Akira Live-Action Movie Concept Art

Megalith

Megalith

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This seems like exactly the kind of movie that should remain in development hell, but there is some pretty good concept art floating around for a live-action adaptation of the classic anime.

The live-action version would be set in New Manhattan and follow the leader of a biker gang who must save his friend, Tetsuo, discovered with potentially destructive psychokinetic abilities, from government medical experiments. While I just came across this treasure trove, Robinson apparently had shared incredible concept art back in 2014. The art imagines Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tetsuo (“Travis”), with Captain America‘s Chris Evans as Kaneda, while also diving into what Neo-New York would look like before and after the apocalypse.
 
There are two concepts I wish hollywood would just leave the hell alone. Those are; Video games turned into live action movies and Anime turned into live action. Just Stop already.
 
idk. this could be cool but VERY hard to do right! and wtf is with changing it to new York and white guys with Japanese names?!
 
pendragon1 said:
idk. this could be cool but VERY hard to do right! and wtf is with changing it to new York and white guys with Japanese names?!
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Exactly. Akira is something I always viewed as a uniquely Japanese anime. It wasn't something that translated well to American culture.
 
I was going to comment about them dong the same thing with ghost in the shell but apparently they are already doing it. kinda of excited but also thrown by the white-washing... these two movies are classics and two of my favorites. still have my original vhs copies somewhere...
 
I stopped at New Manhattan. They can't manage to stay true to setting the story in Japan what the fuck is the point. It'll be like that shitass remake of Oldboy.

Ugh. Why is Kaneda's bike plastered with advertising? That's terrible looking.
 
The city scapes in the concept art actually look amazingly good. The one of the actors looked terrible though. They're way too old for the roles.

One of the problems with doing an Akira movie is that it would take an enormous budget and to be true to the source it would have to be extremely violent. So it would either be watered down content with a big budget and playing it safe, or it would be violent and low budget but couldn't do the same world-building as the source. Either way it would fail as a movie.
 
What, you mean they aren't trying to get Will Smith as Kaneda and Jennifer Lawrence as Tetsuo? Seriously at least hire people that can pass for teenage boys.
 
chili dog said:
The city scapes in the concept art actually look amazingly good. The one of the actors looked terrible though. They're way too old for the roles.

One of the problems with doing an Akira movie is that it would take an enormous budget and to be true to the source it would have to be extremely violent. So it would either be watered down content with a big budget and playing it safe, or it would be violent and low budget but couldn't do the same world-building as the source. Either way it would fail as a movie.
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Shit. I sort of want Tarantino attached to it now. Big budget and violent. He can nail the artsy if someone reins in his ego and personally I think he's a great director. All the same I can't see a live action Akira being great though. I can see it being good with the right creative freedom and budget.
 
Koolthulu said:
What, you mean they aren't trying to get Will Smith as Kaneda and Jennifer Lawrence as Tetsuo? Seriously at least hire people that can pass for teenage boys.
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The sad fact is I have no faith, and I'm betting producers feel similar, that today's younger talent just doesn't have the correct range and talent to portray what's needed. Like, who's some younger actors that can play highschool delinquents and not look musclebound or 30.
 
I've still got my Criterion Collection LD of Akira here, and even though I've no player to play it on (thankfully I found a rip online ;) ), I keep it as a fond memory. Any remake, to me, will suck more suckage than has existed in the history of sucking.

Plus its a pretty sweet tri-fold jacket! (pics borrowed from online!)

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"The live-action version would be set in New Manhattan"

The phrase just busted the whole thing for me. This is gonna be a whitewash, again. Can Hollywood do ANTHING without whitewashing it?
 
Damar said:
I've still got my Criterion Collection LD of Akira here, and even though I've no player to play it on (thankfully I found a rip online ;) ), I keep it as a fond memory. Any remake, to me, will suck more suckage than has existed in the history of sucking.

Plus its a pretty sweet tri-fold jacket! (pics borrowed from online!)

UDXGNrg.png


bfYar2P.png


tZcpteF.png
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That's pretty rad, but if you want different physical media instead of a rip the Blu Ray release has multiple dubs and subs and I found it to be a good value. (Obvs not a trifold lucky fucker.)

Though the newest dub is Johnny Yong Basch as Kaneda and I just hear Vash the Stampede and nothing else soooo go old dub or sub. Still a decent purchase.
 
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Nolan7689 said:
That's pretty rad, but if you want different physical media instead of a rip the Blu Ray release has multiple dubs and subs and I found it to be a good value. (Obvs not a trifold lucky fucker.)

Though the newest dub is Johnny Yong Basch as Kaneda and I just hear Vash the Stampede and nothing else soooo go old dub or sub. Still a decent purchase.
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The rip I've got is the BR video (Which I do own) along with both the English and Japanese audio tracks from the LD's. It was lovingly put together by someone, who like me, will only settle for the original audio tracks. :)
 
Damar said:
The rip I've got is the BR video (Which I do own) along with both the English and Japanese audio tracks from the LD's. It was lovingly put together by someone, who like me, will only settle for the original audio tracks. :)
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Such a connoisseur. I'll admit. I did listen to all of the new dub. It isn't horrible but it's just not the same. Plus Johnny will always be Vash to me.
 
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Nolan7689 said:
Such a connoisseur. I'll admit. I did listen to all of the new dub. It isn't horrible but it's just not the same. Plus Johnny will always be Vash to me.
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Its just that was the audio that was my first experience of Akira, and its the one that brings back the strongest memories for me. I watched the BR once, and then never watched it again. It just felt "wrong" to me.

