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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Neon Genesis Evangelion Goes Live

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23:16 / 21.05.03

ADV Films President and CEO John Ledford today publicly confirmed industry rumors that the firm has acquired the rights to produce, and has already begun development of, a live-action feature-film based on the Japanese animated television series “Neon Genesis Evangelion”

Long since rumoured, it looks like this is actually getting serious. Visual effects will be by Weta Workshop (who were responsible for LOTR) who will be responsible for bringing the huge Evangelion units to life, making Rei's hair not look like a wig and making the Angels look like a serious threat - including that crap Rubik's Cube one. I look forward to seeing how they handle the sensitive and tasteful scene of Shinji having a wank over Asuka

More info here: ADV Films

Is this a good thing? Can animated films make the leap to live action and retain the spirit of the original? Let's have some feedback.....

Please note that bad puns and jokes revolving around NERV (as in "Oooo - they've got a NERV") are already pre-owned and will be available for bids on Ebay in the near future.

00:01 / 22.05.03

Can animated films make the leap to live action and retain the spirit of the original?

Hm. I'm not aware of any positive examples of this...

Pirate Ven Will Teach You To Lambada (The Forbidden Dance)

00:21 / 22.05.03

I can't think of any good examples either (IRIA came to mind, but I never saw the live action for that, and it looked like shit...), but I'm pretty tired, just got home, etc. etc.
Just had to add that I took look forward to seeing how they handle the "...I'm so fucked up." scene..
That and the utter psychedelic beauty of Reingel/the second half of End of Eva...

Foust is SO authentic

01:40 / 22.05.03

But wasn't LotR originally an animated movie?

07:39 / 22.05.03

I thought it was a book.

Um, I think a live actoin EVA is a fucking stupid idea. I really do. Leave it as it is, folks! You can't cram everything into a two-three hour movie anyway. WETA is a good thing to have on board, Sephirothic trees agogo... but just no.

This sounds slightly better realised than the "live action Akira" nonsense that's been going around. That is not hard.

22:35 / 22.05.03

I agree. The Judeo-Christian references will probably be way toned down, if not taken out altogether. I once heard that Anno included a lot of this stuff without realising that the series and movies would become such a cult worldwide hit, and that in retrospect he may have reconsidered had he known that there'd be a relatively large Western audience.

Personally I think it's a major strength of the show: we're so familiar with mainstream Christianity that it's eye opening to see it handled as though it were a mystic, esoteric system. Some of Anno's riffs on less well known ideas were fascinating. It's possible that a well made live action movie might help spread the ideas to people who aren't familiar with them, but it'd have to be handled a lot better than Reloaded.

The whole mecha phenomenon doesn't make much sense unless you have an affection for anime in general. It's not like superheros, where an essentially silly subject has a huge cultural resonance allowing an audience to suspend disbelief. I suppose there's a crossover into the video/strategy game fields, but I still just can't imagine a large market.

So, will it be a Japanese cast? International would be nice. An American cast fills me with foreboding. The whole idea fills me with foreboding - Evangelion is not a nice, pretty, tidy story. It's a mess of well realised, human characters, painful relationships and unresolved trauma, and that's not something you can take out of the story, as it's essential to the themes. And there is far too much material to consolidate, too.

I think Serial Experiments: Lain would make a much more satisfying remake. It could be done on a pretty low budget, and instantly find a home with a cult audience. Most importantly it could be compressed into a movie without losing too much.

00:32 / 23.05.03

I saw the first two episodes of this series and just didn't get it. The basic premise was that a little kid has to pilot a giant robot and save the world, which makes it exactly like 90% of the other anime out there. What makes Evangelion worth watching?

03:38 / 23.05.03

The other 24 episodes.

11:38 / 23.05.03

Thjatsi: the first twelve episodes are a bit of a Trojan Horse. Evangelion starts by setting up all the usual mecha conventions, making reference to other series, establishing pretty typical anime character types, and shows only a few glimpses of what is to come...

...then episode thirteen hits, and everything gets bugfucked. Seriously. The show has issues. I'm not going to spoil anything for you, but it has an ending which was even more controversial than The Prisoner - there were death threats, remakes, endless speculation over the meaning of episodes 25, 26 and End of Evangelion. I'd love to see a detailed Jungian and Freudian analysis of the show: bizarre three dimensional spear/cross which encases a clone of a divine being penetrating a forehead vagina full the seven eyes of God indeed.

17:26 / 09.06.03

On the subject of Anno's psychology fascination: has anyone seen Gunbuster? There's actually a character najmed Jung-Freud!

