Ghost In The Shell Live Action movie

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

You say desperate pandering , I said e respectful tribute. Who can judge?

The audience.

[Freeter]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

I said e respectful tribute

Look up Japanese tombstones on Google and tell me how you can still arrive at that conclusion.

[Slayerx]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

It is certainly a valid and extremely crazy mistake. It just shows a lack of attention to detail, which is characteristic of Western adaptations of Asian works. It isn't something to brush off because it is proof no one is paying attention, especially the director.

Considering how amazing the visuals are in this film and how much work went into adapting the visual details of the original anime, i don't think a lack of attention to detail is an issue. While i can't say the same for the screenplay, the visual work on the film has purpose behind it. In the case of the tombstone i would chalk that up to emotional impact. For much of the audience, seeing the tombstone with the Major's name on it will hit them harder than seeing a unreadable tombstone with some subtitles on the bottom. Subtitles can be a bit immersion breaking, which is why you may want to think twice about when and where you use them

Originally Posted by Yui Is My Wife

There is justice in this world after all: This film has fallen BEHIND Boss Baby AND Beauty and The Beast at the box office!

http://www.cbr.com/ghost-in-the-shel...B-P&view=lista

First, not surprise it would fall behind those films. Boss Baby seems like those idiotic animted movies that's not any good but makes money because parents will take their kids to see anything that's mindlessly entertaining and looks like a pixar or dreamworks film. Beauty and the Beast on the other hand, is pretty much made instantly popular by a combination of disney and nostalgia (though i have heard its a decent-good movie)


While i might want a more faithful adaption, i would not be quick to celebrate this film failing... Hollywood tends to be run by idiots who don't seem to understand WHY films fail or succeed and tend to draw simpleminded conclusions. Likely producers will look at this and come to the simple minded conclusion that "anime films don't sell" and thus we won't get a chance at another film... heck those that will might try to make an adaption, might want to play it safe and offer less of a budget thus making it less likely that the next film will be great. If the film had succeeded in would atleast encourage those Hollywood producers that anime adaptions are worth exploring... though in that case the downside would be producers learning the wrong lessons about the success leading to a bunch of flawed films

[zztop]

Originally Posted by Slayerx

First, not surprise it would fall behind those films. Boss Baby seems like those idiotic animted movies that's not any good but makes money because parents will take their kids to see anything that's mindlessly entertaining and looks like a pixar or dreamworks film. Beauty and the Beast on the other hand, is pretty much made instantly popular by a combination of disney and nostalgia (though i have heard its a decent-good movie)

I hear a small percentage of Boss Baby's audiences are Alec Baldwin fans - probably they want to hear him channel Jack Donaghy of 30 Rock again.
I've heard the new Beauty and the Beast does retell some of the original anime film parts better. Perhaps it's worth checking out.

[Freeter]

Originally Posted by Slayerx

For much of the audience, seeing the tombstone with the Major's name on it will hit them harder than seeing a unreadable tombstone with some subtitles on the bottom. Subtitles can be a bit immersion breaking, which is why you may want to think twice about when and where you use them

Then why not stylize it in both languages? Like I said, they put the laziest amount of effort into that scene, and that is far more immersion breaking when you're trying to tell the audience that the Major had an Asian heritage.

Originally Posted by Slayerx

If the film had succeeded in would atleast encourage those Hollywood producers that anime adaptions are worth exploring... though in that case the downside would be producers learning the wrong lessons about the success leading to a bunch of flawed films

I'm surprised they haven't approached a Naruto movie. It's practically giftwrapped for them.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Freeter

I'm surprised they haven't approached a Naruto movie. It's practically giftwrapped for them.

There had been ninja movies. They didn't sell. Ninja Assassin in 2007 for example. Budget of 40million and box office worldwide of 60 million. That's a bomb.

[Freeter]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

There had been ninja movies. They didn't sell. Ninja Assassin in 2007 for example. Budget of 40million and box office worldwide of 60 million. That's a bomb.

Not surprised there, since it was targeted for adults and starred unknowns to Western audiences. Naruto would appeal to younger audiences and has the advantage of a lead who is virtually designed to be Caucasian.

Hell, even Bleach could be Westernized without much sweat.

