AnimeNfo

[18th Angel Kabaris (#48699)]

 casting debate!

[simon (#39337)]

this poll lacks one posibility..."kill him with a shovel"

i will see it...but if they choose him...it will be downfall.

and i don't know any good actors that could play NGE characters.

it would be best if this movie wasn't done.

maybe David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as Shinji and Asuka

David as Shinji:
hey dad...have you seen any green angels?

lol

[rossoline (#40078)]

Re: casting debate!

[slippy (#46880)]

[18th Angel Kabaris (#48699)]

replacements for Brando

[rossoline (#40078)]

[slippy (#46880)]

See, I think the philosophical and symbolic aspects of the series would be virtually killed off in such an adaptation. I don't even know how to begin to write a 2-hour screenplay to an audience who . . .

A) has never seen a robot show in their entire lives
B) are used to happy, "clean" endings
C) are expecting a summer action movie

The only viable creative approaches I see are . . .

A) tell only the beginning of the story and emphasize gundam-style action plus some "i hate you dad" melodrama
B) adapt it as a mini-series for cable
C) split it off as a 3-part trilogy and hope it doesn't kill off a studio
D) make it into a fan-service ecchi comedy. I'm all for that!

[rossoline (#40078)]

[simon (#39337)]

[rossoline (#40078)]

[slippy (#46880)]

[rossoline (#40078)]

[slippy (#46880)]

[Freddy C (#31563)]

firstly, i don't want to see this anyway, and if HP boy does get picked, the chances of me watching this will be very looooow.

but it's just a rumour that he will get picked for this, he's too busy making HP movies instead.

[slippy (#46880)]

I really don't see this movie ever happening. If this movie really is a labor-of-love, then they don't have the $$$ that true fanboys would need to do this proper. And who but fanboys would watch it? If this movie ends up being a committee thing, then you'll see an empty, FX-heavy show with some "drama" to move the plot. The former is a financial disaster. The latter really isn't Eva.

[rossoline (#40078)]

Okay, I found this commentary on the supposed intentions for the project, if anyone cares to peruse:

Maher Al-Samkari, author of "Neon Genesis Evangelion: R" and "Faren: A Dragon's Tale" posted the following on the Modus Productions online forum. It is a slightly more expansive and somewhat more revised version of a statement previously made by Tiffany Grant, English voice of Asuka, and wife of ADV co-founder Matt Greenfield. In it she adressed a number of issues, but mainly adressed the issue of quality, assuring that these films will be done by WETA with painstaking care.

QUOTE:"As you can imagine, I have received a large number of questions inquiring about various aspects of the announced live-action Evangelion movie. As I answered each question, I would add on to my earlier response, which is how I came up with this "article" on the subject. I hope this will address your concerns.

First off, there are 26 TV episodes and two movies in the Eva library (not to mention the as yet unfinished manga series by co-creator Sadamoto). The first goal is to produce a movie that encapsulates the most important elements of the early part of the series so that the viewer will not have to have seen the aforementioned 15 or so hours of video, and still leave room for one or two (maybe more?) follow up films that can finish off the story.

The movie is being produced jointly by Gainax (of course), ADV and WETA. If you are somehow NOT familiar with the WETA Workshop, this is the incredible studio founded by Peter Jackson in New Zealand that created the Lord of the Rings films - for which they just won an unprecedented number of Academy awards in a clean sweep of all categories in which they were nominated. By watching the fantastic documentaries on the LOTR DVDs, you can get an excellent idea of the kind of attention to detail that this group gives to everything they do.

Also, if you have read the LOTR, I think you will see that the characters in that iconic tome have been very faithfully brought to life. In fact, in a film adaptation of the second most read book in the English language (the Bible is the first), it is pretty well unanimously agreed that WETA got it exactly right. Bearing that in mind, I have every reason to have confidence that the same folks who hand glued every hair on each hobbit foot, will do a spectacular job with our NGE heroes.

Keep in mind that WETA will not be doing this in a vacuum either, as they will be supervised by people at both Gainax and ADV (such as my husband, of course).

As for the "slug" names used in the preliminary script (NOT the final version!!!) which appear on the production drawings, they are only used so as not to refer to them as "Pilot A" and "Captain B" etc. As has been widely discussed, the cast will be international, and mostly of European descent. Meaning, for example, if Daniel Radcliffe (Anime Insider's suggestion - NOT mine!) were to play the lead male role, it would be pretty stupid to call an ENGLISH boy "Shinji." Therefore, "Kate Rose" for example is the name they are using for the designs is in place of "Pilot of 02" or whatever.

