His words, not mine.

But they're SOOOOO pertinent here. I mean, come on guys, Leo as Kaneda, Tetsuo or even Akira himself? Gimme a fuggin break. This is easily one of the dumbest ideas in movie history, maybe as dumb as Cool World but since I haven't seen the film yet I can't say if it sucks as bad as Cool World, or Plan 9 From Outer Space, or Ishtar.

The reason I think this is dumb casting? EASY: EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE AKIRA UNIVERSE HAPPENS IN TOKYO TO JAPANESE TEENAGERS AND TWEENS.

and what is leo? a white guy, in his 30s, with ROUND eyes and lives in america. all of that adds up to one extremely foolish and ridiculous casting.

I'm so afraid to say it but does anyone disagree with me and if so why?

in the meantime while you type up your response I'm going to watch houston's own katie malloy shake her tits on american idol...

KANEDA!!!

Watc hed this at college on magic mushrooms! Did not need the shrooms by the time everything started mutate into giant Blomonge Monsters and Hell knows what was going on anyway!?

why does something have to be "live-action" to be profound? Why does the general consensus seem to be that if Hollywood deems it adaptable then it must be great?? Hollywood is about one thing: $$$$ And they will trash ANYTHING if there is the promise of a buck in it.

AKIRA the manga is a flat-out masterpiece, as is the anime. I think all these cries to convert AKIRA or GHOST IN THE SHELL into live action epics are stupid--why can't they just stand as they are?

I don't have much emotional attachment to this remake, but I really hope they make the same powerful use of silence that the original anime version did. It's used to great effect throughout the film, nowhere more so than in the apocalyptic ending. No sound could be as expressive as the silence that pervaded that mind-blowingly epic sequence. So make everyone occidental if you like, but retain the spirit, okay?

As for a live action AKIRA, I say - Good. Fucking. Luck. DiCaprio and Levitt are as good a casting choice as you can make, I guess. But a supposed first-time director taking on a project of this scope (which contains several elaborate metaphysical plots) does seem a bit risky.

I've become quite the fan of GHOST IN THE SHELL. I loved the first movie and really enjoyed the SAC-I (haven't seen SAC-II yet). It's a shame that movies like THE MATRIX have snagged so many ideas from GITS because I think the subject matter is primed for a live-action film. It's really heady stuff with great characterizations. Strangely enough, I think a lot of it would be very applicable to the world of today. So, if a live film does come to fruition, I would really like to see the material handled well.

Which brings me to my final point:

If they do bring GITS to the big screen, they better make sure they cast Motoko Kusanagi to a fucking T. Is there even an actress working today that is hot enough to play The Major?!

Ahem...I admit it. There is actually one cartoon character that I think is hot as balls...

(Actually, I more agree with others who lament H-wood's inability to find an original idea with both hands & a shovel.)

the movie is cool, but otomo's work in the novel is truly epic and this is kind of sad to me.

being that this film version will probably be set in the states with american actors, i highly doubt it will have the same resonance and impact, especially in contrast to the ending presented in the books...and as mentioned above, dicaprio is much too old to play kaneda. part of kaneda's charisma is that he is young, naive and immature.

i can't say i'm surprised though...after hollywood tried to make evangelion (making such phenomenal decisions as renaming shenji "steve" and casting american actors), and then seeing kanye west blatantly rip akira off for his stronger video while never mentioning otomo anywhere, i knew this would probably be next. the U.S. is the king of raping foreign material and turning it into disposable trash.

in the manga, much of the atmosphere at the halfway point is set by the rest of the world cutting their ties from Neo-Tokyo and not coming in to help after Takashi's death sets Akira off and destroys Tokyo for a second time...other world powers are literally just waiting for a time to come in and clean up and take over the country after the problem with Tetsuo is extinguished.

America (and I think the UN) eventually become interested in intercepting Tetsuo and has a naval carrier show up off shore. At this point, there is no Japanese military left. America, being the biggest super power, and not being able to stop Tetsuo shows how out of control the situation is.

Now, if the film takes place in the US, and the US military is wiped out halfway through, then who will be a believable superpower off shore trying to stop Tetsuo?

the filmmakers won't likely take that route, so the US military will remain as a presence throughout the film/films...which destroys the idea of having a country that is fucked, and other countries flying around like buzzards trying to claim it. The animated Akira did not utilize this element from the books, and I feel it suffered because of that, so the live action film will probably follow the same route. So that is the first reason this doesn't quite fit in the U.S. for me personally.

