Poll: So how'd you like Netflix's Death Note movie?

[Dr. Thrax]

Regarding the Anime, how did Light end up being tailed by Raye Penber in the first place?

After L makes his public announcement challenging "Kira"/Light, L begins to lead a secret Task Force along side Light's father, Siochi, to search for Kira, whom L has deduced is in Japan. When Light walks home from school some time after, Ryuk tells him that he's neither on Light's side or L's side, but tells Light that a man (Raye Penber) has been following him for the past few days. Presumably, since Light is the son of the Chief of the National Police Agency, he'd be a noteworthy person to look into. Penber was about to stop investigating Light when he gets caught up in a busjacking incident orchestrated by Light to reveal Penber's identity. Later, Light uses Penber to kill off the FBI investigators as Elvis Starburst described. This causes the FBI to pull out of the Kira investigation for a time, until the SPK is formed after L's death.

 

[jklinders]

As an adaptation of an existing work, it was terrible. Most of the characters were all wrong, the setup was different and they made a grave error in making Light more of a victim of Ryuk rather than an all too eager participant in how the book worked. The movie had Ryuk egg Light on at first where in the anime Light experimented on his own to see if it would work as expressed. This is a fundamental difference that absolved Light of a lot of his agency which was what made him interesting. Good thing I was neither expecting nor even really hoping for a good adaptation. The shift from Japan to the US required numerous cultural shifts so most of the changes were not only shocking but made sense in the body of this work. I've learned after watching many other terribad adaptations better.

As a standalone work, perhaps with a different story hook, it was actually watchable. Willem Dafoe is always entertaining. So it wasn't bad, but they should have changed the story hook and called it something else. My wife is interested in the anime now which she was not before so that helped there too.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

You know I think they should give Death Note, or the story concept about a Man that can kill anyone with a thought to Stephen King, I like to see how he would write this.

Heck have Stanley Kubrick or David Lynch make a Death Note movie.

 

[Dalisclock]

Saw it yesterday. A few good bits but mostly groaned through it. It felt very shallow and simplisitic, as others have said. Light wasn't nearly as fun to watch as his anime counterpart and Mia was a psycho without the sympathetic backstory of her counterpart. L's actor was generally fun to watch but his character was super dumb at times(Revealing your face at a press conference? Seriously?).

It unfortunatly felt a lot like watching a Final Destination movie(with how incredibly dumb those were) with an ample helping of teen angst drama you can find all over TV, with some death note references stapled on.

The chase near the end was cringeworthy and so was the conclusion. Yes, they happen to be noticed by the one guy in seattle who is both a kira fanatic and totally believes two random strangers he just met enough to bash one's head in.

While the ending had some hint of the fun logic games the anime had, it also came across as incredibly contrived. And I'm pretty sure you can't just write "Light is revived" to escape from a deadly fall and drowning death. In fact, I'm pretty sure doing so would violate one of the rules in the death note(it's been a while since I watched the anime).

At least Ryuk was fun to watch, so it wasn't a total loss.

 

[wizzy555]

Did I miss something or was Ryuk completely irrelevant to the plot.

 

[Drathnoxis]

It can't be worse than the anime's second half... can it?

 

[Dalisclock]

It can't be worse than the anime's second half... can it?

It can and it is.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

You know I think they should give Death Note, or the story concept about a Man that can kill anyone with a thought to Stephen King, I like to see how he would write this.

Heck have Stanley Kubrick or David Lynch make a Death Note movie.

Oh, is Kubrick back from the dead already? I can't wait to see his films expressing his perspective of the afterlife.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

You know I think they should give Death Note, or the story concept about a Man that can kill anyone with a thought to Stephen King, I like to see how he would write this.

Heck have Stanley Kubrick or David Lynch make a Death Note movie.

Oh, is Kubrick back from the dead already? I can't wait to see his films expressing his perspective of the afterlife.

No but I would like to know how he would make a Story about a man that can kill anyone with a thought.

 

[Trunkage]

As an adaptation of an existing work, it was terrible. Most of the characters were all wrong, the setup was different and they made a grave error in making Light more of a victim of Ryuk rather than an all too eager participant in how the book worked. The movie had Ryuk egg Light on at first where in the anime Light experimented on his own to see if it would work as expressed. This is a fundamental difference that absolved Light of a lot of his agency which was what made him interesting. Good thing I was neither expecting nor even really hoping for a good adaptation. The shift from Japan to the US required numerous cultural shifts so most of the changes were not only shocking but made sense in the body of this work. I've learned after watching many other terribad adaptations better.

As a standalone work, perhaps with a different story hook, it was actually watchable. Willem Dafoe is always entertaining. So it wasn't bad, but they should have changed the story hook and called it something else. My wife is interested in the anime now which she was not before so that helped there too.

