Anime Turning Into Live-Action
By saizo6
@saizo6 (2199)
United States
June 5, 2008 3:33pm CST
I was watching the live-action Speed Racer movie and I was disappointed with how it turned out. This got me thinking about all of those other live-action adaptions of anime that are floating around or coming out soon. I can't help wondering if they would be as bad. What are your thoughts on them becoming live action? Are you looking forward to any particular film? Will they be better than the anime/manga version? Do you have a series that you want to see adapted?
Some of the anime turning live-action that I know of are:
***Dragon Ball - shooting in Mexico City; planned August 15th release apparently pushed back to April 2009
Director: James Wong (Final Destination, X-Files TV series, The One)
Producer: Stephen Chow
***Ghost in the Shell - Dreamworks licensed the rights to adapt this into a 3D live-action film
***Akira - will be adapted into two films with the first being released in the summer of 2009; acquired by Warner Brothers and Appian Way (Leonardo DiCaprio's production company)
Director: Ruairi Robinson
Producer: Andrew Lazar, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Davisson
I've seen the live-action versions of Initial D, Prince of Tennis, Dragonball(some HK production or something from ages ago), Death Note and some others. They were okay but I still prefered the anime version better. I actually want to see how this new Dragonball film turns out though.
3 responses
@Cley_CJ (105)
• Malaysia
8 Jul 08
There's also and adaptation of Voltron coming up. It was one of my favourite classic animation, but I'm not too happy with the coming adaptation, because they're changing the setting to New York City (that's on Earth), with totally different characters. It's going to be about an alien invasion, and Voltron will be Earth's giant mecha defender. What do you guys think?
For me, the golden rule to making a live-action adaptation is: stick to the original source. Can you name a successful adaptation that totally deviates from the source? Why can't they just make a different movie with a different title if there's nothing in common with the original. If this movie do come out (which I hope is not with the current storyline), I just hope they don't change Voltron's design.
@saizo6 (2199)
• United States
19 Jul 08
I agree with you there. That alien invasion plot is so overused. They should just stick with the original story concept. I also loved Voltron growing so I'm hoping that this isn't true. There have been so many live action movies that don't do the original series justice. It's just too sad to contemplate.
@heero1103 (322)
• Philippines
4 Jul 08
May are reacting negatively on the DBZ Live Action, because of the drastic changes they made (although I am not sure myself if that was really the case). But I would like to look forward to some other titles that are being planned.
@ShardAerliss (1488)
•
7 Jun 08
There's a live-action Prince of Tennis? ROFL!!
I enjoy old live-actions for the pure silliness of them. Guyver is hilarious. Sailor Moon is candy-floss fun. I've only seen the first DN movie but rather enjoyed it (less silly, for sure).
The DB(Z) movie caught my attention a while ago as James Marsters (Spike from Buffy and Agel) is listed as playing Piccolo (big ROFL there!)
The GitS has pretty good names to it at the moment, I expect it will be pretty fine.
I suspect live-action versions of anime are becoming popular choices with the increase in CGI capabilities as well as the ever growing popularity of Marvel's (and DC's...) AWESOME feature films. If the anime ones can be pulled off with the same skill as X-Men, Spider, Batman, Superman etc films then there is nothing to fear.
If they just stick to the same shoddy work that was done on such things as Guyver and Fist of the North Star (yes, yes there is a live action version... it's appalling) then we're done for!
@saizo6 (2199)
• United States
7 Jun 08
Hi ShardAerliss, that actually makes sense. I did notice that the quality was getting better. I recently saw the live-action adaptions of Hana Kimi and Nodaame Cantabile and they were some very well done jdorama. I never knew there was a Fist of the North Star live-action film lol. I'm going to have to hunt this down and check it out.
Thanks for responding and yes, there is live-action Prince of Tennis.
