posted
I'm not even sure a live action EG movie is a good thing anymore. I think the material just doesn't lend itself to that medium, especially considering the limitations OSC put on the project (i.e. no narator)
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We must put a stop to this, Gavin is going to blow up EG ): and by blow it up I mean completely tarnish the good series reputation... ---- I believe I've only seen 2 live action movies, one of them DBZ and it was well terrible... whole plot lines were destroyed... and the other I have no clue what it was...
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quote:Originally posted by Rawrain: Live action?! LIVE ACTION!!
We must put a stop to this, Gavin is going to blow up EG ): and by blow it up I mean completely tarnish the good series reputation... ---- I believe I've only seen 2 live action movies, one of them DBZ and it was well terrible... whole plot lines were destroyed... and the other I have no clue what it was...
Super Mario Brothers?
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Wait - wasn't there another script in the works five minutes ago? What about those two Star Trek guys? Weren't they making this?
Also, from the director of 'Wolverine'? I hope he learned a whole lot from making that film. About what not to do, obviously.
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quote:Originally posted by Rawrain: Live action?! LIVE ACTION!!
We must put a stop to this, Gavin is going to blow up EG ): and by blow it up I mean completely tarnish the good series reputation... ---- I believe I've only seen 2 live action movies, one of them DBZ and it was well terrible... whole plot lines were destroyed... and the other I have no clue what it was...
As my name is Gavin too, this really confused me for a second.
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quote:Originally posted by Rawrain: Live action?! LIVE ACTION!!
We must put a stop to this, Gavin is going to blow up EG ): and by blow it up I mean completely tarnish the good series reputation... ---- I believe I've only seen 2 live action movies, one of them DBZ and it was well terrible... whole plot lines were destroyed... and the other I have no clue what it was...
What's wrong with live action? Do you think animation would be better?
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quote:I believe I've only seen 2 live action movies
Wait, what? Ever? How is that possible?
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
For technical as well as dramatic reasons animation would be superior for telling the best possible story; you'ld get the comparative best bang for your buck through animation, more executive control (since there's less money involved) and you can get better voice actors.
Live action, assuming you could find actors young enough and skilled enough with a sufficient budget would be better in purely profit terms.
But I don't care about profit so long as it does *fairly well enough to be greenlit for sequels/prequels the Shadow series and the Ender Quartet* and provides me the best most accurate on screen adaption.
I don't want an Ender's Game "In name only" adaption, I don't want an adaption that has 17 year olds using Buddy talk to work around the monologues or to see the interesting strategic setting of the battleroom skimped out on in favor flashy cgi sfx fight battle scenes.
Nor do I want a Star Wars ish fleet battle, I want kids in chairs around a big giant arcade looking computers with points on a grid, make it Homeworld ish graphics if they want something that can tie into a video game fine. But it should never pan to the actual fight.
There should be no possible hint that the battles are real, you don't want to fight that battle or raise that red flag from the idiot moral guardians who'll think the movie is glorizing violence or that war games results in troubled teens.
You want the characters completely unaware (sans Bean) so you want the audience who haven't read the book to be unaware as well, maintain the suspense, maintain the books signature plot twist.
The book is cerebral, it is about the triumph of intellect and ruthlessness, not special effects beyond whats required to tell the story.
Animation would be better for telling the better story.
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quote:Live action, assuming you could find actors young enough and skilled enough with a sufficient budget would be better in purely profit terms.
We've hit on this topic before, but live action is not better only in terms of profits. There are real benefits to having gifted actors interpret the material than having an equally gifted group of animators and voice actors draw and voice everything. There are real aesthetic advantages for many people.
Animation can no more replace actors acting than painting can replace sculpting. Sure you can paint a painting of a sculpture, but it's still not going to be the same finished product, and you can't say one is flat out better than the other.
I understand you are saying that you think Ender's Game will translate best as an animated feature, and part of me agrees with you. I don't think though that it would even be nearly impossible for a fantastic live action adaptation to be completed. It would be very hard, but I think it could (and should) be attempted.
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quote:Sure you can paint a painting of a sculpture, but it's still not going to be the same finished product, and you can't say one is flat out better than the other.
quote:Live action, assuming you could find actors young enough and skilled enough with a sufficient budget would be better in purely profit terms.
We've hit on this topic before, but live action is not better only in terms of profits. There are real benefits to having gifted actors interpret the material than having an equally gifted group of animators and voice actors draw and voice everything. There are real aesthetic advantages for many people.
