Live Action Akira Director Says Its Characters Aren't "Interesting"

StewShearerOld

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Jan 5, 2013
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Live Action Akira Director Says Its Characters Aren't "Interesting"



Director Jaume Collet-Serra says the live-action version of Akira hopes to correct the original's "two-dimensional" characters.

It's been a long and winding road for the live action version Akira. Since Warner Bros. first announced that it had secured the rights to make the film, it's gone through a string of writers, directors, and potential cast members almost as long as the manga on which its based. That said, current director Jaume Collet-Serra recently opened up about the ongoing process of getting the film made, as well as what he hopes to do and bring to the live action adaptation.

"The only way to do a live version of Akira is to take the spirit and adapt it," said Collet-Serra. "It will be as different as the anime was from the manga." That said, he affirmed that the live action version, as longs as its in his care, won't wind up watered down to appeal to wider audiences. "I think you cannot make a movie about Akira and hope that everyone understands it," he said. "If you're a fan, you already know what it's about and you'll see it's part of the same world, but trying to oversimplify it would be a mistake. I think if at some point a character tries to explain it to the audience at the end of the second act, that's a problem."

That being said, he affirmed that he will leave some personal touches on the story, namely its characters. "Nobody's interesting. Tetsuo's interesting because weird shit happens to him, and Kaneda is so two-dimensional. That's part of the Japanese culture, they never have strong characters. They're used as a way to move the other philosophy forward," he said. In turn, he hopes to recreate the characters to be "strong" and to leave viewers with a capturing mystery that will bring them back for "Akira 2 & 3.

Source: <a href=http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=114669>Coming Soon



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Incomer

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Sep 15, 2009
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Like really? I though Chronicle was pretty brilliant (and when you add in the budget they had for it it just becomes even more impressive)
 

Lunar Templar

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>.>

No ... not even Tetsuo was interesting. No one was, the movie just isn't that good no matter how you look at it.

As for the 'Japan doesn't make strong story's' line.

That's funny at how laughably wrong that is (Grave of the Fire Fly's says hi, so does Wolf Children)

But what ever, his 'corrections' will likely make a below average movie worse, so at least we have the train wreck to look forward to.
 

Hoplon

Jabbering Fool
Mar 31, 2010
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*Draws breath* AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

oh god i wish they would just stop, while it's far from some untouchable text why bother using it if you are just going to hack it to pieces.
 

fix-the-spade

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Feb 25, 2008
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This guy's most notable works to date are Unknown (the action movie starring Liam Neeson trying to reclaim his family and foil a sinister conspiracy in a European city, no not that one) and House of Wax, which is the one where Paris Hilton dies a lovely violent death.

I honestly wonder if he bothered with reading any of Akira, the anime is fair enough, it compresses the whole thing into 90minutes and is a bit 'this is Kaneda, he's a badass, this is Colonel Shikishima, he's a principled Badass,' but it's no worse than ninety percent of all films ever.

I suspect this is his pre-justification for trying to turn Akira into an Amazing Spiderman style tween dollar vacuum attempt, like say... Dragonball Evolution or The Last Airbender or, actually that train of thought is too horrifying to continue.

I can't wait to see which white American or European actors get the roles of Kaneda, Yamagata and Kei. Although I expect Yamagata to cast as a black actor to properly befit his status as the doomed badass.
 

Tanis

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Aug 30, 2010
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"Japanese culture, they never have strong characters"

O...just...WOW.

Balls on this douche bag.
 

CaptainMarvelous

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Incomer said:
Like really? I though Chronicle was pretty brilliant (and when you add in the budget they had for it it just becomes even more impressive)
Thats kinda what he means, why make a live action americanised Akira since it'll just be a crappier version of Chronicle?

OT: Oh my lawd, this director? This guy. Thiiiiiiiiiiis guy. The guy who wrote Tetsuo and Kaneda as brothers because the idea of two boys having an unhealthy co-dependent relationship didn't work unless their family? That the idea, they aren't family, they made their own as a reflection of Japan's breakdown in society at the time, they have characters and personalities and there is a sh*t-ton of nuance to nearly every character in the manga if you actually read it. Hell, it's even in the movie though watered down.

Lunar Templar said:
>.>

No ... not even Tetsuo was interesting. No one was, the movie just isn't that good no matter how you look at it.

As for the 'Japan doesn't make strong story's' line.

That's funny at how laughably wrong that is (Grave of the Fire Fly's says hi, so does Wolf Children)

But what ever, his 'corrections' will likely make a below average movie worse, so at least we have the train wreck to look forward to.
Manga gets more across of the characters if that helps. But even in the movie I always found Tetsuo's shift from inferiority complex to deity really interesting, he'd never had to take responsibility for his actions because he had no power and Kaneda always protected him so when he had LOADS of power and Kaneda refused to let their roles be reversed, he lost his grip a little bit and did reprehensible shit just because he genuinely couldn't understand what it meant to be in the position he was... also Wolf Children? That was your second go to?
 

