comics are kind of hard to adapt into live-action movies...
In response to this: http://cinemanerdz.com/features/top-20-comic-book-characters-that-need-a-movie-adaptation
Every mid-year cinematic season feels like it's filled with comic book adaptations. And are mostly superhero ones at that, which is generally why I don't watch them. Thor is really the only one I was curious this time around in seeing that I hadn't already seen others of. Mostly because eeee! Norse Mythology! Also, Australian actor who vaguely kinda looks like this Wellingtonian cosplayer and thus makes me do a double take. But eeee! Norse Mythology! Even if people do confuse Thor for Odin more times than I can count... (And a friend will probably force me to watch Iron Man at some point. But that showed ages ago and thus doesn't count for this mid-year season.)
Anyway, that list is nice though. There's interesting back story and graphic novels and plain old interesting characters. (I would've liked to have seen more graphic novels personally, but that's mostly because I don't read many regular comics outside of webcomics.)
I do vaguely wish that the list composer hadn't dismissed manga and anime out of hand. Even though I can think of maybe seven off the top of my head which would require at most a single token honest-to-goodness Asian guy, only two of which would really appeal to Hollywood. Those two being Gantz and Black Lagoon, because yeah, dying only to find the afterlife requires you to kill grotesque monsters in order to survive or a bunch of pirates in South-East Asia who follow orders from a Russia Mafiya headwoman? (Need I mention the skin tight suits or the fact one lead is a busty gun-toting badass?) It seems to sort of thing to appeal to the American public.
Oh! And what would have been worth a mention in that list would be that NGE adaptation that's stuck in production purgatory, despite some really NICE concept and design sketches done by Weta Workshops.
That Ghost in the Shell adaptation should be counted as well. But that has no pretty design sketches.
Seinen is not a genre to be dismissed though for not having the right material. You just kind of need to dig for the good stuff that would interest people who just want to see something different. And production studios that don't want an Asian cast. Something that isn't a mature romance or involves cats. Even if it would be interesting to see something like Victorian Romance Emma or Chi's Sweet Home adapted for America.
I still want that 3D animated Pokemon film though. Japan has the technology. America has the technology!
And I am sick of seeing trailers for whatever new asinine animal comedy is screening this school holidays. Yes, animals are easier to animate because they don't have an uncanny valley with movement or level of detail and you can show off fancy feather and scale textures, but... I kind of miss the Lion King and Finding Nemo. Which were more than a comedian or two rattling off some amusing lines and that being the sum total of the movie.
Yeah, you'd have to do a PMD or that little side series filled with side stories, several of which were Pokemon-only, but POKEMON RENDERED IN 3D WITH TEXTURES. That'd be so cool.
I will note here that animators are tackling the whole uncanny valley thing entirely the wrong way. Rather than going for hyper-realistic by applying textures and using motion capture, why not go for perfection a la Final Fantasy, where skin textures are smooth? Or the opposite direction, stylisation like in Up or Avatar. (The latter of which is debatable, but morphing human faces into non-human faces counts as stylisation for me.)
Every mid-year cinematic season feels like it's filled with comic book adaptations. And are mostly superhero ones at that, which is generally why I don't watch them. Thor is really the only one I was curious this time around in seeing that I hadn't already seen others of. Mostly because eeee! Norse Mythology! Also, Australian actor who vaguely kinda looks like this Wellingtonian cosplayer and thus makes me do a double take. But eeee! Norse Mythology! Even if people do confuse Thor for Odin more times than I can count... (And a friend will probably force me to watch Iron Man at some point. But that showed ages ago and thus doesn't count for this mid-year season.)
Anyway, that list is nice though. There's interesting back story and graphic novels and plain old interesting characters. (I would've liked to have seen more graphic novels personally, but that's mostly because I don't read many regular comics outside of webcomics.)
I do vaguely wish that the list composer hadn't dismissed manga and anime out of hand. Even though I can think of maybe seven off the top of my head which would require at most a single token honest-to-goodness Asian guy, only two of which would really appeal to Hollywood. Those two being Gantz and Black Lagoon, because yeah, dying only to find the afterlife requires you to kill grotesque monsters in order to survive or a bunch of pirates in South-East Asia who follow orders from a Russia Mafiya headwoman? (Need I mention the skin tight suits or the fact one lead is a busty gun-toting badass?) It seems to sort of thing to appeal to the American public.
Oh! And what would have been worth a mention in that list would be that NGE adaptation that's stuck in production purgatory, despite some really NICE concept and design sketches done by Weta Workshops.
That Ghost in the Shell adaptation should be counted as well. But that has no pretty design sketches.
Seinen is not a genre to be dismissed though for not having the right material. You just kind of need to dig for the good stuff that would interest people who just want to see something different. And production studios that don't want an Asian cast. Something that isn't a mature romance or involves cats. Even if it would be interesting to see something like Victorian Romance Emma or Chi's Sweet Home adapted for America.
I still want that 3D animated Pokemon film though. Japan has the technology. America has the technology!
And I am sick of seeing trailers for whatever new asinine animal comedy is screening this school holidays. Yes, animals are easier to animate because they don't have an uncanny valley with movement or level of detail and you can show off fancy feather and scale textures, but... I kind of miss the Lion King and Finding Nemo. Which were more than a comedian or two rattling off some amusing lines and that being the sum total of the movie.
Yeah, you'd have to do a PMD or that little side series filled with side stories, several of which were Pokemon-only, but POKEMON RENDERED IN 3D WITH TEXTURES. That'd be so cool.
I will note here that animators are tackling the whole uncanny valley thing entirely the wrong way. Rather than going for hyper-realistic by applying textures and using motion capture, why not go for perfection a la Final Fantasy, where skin textures are smooth? Or the opposite direction, stylisation like in Up or Avatar. (The latter of which is debatable, but morphing human faces into non-human faces counts as stylisation for me.)