The custom rip, I've watched many, many times. :)

A live action will never do Akira justice, not like it deserves.
 
Could be good if done right. Look to Watchmen for a decent example of book to movie.

pendragon1 said:
the same thing with ghost in the shell but apparently they are already doing it. kinda of excited but also thrown by the white-washing
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The creators of Ghost actually said that the main character IS white. So, no, it's not white washing. It's Being Made The Way It Was Meant To Be Made™

But yeah, I can see Akira either being pretty good or pretty horrible. World War Z was doing it entirely wrong.
 
If it sucks, we'll all forget about it in a few months anyway.
 
Screw the movie remake. They would just dick it up anyway, but I have always wanted that motorcycle. I should be doable. Visibility would suck, and the shaft drive arrangement would likely be a bot more complicated than normal unless they went electric, but hell it's not like it would be my daily driver. That's what the DL1000 is for.
 
"The art imagines Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tetsuo (“Travis”), with Captain America‘s Chris Evans as Kaneda"

I like those guys as actors, and I know this is just artistic spitballing, but they're both at least 20 years older than Kaneda and Tetsuo. Why do American school age kids always have to be played by old people? The whole point of them being so youthful was to make them anti-establishment figures and revolutionaries.
 
The Lamb said:
"The art imagines Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tetsuo (“Travis”), with Captain America‘s Chris Evans as Kaneda"

I like those guys as actors, and I know this is just artistic spitballing, but they're both at least 20 years older than Kaneda and Tetsuo. Why do American school age kids always have to be played by old people? The whole point of them being so youthful was to make them anti-establishment figures and revolutionaries.
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They likely need a bunch of star appeal to even get this thing funded. I can't think of any teenage or low 20 somethings that would pass as teenagers, that also fit those roles, and have the star appeal they likely need to get this thing into production.
 
Love all this white-washing. Imagine if in the next Marvel movie they cast Scarlett Johanson as Storm. Obama would be on TV with Al Sharpton. Lucky for the world, it's totally OK to discriminate against asians.
 
That would piss me off as well, but for different reasons. I hate when they screw with the established race/sex/sexuality/body type, of a well established character. Storm has pretty much always been a tall lithe black woman. Holly Berry fits that bill, Scarlett Johansen does not, any more than Tocarra Jones, or Queen Latifa does.
They will prolly make the next spider person, a preop trans person.
 
Ruoh said:
Exactly. Akira is something I always viewed as a uniquely Japanese anime. It wasn't something that translated well to American culture.
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That can be said for most Anime. How many shows can you watch about giant robots?
I like Anime but there is a lot of plain silly content there.
 
The following is my opinion:

Here is what these movie execs are not understanding., The beauty of Akira, the enduring love for it, has little to do with the story or the characters. It was art on celluloid. Akira is a monumentous achievement in hand drawn animation. Yes computer animation can achieve great things, but hand drawn animations.....are hand drawn! Every single frame, every single "pixel" exists because a human somewhere at sometime put it there with intent.

This is my favorite analysis of the movie because it really does show the level of detail that persisted in this movie


To me this is like rebooting The Dark Crystal and not have animatronix and practical effects. The Dark Crystal was amazing for the same reasons Akira was. But instead of animation it was unbelievable attention to the animatronix as well as the liberal use of it. Almost every scene the The Dark Crystal has just random things happening in the background. They didn't need to put them there, and it didn't add anything to the main story, but they did it because they could. Akira is the same way. The background is just as amazing as foreground.

And the music for Akira. A great demonstration. The music itself is actually really awkward to listen to on it's own, but in the movie it's stellar and sets the mood. The opening music with the breathing is gold.

I am a huge Studio Ghibli fan, and I think that Miyazaki puts an unbelievable amount of detail into his movies, but even his movies do not reach the same level that Akira did. It should be respected for what is and what it stood for.
 
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Dekoth-E- said:
There are two concepts I wish hollywood would just leave the hell alone. Those are; Video games turned into live action movies and Anime turned into live action. Just Stop already.
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Granted it wasn't executed by "Hollywood" but Kenshin (Rurouni Kenshin) translated very well from Anime to live action IMHO. I've enjoyed each of the movies.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
That can be said for most Anime. How many shows can you watch about giant robots?
I like Anime but there is a lot of plain silly content there.
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This response is not directed at you specifically.

This is because anime is not a genre, it is a style of cinematography. We (Americans) do lump Anime all into one category, but it is simply a different style of camera. Like the difference between Color film and Black and White film.

Once you get past that, it's much easier to see the content for what it is (silly, serious, emotional, etc). It's just like normal TV or normal movies. All the same variety.

The fact that there is a lot of Sci-Fi or Fantasy themed content is merely an indicator of the freedom it offers. It allows authors to tell stories that would otherwise be very cost prohibitive. Additionally because it is not real, your mind suspends the rules. You don't judge it like real life because it isn't. Which means you are more accepting of fantastical presentations. Something like Akira in real life would probably be shit simply because we know it's not real. Our brain naturally wants to reject it.

B&W film actually has similar advantages. The lack of color detail allows your eyes to not notice a lot of stuff. Take a movie like Clerks that was filmed in B&W, not for artistic effect, but because it allowed Kevin Smith to save a lot of money not having to worry about lighting and post processing. This was important because he basically put the entire production cost on his credit card.
 
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