Animation can no more replace actors acting than painting can replace sculpting. Sure you can paint a painting of a sculpture, but it's still not going to be the same finished product, and you can't say one is flat out better than the other.
I understand you are saying that you think Ender's Game will translate best as an animated feature, and part of me agrees with you. I don't think though that it would even be nearly impossible for a fantastic live action adaptation to be completed. It would be very hard, but I think it could (and should) be attempted.
Its so hard as to be impossible, the better story. the better and best adaption lies within animation. If you look for example at Starship Operators in terms of accuracy to space warfare you'ld see that no way would a live action studio ever agree to restrain themselves from big budget "Star Wars" space battles, they are an abomination to Ender's Game.
I would be happy outside of the in universe propaganda videos to *never* during the feature see a space battle and a live action studio would insist on making the battleroom just about all about the fight between kids rather than the actual content that made them interesting in the books: Ender thinking up new and clever ways to kick ass.
A live action adaption can't do this, its anathema to the producers to focus on the tactics and brainstorming and the *thinking* Ender does, alot of it via monologue and observation. Things that I've only ever seen done right in manga's like Akagi.
Its basically Portal but with the protagonist actually speaking/internally monologuing each step of how he's going to solve the puzzle before doing it for about half the movie.
Anime can get away with this because the target audience are the people who would actually enjoy it, a live action audience thinks scifi and they're thinking Star Wars and explosions.
Or Avatar, which was craaaaaaaaap with their Mary Sue Cat Fetish People who should have had their insufferable arrogant tails NUKED FROM ORBIT and I would've laughed in delight.
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Why do you have to ruin every EG movie thread with 80 thousand posts of animaniac ranting? Just askin'.
Most of us want an intelligently written and directed mainstream movie that we can watch in theaters. Personally, I would love to see the battles in 3D.
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I think we're (I'm) down to bullet points now.
1. It would/will be sub-par as a live action movie, because of three primary challenges.
. 1(a). Requires a score of child actors required to play the primary parts, mostly as manipulative prepubescent supergeniuses.
. 1(b). Requires the casting challenges to be overcome and fit into the further challenge of a dev schedule and a screenplay that interprets a lot of new, uniquely cinematic moods to the source work to make it work with its new pacing and medium.
. 1(c). The principal intellectual property holder represents a roadblock to the options that this movie's production can take.
2. It would be utterly horrid as an anime.
3. It won't be an anime.
4. We can seriously stop talking about anime in every thread that comes up on this subject.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Aros: Blayne,
Why do you have to ruin every EG movie thread with 80 thousand posts of animaniac ranting? Just askin'.
Most of us want an intelligently written and directed mainstream movie that we can watch in theaters. Personally, I would love to see the battles in 3D.
Those are not mutually exclusive with anime, and thus you have your answer as to why I *ruin* the threads hyperbole not withstanding.
quote: It would be utterly horrid as an anime.
Bullshit. There has not been a single argument that supports this past the subjective "real actors are better at projecting EMOTION"/Less mainstream money in theaters; which is fair, but I don't want to see done to Ender's Game what was done to Transformers.
Whats going to happen to EG if made into a mainstream movie? --> Transformers.
An anime makes it less risky endeavor (because of a lower budget) and thus less studio strings to push for success in a wider demographic, it can focus on the fans and the targeted scifi fan demographic while working on a true to the book adaption.
Live Action EG ----> Transformers.
I would put that a live action film would 90% likely to suck as a true adaption due to the compromises that would be needed to be made between the writer and the production and the producers, with *alot* of hands on the project.
Suck of course defined as watcheable but not really *true* to the book.
As an animation/anime even if CGI ala Advent Children would allow for something true to the books and as such the better story even if it has less mainstream appeal.
You want bang for your book, you want economical, you want something thats likely to make a profit while at the same time not costing absurd amounts of money.
For example Firefly is an example of a great movie that costed too much while not making enough thus not greenlit for sequels.
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quote:Bullshit. There has not been a single argument that supports this past the subjective "real actors are better at projecting EMOTION"/Less mainstream money in theaters;
There were a few you missed. The response to your current 100% track record of insisting it should be pursued ideally as an anime in virtually (if not all) threads on the subject that you should most take note of is this one:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Blayne, I hate to play this card -- but as someone with Asperger's, you may want to concede that you do not necessarily perceive the human emotions of others (as reflected on faces) in the same way that "normal" people do. While cartoons might appear to you to sacrifice little emotional depth, you might consider that someone without your difficulties could see it another way.
