Timstuff wrote:Man, it's been years since I last posted here, but for some odd reason my Evangelion itch has decided to start acting up again lately, so I decided to poke my nose in here and add my 2¢.

Ah darn, great to see you Tim! You're the first TB alumni I've ran into in months, and perhaps only the 3rd after TB's demise.

Timstuff wrote:I don't think it's fair to use Speed Racer as an example of an American anime adaptation gone wrong either, because personally I loved the movie... I think it's one of those movies that was a flop in theaters, but will grow in appreciation over time

In otherwords, a cult-classic... yeah, I can see that happening. Hell, it happened for Willow, and that was a mess in all sorts of ways, some which occurred off-screen.

Timstuff wrote:...is Evangelion defined by being Japanese, or by its story and characters?

I believe that Hideaki Anno, in the end, intended for Eva's message to be universal, or at least not be limited to just the Japanese "Otakus", the biggest indicator of this being, him approving that contract back in 2006.

Timstuff wrote:If the movie is good, then it's good. The movie could be a nearly shot-for-shot adaptation of the show and it could still suck, and it could be profoundly different from the show and still be amazing in the right hands.

I myself am looking foreward to the actors portrayals of the characters, and if and when they take things into their own hands. Sometimes "mistakes" are not such a bad thing, I've beaten this example to death, but in Harry Potter films, this was shown in Hagrid's line "I shouldn't of told ye tha' ", which never appeared in the books, but at the same time you couldn't say it was outside of who Hagrid was.

Alaska Slim wrote:

Timstuff wrote:Man, it's been years since I last posted here, but for some odd reason my Evangelion itch has decided to start acting up again lately, so I decided to poke my nose in here and add my 2¢.

Ah darn, great to see you Tim! You're the first TB alumni I've ran into in months, and perhaps only the 3rd after TB's demise.

Nice seeing you too, Alaska. Took me a while, but I finally found my way back. :)

Alaska Slim wrote:In otherwords, a cult-classic... yeah, I can see that happening. Hell, it happened for Willow, and that was a mess in all sorts of ways, some which occurred off-screen.

Heck, even The Wizard of Oz was a flop when it came out in theaters, but now it's one of the biggest classics of all time. With Oz, it's was all about how long it took people to "get" what the movie was. The same could be said of Fantasia or The Princess Bride, which are now considered classics even though they had a mediocre reception in theaters. Could a movie like Speed Racer end up like that some day? Who knows, but like I said, kids love it, and so do a growing number of adults.

Alaska Slim wrote:I myself am looking foreward to the actors portrayals of the characters, and if and when they take things into their own hands. Sometimes "mistakes" are not such a bad thing, I've beaten this example to death, but in Harry Potter films, this was shown in Hagrid's line "I shouldn't of told ye tha' ", which never appeared in the books, but at the same time you couldn't say it was outside of who Hagrid was.

I actually look forward to seeing what changes get made from the show too. If it was just like the show, it would be predictable, familiar territory. Since ELAM will be a big-budget blockbuster, there will be a lot of ways Evangelion can take advantage of that which couldn't be done in the show, and the opposite is true as well. All in all, I'm expecting something a bit different from the show, but that's something I actually look forward to rather than dreading.

Quick side note-

Wizard of Oz underperformed considering it's budget when first released BUT it did draw a profit and was not a flop.

As much as I don't want to sound like a ranting purist, I think that an American Evangelion would totally flop if they are to try and remake or be similar to the Japanese series. Why so? Anno is the brain behind Evangelion, I don't think anyone from Hollywood can replicate that.

kamadoma wrote:As much as I don't want to sound like a ranting purist, I think that an American Evangelion would totally flop if they are to try and remake or be similar to the Japanese series. Why so? Anno is the brain behind Evangelion, I don't think anyone from Hollywood can replicate that.

I have to agree with this. A straight-forward American remake would be soulless and pretentious and would flop like nobody's business. For me, much of the draw of Evangelion are the subtleties in the direction.

Besides, Evangelion had this psychological factor that came from Anno's thinking. Even if you place in the best directors, I think the psychology factor will make the difference.

If someone is actually going to have the balls to make an Evangelion movie, I'd be just as interested in seeing how they make it their own as I would be in seeing how they adapted Anno's vision. The only way you're going to get a 100% faithful translation of Anno's vision is if he makes the movie himself. If the movie's director is just going to try and get inside of Anno's head and make the movie just as he would, it's going to come off as pretentiously philosophical, like the Matrix sequels. If the director puts his own touch on it though, and most importantly does an excellent job with the end product, then we'll have something new to look forward to.

