New Evangelion Movie (seriously)

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by monolith94
They hate you, as well.

Under Putin, all the peoples love each other

[Wraith]

--"Haven't they already beat this dead horse one too many times?"

Actually, not really. Evangelion just got one TV series (one season), two movies, and the manga. Most of the merchandising hasn't even hit the US and probably never will.

In Japan, usually the shows with high ratings get more episodes. As long as the ratings are high, they'll get another season. Some of them have been running literaly for decades.

If you want a franchise that's been beaten into the ground, check out the latest versions of Dragonball or Gundam.

--"Is Anno involved at all ?"

No one's said either way yet, but I'd suspect not. Yes, that's part of the reason I'm worried. I just don't think Anno has any interest in returning to Evangelion.

Still, with Gainax involved it can't get too far from the original series. They're very notorious for the tight control (usually excessively so) they keep on all their properties.

--"The average live actor would look ridiculous trying to pull off about half of what was in EoE."

There's three basic ways they can go with this.

1) Remake End of Evangelion in live action.
This would be stupid. ADV and Gainax combined don't have the kind of budget it would take to do a good job on the combat sequences, much less the rest of the effects the movie would require. The violence itself wouldn't be a problem in the US, but there plenty of other things that wouldn't get past the censors, so they'd have to cut a few parts.

2) Retell the TV series.
This would be an attempt to do something like what the Escaflowne movie did for the TV series. I think this would also be a bad idea, since it would likely end up just a plain old mecha fighting movie, which kind of misses the point of Evangelion all together. There's just not time for this in a standard motion picture.

3) Do a side story.
This is possible. There are some loose threads from the series they can pick up on and run with. What happened leading up to the S2 experiments, for instance.
This could be good or bad, depending on the director and the writer.

Wraith
"I'm not used to being liked. Being hated, on the other hand, is quite familiar."
-- Gendo Ikari ("Evangelion")

[Spiffor]

Except if they do an outstanding performance, I don't think I'll like the movie at all.

The problem with all translation from anime / comics to live action movies is that the human characters cannot look like the drawn characters, and it directly goes against the way you picture the characters.

I mean, to me all Evangelion characters have big round eyes. I will simply not recognize them with beaded eyes, or even western ones if American actors are used. Besides, the simple looks of an anime character cannot been imitated in a live action movie, except if there is massive Computer rendering to remove all the little things that make a face complex. Since there will be a low budget, I don't believe they'll do that.

Lastly, except if they ask the voice actors to dub the live actors, the voices will also be different

The only way for the movie not to be too disappointing would be for it to take place in a whole different location with whole different characters, but within the Evangelion universe (like the American base that disappears, or the German research center)

[Kassiopeia]

If I hadn't been taking a little break from Apolyton for the past week, I would have posted a thread about this on Wednesday already.

Originally posted by Apocalypse
I assume Kassi is going to either cream his pants or get incredibly pissed.

The latter, I'm afraid. I've been ranting about this on other forums and my school for the past two days, so may as well rant about it here too.

I wholeheartedly agree with what Wraith has said.

The thought of Anno being involved (he did move onto live action projects after Evangelion) crossed my mind, but Anno, as Wraith pointed out, is done with Evangelion. I personally agree with that notion - Evangelion is currently complete, and doesn't need this. My suspicion is that Gainax, being not too ethical when it comes to money, is more than pleased after getting a huge load of dosh from ADV to allow them to do this.

ADV however is not that big. It can't garner up hundreds of millions of dollars to make a blockbuster Hollywood film. That doesn't mean the Eva film wouldn't follow the usual pattern of conforming to the lowest common denominator. That is, they'll aim this at the big heaps of people who don't know what Evangelion is. If they aimed at the Evangelion fans, the market would be too small, if they tried to please both, neither would be satisfied.

Anime to live-action transitions don't very often.

Fist of the North Star serves as an example. Of course, the original was nothing special either.

Interesting plot options would be, like Spiffor suggested, the other non-Japanese branches. Or maybe something from the days of the Artificial Evolution Project and Gehirn, like an elaboration of episode 21. They'd have to come up with a consistent plot that doesn't require knowledge of the anime Evangelion, however.