This is not at all going into the already discussed issues of social appeal, the broad marketability of anime (which you have a VERY skewed conceptualization of, due to your obsession with the genre), and the expectations of the property holder(s).
You can, and should, make yourself open to dialogue on those subjects rather than immaturely coming out with this response.
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If you have, what's your overall impression on the quality?
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Bullshit. There has not been a single argument that supports this past the subjective "real actors are better at projecting EMOTION"/Less mainstream money in theaters;
There were a few you missed. The response to your current 100% track record of insisting it should be pursued ideally as an anime in virtually (if not all) threads on the subject that you should most take note of is this one:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Blayne, I hate to play this card -- but as someone with Asperger's, you may want to concede that you do not necessarily perceive the human emotions of others (as reflected on faces) in the same way that "normal" people do. While cartoons might appear to you to sacrifice little emotional depth, you might consider that someone without your difficulties could see it another way.
This is not at all going into the already discussed issues of social appeal, the broad marketability of anime (which you have a VERY skewed conceptualization of, due to your obsession with the genre), and the expectations of the property holder(s).
You can, and should, make yourself open to dialogue on those subjects rather than immaturely coming out with this response.
There is dishonest dichotomy here when you yourself post an anime adaption would be "horrid" not "wouldn't do well in theaters" not "not really to my preference" simply "horrid" you expect me to be open about alternatives when you yourself shutdown the discussion in the other direction?
I also do not believe my conceptualization is "skewed" I believe I had conceded it may not make as much money as a live action adaption, but that is not what I'm going for. I want the best possible adaption, and probabilistically speaking I am *only* going to get that if its animated.
A live action adaption, especially with some of the more slimshod directors I've seen pick up and then drop the subject and with the overwhelming financial success of transformers (as contrasted to its failure as a film and a failure to keep its ties with the franchise) leads me to believe that overwhelmingly, in all practical considerations a live action adaption unless skillfully done will result in a horrid shoddy work.
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quote:Its so hard as to be impossible, the better story. the better and best adaption lies within animation. If you look for example at Starship Operators in terms of accuracy to space warfare you'ld see that no way would a live action studio ever agree to restrain themselves from big budget "Star Wars" space battles, they are an abomination to Ender's Game.
This isn't an argument against live action movies, this is an argument contrasting film companies and anime/manga publishers. You are essentially saying that anime producers allow for more freedom in artistic expression, than American movie companies. Even if that's true, that does not mean live action movies cannot meet that ideal.
quote: I would be happy outside of the in universe propaganda videos to *never* during the feature see a space battle and a live action studio would insist on making the battleroom just about all about the fight between kids rather than the actual content that made them interesting in the books: Ender thinking up new and clever ways to kick ass.
It's impossible not to feature multiple space battles. We will need the propaganda history stuff, but as more than likely they are going to do the big reveal for the audience either some time before Ender gets it, if not right before, and it will be crucial for us to see it, otherwise we won't feel the emotional impact ourselves, we'd have to get it entirely from Ender and that's just asking too much from the audience.
Again you are saying a live action studio would make certain demands while an anime studio would stay faithful to the source material. You're painting film studios with a broad brush, and saying that they all hate anything good, and all they care about perfecting is the formula for making money via movies. While true for many in the industry that's just not the case for everyone.
Anime companies are just as likely to bring in certain limitations and biases. For one thing Ender's Game features a cast of people from many nationalities. I've yet to see an anime do a good adaptation of cultural nuance outside Japan. The Animatrix and Batman ones were very impressive attempts, but I still haven't seen an anime and thought, "those are Americans, they feel American." To expect one animation production company to somehow get several different nationalities and portray them distinctly and convincingly seems like an extremely tall order.
Beyond that, while there are full length CG animated/anime movies like Advent Children and Resident Evil, lets be honest, the acting in those movies was not anything better than average. Most of the characters are caricatures and there's nothing beyond your basic stereotype. Ender's Game has characters that actually fairly complex, there's so much subtlety in how they behave. Their personalities change little by little throughout the entire story. I've seen anime pull of character development, but always over a very protracted period of time. Trying to cram it all into a 2 hour feature seems like a tall order. Actors though, they can portray that with just slight altercations in the way they look, talk, move, etc. Animators *can* do it, but that's very hard to portray by one's self, actors can take multiple takes to get it right. With animation, animator draw, voice actors speak, and while there can be cuts and redoes, the expense discourages that sort of fine tuning.