Ultimately, my expectation is that the movie will be a "digested" version of Evangelion, as seen through a fresh set of eyes. I don't want a movie that will simply act as a live action replacement for the show, because you can't replace the show. Yes, a lot of fans are going to complain about how they "westernized" the series, but it's not like the original is going away. This is going to be a new version of Evangelion for an expanded audience, and with that in mind I think the fans could stand to be a bit more accommodating. Even now there are a lot of Star Trek fans who are pissed about how the new movie "sold out," but the critics and audiences are saying otherwise.

Hardcore fans aren't always the most reasonable bunch, which is why it often feels like we're getting ignored. Sure, there are hack jobs like Dragonball Evolution and X-Men Origins: Wolverine which did not even come close to doing the source material justice, but when I hear people whine about how in Transformers Optimus Prime doesn't look like he's made of cardboard boxes or how Star Trek wasn't "intellectually challenging" enough, it kind of makes for a compelling case for why studios do what they do. When the end goal is to make a movie that's well received by critics and audiences, that's not necessarily the same as making a startlingly accurate movie.

If you want a Japanese version of Evangelion, there's already 3 in the form of the show, the comics, and the new rebuild movies. I know the Japanese version of Evangelion, and I like it, but since the live action movies aren't being made by the Japanese, I'm expecting something a little different. If it's just 2.5 hours of a Western director attempting to emulate someone else's style without ever embracing his own, the movie is going to come across as unnatural, and its quality will suffer.

I think it's more important for the movie to be good than it is to be accurate, and although the two aren't mutually exclusive, they aren't always directly compatible. The fact is that this will not be a Japanese movie, and as such I don't want it to make a half-assed attempt at pretending to be Japanese. I'd rather the movie embrace what it is and turn out good, than pretend to be something its not and turn out mediocre, at best appealing to a small sect of hardcore fans. I mean, where do you draw the line? If all the actors are going to be Japanese and it's going to take place in Japan, why not just hire a Japanese director and drop the English language altogether? Either they're going to make a Western movie for the global audience, or they're going to make one for Japan and non-Japanese otakus. That's not to say the a Western-made Evangelion will be ignorant of its Japanese origins, but you've got to understand that from a business POV, there is no market for a Japanese movie with a 150 million dollar budget.

Making it good than accurate is where I would agree with you. This reminds me of the Transformers movie way back 2007 where a lot of "Generation 1" purists were ranting yet it brought in Transformers to a whole new audience which ensured a bigger fanbase for the franchise.

Timstuff wrote:If someone is actually going to have the balls to make an Evangelion movie, I'd be just as interested in seeing how they make it their own as I would be in seeing how they adapted Anno's vision. The only way you're going to get a 100% faithful translation of Anno's vision is if he makes the movie himself. If the movie's director is just going to try and get inside of Anno's head and make the movie just as he would, it's going to come off as pretentiously philosophical, like the Matrix sequels. If the director puts his own touch on it though, and most importantly does an excellent job with the end product, then we'll have something new to look forward to.

Ultimately, my expectation is that the movie will be a "digested" version of Evangelion, as seen through a fresh set of eyes. I don't want a movie that will simply act as a live action replacement for the show, because you can't replace the show. Yes, a lot of fans are going to complain about how they "westernized" the series, but it's not like the original is going away. This is going to be a new version of Evangelion for an expanded audience, and with that in mind I think the fans could stand to be a bit more accommodating. Even now there are a lot of Star Trek fans who are pissed about how the new movie "sold out," but the critics and audiences are saying otherwise.

Hardcore fans aren't always the most reasonable bunch, which is why it often feels like we're getting ignored. Sure, there are hack jobs like Dragonball Evolution and X-Men Origins: Wolverine which did not even come close to doing the source material justice, but when I hear people whine about how in Transformers Optimus Prime doesn't look like he's made of cardboard boxes or how Star Trek wasn't "intellectually challenging" enough, it kind of makes for a compelling case for why studios do what they do. When the end goal is to make a movie that's well received by critics and audiences, that's not necessarily the same as making a startlingly accurate movie.

If you want a Japanese version of Evangelion, there's already 3 in the form of the show, the comics, and the new rebuild movies. I know the Japanese version of Evangelion, and I like it, but since the live action movies aren't being made by the Japanese, I'm expecting something a little different. If it's just 2.5 hours of a Western director attempting to emulate someone else's style without ever embracing his own, the movie is going to come across as unnatural, and its quality will suffer.

