I rewatched TRON: Legacy yesterday.  While my original reactions largely still stand, I’ve begun looking into a fan fiction project around this.  It would seem I’m not the only one working on TRON stuff – here’s a 10 minute short they must have done as they filmed TRON: Legacy, and a teaser trailer that was apparently included in the Blu-Ray edition.  Finally, as apparently they are working on an animated TRON television series TRON: Uprising – here’s a trailer for that too.

candybowl

TRON: The Next Day

Dillinger easter egg:

TRON:Uprising

Finished watching Redline tonight.  This is probably the craziest anime, (possibly movie), I have ever seen.

As regular readers know, I’m a big fan of ‘racing anime’ – although among the various types of anime out there – it is comparatively rare, and I’ve pretty much seen all of them (Initial D, Wangan Midnight, IGPX, etc.), save for re-watching Speed Racer all over again, which I still may do someday (the 2008 live-action Speed Racer movie, however – that’s a great flick – see previous post here).  Common elements include the racing itself, which of course in anime means over-the-top posturing and ego clashes from nearly every character at some point or another if not constantly; technology can play a factor (IGPX being the anime-futuro-mecha version of team racing, not terribly unlike the Kinetica videogame on PS2) and illegal street racing, whether in town/highways (Wangan Midnight) or crazy steep mountain/cliffside roads (Initial D).

So Redline takes nearly all these elements in one form or another and goes one better – it is a series of increasingly challenging elimination races (Blueline, followed by Yellowline, then the ultimate final race with the cream of the competitors: Redline) that are held on various alien worlds across varied and unknown terrain, not always including actual roads.  Because (of course) some of the vehicles used are hover-jet/rocket/cars (think of the hover-car/bike race in The Phantom Menace) and because nearly all the cars (even those relying on wheels) have some sort of rocket/nitro boost in them, among other abilities (The Mach 5 would be sadly outclassed here, I think).

So the story follows a few key racers as they make it past a Yellowline race (already in progress at the start of the movie) and gain entry to the Redline final race (the third act of the movie is that race).  Unexpected plot elements include the ‘roboworld’ planet where Redline is to be held – doesn’t want the race to be held on their planet, and so does everything they can (including armies, space weaponry and bio-weapons) to stop the race and kill all the racers if possible.  Also JP (one of the main characters) has a shady past (unlike nearly every other racer who has a ‘shady present’) and is known for ‘fixing’ races, for which he was sent to prison at least once.

The plot is otherwise fairly straight forward, about what you’d expect in a racing movie/anime, save for the following:

First – it is completely hand-drawn animation.  No CGI.  Which is probably in part why it took seven years(!) to make.  The results are VERY impressive, although in many racing sequences the action is so crazy-chaotic it can be hard to figure out what is going on.  They make use of every frame in this movie to excess, and it shows.

I would have to describe the visual style of the movie as ‘Roy Lichtenstein vs. Aeon Flux‘ with a not-completely-subtle dash of Wacky Races thrown in for good measure.  JP looks almost as if he walked right out of an Aeon Flux episode, and he’s not the only one.  The stark color contrasts seen here really stand out (hence the Lichtenstein impression) with an incredible level of detail not normally seen in an anime (or most animation generally).  The ridiculous cast of racers *has* to have been influenced by Wacky Races, and the later IGPX, I’m sure – they are a total collection of freaks and misfits.

What passes for character development here is the second act, where the various racers prepare for the Redline race and have at least a few scenes of conversation here and there.  Sadly, there is a bit of gratuitous nudity thrown in (for no apparent reason) and there was some random profanity at points in the movie (I watched in Japanese with subtitles but it may have also made it into the dubbed version) which, taken together with some of the extreme action and character design, probably make this movie NOT suitable for kids – i’d rate it a PG-13.

But it’s definitely a very well-made, beautifully animated movie and if you like anime, worth seeing for that reason alone – they set a pretty high bar.  One of the few anime I’ve seen that equal this movie’s animation quality would be Appleseed – but that movie has a *lot* of CGI mixed in with the traditional animation, so not really the same thing.

Check it out!  Again I got it from Scarecrow but Amazon now carries it too if you don’t live in Seattle.

Other Redline reviews:
Anime News Network
Notaku Blog

candybowl

Pretty cool. This is currently showing at LACMA, so if you are in Los Angeles, check it out!

Reminds me a bit of OMSI’s Gravitram in Portland, Oregon – which dates from the early 70s. Video of the Gravitram in action below also…

candybowl

CHRIS BURDEN: Metropolis II

OMSI Gravitram:

So readers of this blog already know I’m an anime fan, and a ‘racing anime‘ fan in particular – assuming you can find it. Certainly the most notable racing anime is Initial D, and due to its long term manga/anime popularity, a live-action movie of the Initial D story came out in 2005. So the tofu-hauling teenage drift racer of Gunma Prefecture rides again, now in real life. How does it hold up?