[Cloudedmind]

Originally Posted by Slayerx

sniped for space

I actually saw Boss Baby and GitS the same night. I rather enjoyed Boss Baby, probably more than GitS, even if the underlying plot was silly for BB. But I agree that it's not surprising that even BB did better considering the type of movie it is.

I actually think GitS tried to hard to play homage to the over all franchise. While the bulk of the movie took from the first film, all the other pieces they threw in actually kept taking me out of the movie. However, I can imagine that if I knew nothing or very little about GitS I'd have enjoyed the movie more, since it really did look great, and the way they pieced together all the aspects from the different versions of GitS wasn't bad. I just couldn't completely immerse myself.

The only things that really gave me pause were, they decided to give her a Japanese background, Aramaki being the only character speaking in a foreign language, they call her the Major although she has no military background.

[Key Board]

the live action movie would have been better it just copy pasted everything from the anime movie. It wouldn't be original, but at least it would be more cohesive.

as it stands, it alienates its old fanbase and not Hollywood enough to have a broad appeal

The unfortunate conclusion Hollywood will interpret from this however is "people don't like Japanimation"
rather than "we screwed up"

[quigonkenny]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

You say desperate pandering , I said e respectful tribute. Who can judge?

More like "what". Specifically expectations going in (or lack thereof) that were dutifully fulfilled.

Originally Posted by Key Board

The unfortunate conclusion Hollywood will interpret from this however is "people don't like Japanimation"
rather than "we screwed up"

The Hollywood assumption will never be "We screwed up". The whole city is built on nepotism and ego. You can count on their excuse to be the one which lays the least blame on themselves. Either that or something political. Russian hackers, probably.

Which is a shame, because whatever you think of the movie, it's got a pretty solid claim to the title of "Best Hollywood Anime Adaptation" simply by dint of there actually being a discussion over whether it's any good or not, rather than just being universally panned, as usual. If that still doesn't allow it to make money, then how are you going to argue that any anime movie is ever going to make money?

[Golden Lily]

I think the main problem with adapting anime is that producers are embarassed of the source material.
Similiar case with a superhero movies. They thought they're just silly cartoons for children, without realizing something clever can be done with it. Up until Tim Burton's Batman, which was the big success, but then everything had to resemble it, so we got crap like Steel, Daredevil or Catwoman.

I think the same thing is occuring now. Hollywood must realize that manga/anime isn't made of just bad jokes and fanservice, but also charismatic characters and excellent stories.

So I hope this transition point will occur here too. For superhero movies it was Iron Man and we still have to wait for a good adaptation of an anime. It's just sad they didn't manage to do that with GITS, because it was among the best choices to introduce manga/anime to Hollywood.

[Yui Is My Wife]

It seems hollywood is pathologically inclined to regularly make at least one slap-in-the-face adaptation of a beloved past story, and expect it to make money just because a corpse white mannequin with about as much acting skills as a mannequin is in the originally international role.

2008: Dragonball DEvolution
2010: the white airbender
2014: 46 Ronin and one completely unnecessary white slave lead
2016: old ugly feminist ghost-catchers
2017: spook in the egg.

[Key Board]

Originally Posted by quigonkenny

More like "what". Specifically expectations going in (or lack thereof) that were dutifully fulfilled.


The Hollywood assumption will never be "We screwed up". The whole city is built on nepotism and ego. You can count on their excuse to be the one which lays the least blame on themselves. Either that or something political. Russian hackers, probably.

Which is a shame, because whatever you think of the movie, it's got a pretty solid claim to the title of "Best Hollywood Anime Adaptation" simply by dint of there actually being a discussion over whether it's any good or not, rather than just being universally panned, as usual. If that still doesn't allow it to make money, then how are you going to argue that any anime movie is ever going to make money?

Well that's the point. I think that sadly, it was still not Hollywood enough for the public. This adaptation didn't want to be either Ghost in the Shell or a Hollywood movie
I think that being anime is.. inherently too foreign for mainstream US success?
maybe this GitS should just have been something taking place within the GitS universe and drawing ideas from it?
rather than whitewashing it

When the public thinks of an anime movie it probably thinks of Mononoke Hime and even that was not a financial success
or how about Pacific Rim. That's also as anime live action as you can get. Again a modest financial success that did much better across the globe.