The Battle Room absolutely requires us to feel the physics in the room. We need to see bodies slamming into walls then kicking off and flying with impressive force. We need to feel the weight. With live action, we get that by default, with animation we have to hope the animators are especially good at faking it. Remember the first time you saw Apollo 13? Those guys really looked like they were in space, it was a fantastic cheat they used over and over again and because we saw it for so long without a hint that they were actually in an airplane, our brains believe it. The only animated feature I can think of that tried to handle zero G was Titan AE and while I think it worked, Titan AE only had a few quick scenes with zero G, it didn't have lots of people for extended periods of time doing it.
I'm droning on, but I don't think you realize Blayne that anime isn't some sort of replacement for cinema. Cinema is still progressing, growing, break down doors. Anime is a wonderful alternative format, but it isn't transcending the traditional format, and cinema is not all about profits.
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Whether it's a live-action or animated movie overall, I guarantee that any zero-gee wall-slams will be the work of an animator Posts: 2048 | Registered: Jul 2000
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I think it would work best animated, but more western animation. I don't think anime can convey emotion clearly.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: The book is cerebral, it is about the triumph of intellect and ruthlessness, not special effects beyond whats required to tell the story.
Triumph of intellect and ruthlessness is what you get out of it? I suppose if read in isolation from the rest of the Ender Quartet you might get this, but I think this sentiment ignores the assorted tragedies underpinning this "triumph", which I think the plot twist makes pretty clear.
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I'm really not seeing the age thing being an issue here.
Is it not apparent that they're going to have the majority of interaction take place about age 11-12, with the child cast probably ranging from 13-15? Problem solved, really. They can still have the Stilson fight and whatnot with a younger kid. Shouldn't be too difficult. Chris Columbus isn't directing; it should be fine.
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EG is apparently about whatever transient point Blayne is making right now. Disregarding the incredible extent to which it is also about, among other things, just what intellect mated with ruthlessness *costs*.
quote:Originally posted by rollainm: I'm really not seeing the age thing being an issue here.
Is it not apparent that they're going to have the majority of interaction take place about age 11-12, with the child cast probably ranging from 13-15? Problem solved, really.
Think of how many movies you've seen with a primarily child cast in a movie which aspires to the same seriousness and gravity (gravityless gravity?) that Card demands of this movie. Think of the available talent pool with acting experience who can, at that age, be the primary driving force in a movie where the human relationships have to drive the story. It's not insurmountable, but it presents a stratospheric challenge level in figuring out who's going to be able to make this work before you reach a point of no return investment where the movie's just going to have to get made and released with what they ended up being able to do. Saying "Problem solved, really" is the best laid plans of mice and men.
I'm not saying it's insurmountable, just nearly assuredly a challenge well above and beyond the savviness level of who will end up involved.
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But considering the ethnic make up of the kids in Battle School, in casting this you could pretty much go all over the world, picking out the very best kids. Asia, Africa, Australia, the Americas, as well as Europe. You've got millions to choose from.
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quote:Originally posted by Geoffrey Card: Whether it's a live-action or animated movie overall, I guarantee that any zero-gee wall-slams will be the work of an animator
True true, but it's very likely they will use stunt men with those bulbs all over their bodies, do some slightly lower impact crashes with a green screen, and then add more speed and inertia to the finished product.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Probably will have a much, much easier time of it; for starters, the leads can be adults.
Though they shouldn't be.
They should be. When you are optioning your talent, you have to pick the best possible option, and for teens, you usually get adults. Most serious roles cast for characters which are in their teens are played by adults. And unless a Hailee Steinfeld wanders by, the adult talent is going to be superior.
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The leads in the hunger games were 17. You can easily cast them as adults, as is typical for ANY show where your leads are high school age.
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I think a good director can get a great performance out of any actor, but this is Gavin Hood. It's hard to judge how he'll be, since Totsi was well-made and complex, but then there was Wolverine. (I haven't actually seen Wolverine, so I'm putting it in my Netflix cue so I can properly judge the movie.)