Innegativeion

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Feb 18, 2011
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Never seen Akira, nor read the manga, but JEE-ZUSS,

broad sweeping generalizations (patently false one, in this case) never fail to make a person seem like a gigantic douchebag.
 
Sep 24, 2008
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I actually agree with him.

I did not like Akira's characters. It will have a special place in my heart as being one of my first animes back in the 90's when Anime geeks were the worst of all, but we still crawled through the dredges to find what we could... But no. I didn't like it. I didn't like the yelling, the bikes weren't cool to me. I liked the landscape but.. yeah, wasn't for me.

BUT

I did not sign on to create what should be a labor of love that is focused on a very vocal percent of the geek gaming culture market that everyone is trying to tap into! What the FUCK, Dude?! Who the hell are you to think your touches mean anything to the legions of fans of this movie?! They don't care about your vision. Most of them don't know who you are. They want to see what they loved portrayed accurately. If you can't see the splendor in that, if you can't get beyond yourself and do the job you were hired for, then get the fuck out and give it to someone who CAN do that. This isn't about you. It's about Akira's fans!
 

Quantum Glass

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Mar 19, 2013
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"Nobody's interesting. Tetsuo's interesting because weird shit happens to him, and Kaneda is so two-dimensional. That's part of the Japanese culture, they never have strong characters."

Wait. He considers this uncommon in live action cinema?

...Has Collet-Serra been replaced by his mirror-universe counterpart?
 

jecht35

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Jul 2, 2011
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honestly I thought Akira was a little boring not bad but kind of eh granted the manga is probable a lot better but I can at least see what he's trying to say. On the other hand way to go making a generalization of Japaneses culture, I mean really all I need to do is point to one of Hayao Miyazaki movies to prove that statement wrong and I'm not even getting into to all the really great anime.
 

Fox12

AccursedT- see you space cowboy
Jun 6, 2013
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"Japanese culture, they never have strong characters"

It's true, only Americans can write strong characters. Than God America still stands strong as a bastion of art and culture in a world otherwise devoid of talent.


Silly Japanese


Optimus Prime riding a dinosaur = character development.
 

Lunar Templar

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Sep 20, 2009
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CaptainMarvelous said:
Lunar Templar said:
>.>

No ... not even Tetsuo was interesting. No one was, the movie just isn't that good no matter how you look at it.

As for the 'Japan doesn't make strong story's' line.

That's funny at how laughably wrong that is (Grave of the Fire Fly's says hi, so does Wolf Children)

But what ever, his 'corrections' will likely make a below average movie worse, so at least we have the train wreck to look forward to.
Manga gets more across of the characters if that helps. But even in the movie I always found Tetsuo's shift from inferiority complex to deity really interesting, he'd never had to take responsibility for his actions because he had no power and Kaneda always protected him so when he had LOADS of power and Kaneda refused to let their roles be reversed, he lost his grip a little bit and did reprehensible shit just because he genuinely couldn't understand what it meant to be in the position he was...
Not really, no. For anime movies if I don't like the movie, I'm not really interested in the source material. Maybe the manga does make it not suck, and feel like less of a fucking chore to get through but I didn't see anything that made me wanna see/find out more about the characters.

Akira is like FF7 to me, in that most the hype comes from it being a lot of peoples 'first time', more then how good it actually is.

also Wolf Children? That was your second go to?
Aye, it was, would have picked Summer Wars, but Wolf Children was better. Besides, I was going for an 'opposite end of the spectrum' thing, Grave of the Firefly is great, WAY better then Akira could ever hope to be, even if I have no desire to see the movie again (too depressing), and while WC isn't that good, it is good enough imo to be mentioned in the same breath as Miyazaki's work.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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Nov 19, 2009
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...Every part of my being wants to wretch at this borderline xenophobic crap he's spouting. Although considering this guy's track record it is par for the course. Hacks often do lash out at that which is far better than what they're capable of
 

RedmistSM

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Jan 30, 2010
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"Never have strong characters", COME ON.

He's not wrong about the characters being flat in Akira though. The most interesting character is Tetsuo, because of all the changes he goes through, but the rest aren't very well developed. It's an action movie plot(or rather six of them), characters are not one of the stronger points and it's never the focus of that story. Having said that, I don't think I disliked any of the characters. They aren't bad, there just isn't much to them and they get short scenes so the action moves.
 

synobal

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Jun 8, 2011
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Chris Ingersoll said:
I lost any interest in a live-action Akira after I saw Chronicle. Seemed unnecessary at that point.
Ha right, that movie man came out of left field for me and I keep waiting for a good sequel but even if it never gets a sequel I'm exceptionally pleased with it. This and Dredd were two movies recently that really surprised me.