Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby C.T.1290 » Sun Aug 27, 2017 4:00 pm

I do believe that Light has brought these circumstances onto himself, especially towards the end. Ever since he picked up that Death Note and convinced himself that he was doing everyone a favor, he soon became corrupted by the power of the notebook and ended up a villain himself, the very thing he sworn to destroy. So of course we're not really meant to sympathize with him, since his actions was fairly obvious as to which category it falls into. After he uses the Death Note on the criminals he juged as guilty, he began to needlessly used it on the FBI agents and some of other people who are on his trails, including some of the good men and women.

But I do have to give him credit for his creativity and the elaborate ways he was able to use the Death Note to its full potential. It's a shame for what it turned him into in the end.
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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby FelipeFritschF » Sun Aug 27, 2017 7:36 pm

Well, so I just watched it and... yeah, it was bad. Very bad.

Like I've mentioned in the first post, there are some interesting ideas and changes but they are ultimately extremely poorly executed and don't lead to nowhere. The characters do things which are completely disconnected and have confusing motives. Classical bad writing.

What I've been wondering though, was just how much this movie was intended for fans of the Death Note anime or not, and I'm pretty sure that's their target audience. How much would the general public be interested in this movie, when it already has a description that screams "B movie"? L's characterization was so strange that it seems to me that the writers were interested first and foremost in subverting the L from the series in order to impress the older fans, but because it was so inconsistent and pointless it doesn't work either as a way to deconstruct (or reconstruct) the original character, nor for the character in and out of itself in the movie only. Pfft.

And Jesus, I really feel like making a sort of "cinema sins" video about this movie. There are so many bad lines, so many unexplained and senseless things going on. I could start with giving Ryuk a Magneto helmet or something.

For instance I think it's interesting that Light used the Death Note's manipulation abilities to control Watari for 2 days straight and making him go to great lengths to give him information. To be fair, the movie gives a lot more attention to specific details written down on the DN than the anime did, and I've always wondered just how far the DN could go in manipulating reality. This makes things a bit too easy if Light just plays it smart, he can just write something like "Watari takes his hidden gun and shoots L in the head before shooting himself". Can he actively control outside events, like say did he make the truck driver take that specific turn in order to get involved with the accident and decapitate the bully? Of course, all of that would never be explored because of plot convenience.

Anyway, even though it's very much a bad movie, at least it's a good bad movie. One you can still have fun watching as a guilty pleasure. Which is more than I can say for Ghost in The Shell or Dragonball Evolution, which were just plain bad.

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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby Chuckman » Sun Aug 27, 2017 7:54 pm

My feeling is that they stayed too close to the source material, oddly enough. I watched the first couple eps of the anime and while the Netflix version has some major changes, at the very core they're the same; Light just starts using the book and there's a bit of glossing over him killing over scores of people.

My lights are the moral implications of the book (especially when the expanded two day mind control power) raises a lot of interesting questions this film doesn't go anywhere near.

For one, having a book that can precisely dictate a person's actions at any distance for 48 hours. Makes you wonder about the moral implications of that. Light could make sweeping changes to world politics with that power, but at the cost of sacrificing the innocent (mostly) people he'd be mind controlling at the end of the 48 hours.

This concept doesn't need snarky supernatural creature, teen drama, or cat and mouse with a cartoonish detective. I hope someone adapts it and touches on something of substance.
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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby FelipeFritschF » Sun Aug 27, 2017 8:19 pm

Exactly what I had in mind. He could easily write something like "Tonald Drump nukes China and jumps off the roof of the White House".

Anyway, this interview is a bit enlightening on how the director felt about straying away from the source material. Unfortunately, I have the impression that he intended to keep things more in line with the manga/anime but when he saw that couldn't work he just pretty much slapped a coat of paint on it, writing "seattle, washington". And some of the other changes he made, like making L the product of some sort of "underground government program" were a bit lazy. I mean, in the anime L was raised in an orphanage which also had at least two other prodigy genius detectives. Which was in Britain. And Watari is still Japanese (although I like that Yakuza vibe he gives), so why bother?