Still, it's probably safe to say the poor child would need to be precocious to pull it off, and precocious children have a tendency to struggle as adults.
I think having the adults carry the film would be fine.
Sixth Sense worked in that same vein. Bruce Willis was technically the focus, but few people remember his performance over Osment's. A really good Ender could overshadow the adults. The best bet is to see what you get first before deciding who will be required to carry the film. (Or film it and let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes the best performances come from places the director didn't expect.)
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: The leads in the hunger games were 17. You can easily cast them as adults, as is typical for ANY show where your leads are high school age.
Were they 17? I honestly can't remember, but I thought Katniss was at LEAST 15. Either way, it's not that great a leap from 15 to 18. It does get a little silly to me when they cast someone who looks FAR too mature for the role, but a young adult would easily suffice.
Even if they don't though, you aren't talking about nearly as many "children" that need serious casting. Really, you only need Peeta, Katniss, and Rue - who will need to be an actual child. So, you're only talking about 1 pre-teen and 2 teens. I don't see that as too terribly difficult to achieve.
I think they're going to have a much harder time just figuring out how to get Katniss onto the screen to begin with. It's like the Swedish movies for the Millennium trilogy. They ended up having to tame Lizbeth's character in order to get her on screen, and I fear they'll have to do that with Katniss as well. I think she's even harder to do than Ender without being able to show the introspective angle. You couldn't even really have her "self narrate" the story because it's just something she'd NEVER do... Maybe you could have Prim do it???
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I'll bet this has already been pointed out, but I just thought of how to get past a few real hardships of making EG into a movie.
Make the whole thing (mostly) a flash back at Graff's trail, using the monitor, and security footage and Graff's testimony as a kind of narration.
This way the focus is on Ender as a monster, with Graff defending him, slowly revealing the story as it plays out.
It would take a bit of subtly in the writing to not reveal too much too soon, but as a structure it could take a lot of pressure off of a preteen cast as well as a less heavy handed way of explaining what was going on in Ender's head.
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quote:Even if they don't though, you aren't talking about nearly as many "children" that need serious casting.
RLM went a little into how child actors can easily be the kiss of death for a movie, and it's something that A/V Club said you have to 'strike gold just to avoid.'
It's easier when you only have to strike gold once (Osment, Steinfeld, to a lesser extent, Fanning) and can mostly rely on dialogging where they're bouncing off of fully mature actors.
Ender's Game is children mostly dialoguing with other children children playing complex, credulity-stretching ideals (they're all supergeniuses, etc)
I really don't think I can overstate it enough: the challenge that casting and production face in having to pull together a workable child cast — and saw their performances into a workable screenplay — is stratospheric.
To top it off, they're all specific nationalities that have to be cast towards or fudged, and they're going to have to fudge them. I could offer you money guarantees. ("Okay, you're a spaniard kid, so .. like, drop the mid-american thing and use swear words like 'mearde.'").
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Only Spaniards would have an accent. The book mentions that they are the only nation who teaches Standard second so that the speech patterns are already set.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: The book is cerebral, it is about the triumph of intellect and ruthlessness, not special effects beyond whats required to tell the story.
Triumph of intellect and ruthlessness is what you get out of it? I suppose if read in isolation from the rest of the Ender Quartet you might get this, but I think this sentiment ignores the assorted tragedies underpinning this "triumph", which I think the plot twist makes pretty clear.
And its not like there's 3 other movies in which to flesh out and shake off this impression, Ender spends the rest of the series trying to find redemption, absent those books that is what comes across.
You don't make the movie expecting Xenocide and etc you make the EG movie based on EG & ES and nothing else. If you want to touch into the other books thats what the other movies would be for once you get to that point.
Exception being if the movie also includes Ender in Exile, in which case its a different story, that deals more in depth with Ender's loss and guilt.
quote: The differences between manga and anime are vast.
Animation flattens and narrows characters expression of emotion. Necessarily. Inescapably. It wouldn't be a good choice for Ender's Game.
I say that as someone who loves anime.
I haven't mentioned emotion in this thread and not getting into it as its obvious there's a fundamental difference of opinion on this subject.
I want the best story and the best adaption, I can't get this from a live action adaption because the directors ultimately going to get this project will likely not have the talent to do so.
quote: This isn't an argument against live action movies, this is an argument contrasting film companies and anime/manga publishers. You are essentially saying that anime producers allow for more freedom in artistic expression, than American movie companies. Even if that's true, that does not mean live action movies cannot meet that ideal.