Yet at the same time, no adaptation has been truly faithful to its source...
And no one seems daring enough to test that out yet

Maybe... future anime adaptations movies just need to scale down on budget and expectations.?

I am curious how the Netflix Deathnote ends up though. To me that has all the right ingredients for an easy adaptation success... but we'l see

[Ithekro]

Star Blazers will be coming as well from Skydance. It is suppose to start filming this year.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Speaking of LA GITS' tanking at the box office, I think the actual problem is that the movie is a boring slog for the viewers due to poor direction and not-that-good writing. Don't forget, this is the director whose only credit being the Snow White and the Huntsman which would've been a gigantic chore to watch if not for the combination of Charlize Theron's scenery-chewing, Chris Hemsworth likable character and gorgeous visuals. And look at the writers: Ehren Kruger is the one responsible for the dreadful Bayformers sequels (all of them) and Jamie Moss being the one behind Street Kings which is rather bland. The only positive from the writing team is William Wheeler who wrote the screenplay of Queen of Katwe, but evidently, he couldn't do much to salvage the movie. An adaptation of GITS needed people with strong vision and serious film-making skills who know how to wow the current audience not just from visual aspect but also narrative. Arguably, America already has a decent adaptations of GITS which borrowed a lot of humanity-questioning and man-machine interface idea. It's called The Matrix.

In short, with a team this lackluster, this disappointing result can already be seen from a mile away whether the movie being an animanga adaptation or not. At the very least, the movie is still a visual feast and didn't go into "so bad it's torture"-territory like DBE was. Sadly enough, this LA GITS can still arguably be put amongst the most faithful LA adaptations of animanga out there.

[quigonkenny]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Don't forget, this is the director whose only credit being the Snow White and the Huntsman which would've been a gigantic chore to watch if not for the combination of Charlize Theron's scenery-chewing, Chris Hemsworth likable character and gorgeous visuals.

Apparently one out three wasn't quite good enough...

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by quigonkenny

Apparently one out three wasn't quite good enough...

Yep. Huntsman was mediocre and draggy especially since we are forced to watch Kristen Stewart's wooden acting almost the entire movie. Maybe she was still high after all that humping with the director .

[saya_leviathan]

It's finally out in Japan and China.

No surprise that the Japanese don't care about the racial controversy but they too agreed that the story is weak.

Hideo Kojima's essay really sum up on what the movie really lacked.
http://www.glixel.com/news/hideo-koj...-shell-w475805

Even the Chinese find it mediocre. Their movie review site, Douban, just rate 6.6. Too bad that China can't save this movie.

[Blueknight78]

the movie debuted 3 in japanese rank, this something good which tell us which part of the movie problem is really the new mimimimi generation specially in western which now thanks to internet can spread they hate and now we are entering in another age of no freedom, because some whinning peoples think they are special and only what they like is good and anything else is crap and minorities now must boss the world and you can make things as you like and you must obey then.

really that white-washing, politically correct, Cultural appropriation and others crap things created in that generation are destroying things.

i watched the movie and watched the anime and read the manga and i enjoyed it and i really feel specially western peoples must stop to act as if they are the owners of others peoples or the saviors of others races and don't speak for them, if you don't like fine but this don't means which others also must hate it, things are really getting worst and i can see things get worse in future.

[Cloudedmind]

I don't know, what you're trying to get at. But the number in which a movie debuts is no where as important as the amount of money it brings in on opening weekend. The movie debuted at number three in the US/Canada as well on it's opening weekend. Doesn't change the fact that it only brought in 19 million from NA and another 40-50 million worldwide (excluding China and Japan at the time) it's opening weekend. And yet the movie cost 110 million to make, not including whatever they spent on marketing and advertising. The numbers don't lie, that's considered a flop. Opening weekend numbers are very important, as it gives the company and anyone else invested in the movie an idea of what they're likely to make over all.

The anime community and or the people who might care about such things as whitewashing are just a small percentage of potential movie goers, and yet judging from the numbers no one else really bothered to go see the movie either at least in NA. And the people who did, didn't care for it. The visuals yes, the story not so much. Not to mention your point is moot because while the movie did end up doing better monetarily in China and Japan, as saya leviathan pointed out they also still gave it mediocre reviews when it came to it's story.