Naturally one movie compared to 30+ manga issues and/or 3 anime series + some animated movies cannot be expected to capture the entire saga of the story – they wisely concentrate here on elements from seasons one and two. We see how Takumi became a drift expert (hauling tofu in the early dawn through the mountains for his dad’s business), how his dad is a retired racer (and expert in setting up the AE86 Takumi now drives for the deliveries) and how once the word gets out, other nearby racers immediately want to challenge Takumi (Nakazato from the Night Kids, Ryosuke Takahashi from the Red Suns, and Sudo from the Emperor team). Various races ensue, and (big surprise) Takumi wins – but like the anime, you root for him the whole time and on balance, it’s an entertaining movie.

A list of differences between the movie and the anime/manga can be seen here. I won’t go into them save to say I didn’t really like how they turned Takumi’s dad into a drunk – in the anime he’s just gruff and quiet, keeping largely to himself. I think here they were trying to show Takumi’s dad as frustrated by his wife leaving (this is never mentioned in the anime at all by comparison) so he drinks. I would have preferred more ‘racing expertise’ discussion and less of this flawed character aspect, it’s mostly just a distraction.

The racing is good, if somewhat on the brief side. The anime/manga naturally has the advantage of drawing out all the events that run up to the racing which the movie simply doesn’t have time to deal with, but they did a great job and the racing is definitely convincing. But the anime also draws out the races quite a bit, often times over multiple episodes, which would look unrealistic if done in live action, so that’s another reason it seems a lot shorter here.

The acting is good, although these are with one exception, all Hong Kong actors (only Anne Suzuki, playing Takumi’s girlfriend Mogi, is Japanese). They all do a good job but I missed the constant (many times silly) over-the-top posturing and dialog from the anime – that tends to increase the tension from the usually following race – here, that’s a bit lacking. But maybe Japanese teens aren’t really that crazy-intense in real life? Dunno.

Another somewhat missing element is the hyperactive background music of the anime during the racing scenes. Here, they largely play hip-hop style music throughout the movie, which is fine, but not quite the same. And I think that tends to slow down the impression of the racing somewhat as a result. But a nice touch was to try to replicate the offbeat and constantly changing camera angles during the race as otherwise seen in the anime – well done!

You can also watch the ‘making of’ via Youtube here – it has english subtitles, the dialog is in Chinese given the cast and crew. It’s clear they took the job of this movie very seriously and tried their best to make a good movie and not do it on the cheap. And, that they filmed in rural Japan gives it that extra look of truth, to me at least.

Check it out – it’s a good intro to Initial D, and will likely make you want to check out the anime or manga (or both).

candybowl

PS – there may be an Initial D ‘2’ in the near future – see here.

Watched Aeon Flux again this afternoon (the 2005 live-action movie starring Charlize Theron, not the early 90’s animated shorts from MTV). I saw this originally when it came out in the theater, but hadn’t seen it since. It was good on a second watch, although the story is a ‘revealer’ – meaning the first viewing is the best viewing – assuming you like the movie of course.

So there are many departures here from the animated shorts, in part because many of those are probably (still) unfilmable, even with CGI help. Many of them are ‘experiments in fantasy’ – as noted in the disclaimer at the start of each – and aren’t intended to be a coherent ongoing plot or in most cases even connected to one another (Aeon dies in many of them at the end).

I think the approach taken in this movie is better – use inspiration from the original(s) and recycle scenery, action, and story elements where you can, but come up with an original plot that stands separate in its own right. Admittedly, this can be a tougher way to go if fans of the original start picking apart the new interpretation – but it can work if done well – think Blade Runner, which uses many core elements of the original PKD story but then departs in its own way. Another great example is Minority Report, which has *more* story than the original, because the original PKD story wasn’t a novel to begin with.

Here, they succeed in telling a new Aeon Flux story, and also a ‘complete’ story (not just an exploration of some weird scenario resulting in her death anyway). I think the production values and casting and special effects were also very good and effective, but not overdone. No Matrix-style ‘bullet time’ in the fight scenes, and no overdone CGI that just takes you out of the story (ask the last three Star Wars movies about that one!).

I guess my quibbles with this would be the following:

1) in the featurettes also on the DVD, one of the producers says at one point she doesn’t know of any other sci-fi film like this one – I beg to differ – Logan’s Run? Last city on earth, far future, time-limited population, computer-controlled, purported utopian society (although much more obviously driven by hedonistic sex and drugs/recreation by comparison) – there are several parallels. There are other similarities in anime too, but that’s not live action, so you’d have to begin comparing back to the original AF animation in that case?