I've never said they couldn't only that its extremely unlikely in this instance.
My point is this Animation = lower budget, => more authoritative controls from the rights originator. Its about probability and practicality.
quote: Anime companies are just as likely to bring in certain limitations and biases. For one thing Ender's Game features a cast of people from many nationalities. I've yet to see an anime do a good adaptation of cultural nuance outside Japan.
he Animatrix and Batman ones were very impressive attempts, but I still haven't seen an anime and thought, "those are Americans, they feel American." To expect one animation production company to somehow get several different nationalities and portray them distinctly and convincingly seems like an extremely tall order.
Dude, there's like several. Eden of the East does the US pretty well, there was one on 1920's China, another one involving Chicago, Black Lagoon, Gunslinger Girl, holy shit Heroman pretty much hands down gets the US down perfectly, etc. Not counting the dozens that noncomedically feature foreign characters.
Have you watched anime recently? Like past 5 years?
And they're not needing to get 100% of the foreign culture down pat, Mr Card doesn't exactly sperg' about Thailand or China except in the vague "Foreign Culture 101" simplification needed to grant additional depth to Hot Soup and others when their turn in the spotlight comes around in the Shadow Series. Anime does background art of foreign places *extremely* well and tends to have superb research when they aren't a comedy (and even some of the comedies either through "Fridge Brilliance" or Reality is Unrealistic get some obscure details right as a form of genius bonus, like Axis Powers Hetelia).
Also they're children in space the whole point of the BattleSchool was to internationalize them in order to make them less likely to be loyal to their home governments when the peace on earth fell apart at the end of the Formic Wars, also just because its getting animated doesn't mean the first language of the film is japanese, AND we have Mr Card himself who can flesh out the Battleschool slang.
In fact you would be going against the books here, adding in national trivia and cultural mannerisms isn't accurate to the books. The administration did everything they could to stamp that out, speaking IF Standard (English) not national holidays and generally afaik no humanities classes or religious education that would make them more aware.
ninja edit: one exception being the French characters like Benard. It goes to show that there's no way to distinguish the characters cultures in the book unless their stated, Benard is french, and uses some Gratuitous French from time to time. But no one else ever really uses their home language or mannerisms to any significance unless its "in private".
Which pretty much proves my point, strip out the dialogue or exposition that tells which which character is from which country and you'll never be able to know unless their name like Petra's is particularly obvious.
I never figured out Shen is Japanese until the Shadow books for example.
Honestly this is more of an issue if an adaption for the Shadow Series and the rest of the Ender Quartet was made but even then, a trivial one as I can name many manga and anime that *do* do foreign cultures convincingly enough. (And that one "generic eastern european" setting episode of Justice League Unlimited)
Heck, I suspect that a live action adaption would fall prey to "Americantis" and end up with the cultural makeup of the United States instead of the world (which we know from the books was primarily made up of Asians, especially Thais).
Just because its outsourced to an animation studio doesn't mean we somehow lose directorial authorship to said studio, look at the Halo anime.
Oh, another nail in the coffin of "anime/cgi lacks emotional depth" effing Red vs Blue.
They don't even have faces.
quote: Beyond that, while there are full length CG animated/anime movies like Advent Children and Resident Evil, lets be honest, the acting in those movies was not anything better than average. Most of the characters are caricatures and there's nothing beyond your basic stereotype. Ender's Game has characters that actually fairly complex, there's so much subtlety in how they behave. Their personalities change little by little throughout the entire story. I've seen anime pull of character development, but always over a very protracted period of time. Trying to cram it all into a 2 hour feature seems like a tall order. Actors though, they can portray that with just slight altercations in the way they look, talk, move, etc. Animators *can* do it, but that's very hard to portray by one's self, actors can take multiple takes to get it right. With animation, animator draw, voice actors speak, and while there can be cuts and redoes, the expense discourages that sort of fine tuning.
Those aren't anime adaptions or even book adaptions but video game adaptions they have their own problems that aren't related. Also see Red vs Blue.
quote: The Battle Room absolutely requires us to feel the physics in the room. We need to see bodies slamming into walls then kicking off and flying with impressive force. We need to feel the weight. With live action, we get that by default, with animation we have to hope the animators are especially good at faking it. Remember the first time you saw Apollo 13? Those guys really looked like they were in space, it was a fantastic cheat they used over and over again and because we saw it for so long without a hint that they were actually in an airplane, our brains believe it. The only animated feature I can think of that tried to handle zero G was Titan AE and while I think it worked, Titan AE only had a few quick scenes with zero G, it didn't have lots of people for extended periods of time doing it.