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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby CommanderFish » Mon Aug 28, 2017 2:43 am

View Original PostGendo'sPapa wrote:Nonsense. The show never once addresses the moral issues of a Death Note in any real fashion.

But I never said that it addresses moral issues. I said that it demonstrates how power can corrupt. I didn't say anything regarding the discussion of morals.

Gendo'sPapa wrote:Light STARTS the show as a crazed sociopath who views himself as better than everyone else and worthy of dealing out judgment on all those he sees beneath him and he ENDS the show as a crazed sociopath who views himself as better than everyone else and worthy of dealing out judgment on all those he sees beneath him.

If this was true, I would probably agree with you a lot more. But you are forgetting about a certain section of the show, namely:
SPOILER: Show
When Light loses his memory of the Death Note. However stupid you may think this part of the show is (yeah, real inconspicuous with that massive hotel building, L) I'm starting to think that it is criminally underrated in terms of its importance to the overall narrative. This section (or arc, or whatever you want to call it) of the show grants the viewer with one very tremendous insight: it shows us what Light is like without the Death Note in his life. I too was disappointed in episode 1 after it ended and Light was already a psychopath with a god complex. But this arc of the show both mends that disappointment and helps to explain why it kinda had to be that way.

Lacking the Death Note, Light turns out to be a truly good and intelligent person. He cares immensely about other people, has a readily apparent set of values he stands by, and most noticeably -- he is against Kira and everything he stands for. His intelligence and problem-solving skills are used for a purpose greater than his own self-benefit, and he is satisfied by this. But here and there within his headspace are these tiny little seedlings of Kira; he is able to rationalize what he would hypothetically do if he had the power of the Death Note, and recalls some extraneous idealistic fantasies he used to have about purging the world of evil-doers. But these remain as mere thoughts, tucked back in the deep recesses of his mind where he feels they should be kept. That is, until he comes back into contact with the Death Note itself.

The beautiful thing about the show, imo, is how it demonstrates how thin the line is between harmless idealism and utter psychopathy. The Death Note is basically an on-and-off switch for Light; the only thing that separates his tucked-away thoughts from becoming his actions is the existence of an absolute power capable of facilitating them. He enters a new world where the rules are fundamentally changed, and so it fundamentally changes him. And this is also why I believe the show makes a deliberate effort in focusing on the cat-and-mouse game of Light and L (for as long as that lasts, anyway) --
because it reflects just the type of mindset one would have to have to allow themselves to become like Kira. Of course Light doesn't have time to question the morality of what he's doing; his absolute focus is the defeat of one specific individual, and at a certain point (I think) he has forgotten why he feels the need to continue his course of action, only that he must under no circumstances ever stop it. In other words, the Death Note completely corrupts him by clouding his capability to reflect upon his actions, and by being such an absolute and unimaginable power it desensitizes him into thinking only of what he could do rather than what he should do. That's my take on it, anyhow.


Regardless, I do understand why you didn't like the show and why there's a dislike of it in general (in fact it's hard for me to imagine how it maintained it's massive popularity back when it came out). But I also think it's rather dishonest to declare that the show contained absolutely no exploration of the Death Note's ability to corrupt; maybe it wasn't as in-depth as you would've liked it to be, but that does not mean it didn't exist.
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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby Ray » Mon Aug 28, 2017 2:55 pm

View Original PostChuckman wrote:For one, having a book that can precisely dictate a person's actions at any distance for 48 hours. Makes you wonder about the moral implications of that. Light could make sweeping changes to world politics with that power, but at the cost of sacrificing the innocent (mostly) people he'd be mind controlling at the end of the 48 hours.