I think it's more important for the movie to be good than it is to be accurate, and although the two aren't mutually exclusive, they aren't always directly compatible. The fact is that this will not be a Japanese movie, and as such I don't want it to make a half-assed attempt at pretending to be Japanese. I'd rather the movie embrace what it is and turn out good, than pretend to be something its not and turn out mediocre, at best appealing to a small sect of hardcore fans. I mean, where do you draw the line? If all the actors are going to be Japanese and it's going to take place in Japan, why not just hire a Japanese director and drop the English language altogether? Either they're going to make a Western movie for the global audience, or they're going to make one for Japan and non-Japanese otakus. That's not to say the a Western-made Evangelion will be ignorant of its Japanese origins, but you've got to understand that from a business POV, there is no market for a Japanese movie with a 150 million dollar budget.

I don't think Anno can direct this movie in real life, he probably does not have the skills to do it. For one he has to make the actors go to the maximum, not a skill that a lot of directors have. Why? Because Evangelion is very emotional and to convey truthfulness to these emotions, it needs a good director. Anno would probably do the stereotype Japanese action film acting style characterization for some of his characters. Some of the monologue in Evangelion is stupid at times. I agree with you on it's localization Japan, and having Americans actors. They should just invert he whole situation, a Tokyo-3 type of place exist in the United States, and Tokyo is the new United States. And just pick a place in the US similar to Tokyo's topography. Just have NY city as tokyo-1 lol, then they moved elsewhere.

Okay, by reading some of the posts in this thread I can see that some of you like well directed and deep movies, but the other just like action thrilling movies. If the evangelion movie is made for real life it should not be in the same caliber as xmen origins, speed racer, dragon ball evolution, and transformers.

Honestly, what would you really lose from setting the movie in Japan with actors that match the race of the characters but in the English language? Example: In "Valkyrie", Tom Cruise and Bill Nighy and co. are all German-looking (caucasian) and it's set in (Nazi) Germany, but they all speak English and it didn't bother me at all.

To me it would make sense that setting it in Japan and not the US would be preferrable (Akira, lolol).

The eventual director just needs to bring in Anno to advise him and all will be well.

PS: Robin Williams cameo gogogo

Personally I think the easiest way to do Eva live action would be to use the scripts for the Rebuild series. It's already pre-written out and the Rebuild is made for people who aren't orginally familiar with the show anyways so, meh why not?

I know that Wes Anderson (Royal Tenenbaums, Darjeeling Limited) is a big fan of the series...however him directing that would be...ehh...weird...

But in like a few months isn't there supposed to some sort of announcement on LAEM anyways?

Kazi wrote:Honestly, what would you really lose from setting the movie in Japan with actors that match the race of the characters but in the English language? Example: In "Valkyrie", Tom Cruise and Bill Nighy and co. are all German-looking (caucasian) and it's set in (Nazi) Germany, but they all speak English and it didn't bother me at all.

To me it would make sense that setting it in Japan and not the US would be preferrable (Akira, lolol).

The eventual director just needs to bring in Anno to advise him and all will be well.

PS: Robin Williams cameo gogogo

Valkyrie was a a movie based on a historical event, so it's not like they really had the option of moving it to another country and internationalizing the cast. Furthermore, it's budget was about half of what Evangelion's probably will be (75 million), and it only grossed about 85 million in the US, which was considered a disappointment.

It's kind of comparing apples to oranges, since one is a historical thriller and the other is a futuristic sci-fi adventure. The point is though, if they give the movie a Japanese cast and set it in Japan, the general audience is going to assume it's a Japanese movie, and as I pointed out there is no market for a 150 million dollar Japanese movie. It may not sound fair that the Western market isn't ready for blockbuster headlined by a bunch of unknown Asian actors, but that's business. Either they're going to anglicize some of the characters, or they're going to introduce new ones.

Don't feel bad though, because it's not just Japanese cartoons that get "internationalized" in their transition to the screen. Look at GI Joe-- it was a cartoon about a top secret American special forces unit who did missions around the globe, but for the sake of being internationally friendly, they changed it in the movie so that they're controlled by NATO, and their members are from around the world instead of being all American. A $150 million dollar budget is just plain too expensive to spend on a movie that's only going to appeal to a small demographic.

P.S. I don't want Robin Williams in this movie. He hasn't been awesome since the 90's.

schismatics wrote:Personally I think the easiest way to do Eva live action would be to use the scripts for the Rebuild series.

I'm sorry, but that idea is just plain lame. It'd be as bad as the shot-for-shot remake of Psycho from the 90's, except without the nostalgia to help it. What's the point of doing a live action movie if it's going to be exactly the same as rebuild? Why not just watch rebuild if that's what you want?

Timstuff wrote:It's kind of comparing apples to oranges

No, this is.

[/spam]

Molecularly speaking, Evangelion and Valkyrie will probably be very similar too, since they will both be printed on celluloid. However, it's all about how your brain interprets the data that the end product sends it. ;)

Timstuff wrote:I'm sorry, but that idea is just plain lame. It'd be as bad as the shot-for-shot remake of Psycho from the 90's, except without the nostalgia to help it. What's the point of doing a live action movie if it's going to be exactly the same as rebuild? Why not just watch rebuild if that's what you want?

