SAO getting live action American TV adaptation

[Xpwn3ntial]

It's not like I think live action adaptions of anime are inherently impossible, it's just... why do they always pick the ones that fit the live-action medium the least?

SAO, DBZ, Speed Racer to a lesser extent, although at least in that case they had the budget to attempt the visual style... If the only way you can make the project look anything but cheesy is with a level of CG you clearly can't afford, you're not setting yourself up for success...

It just baffles me, i guess... With so many anime and manga out there that are rooted enough in reality that they could feasibly make the jump to live action, why keep picking the ones that aren't...

The root to success for anime adaptions isn't in series like DBZ. It's in series like "Monster", I think.

That said, depending on how far they decide to push the cyberpunk aspects of the MMO setting, this one could be okay... Not like I have a tremendous amount of love for the source material, so I hardly feel like they can do worse.

Isn't it obvious? Part of the appeal of the most successful anime out there is that they have a contemptuous disregard for the laws of physics and people who are prone to seizures.

But they're still the most successful, so those are what are chosen for the treatment.

Though depending on how successful the Death Note series is going to be on Netflix, we may one day get a Monster tv series.

 

[Worgen]

Ugh, blegh. Its not a good anime, its got some interesting ideas but it executes them so poorly. If they were going to make an mmo show just make an mmo show, doesn't need to be based on sao. Sao takes away the best aspect of being a game by making death matter. If your going to be based in a game world then have some fun with the characters being able to die.

 

[Infernai]

I mean, it could be good if they did a live action adaption of the Abridged series by SomethingWittyEntertainment.

 

[infohippie]

Personal opinions of the anime aside, I can't think of any live-action adaptations of an anime that has ever been any good.

Space Battleship Yamato. That made for a pretty good live action movie in 2010. It helps that although it was always a serious show, it did not mind being somewhat camp. Also, the live action film WASN'T made by Hollywood. Also I hear rumours that Sony's still making noises about a live action Macross adaptation, which has potential to be good.

The only thing I'm curious about with this SAO adaptation is who's going to play the incestuous imouto, Suzuha. What? She was hot! If Kirito had any brains he'd dump annoying-as-hell Asuna and hop into his cute sister's bed. Oh wait...

If Kirito had any brains

Never mind.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

So wait. How many generations of an adaptation are we dealing with here? A video game concept, published originally in light novel form, ie. some degree of adaptation was already in the original, adapted to an anime, adapted to a live action tv series. An adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation?

 

[FalloutJack]

Yamato

Dammit, I knew I forgot something. I've seen that movie, and while it's kinda' hard to condense an entire season of the show into one movie, I have to admit it's good work.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Also I hear rumours that Sony's still making noises about a live action Macross adaptation, which has potential to be good.

I'd watch it just to see one of those ludicrous Macross missile barrages in live action (although it would no doubt be CGI'd up the ass). Also, they should definitely keep the whole "defeating/converting the enemy with culture/music" thing the series has, but drop the corny J-Pop. I wanna see fleets of ships explode because of the Power of ROCK, dammit!

 

[The Philistine]

Considering how fast and loose American adaptations are of Japanese IP, it could be mediocre to serviceable depending on the effects and how cheesy the acting is. It'll piss off SAO fans, but they're probably going to be pissed anyway. The best it could possibly do is turn into a cult classic by hamming it up into a self-parody.

 

[Fox12]

So we're getting a tv show that's a live action adaptation of a Japanese anime about video games? Hoo, boy, they're trying to hit all the failure points at once. When I said that I wanted tv and film to take more risks this isn't what I had in mind.

You know from what I've seen of Sword Art Online (Which is next to nothing so feel free to correct me) it feels like the climax to season 2 was trying really really hard to be Berserk without any of the teeth. I mean REALLY. A guy known as the Black Swordsman is trapped in an unfriendly world pinned down and forces to watch as the effeminate villian tries to rape his girlfriend? Yeahhhhhhh.

Yet despite this, SAO keeps getting love while Berserk gets a crap anime and constant hiatuses.

There's no justice in the world

Sadly, no, no justice. It's like we're all starring in a story with no end in sight. A really, really bad one.

 

[Asita]

Also I hear rumours that Sony's still making noises about a live action Macross adaptation, which has potential to be good.

I'd watch it just to see one of those ludicrous Macross missile barrages in live action (although it would no doubt be CGI'd up the ass). Also, they should definitely keep the whole "defeating/converting the enemy with culture/music" thing the series has, but drop the corny J-Pop. I wanna see fleets of ships explode because of the Power of ROCK, dammit!

Eh...The aerial/space combat alone practically mandates that a live action Macross be a film rather than a series. There's some leeway with something like Gundam, but that would probably end up giving us Super Sentai quality. Macross though? It's another one of those series where the CGI/Animation workload is such that it at the franchise at least arguably works better fully animated anyways.

 

[kris40k]

Personal opinions of the anime aside, I can't think of any live-action adaptations of an anime that has ever been any good.

Oldboy. It's a manga, close enough.

Ooo! If we're going to allow manga, I'm throwing in Edge of Tomorrow [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1631867/] and All You Need Is Kill [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6255949-all-you-need-is-kill].

I mean, I may be slightly biased because I got to watch Tom Cruise get killed like x100, but Edge of Tomorrow actually surpassed my expectations. Not Oscar worthy, but an entertaining flick.

 

[RJ 17]

Video Snip.

Good video, and I've gotta say I would agree with him...were it not for me being in the camp of "That series was dog shit from the start."

The part that got a good "HA!" out of me, though, was when he points out that the main character could have activated the log-off function and saved about 7k people's lives...but no, saving his girlfriend's tamagotchi was more important!