As no actors have yet been cast, the pre-production drawings are simply pictures that are drawn of imaginary people in place of having a headless body in a plug suit. The artists are trying to design what a real-life plug suit will look like, and it would seem easier to do (and better to look at!) if the person also has a head. Remember - we don't know what the suits are even made of! Rubber? Plastic? Leather? The sketches are part of the early costuming process, and I am quite certain that when a director is found, he or she will seek out the best people for the roles. It seems quite doubtful that they would try to find a person to match a drawing.

It may also be of interest to note that there is a genuine desire to cast kids of the right age to play the main roles - NOT 22 year-olds to "play younger." Therefore, it is difficult to speculate at this early stage on who will play these roles since it is not possible to tell right now when principal filming will begin.

The show is in VERY early stages of pre-production, so nothing is final yet. ADV was just trying to share a little Eva goodness with everyone by showing off some of the thousands of production drawings that have been produced. I think they are fabulous, personally, and I eagerly await each new development in the project.

I believe you can all rest easy knowing that the films will be everything and more that we ever thought they could be."

Source: Modus Productions Online Forum

Reading this, it would seem to me that ADV at least has the intent of being faithful. It also suggests that they seem to have it in mind to try to make more than one film out of this... if that is the case, I can see it as a greater possibility for it to become consummate. After all, if they base the first movie on the earlier part of the series, they could be entirely faithful without incorporating any of the highbrow concepts that would alienate it's target audience. Then they could add all of the philosophical elements in later installments, like a bait and switch tactic, which really mirrors the style of the series, I think. So I do see hope for this IF (and probably only IF) they can make more than one flick out of it.

Otherwise, I would say i have to agree with slippy. If they actually try to make it a labor of love, they will surely meet too much resistance from paranoid producers who speak for the studio rather than the artist, and production would come to a halt. Or, they could give in to the studios demands and produce an adulteration.

For my part, I hope they can make a trilogy out of this, or something along those lines. That is the only way I can see it working. Or at least, they should go into it with the intention of making more than one, even if in the end they aren't able to if it flops. It would be better to have one movie faithful to the early part of the series and just have it end there, rather than have one movie that ruins Eva altogether.

[slippy (#46880)]

If Eva the Live Action Movie were to become a big hit, the dam will burst between anime and the American distribution market. ADV's been riding the Eva milk truck for almost ten years now -- this would elevate them into a legit production company.

I don't know . . . Random rant to follow See, one of the reasons I love Eva is that it uses a lot of progressive manga-meets-anime symbolist/ideographic/non-linear intertextual aesthetic. I've probably talked that point to death on this forum, but seriously I wish everybody could understand what I mean by all that. Because if people did, then people would stop viewing the future of anime animation as better, faster technology. If somebody watches the last half of Eva, then watched the first half of Kare Kano (and even compare it to the manga), just pay attention, for 30 seconds, one continuous series of stills, texts, and black-outs, they'll notice how this teleological progression from "static manga" to "translated expressionism" becomes the dramatic, visual vocabulary of their subconscious. It's "American Splendor" done at least two formal steps (continuous chain of visual abstractions // interior dialogue subverting story structure) ahead. Thereinlies the foundation for all of the obscurantist, philosophical structure of the series.

Without this language, you can't have Eva. It's too hard. You start with Kubrick, go through Lynch, stop by Von Trier, and have sex with Monty Python. And still all you have is a lot of screaming, crying, heretical Christian babble, and misplaced bodily fluids.

[18th Angel Kabaris (#48699)]

good points guys, but back to the casting wishlists

[rossoline (#40078)]

I found this recently and thought I would post it here for any who might be interested:



At Akon 15, the oldest running anime convention in the US, a number of new anime acquisitions were announced by Bandai, Funimation, and ADV Films...

Live Action Evangelion Update:

Still no director yet. They are in negotiation with a couple of A-list directors (hmmm...) right now, and in fact Gainax has just approved the short list of directors. Now its just a matter of negotiating out things. Until there is a director, there will be no final script. Until there is a final script, there will be no casting. Anybody you're thinking of for a main [child] character, unless they start shooting immediately, will be too old for the part. The Harry Potter movies being an example of this. If they were to cast right now, the actors would need to be at most 11-12 years-old. [Ed note: I think we can draw two conclusions from this: There will be more than one movie since they are concerned with the actors outgrowing their parts (like Harry Potter) and that the actors will be relatively unknown since they will be so young (11-12) when they are cast.]



So, looks like Daniel Radcliffe might be out of the picture (get it? out of the pic... well, whatever). I know that will come as good news to most of you.

I think Christopher Walken as Gendo might not be appropriate. That guy makes me laugh my ass of with just the sight of him, which wouldn't really work. CW is awesome.

[simon (#39337)]

[slippy (#46880)]

BTW, anybody weirded out that the States will be selling this live-action Eva back to Japan?!? That's like us doing Godzilla . . . oh never mind.