Also, Akira seems to be based around a fictional future that is sort of a commentary on the aftermath of Hiroshima. I think the filmmakers think Akira could work based in the states because of 9-11, but looking a little deeper, it would be more anti-military and pro uprising, which would be cool but i doubt they'll go for that...and that is one of the greatest things about the book...again something that was left out of the animated film.

at the end of the series of graphic novels, the representatives of the japanese military, along with the US and the UN try to move in to rebuild Tokyo. Kaneda and his posse show up, and tell them to get the fuck out of their country, and that their presence is not wanted there. they then create the "Great Tokyo Empire" in rememberance of Tetsuo, and take on the rest of the world who will no doubt try to take over the country.

I just don't see this working with the people of "Manhattan" isolating themselves from the rest of the United States. I guess they could try to make it work Escape from NY style, but my gut feeling is that they're going for more of an adaptation of the animated feature which is a much more inferior version...even though Otomo was adapting his own work.

I love the books so much that my immediate reaction is that to make such radical changes to the source material from the start just gets under my skin. i guess it could just be my bias taking over, but these are literally my number one favorite books and i'd hate to see a shitty film be remembered in history rather than Otomo's masterpiece that is already more than 25 years old. i guess the fact that they'd want to adapt it is a compliment, but it scares me.

didn't you just answer your own question? of you course you could make it "uniquely american". kaneda could work at kfc and tetsuo could be crazy because he watched too much reality television. that doesn't make it good. akira is already amazing, and a lot of that, at least for us americans, is because it showed some of us an insight into the japanese culture and a hyper real version of Tokyo.

But to look at it from the other side of the argument, otomo was no doubt influenced by american culture, just as leoni was influenced by american culture when he made his spaghetti westerns...and kurosawa was influenced by american culture when making his great samurai epics. it isn't about culture.

the point is: sure, they could make a great film based on akira that could work for people who know nothing about akira without it being japanese in any way. what you're dealing with here are die hard akira fans who are scared that they are going to fuck something up that means so much to so many people, and is already a masterpiece to many fans.

fear is driving the haters of an american version of akira on this talkback, and i believe it to be 100% justified.

if they're not going to do it in tokyo (which kills me to even type considering neo-tokyo sounds so damn cool), then i think the best bet would be to set it in a fictional city or a hyper real version of an existing city rather than just call it manhattan or something. but neo-new york, neo-manhattan, and neo-san francisco just sound lame.

i don't understand why comic book films have to be so grounded in reality these days, and that is one of the reasons i don't care much for the x-men films.

sure, they may be heavily based in logic and science, but to me they are flat out boring. why do filmmakers get so wrapped up in logic rather than entertainment? why can't comic book films just be balls-out entertainment?

for me, growing up with the x-men comics, i always dreamed of film versions of the stories that would be very absurd and colorful. i had hopes that the x-men would be a band of misfits hiding in the Australian outback using that aborigine guy to travel to mojo land.

but instead we get magneto being pissy about the holocaust and hours and hours of melodrama. and the x-men were always about really fucked up mutants of all sizes. i was hoping to see the gamut of characters range in size from 3 feet to tall to juggernaut being 3 stories tall...and characters like beast and sabretooth actually looking reminiscent of animals, but instead we end up with normal looking actors of normal stature who at most get some blue makeup slapped on their skin.

hopefully comic book adaptations in the future will get a little crazier and we'll see some really great and more importantly, WEIRD films.

and i know this sounds weird, but i think big boi from outkast might make a pretty good joker from the clown gang.

If they must do this, and I really hope it gets stranded in development hell then they need to write some sort of EFNY-esque backstory where after WW3 the union dissolved and Akira takes place in the Country of California.

And not call it Akira.

The man has great style, and is a visually-enhancing powerhouse. Just watch any of his shorts and you'll see that he's got "an eye" for great shooting. Hell, he was nominated for an Oscar for Christ's sake. He must be doing something right.

I know the nerds and the fan boys will give him shit, and say that Akira shouldn't be made, but don't. Stop and think about that fact that he is just the man, a cog in a bigger machine, doing the job he's been given. He won't let any of us down, and when it comes to his execution, I have no doubt that with a great script, he'll deliver a phenomenal product.

A bad one.

Only time I watch cartoons is with my kids. I have never understood why grown ass men and women want to watch foreign, dubbed cartoons? I think it's good that they're doing them in Live action, so those with a grip on adulthood may finally see them! LOL

RuRob for President! Just from talking to him about other movies and his inspirations, prior to ever even getting this assignment, it's going to be epic.