Here's some WETA pre-production art, including a lovingly rendered portrayal of Asuka's fourteen year old ass. Makes me wonder if they're gonna change the age of the pilots...

20:01 / 09.06.03

I heard Nicholas Cage was being considered for the lead.

20:02 / 09.06.03

Which issue of Newtype were these taken from I wonder? I've obviously missed that issue....

Not sure about the shot of Asuka - she's less the 14 year old fiesty gob-on-a-stick and more lap dancer in FHM photo-shoot. I guess this means that the age of the pilots will indeed be whacked up.

I just hope the film version answers the crucial questions we've all been asking such as: Ritsuko and Maya - are they or aren't they? Gendo - How many lemons does he get through in a day? The angels - how do you pronounce those names without looking like a fool? Fan service - are we getting enough?

20:11 / 09.06.03

Nic Cage? Please be kidding.

It'd be the Prickly Porcupine's Dilemma.

Damn. Only about four people in the world are going to get that shitty joke.

15:56 / 10.06.03

More importantly than all that: Will Pen Pen be in it?!

Uatu.is.watching

18:25 / 13.06.03

Of course. Played by Nic Cage.

The Jungle Keeper's Old Smoky Pipe, Haunted by The Black Dog Spirit

15:53 / 18.06.03

Good one...

poor PenPen!

11:27 / 27.06.03

The live action Evangelion movie has a budget of 100 million. As many of you know, Weta, the art and special effect folks behind LOTR, is involved as well. According to Matt, "If they do half of what they've sketched, it will be the most amazing sci-fi movie you'll ever see." The movie will be shot partially on location in New Zealand and will feature an international cast. The movie will not be a prequel or sequel, but a new retelling of the story in a feature format.

On a related note, the folks from Gainax were very tight-lipped about the movie, dodging the questions or suggesting we talk to ADV. They did, however, bring and show some proofs for the big Gainax spread that's coming out in the July Newtype-USA. Apparently, a lot of information about the movie will be revealed in the articles and they didn't want to give anything away.

Link

12:20 / 27.06.03

Also, they've been working on a remastering of the original animation series under the label of 'Renewal Of Evangelion'. This boasts sharper images and 5.1 channel Surround Sound.

You won't appreciate watching Shinji wanking off until you've seen him wanking off with sharper pictures and 5.1 sound....

Apparently, the first remastered DVD has been released already in Japan and this will be followed by a new DVD box set containing all 26 episodes, a retake of Episode 4 and special features.

13:59 / 27.06.03

Hummmmmm Live action.....
If they pull it off .. ok I'll stop

If they make it work, it will probably be, as mentioned already, the best Sci-Fi movie ever made. EVA is still one of the best Anime's ever made, and is my personal all time favourite.

Now I could, without a doubt, see EVA being made Final Fantasy/Animatrix (FFotO) style and being wicked, it would work so well in that format. They could even use the original voices.

The main problem I see with a live action version, in fact making a film at all, is that so much happened, story, plot, character building etc etc that trying to fit it all in three let alone one film would mean a huge cutting mission, maybe even a re-write of the story to make it work in that format and frankly that would kill it.

Don't get me wrong I'll go and see it when it comes out, but if they crap it up or have me saying "I just watched something completely different", someone at ADV will be receiving some 'poo post' !

IFS

08:53 / 28.06.03

I can actually see this working now... at a push. Whether they'll actually play it out like this is another matter.

The main problem is the episodic nature of the Angel's attacks: it just won't work in a feature film to have the same structure repeated endlessly. It wouldn't even work in a series of movies. The anime is essentially a group of people sitting around, waiting to be attacked, destroying the Angels using whatever the deus ex machina happens to be that week. The reason it worked in the series was because of the escalating trauma of each attack and the effects it had on the characters.

Now, if the movie has an international cast, you could concievably have a number of the Angel attacks taking place off-screen, in different parts of the world to the main action (other locations for Eva production having already been established in the anime). You could also have more than one Angel attacking at the same time. This takes the edge off the repetition and also serves to reduce the running time (although I can't see how the story and characters could be sufficiently developed in anything less than three/three and a half hours).

Of course, it'll take one hell of a writer to be able to pull of the job of condensing that much material. It'll also take one hell of a cast, especially for Shinji, Rei and Asuka - they're extremely challenging, thankless roles. And it'll be an enormous directorial task, having to change styles from drama to action to Lynchian wierdness to apocalyptic mindfuckery.