Nobody in today's politically charged environment is going to do anything like THAT with the Death Note property! Even if there was someone with clout in the film industry, there is NO way any executive is gonna greenlight it.You're out of your mind if you think someone is actually going to make a movie where someone with outspoken political opinions gets his hands on absolute power and uses it to kill off someone who is an expy for the people the creator is politically opposed to. The story HAS to focus almost completely on light and L's Cat and mouse game by necessity. You're going to have to make SOME political statement otherwise.
Last edited by Ray on Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby DarkBluePhoenix » Mon Aug 28, 2017 4:47 pm

View Original PostRay wrote:Nobody in today's politically charged environment is going to do anything like THAT with the Death Note property! Even if there was someone with clout in the film industry, there is NO way any executive is gonna greenlight it.You're out of your mind if you think someone is actually going to make a movie where someone with outspoken political opinions gets his hands on absolute power and uses it to kill off someone who is a thinly veiled expy for the people the creator is politically opposed to. ESPECIALLY after a very VERY contentious election year, and ongoing political violence in the USA and Europe.

I reiterate, the story HAS to focus almost completely on light and L's Cat and mouse game by necessity. You're going to have to make SOME political statement otherwise.

I think it's more likely that Light would just kill all politicians, removing that "evil" from the world per his original credo, and that's if he even views politicians as a form of evil. At least that's my understanding of the character, but having him kill one side or another does seem like a great way to lose money before you've even made it.
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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby Chuckman » Mon Aug 28, 2017 6:18 pm

Ray, I wasn't suggesting a movie about gleefully killing political strawmen; rather, an examination of the morality of having a magic way to control people but at the cost of their lives.

Even if you remove the mind control element, nothing of Death Note I've seen touches on the big question (although the Netflix movie brings it up without really saying anything) about the morality of killing people because they're "evil" with such a device.

There's a lot to be mined out of the concept and the cat and mouse thing is the least interesting part.

Hell, I'd watch a courtroom drama after Light is caught. How do you prove murder by sorcery in a court of law?
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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby FelipeFritschF » Mon Aug 28, 2017 7:17 pm

Jesus, I was just kidding.

Of course they're never going to do that, but well even in the movie we can clearly see Light killing a random Islamist bombmaker, in fact I'm pretty sure he researched him and on his 2000-dollar Alienware it showed that he was the "chief of ISIS suicide operations" or something. Obviously it's never going to be featured in the story, but there's still the potential to easily manipulate world events from the shadows when the owner of the Death Note is able to just completely control people like that. In fact, even in the 2006 anime Light could have done that, and he almost-sorta did, since he's perfectly willing to kill police officers and FBI investigators and anyone who opposes him. In the latter arcs I remember that Mikami, posing as Kira, issues a statement that even people who passively let crime happen are to be considered criminal/evil/whatever. Which Light thinks is irritated by, but his problem with was that it was "too early to say to say something like that". Did he plan to do something like that in the future?

There are some mentions to the US president (who looked nothing like Bush, for that matter) giving up on pursuing Kira, which pleases Light immensely, the Japanese government supporting the hunt on Kira and late also ceasing it, etc. If the author wanted he could just put generic politicians representing the status quo that Kira could control or put pressure on thanks to his ridiculous power, instead of outright expys.

But then again, it didn't take long before the story became much more about the "cat-and-mouse game" and less about Kira as phenomenon. I wonder if that's what the author always wanted or if they were somehow surprised with the popularity of L and decided to refocus the story on that. You can still have it both ways, and to be honest I don't think any work can not have a political or ideological statement. If the work in question is already willing to say that killing criminals is right and will make society better, or that things aren't so simple and there might be a limit to punishment, then either way that's already a political position. Of course, how hard and blatant that statement is is another matter.

View Original PostChuckman wrote:Hell, I'd watch a courtroom drama after Light is caught. How do you prove murder by sorcery in a court of law?


Which is why I wish there were more fanfics with the NERV/Seele people being put on trial after 3I fails somehow or they just all get back. Imagine Shinji or Asuka on the witness stand, or, even worse, being accused of manslaughter of billions of people...