2) They don’t develop the other characters enough for effective back-story. You certainly find out more later, but early on you are kind of in the dark as to WHY it’s a utopian society? It’s supposed to be a city of 5M people, surely someone is pursuing new science, trying to expand beyond the city’s borders, etc.?

3) Who the heck is The Handler (the leader of the ‘Monican Revolution’, played by Frances McDormand)? A person, computer program, figment of Aeon’s imagination, or? And is she only in ‘pill’ format (they ingest a pill when they communicate with her)? And how was she created in the first place? They never explain, semi-major plot hole.

Otherwise I agree with one of the IMDB reviewers – definitely a B+ film – i’ve seen far worse that cost far more (see previous post on Star Trek:Insurrection) – this movie came and went pretty fast in the theater and I think the marketing done for it was pretty bad, which ultimately helped cut its release time short I’m sure.

There are hints in the Wikipedia article that there are another 30 min. of footage out there – perhaps a director’s cut could be issued someday in the future? I’d definitely watch it again to catch that….?

candybowl

Started watching the 2001-2004 Cartoon Network series Samurai Jack again while I ride the exercise bike in the basement. I’ll chart my fave episodes here as I go.

So far, from Season One:

The Beginning, Parts 1-3. Here we see Jack fight Aku, get sent into the far future, get his name, and help a group of dog archeologists(?) enslaved by Aku to their freedom. I like the setup in Part 1, which to me also seemed a bit inspired by the start of Yellow Submarine where the Blue Meanies attack Pepperland. Jack’s arrival in the far future is our first sight of how Aku has changed the world. It’s interesting, to be sure, and gets further revealed in each episode of the series from there on. What’s also interesting is that it’s implied Aku rules with an iron fist and enslaves a lot of the world – but there sure seems to be a lot of people running around in the jungle and big cities irrespective of his rule? Kinda weird.

Jack and the Three Blind Archers. Jack assaults a mysterious tower on a remote island that contains a secret well possibly able to grant his wish to go home to the past and rid the world of Aku. The tower is guarded by three unbeatable archers that have easily and completely defeated legions of soldiers’ previous attacks. This episode is one of the earliest to really show Jack’s commitment to his discipline – he carries out part of the assault blindfolded based on his observations – and the episode (like many others) contains a strong moral lesson. Certainly the latter is fairly stereotypical for martial arts subject matter, but even in a kids show the story doesn’t insult the viewer.

More to come!

candybowl

Got the early 70’s Star Trek:The Animated Series on DVD from the library last week. This was an ‘interim’ series done by Filmation from 1973-74, originally intended as a kid’s Saturday am cartoon show but given the hunger at the time for anything/all things Star Trek, actually served to ‘continue on’ the original 60’s series for many fans. I had seen at least a few of these either back then or later in reruns, and had borrowed the set from a friend a few years ago but neglected to watch many of them then.

The show had 22 episodes, which is pretty good considering that the original series only has 79 to begin with (and the third original season had a lot of crappy shows, for that matter). Most of the original cast is here (Kirk/Shatner, Spock/Nimoy, Scotty/Doohan, Uhura/Nichols and Takei/Sulu) save for Chekov/Walter Koenig, who was left out due to budget constraints – but did get to write an episode, The Infinite Vulcan.

One difference (besides being animated instead of live-action) is that the shows are only a half-hour, meaning in practice about 24 min. or so – whereas the original had hour-long episodes. So this constrains the storytelling a bit, but they still did pretty well with what they had. Another is a better variety of weird aliens, architecture and landscapes – animation naturally provides more flexibility in that case, and they used it well.

On balance, the quality is pretty good here. Even though of course Kirk and Spock get the vast majority of the lines – and now after having watched 40+ years of various Star Trek shows enough to think sending the 3-4 most important members of the crew on all the dangerous away missions is STU-PID, guys! – it’s still entertaining. I think besides having most of the original series’ actors, it helped having many of the original writers (or eminently qualified newbies like Larry Niven) handling the scripts, and Dorothy Fontana, one of the key veterans of the original series running the show overall.

Looking at specific episodes, I’d have to say my favorites were the following:

Beyond The Farthest Star – While elements of this plot were used already in an original series 3rd season episode (Day of the Dove) this is better than that one, even if shorter. This story has far more of the sense of wonder and exploration Star Trek is known for, and the alien taking over the Enterprise is more plausible in this story the way it unfolds.

Yesteryear – Here we see some of Spock’s back story and tie in The Guardian from the original series – a great combination.