I don't think you can have the same characters in a two hour movie. That's the problem. L's tracking seemed too quick but I think pushing him at the end to 'save' humanity mirrored Light's story and justification. You couldn't do that in the Anime story. I don't think you can show L doing a slow tracking of Light in a movie, definitely not L's twin 'helpers'

I'm not one to want the exact same story and characters for each iteration. Eg. I like both version of Full Metal Alchemist for different reasons, and they made many side characters feel different. Hannibal is another good example, not getting tied to the original story but marching the feel.. I'm understand that you need to go for the feel of the original. I don't think this matched. I hope they give this a season treatment next time, as this needs time to explore.

 

[Vausch]

Anyway I haven't seen it yet, but how did the movie handle this part?

Spoiler

In the anime we get the montage sequence of Light using the Death Note for the first time to Mass Murder a dozen extremely "evil" criminals in the prisons of the country by giving them all heart attacks, how did the authorities end up thinking that someone was responsible for this and their eyes ended up being fixed on Light as the prime suspect? I ask because I don't see L in this movie?

I honestly think the people who made this where given a very poor description of the general idea of the source material, because it seems it was pitched as an intentionally not scary horror movie gore fest instead of anything relating to what the actual source material had to offer.

So they made it as a Scary Horror Gorefest Movie?

The first kill belonged in a Final Destination movie and you could see who it was going to be from a mile away. The story is as "American" as it gets with this situation. Light being a smart, fairly nice person(pre death note) with athletic ability and being handsome in a Japanese story means he's pretty well respected by his peers and family. Same character in an American story is of course bullied and treated like a weirdo because being different in a US movie brings out bullies from 80s and early 90s movies.

A friend told me his theory on the movie is the American adaptation isn't so much adapting the source material, but making Light into the type of person that watches the original and imagines owning their own Death Note. That mentality might work but honestly I hated what I was watching so much I couldn't get through the first half hour or so.

 

[jklinders]

As an adaptation of an existing work, it was terrible. Most of the characters were all wrong, the setup was different and they made a grave error in making Light more of a victim of Ryuk rather than an all too eager participant in how the book worked. The movie had Ryuk egg Light on at first where in the anime Light experimented on his own to see if it would work as expressed. This is a fundamental difference that absolved Light of a lot of his agency which was what made him interesting. Good thing I was neither expecting nor even really hoping for a good adaptation. The shift from Japan to the US required numerous cultural shifts so most of the changes were not only shocking but made sense in the body of this work. I've learned after watching many other terribad adaptations better.

As a standalone work, perhaps with a different story hook, it was actually watchable. Willem Dafoe is always entertaining. So it wasn't bad, but they should have changed the story hook and called it something else. My wife is interested in the anime now which she was not before so that helped there too.

I don't think you can have the same characters in a two hour movie. That's the problem. L's tracking seemed too quick but I think pushing him at the end to 'save' humanity mirrored Light's story and justification. You couldn't do that in the Anime story. I don't think you can show L doing a slow tracking of Light in a movie, definitely not L's twin 'helpers'

I'm not one to want the exact same story and characters for each iteration. Eg. I like both version of Full Metal Alchemist for different reasons, and they made many side characters feel different. Hannibal is another good example, not getting tied to the original story but marching the feel.. I'm understand that you need to go for the feel of the original. I don't think this matched. I hope they give this a season treatment next time, as this needs time to explore.

*shrug*

Like I said, I was neither hoping for nor expecting a fully faithful adaptation. But since it was an adaptation some kind of analysis about its faithfulness is pretty near literally required. If it was more of a standalone work with completely different setup and characters it would have been passable. But the fact that it was touted as an adaptation and had characters that were "close enough" to the original means it must be judged on those merits.

Should have been a miniseries. I know retaining Willem Dafoe for that length of time might be a bit pricey but setting this up in only 90 minutes was beyond stupid. I really would have liked to see a culture shift on the Death Note concept for North America. The justice system here works so differently than in Japan and has so many things to criticise just as Japan's system is very flawed in many ways. It had the potential to comment on so much there. what we got was a trashy teen suspense horror drama instead. In that light it was OK, but they should have called it something else.

 

[laggyteabag]

The part where Light's girlfriend tried to kill his dad in front of him, but he still loved her like it never happened was my favourite part of the film. /s

I liked L, though.

L was the worst part for me. The whole heel turn was a bit too much.

Spoiler

And the implication that L kills Light at the end just pushed it over the edge from unlikable to hated for me.

It wasn't so much the writing of L (because there were some really odd parts), but moreso the casting, that I liked.