Titan AE was relatively low budget, so if it "worked" for short scenes you do realize that's actually good evidence that it could work for extended sequences so long as the budget and effort was there right?
I think in general Titan AE is probably a good example of what I'ld be looking for, though I'ld be alright with Studio 4 degrees celcius doing it.
Shaft, totally needs to be Shaft as a collaborator when it comes to the Giant's Playground. They excel in mindscrewery.
quote: I'm droning on, but I don't think you realize Blayne that anime isn't some sort of replacement for cinema. Cinema is still progressing, growing, break down doors. Anime is a wonderful alternative format, but it isn't transcending the traditional format, and cinema is not all about profits.
*slow sarcastic clapping* bravo for completely misunderstanding my entire argument.
First of all if its a wonderful alternative format if it can properly tell the story it'll still be relative to its format a success even if "acting/emotion blah isn't what it could be in live action" not that child actors would be able to do a better job than their animated counterparts but at least you could get older women/slightly older males to play the parts convincingly.
Second of all I've never said it was a replacement (in this thread anyways), only that for the purposes of this movie with the current climate and huffle puffle and produceral hot potato with the rights to the movie an animated work would have a much higher chance to actually get made than a live action one.
Look at all the changes made to Avatar The Last Airbender as a perfect example of a franchise under assault from the transference to the live action big screen.
quote: I think it would work best animated, but more western animation. I don't think anime can convey emotion clearly.
Dude. That doesn't even begin to make sense.
first question, did you know that there's more than one style of animation within the anime format?
Some examples, ideally I'ld want something akin to a mix/blend in the top right 3; though I wouldn't be opposed to a graphic novel adaption that was more cartoony of some of the short stories and the later books.
quote: A lot of it is stylized
Not really valid, you just need to find a non stylized style.
I include CGI within the "animation" category along with more "western" style like Titan AE (which is a mix).
Also CGI *is* there, re: Advent Children. Which was quite a few years ago now so the technology is certainly there by now.
quote: EG isn't 'nerds triumph.'
Have you never read the Authors Forward in Ender's Game? It's entirely picked on nerds in elementary and high school who identify with Ender the most.
quote: But considering the ethnic make up of the kids in Battle School, in casting this you could pretty much go all over the world, picking out the very best kids. Asia, Africa, Australia, the Americas, as well as Europe. You've got millions to choose from.
*cough, film actors guild cough*
I'm not even sure its even legal to use foreign actors that straight forwardly.
I'm pretty sure in general if it is possible it'll have enough hoops to go through to make it a prohibitive effort requiring to hire locally in the States/Canada instead.
quote: To top it off, they're all specific nationalities that have to be cast towards or fudged, and they're going to have to fudge them. I could offer you money guarantees. ("Okay, you're a spaniard kid, so .. like, drop the mid-american thing and use swear words like 'mearde.'").
Exactly.
quote: Only Spaniards would have an accent. The book mentions that they are the only nation who teaches Standard second so that the speech patterns are already set.
This was actually French, not that hard for the US do to Louisiana and Quebec being in a relatively easy access but still, Pareasian french is different from Quebec french and they can tell.
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quote: Also they're children in space the whole point of the BattleSchool was to internationalize them in order to make them less likely to be loyal to their home governments when the peace on earth fell apart at the end of the Formic Wars, also just because its getting animated doesn't mean the first language of the film is japanese, AND we have Mr Card himself who can flesh out the Battleschool slang.
This was not, in fact, the whole point of Battleschool.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote: Also they're children in space the whole point of the BattleSchool was to internationalize them in order to make them less likely to be loyal to their home governments when the peace on earth fell apart at the end of the Formic Wars, also just because its getting animated doesn't mean the first language of the film is japanese, AND we have Mr Card himself who can flesh out the Battleschool slang.
This was not, in fact, the whole point of Battleschool.
I'm talking its political context, not its military context. The reason for being in space, etc. Arguing over that is just nitpicking.
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Yes Blayne. Claiming the specific point you made, one which was demonstratably wrong and that you didn't explain in detail at the time, is nitpicking.
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