20:15 / 28.07.03

Anno seems to be behind the movie, something thgat surprises me (click here for an excerpted interview, as well as a site for keeping track of the movie's development). Apparently WETA have turned down two other movies to work on Evangelion, and Richard Taylor seems to be giving it his all.

13:22 / 18.02.04

Muchos more Weta concept art here.

From here:

As for the interview with Executive producer Matthew Greenfield, here are the details we now know:
The script, which Greenfield took time out of his honeymoon to work with, is being shown around to various parties in order to bring more staff and crew into the project - even though the script is a very first draft and will most likely change drastically (depending on the director).
The story will be self-contained and if successful, will make way for sequels. Greenfield used Matrix Reloaded as an example of what he is trying to avoid creating.

Meaning Greenfield thought Reloaded failed as a movie because it didn't end properly, just leaving everything hanging, and the current NGE script retells the events of the first half of the anime. Ending, presumably, just before everything goes madfuckmental.

19:22 / 18.02.04

I fucking loved NGE. One day I was surfing the internet and decided that I wanted to buy a Mecha model, so I went looking for one and found EVA 01 Test type. Never heard of the series before. Now I have ALL the bandai models (angels included) and the whole series and the films on DVD.

In my opinion if they make it violent like an 18 rating and re-write the whole thing so it actualy worked live style it might work. But how can they put all that info into a 2 hour(?) film? Theres just so mush going on. They'd have to approach it from different angle surely? Fuck that. I just wanna see EVA01 go berserk and eat an angel.
It'd be worth it for that alone!

08:45 / 19.02.04

The art looks lovely. But doesn't the Test Type have a mouth because it's modelled after one of the Barons of Hell (with the other Evas having their own distinguishiong features)? Defeats the object if they all have mouths and teeth.

Oh good G-d. Look at what I've become. Sorry, guys.

10:30 / 19.02.04

No, let me join you right there in nerdville for a bit. I don't think the presence of a mouth on EVA 00 matters too much, as long as the main identifying feature - the cycloptic eye - remains and the teeth aren't as pronounced as on EVA 01.

Realised last night that Greenfield is credited as the English language version's producer, director and writer. At least we can presume that one of the people driving this thing - until the studios get involved and get rid of him - has a good understanding of the subject matter.

21:17 / 19.02.04

Who could possibly direct this?

23:14 / 19.02.04

Lynch and Scorsese in collaboration.

Failing that, Alan Smithee.

08:20 / 20.02.04

How about Takashi Miike? If he didn't mess with it too much, that is.

08:29 / 20.02.04

Or Ang Lee? If he didn't mess with it, again...

16:15 / 20.02.04

Not sure about the movie but Seth has made me get the series after his description of the later episodes...

I have the movie Death and Rebirth, can I watch that before I watch the series or does it spoil?

There's an anime thread around somewhere, maybe I'll try and resurrect that?

17:37 / 20.02.04

Oh wow - just caught up with the concept art, and they really do appear to be onto something. Only subtle changes, but they're very effective. Weta are basically adding coherency - anime often leaves gaps or things out of shot, and Weta are clearly designing a more cohesive whole. For instance, I really like the Eva hanger. Not sure about character renaming/reassigning... but let's wait and see. I would place money on however crap the film is, the Eva sequences should be great.

Ang Lee - yes, as long as they don't mo-cap him for an Eva.

Actually, bonkers idea, but given his ability to just degrade his casts: Lars Von Trier. After all, if Vinterberg can make It's All About Love (which I loved), maybe Von Trier can escape the Dogme confines too...

20:10 / 20.02.04

Bear: Don't watch Death and Rebirth before the series. Death condenses the events of the series into one episode, but throws a couple of extra scenes in, and Rebirth is actually the first half of End of Evangelion.

01:23 / 21.02.04

It's a boring answer, but I think David Fincher would be a perfect choice as a Director. He's bankable, kinda creepy, and by christ, it just makes sense.

Now everyone knows they're going to gentrify it. We'll get different names, less violence, less Freudian comentary. You just know it's going to happen. But I'm wondering, is there a way to turn that into a good thing?

What can they work on thats already in the series that would leave both the fans and the masses happy?

01:29 / 21.02.04

Oh, and seth, I think on one of the DVD commentarys they mention something about how the number of eyes on the three evas were based on some hellish creature or other, but they don't seem to have messed with those, so maybe they are paying serious attention to the undertones.

Gives you a little hope realy.

05:46 / 21.02.04

They were modeled after the Barons of Hell.

Actually, I think the Wachowski Bros. should direct it. After all, they've got their hands on V for Vendetta...

Heh.

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