Comments on: Screen Bites

By: Howard Browning

Howard Browning — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:15:32 +0000

Oh stop playing the wounded fanboy Rick, er, sorry, Hikaru.

I live in Japan, and I can tell you that on average the Japanese would rather see a big hollywood version staring famous white people than an authentic all Japanese version.

The people I have spoken to are excited about the DBZ movie.

You really don’t have to be offended for them.

By: Zadillo

Zadillo — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:02:41 +0000

Hikaru, to be fair, even a straight-up Macross movie would be a fairly diverse cast. Hikaru of course would be Japanese, as would seeming Misa, but Roy Fokker and Claudia LaSalle would not be. And to some degree, character heritage aside, as is true in a lot of anime, the character designs of Misa and Hikaru are not identifiably Asian – if one were to go for actors who looked somewhat like they did in the animation, it would be tough.

Personally I’m happy to let them do some straight up live action Robotech with one of their original Robotech stories and stay as far away as possible from anything related to the actual Macross storyline or characters.

Somehow I suspect they are going to be trying to do the actual Macross story (or at least the Robotech version of it), since it is still the classic story (and if they’re going for the nostalgia factor, it’s what a lot of people think of when they think of Robotech).

In that case, the most I can hope for is some nice CGI Valkyrie action (if they had any class, they’d enlist Shoji Kawamori to help with mecha design for this, but I’m not holding my breath).

By: Hikaru Ichijo

Hikaru Ichijo — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:24:06 +0000

Kasdan is a great writer, but Maguire and co. have opted for the What’s Up, Tiger Lily? route to feed their machine. Can you say Western hegemony? Robotech is outright creative and capital theft on the part of Harmony Gold and Carl Macek, whitewashing (i.e. Anglicizing the lead characters) the original storylines then passing off the work as their own. But then again, for Hollywood to honor the original, that would require the studios to place non-white leads in the roles. When was the last time you saw an Asian lead, male or female, in an English-speaking role saving the human race in a Hollywood film? When I attended the comiccon panel led by the Harmony Gold president, I pressed him for an answer to the following question: “Will Robotech have a multiracial cast?”. He dodged the question, replying, instead, that “Robotech will be a big-budget film produced and starring Tobey Maguire.” (Thankfully, for Macross fans out there, current legal issues prohibit Harmony Gold from using the original series’ storyline. Which (hopefully) should mean that we won’t be seeing Maguire & co. inhabiting any of the roles belonging to the original Japanese characters of Macross anytime soon. But then again we’re talking about the power of Haolewood here, and given its current interest in whitewashing all things Asian Horror and action (The Grudge, The Departed), we may still have reason to fear the inevitable.)

By: Javier

Javier — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:30:17 +0000

I can´t wait for Robotech to happend!

By: HazMatMan

HazMatMan — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:08:20 +0000

Didn’t I say it already … the Hulk being the villain of Avengers …

By: Sean B

Sean B — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:34:26 +0000

Wait, so Downey is close to signing on to star in a 2010 tentpole? Umm, isn’t Iron Man II supposed to be a 1020 tentpole flick, too? Not that he couldn’t film one after the other, but it does lead credence to the rumors that Marvel and the original Iron Man team haven’t worked up how they’re going to get the sequel made in the timeframe Marvel’s established. Sounds like Downey’s staying busy in the meantime.