Comments on: Why Speed Racer failed (and why Dragonball probably will too)

By: Murasaki-Kuhoin

Murasaki-Kuhoin — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:31:48 +0000

DBZ the Movie will absolutely be a suck film, next year.

I remember the Street Fighter film… it did suck… but Van Dam was cool being Guile. heh.

oh yeah, I pray that Code Geass would not be adapted as a film. fcuk them if that’ll happen. :((

By: Haesslich

Haesslich — Mon, 19 May 2008 02:17:39 +0000

Miha: The problem here is that the built-in fanbase they’re trying to tap by borrowing the characters and settings, as Marvel did with its movies, is going to be the worst sort of critic. If the movie’s bad but appeals to them, they’ve got a cult favorite which MAY be usable for cross-marketing other products. If the movie’s good and doesn’t appeal to the built-in fanbase (Men in Black), then it may develop a whole new one as some novel adaptations do. If it’s bad AND doesn’t appeal to the built-in fanbase because of all the changes (example: Super Mario Brothers the Movie, Street Fighter the Movie, Legion of Extraordinary Gentlemen)…. then it’s dead in the water and a drag on the films of that same type that follow it.

Video Game Movies are a prime example of this, in my books - the only good one was Mortal Kombat.. and then they decided to change more things around, which resulted in Annihilation and that third movie whose name I’ve blotted out from memory. The first was entertaining, even if it did muck around with the story and setting. The second reminded me of Street Fighter the Movie… the film so bad that some people joke that it killed Raul Julia from disappointment.

By: Miha

Miha — Sun, 18 May 2008 23:41:24 +0000

Hollywood movie adaptations should at the very least be entertaining, whether they throw most of the source material aside or not. Entertainment value and pacing are my only two criteria of judging adaptations by, since I’ve learnt that I can’t expect much from aspects in which the movie can fairly compare to the original. After all, movie adaptations of obscure source materials are made for completely different audiences. The GitS adaptation will most likely just borrow characters and the cyberpunkish world. What I’m getting at here is that anime won’t work as well as Marvel’s comics because anime fandom isn’t strong enough to carry its own voice of promotion to the mainstream consumer market. Hollywood is looking for is a fresh new marketing bumper sticker (since everyone is getting sick of Marvel), and they’re not getting much of a bumper sticker with anime.

By: Haesslich

Haesslich — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:38:09 +0000

… well, GiTS is probably one of those anime which MIGHT be successfully adapted… but I don’t know if Spielburg and Dreamworks can do it. It is, at its core, a simple story about a person who is growing ever more alienated from their humanity and from society, and has the (relatively) small cast… and a cyberpunk world which is both familiar and strange.

… but I almost KNOW that they’ll find a way to screw it up somehow, by having Motoko going on an orgy with Batou and emphasizing the subdued romance part at the eexpense of the rest of the story, and throw out any of the philosophical questions about what makes a person ‘human’.

By: Josh

Josh — Sun, 18 May 2008 20:43:05 +0000

I think shows which are more episodic in nature or whose story can be boiled down to something simple enough to fit into a 2 hour span would probably work. An example of an episodic show which could maybe translate well is something like Cowboy Bebop I think, while an example of a show whose plot could be boiled down could be something like Haibane Renmei. (though I'm not assessing whether the actual plots of those shows would appeal to a wide audience) But yeah, it'd be difficult to take something like, say, Fruits Basket and boil it down to 2 hours because it would probably feel too rushed, while something like Evangelion basically requires all this stuff to happen for the ending to make sense, and it's near impossible to stuff all of that into a single movie (even if ADV thinks it can). I think there are probably a lot of anime or manga which COULD be adapted, if people are willing to make the sacrifices to the story that would be necessary to cut it down, but you have to do that for almost anything you're adapting. I mean, Harry Potter is a good example of something which has had to be extensively hacked down to size, but still works. But yes, this is partly why I say they have to adapt the story, because if the story sucks, the movie is going to suck. People seem to lose sight of that when they adapt things like cartoons or comics into movies sometimes.

By: kdp

kdp — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:48:58 +0000

I agree with your assessment - get the story right first, then add in the other elements.

I’d personally add that there are very few anime (or manga) that can be successfully adapted into a movie. Mainly this is a problem with time. 1 to 2 hours for a movie just isn’t long enough to cover any of the really good anime/mangas.

I’d say the requirements for a successful movie from anime/manga would be:
1. Simple but powerful story.
2. Small cast of characters.
3. Background environment that is easy to understand.

I can’t think of any animes that fit those criteria. To get to an anime that fits, you’d pretty much have to rewrite it. That means you are back to getting the story to work first, which is why the story is so important.