[rossoline (#40078)]

[slippy (#46880)]

[rossoline (#40078)]

[slippy (#46880)]

Yes, but do you believe they will have apple pie in NGE?

Well, I suppose the difference is akin to doing Love Hina around Shinobu rather than Naru. You explore essentially the same set of themes, but you add in uncomfortable pedo/Lolita-overtones, which amplifies the psychological and sexual conflicts within the story. Sexual desirability is about 15-16 years old, meaning it's plausible for a 16/17-year old boy/girl to date an adult and to include a non-hentai sexual angle. Go before that and you're uncomfortably treading taboo waters.

Shinji's particular scene with Asuka is especially poignant because we the "adult viewer" are forced to see too-young Asuka as a helpless Lolita-nympth, while Shinji reacts as frankly and rudely as anybody just out of junior high might. Because their sexuality is unusually vulnerable, naive, and primal, it is also rudely honest and unresolved against conventional morality. Sensuality is not that unusual in a coming-of-age mecha story, but the male characters usually are toward the end of their high school experience; we can assume they've had normal friendships with girls; we can assume they have masculine (albiet dork-male) characteristics; we can assume that their principal conflict is to act or not to act. We can't with Shinji or Asuka or Rei; they are born prematurely to this environment, and Anno accentuates this characteristic to make EofE emotionally, viscerally unbearable. Or to put it another way, if they were 17-years old (and acted as 17-year old kids do), the acting/relationship dynamics would be just different enough to make certain consequences more palatable.

Then again, maybe Keitaro might have done the same with Shinobu.

[simon (#39337)]

[slippy (#46880)]

[rossoline (#40078)]

[slippy (#46880)]

[rossoline (#40078)]

[slippy (#46880)]

[rossoline (#40078)]

@Slippy: You make some valid points. It's nice for me to see that there is someone else who interprets this stuff similarly to the way I do. I don't know about you, but no one else I know really likes anime, so I have no one to discuss this stuff with.

Btw. Kare Kano, that's His and Her Circumstances in English right? I haven't seen it, and I'm not familiar with many Japanese titles.

Was that interview with the director or writer of RahXephon? Whoever it is, I think they are completely right about the plot resolution coming in the form of merely a realization of trauma. I think that this can serve as a function of the plot in a live action movie, though not act as the plot itself. Take Amelie, for example if you've seen that. The characters of Shinji and Amelie have a lot of the same traumatic realizations throughout the course of their respective story boards I think, but the difference is that Amelie provides us with a tangible real-world (not just metaphorical) conclusion whereas Eva doesn't. I think that will be Eva's downfall taken out of the anime pretext, like you say. They would have to change it. With Amelie we see a purpose for her realizations (she changes, and doesn't just end where she began), but with Shinji we are just left wondering if there was any point to his realizations at all as we see no results come of them. Like the person from the interview said, "It's not like [he has] changed or anything".



Anyway, something occured to me recently that might be a little more on topic here:

Has anyone seen One Hour Photo? There is a scene in the Savmart where Robin William's character is talking to a boy about a toy, which happens to be none other than an NGE toy. Now, I wonder, why the Japanese toy from an obscure anime which most kids in america have never heard of rather than Ninja Turtles or something? Could it perhaps be intentional?

Let's look at the characters:

Sy the Photo Guy: Lonely man with psychological problems stemming most likely from his upbringing. No real friends, prefers to indulge in fantasy as opposed to real interaction.

Shinji: Lonely boy with psychological problems stemming most likely from his upbringing. No real friends, prefers to indulge in fantasy as opposed to real interaction.

Maybe I'm reading into it unnecessarily, but I bring it up for a reason: Maybe Mark Romanek, who wrote and directed One Hour Photo, would be a good director for Eva. Even if the allusion wasn't intentional, I think he could still do a nice job figuring out the character of Shinji.

I don't know. Just a thought.

[slippy (#46880)]

[slippy (#46880)]

[slippy (#46880)]

[Retehi (#39685)]

...ugh I have to try to watch evangelion again, thx a lot you two :p

I cannot stand it. But then, I have never taken up presumptions about Shinji's character (which is what I think I will have to do in order to stomach this show, let alone decipher it).

Last time I tried to watch the show again I made it to episode three. Shinji said something like "I can't do it. I don't want to. Who am I? blah blah."

If I am going to go around telling people this anime is a POS I had best be prepared if I come across folks like you.

[Koveras (#55131)]

Wow, wow, wow, hold on there, folks... Can someone explain me what's going on? What's this part with Harry Potter playing Shinji? I mean, is someone gonna make a REAL movie out of EVA?.. :-/

[Tabris (#53299)]

I know this is a bit of an old thread, but I hope to god that there will be no live action Evangelion.

[Last Exile (#35342)]

Live action is jsut wrong. Evangelion live action constitutes even more wrongness.