I just hope that they won't do the unthinkable and cram eleven hours of story into a two hour film. They'd probably have to start cutting characters to pull that off. Like Kaji. Or, pray tell, Rei. I'd much rather see Shinji sit in Eva 01 and bash Angels for the rest of the film with the worst sfx in existence.

Still, with Gainax involved it can't get too far from the original series. They're very notorious for the tight control (usually excessively so) they keep on all their properties.

They are? Well, at least there's a glimpse of hope left here somewhere.

I'm just going to hope that this film will be the perfect example of a bad idea never processed into execution.

Here's something to enlighten the mood...

Christopher Walken (Pulp Fiction, Catch Me If You Can) is set to head off the all star cast playing maniacal superscientist Graham Ikari, intent on achieving instrumentality, whatever the personal cost. The team at NERV, the Angel-Busting Institute, are also rumoured to be well represented with Gwenyth Paltrow (7even, Shakespeare in Love) playing Rachelle Akagi and Jennifer Lopez (The Cell, American Maid) excelling herself in the role of Mariah Kusianos, the gutsy latina seargant with a dark family history.

The children that bought the series such fame in the States will be portrayed by a bevy of upcoming talent from Hollywood. Haley Joel Osmont (The Sixth Sense) will play the now famous Shinji Ikari, the plucky young boy fighting for the fate of the world. Rumours abound on the actor playing his love interest Alicia Langley Souryu, but so far, most sources point to none other than pint-size supergirl Nikki Webster! In a surprise move, the trio have announced that mysterious and coy Raylene Ayanami will be completely CG rendered, joining the hallowed ranks of blockbuster greats such as Jar Jar Binks.

Will the gambit pay off? Fox News says... Yes. It will.

(Picked up from a random forum)

Love the parallels they draw between Phantom Menace and Live Action Eva.

[Kassiopeia]

What really made me drop my eyeballs today was this IMDb entry. After prodding around the topics of the message boards, though, I came to the conclusion that this probably doesn't have anything to do with the anime Evangelion.

Then there's this article.

I am definitely NOT lending any of my trust to that article, since Evangelion is referred to as "the space epic". And Aintitcool hasn't really earned any trust from me before. However, authentic or not, some of the pictures made me feel almost optimistic:



(I want to see that...)



Done properly, the Evangelion film might look very, very cool. The plot nonwithstanding, the visuals could be excellent, with the proper dark tone and all. Too bad eye-candy isn't exactly the point in Eva...

What concerned me a little bit was this image. Those buildings look somehow... American...

This is of course just some concept art, which doesn't necessarily have any bearings with the end result. But, interesting.

[monolith94]

You know, they could also attempt to retell the story using SEVERAL movies... say two episodes a movie - that could work!

[Wraith]

--" I came to the conclusion that this probably doesn't have anything to do with the anime Evangelion."

Luckily, it doesn't.

--"However, authentic or not, some of the pictures made me feel almost optimistic:"

They are authentic, but they've been taken from the Japanese magazine Newtype. Posted this link in my anime thread a while back:

http://www.ag.wakwak.com/~lay/img-box/img20030608102137.jpg

--"You know, they could also attempt to retell the story using SEVERAL movies..."

If only they had the budget for it...

Now... let's see if these images will post, or if I need to shrink them first...

Wraith
I prefer to remain anomalous

[Wraith]

That seemed to work... part 2...

[Wraith]

And part 3....

[Kassiopeia]

They are authentic, but they've been taken from the Japanese magazine Newtype. Posted this link in my anime thread a while back:
http://www.ag.wakwak.com/~lay/img-b...30608102137.jpg

Ah, good thing I'm getting my eyesight checked in August (read: How did I manage to miss that?!).

[ColdWizard]

ah, those pictures created a new experience for me, never previously felt feeling best described as funny horror... sort of :disgust:

[Wraith]

--"ah, those pictures created a new experience for me,"

They're from a site called the Food Court, but it unfortunately doesn't seem to be around any more. They had some other good stuff that I don't have copies of (like Mickey Mouse in Terminal Dogma in place of what's supposed to be there).
Not just Evangelion stuff, either. I remember one good Escaflowne one that was a parody of an AT&T pager ad...

I need to look for those...

Wraith
Warning: Whimsical when bored