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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby Ray » Sat Sep 02, 2017 1:39 am

This guy made an interesting video talking about the Death Note, and why the plot of the series just doesn't make sense in the modern day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8OfANX2hEw

Basically he says Google and Social Media would expose Kira loooooooong before L was ever on the case.

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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby Sachi » Sat Sep 02, 2017 1:51 am

Ray, did you see the Netflix adaptation yet?
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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby Ray » Sat Sep 02, 2017 2:32 am

Planning to. I don't have netflix where I am right now.

I feel a death note movie with some of the ideas the guys in the video talks about could actually be pretty interesting. From what I've read the movie only briefly mentions things like Google analytics and stuff.

So to make the plot Death Note plausibly work in 2017's world, you'd either have to change the rules to the death note drastically (like take away the 'you need to have their face in your mind' rule), Have light not don the Kira Persona and keep his killings vague and plausible (no Heart Attacks En masse like in the Manga and Anime) which wouldn't really make for that much of a decent story, or make the movie about Light going mad from being unable to keep himself from being ousted as Kira.

Because in the internet connected age of Google and Twitter and monolithic tech company? Theres no way the plot of death note could even work in 2017. Maybe if they made it a period piece in the 1990s.

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Postby Tumbling Down » Tue Sep 05, 2017 4:05 am

It wasn't as smart as the anime. It was a bit too rushed and needed more time to explain things. But I still enjoyed it. The soundtrack in particular excellent, easily the best part of the movie. I do hope that there's a sequel.

I actually mean what I'm saying, and yet I'm still smirking because I know it'll be taken as trolling.

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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby Reichu » Thu Sep 07, 2017 7:14 am

Your post would have been fine without the totally unnecessary second paragraph, tbh.
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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby Ray » Fri Sep 08, 2017 3:27 am

This I'll say of the movie having just finished it up. It's not without it's high points.
SPOILER: Show
I particularly like the part towards the middle of the film with Light and Mia manipulating Watari into giving him L's Name, that part was really tense.

The part of the movie I thought was gonna suck turned out to be one of the best parts. Laketh Stanfield portrayed L relatively faithfully to the source material. Though he did deviate from his persona towards the end. Which was. . . understandable, given he had just lost his best friend. The character of Mia is more like Light in the source material than the character of Light in this movie, and she alone added to the tension of this movie, as well as addressed the complaints a lot of people have with Misa's character in the Manga.

. . . and yes, Willian Defoe as Ryuk is the high point of the movie.

Light himself isn't a very proactive character though, at least not until the end of the movie where he transforms into something somewhat resembling his character in the manga. Though I do understand that change from the source material.

It overused the licensed music. I feel that rather than use the licensed music for the scene in the Ferris Wheel they should have let the Composer go wild and really add to the movie, because the Licensed music made what should have been the thematic and dramatic high point of the movie come off as unintentionally hilarious.

. . . and it glossed over the formation of the kira cult , reducing it to a montage as opposed to the slowburn development of the movement in the Manga. But I guess thats the best we can expect from a 100 minute movie. I feel this movie would benefit from a 20-40 minute extra Directors Cut.




But. at the end of it all. I WAS entertained, I certainly wasn't bored. Which is more than I can say of other Anime To live action films like Last Airbender and DB Evolution. I DID care about the characters enough to want to see them make it out okay.

I dunno guys. A solid. . . 2.5-3/5? Not terrible, but could have been a LOT better.

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Re: Netflix's Death Note Live Action Adaptation

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Postby TheCarkolum » Fri Sep 08, 2017 9:43 am

This movie is the most unintentionally hilarious movie I've seen in a while. Light killing people to get laid with Misa? CHECKED. Ryuk being a crazy psychopath (because is a "monster" and according to the Hollywood lore, monster = gore)? CHECKED. Light being a total dickhead until the last 10 minutes of the film? CHECKED. Death Note being a Director's cut version of a Final Destination movie? CHECKED.
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