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I just couldn't buy into SAO. I mean, MMOs have been around for a long ass time and they still aren't perfect... and supposedly, everyone gets trapped in the game on launch day! I know it's far into the future and all, but I don't EVER see there being a day where half of those people wouldn't drop dead on the first day from connection errors alone. Add in require maintenance for the game itself and the fact that whatever the Japanese equivalent of Comcast would have to take the internet itself offline in order to do maintenance as well, and you're looking at everyone in that game being dead inside three months. Combine that with an annoying, wish-fulfillment protagonist with no personality and I never even made it past the first season.

*sigh*

Sometimes I hate being a gamer. Whenever live action stuff like this gets made that has something to do with video games, a TV series or a movie, people come up to me with the genuine question of whether I'm excited for it or not, because they sort of are, and I don't have the heart to tell them its going to be stupid, because believe it or not, no one likes a 30 year old cynic.

 

[Zontar]

I know it's far into the future and all

A...actually it's set in 2025. The show starts just 9 years from now. Not exactly that far in the future, at least not anymore (it was about 20 when the original online short story was written)

 

[Zontar]

There's some leeway with something like Gundam, but that would probably end up giving us Super Sentai quality.

I have to disagree Asita. Super Sentai is many things, and one of them is low budget. Something people forget, partially because of the fact Saban and Disney where and still are the same, is that Toei make their episodes fast and cheap. Their shows are made that way because they're balancing two main IPs that have 65 and 48 episodes made each year for respectively (Super Sentai and Kamen Rider) on top of their theatrical movies, TV specials for both and their other shows on top of that. The reason it looks so cheap is because it legitimately is. Whether done as a 20-26 episode broadcast Prime Time series, a 13 episode cable series, a 6-10 episode limited series or a 2-6 episode mini series, any Gundam series made in the West would likely look miles ahead of Sentai. Hell with the state of television special effects and the current budgets for cable and prime time series, you'd probably be able to make a pretty good looking and faithful Evangelion live action series at this point, and both BSG and later season Stargate showed us you could make a decent live action Macross 10 years ago.

Hell though it looks dated even DS9 and B5 did some decent work in dogfighting 20 years ago. Have the city be Vancouver like every other science fiction series of the past 25 years, take the guys who did the special effects for Battlestar, get some decent pop music and bam, you have everything you need for a Sy Fy original prime time series.

Hell, the show is almost perfect for prime time. One season of the SDF-1 getting back to Earth, one season of it dealing with Earth's bullshit, leaving, and revolution in the enemy ranks, season 2 ends in climax, then one season of post war whatever, and then from there if the show is still on then there's the Megaroad. With all the plots and uniqueness of the setting, if done right the IP could become Sony's big thing for the big and small screen in today's age of cinematic universes.

Of course that won't happen. If anything happens it'll likely be one terrible done movie that some genius though would be better off with the Robotech brand that's long dead instead of the still living Macross IP, with everything that made the original series great gutted. Just like G Savior.

 

[Captain Marvelous_v1legacy]

Hmm...I actually kind of liked the first half of SAO...

Well, now I hate Yui and 75%(?) of the first season. I don't even remember her, her death, the item thing, or the fact that Kirito is a programmer. I honestly think I was half asleep while watching any episodes involving Yui. They were so boring!

Anyway, the moment SAO truly lost me was when it got extremely rapey, everyone turned into faeries or whatever, and Asuna became a damsel in distress, because of course she does. Dear god that villain was creepy as hell. If the TV show takes the first few episodes as reference and create a series with that tone, then I think it may turn out okay. If they stick close to the source, this is gonna blow.

I mean, it could be good if they did a live action adaption of the Abridged series by SomethingWittyEntertainment.

Yes! I'd give them all of my money- No, I'd sell my soul for this! They actually made Kirito interesting!

 

[Asita]

There's some leeway with something like Gundam, but that would probably end up giving us Super Sentai quality.

I have to disagree Asita. Super Sentai is many things, and one of them is low budget. Something people forget, partially because of the fact Saban and Disney where and still are the same, is that Toei make their episodes fast and cheap. Their shows are made that way because they're balancing two main IPs that have 65 and 48 episodes made each year for respectively (Super Sentai and Kamen Rider) on top of their theatrical movies, TV specials for both and their other shows on top of that. The reason it looks so cheap is because it legitimately is. Whether done as a 20-26 episode broadcast Prime Time series, a 13 episode cable series, a 6-10 episode limited series or a 2-6 episode mini series, any Gundam series made in the West would likely look miles ahead of Sentai. Hell with the state of television special effects and the current budgets for cable and prime time series, you'd probably be able to make a pretty good looking and faithful Evangelion live action series at this point, and both BSG and later season Stargate showed us you could make a decent live action Macross 10 years ago.

Fair point, but the $20 question is whether or not those series would actually get that kind of budget in the first place and I'm admittedly pessimistic about it at this point in time.

 

[Zontar]

Fair point, but the $20 question is whether or not those series would actually get that kind of budget in the first place and I'm admittedly pessimistic about it at this point in time.

If such a series where mad they'd get that kind of budget, mainly due to the fact that's the standard budget for prime time shows.

The question of if a live action series of Gundam, Macross, Eva or whatever would have a 2-4 million per episode budget isn't even a question, the format of the series (mini series, limited series, 13 episode season, 20-26 episode season) is what the real question would be if it where made, as well as if it would have a budget that goes as high as 5 million per episode if it's 13 episodes or less.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

...Why would they do that? Other than the show is stupidly popular for some reason. Well, I just answered my own question, didn't I?

I don't like or hate the show itself... though if I had to watch Sword Art Online, I'll stick with the abridged series, thankyouverymuch.

 

[felbot]

oh boy a crap show gets an adaptation by shit writers. This is just a stupid idea and I cant really imagine how in the ever loving fuck its going to be good.