I didn't mean use the cinematography. Go off of the script for Rebuild. 1.0 does a good job of condensing the first episodes together into an interesting movie (my opinion) so going off of those scripts would be a good start for LAEM script.

But yes I agree an shot-for-shot remake would be dumb.

Using the script for Rebuild the movie would look and sound retarded.

schismatics wrote: Go off of the script for Rebuild. 1.0 does a good job of condensing the first episodes

Except Rebuild was more than just condensing the story, it changed it. ELAM will of course have changes as well, but I rather those be original than taking queues from a complimentary work which had different goals of its own.

Alaska Slim wrote:

schismatics wrote: Go off of the script for Rebuild. 1.0 does a good job of condensing the first episodes

Except Rebuild was more than just condensing the story, it changed it. ELAM will of course have changes as well, but I rather those be original than taking queues from a complimentary work which had different goals of its own.

Well said.

Timstuff wrote:Well said.

Except for the "ELAM" part. Sounds like a made-up Arabic word or something. :p Stop clinging to your ancient TB culture and start being LAEM like the rest of us!

(Also, I could dissect your attempt at an analogy here, but since the original post was spam and so is this one, I'll refrain...)

I dunno if it's been asked before, but is there even a remote possibility of the liveaction film ever being made? It's a franchise with a cult following (a largeish one, but still... it's not 'popular' by the general definition) and parts of it are probably not very return-on-investment friendly. We could all be debating about something that wouldn't happen for 25 years, or at all.

If I were a studio, I'd probably not do Eva for a lot of the reasons mentioned (dark tone, franchise not everyone has heard of it, etc.) but ... I may be opening a massive can of worms here... I wouldn't make it because of the already-existing fanbase, because while the ultimate goal is to market it to a larger segment, you'd still need enough of the original fans to not pan it.. because Eva doesn't have much of a mainstream following.

To go back to Transformers, I've seen plenty of "geewunners" who bitched and cried about "Bayformers" but they didn't matter because it was the Transformers movie, and anyone under the age of 35 has probably heard of and probably had watched the Transformers. And those older probably bought the toys for their kids at one point. So, the movie succeeded in spite of the whingy fanboys who wanted everything to look like the 1980's toyline, and for the story to be only about the Transformers and take place only on an alien world and to have a glam metal soundtrack. The major general popularity helped cancel out the 'hardcore' fan contingent.

Evangelion never had that major popularity, in America (Japan is naturally a whole other case), that Transformers enjoyed. Therefore, the hardcore fan contingent (and I don't mean anything personally to anyone here) is of larger consequence... but the problem with anime fans in general, is thanks to a lot of the cutting/editing/censoring of anime in its earlier days of being imported... they're now incredibly touchy about any editing of Japanese franchises.

For example, there's people who are mad that in Final Fantasy 8, they changed Zell's burning desire for a loaf of bread to trying to get a hot dog. Despite the fact that the bread thing only makes sense in Japan due to bread not being as available there (and in America you can just pick it up at a convince store), and while the hotdog thing didn't quite have the same 'rarity' connotation, it was absolutely hilarious.

And now, thanks to many of the anime fanbase now working their way into the jobs where they now translate and edit for English-language release, so we get some of the most awkward translations, because they so desperately want to capture the 'original feel'. I used to read manga, but I recently picked one off the shelf, and the comic book in question had the most awkward sentence phrasing and terrible choices of words, and weird uses of Japanese idioms that make no sense in English... and ugh. I don't want to have to use a "Japanese Cultural Guide" to understand a comic book about ninjas and wizards. Another example is the Haruhi anime's use of the term 'moe'... while it doesn't have a direct translation in English, it does have many words for the different connotations... the word 'cute' would've perfectly covered what Haruhi was saying. And you have the benefit of using an actual English word that you don't need to explain, because it's an English translation! Astounding! ...I want Ted Woolsely back, he might've changed things, but his changes didn't suck... and he understood 'English language sentence structure' [/translation rant]

My whole point? You can't win with anime fans sometimes. You either change things to make it friendlier for a mass audience and have them pan your movie, or you don't change things and the mass audience just goes: "WTF I don't like this."

Honestly, If I were a director, and I wanted to adapt a mecha anime... I'd just do Gundam. It's got more fans, said fanbase might be more receptive to changes due to all the AU Gundam settings, plenty of people watched it when they were 15 and Gundam Wing was on air, it's actually had an on-air anime in both Japan and America within even this year (Gundam 00), and it's a name your mom might've heard of.

I had a point in there, somewhere. I think it was: "I doubt this movie would get made"