen!
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
I'll have to pick up whisper of the heart. I haven't even heard of it before.
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i'd like to hear what you think after you see it.
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Tom said:
Paul, that's really awesome that you moved to Japan to soak up the culture. Do you have a blog or flickr account or some way to follow your exploits there? I saw your twitter account, but not much there about Japan and Japanese life.
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Hey Tom, sorry I don't have any blogs or photo accounts online right now. I've got a personal twitter account @paulleeming but it's more observational and political as opposed to a view on daily Japanese life.

I try to put my Japanese photos in the DSLR thread as you've seen a few times. I am planning to one day self-publish a coffee table photo book with my Japan photos (via Lulu or similar) but I imagine that'll be of limited sales value. More for my own enjoyment and to give copies to friends.

Perhaps I'll start a blog one day on life here, though I'm always wary that personal thoughts and opinions get conflated with my professional persona. On the other hand, I'm writing a movie currently which is a horror/slasher/satire on Japanese life so I guess in some ways if I ever make that you'll get a great insight into how I perceive Japan in a fun, no holds barred package!! :thumbsup:

Cheers,

Paul
 
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