The Survivor – Despite the increasing proliferation of crew members wearing cheesy handlebar mustaches from this episode onward – the plot is interesting and has a twist or two to boot.

The Magicks of Megas-tu – A favorite recurring theme on Star Trek is ‘ancient aliens visited Earth/other planets of the Federation in primitive times and now we have to deal with how we treated them’ – This idea was also seen in Who Mourns for Adonais? (original series) and even later in the animated series in How Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth which throws in the oft-seen ‘Star Trek loves to whip out the Shakespeare’ in its title. I’m not going to go into that one, as anyone who’s watched any amount of Star Trek (TV or movies) will be already familiar with THAT tendency….’Magicks’ is also interesting in that the included DVD commentary notes the network said they couldn’t do an episode with ‘god’ in it – so they chose Lucifer instead

The Slaver Weapon – This is the Larry Niven episode, which includes elements of his own books and stories as a plot foundation (Slavers, Kzinti, etc.) and it definitely works well.

The Jihad – This was one I remembered reading from the books Alan Dean Foster did based on the animated series (Star Trek ‘Logs’) and the animated version is unfortunately not as good, because it leaves out some of the dialog (it’s probable that ADF simply ‘wrote more’ as he did the novellas *after* the series aired) and the sequence with the ‘dune buggy’ they use to escape a molten lava volcano here is pretty silly.

If you don’t want to watch the series on TV – you can always read the books referenced above, which should still be around in paperback somewhere – they came out in the early 80s I think?

All in all, it was good and interesting to revisit these. Several of them are definitely up to the best of the original series for sure, even if their stories aren’t as long timewise due to the shorter format.

candybowl

It would appear now that King of the Hill has been cancelled (Damnit, Bobby!) that Mike Judge has had time to bring Beavis & Butt-Head back to television, which debuted tonight on its same ol’ home – MTV.

Of course, these days MTV apparently can’t be PAID to show a music video anymore, so besides the cartoon part of B&B, what will the boys watch on TV? Well, they still found some music videos from somewhere – and you guessed it – the videos still suck, and thankfully now B&B are back to point this out as obnoxiously as possible.

Also, Herr Judge has taken a new tack – he’s made them critique all the even stupider reality shows (which replaced music videos) on MTV, starting with one of the least intelligent of all – Jersey Shore. You have to love ‘JWoww’ talking about how she’s going to grandkids about making pizza in Italy (somehow that poor country allowed the NJ crew to visit, must have been a full-court diplomatic press by the Obama Administration) and then Beavis asking if she was really going to call her granddaughter ‘bitch’? Too funny.

It’s interesting to compare B&B to the (now) fairly moribund Simpsons (which started several years earlier than B&B and hasn’t stopped yet, although it might by the time they reach 25(!) years on the air), South Park (also now having been on for over a decade, arguably taking over as the ‘rude kid series’ when B&B went off the air in 1997) and the completely wacked out Family Guy (which takes psycho humor and violence to a new level and makes The Simpsons look like The Honeymooners by comparison). For me,

I like the fact that to B&B, nothing is sacred and everything deserves potshots, especially taken from the perspective of a high-school burnout. It’s not even clear if B&B have a computer or cell phone or know what either one is? Maybe that will evolve this time around.

The early Simpsons took largely the same tack, mostly through more clever writing and more characters to work with in the first place – but has long since become hostage to the unending mediocrity that is Al Jean – Matt G., you need to FIRE that guy!

South Park has always been kind of hit or miss with me, mostly miss – but the movie was pretty funny (as was the long-awaited Simpsons movie, surprisingly) and it still has its moments, although now sadly without Chef, one of the best characters (Isaac Hayes, RIP).

While I have watched Family Guy a few times – I am amazed it is on the air every time I watch it – I guess it could be funny, but it is so over-the-top shocking first and foremost that it almost PREVENTS laughter? South Park has its violence here and there but mostly tries to skewer public figures, society and when in doubt, there’s always Terence and Philip – Family Guy really pushes the envelope by comparison, and to me, not really in a good way at all.

But maybe B&B will take them on too? Too early to say….you can apparently catch the new episodes on MTV.com if you no longer have cable. I haven’t seen the ‘old man’ neighbor Tom Anderson yet (the original voice of Hank Hill) but the peace-loving english teacher and B&B’s long-suffering toadie, Stuart (probably the only guy in the 21st century still wearing or even OWNING a Winger t-shirt) are both back. Sadly no Daria though – maybe she’ll make a guest appearance?

At any rate, welcome back, boys – an entire generation of TV has been long overdue for your attention and it’s time to take them down as many notches as you can. 🙂

candybowl

veddy cool….

LEGO Volkswagen T1 Camper Van 10220 Time Lapse Build HD

candybowl

candybowl