AKIRA BIKE (and general Akira news and thoughts)

this promises to be Albert Hughes' finest movie since FROM HELL

i almost can't believe this is real

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-actual-live-action-akira-script-worse-than-you-think/

The only way they could be more overt would be to pencil in a new friend for Tetsuo named Ground Zero, whose only line of dialogue is "Never Forget!" screamed over a sound loop of eagles screeching. I'm only slightly exaggerating. In the intro to the movie, right as Akira is destroying the city for the first time, a grieving mother looks down at her children, Kaneda and Tetsuo, and one of the final lines out of her mouth, as the actual disaster is happening around them, is:

MOTHER

Don't ever forget.

Oh, that's another point: Kaneda and Tetsuo are brothers now, and in their early thirties. That's not the only change, either. Kaneda is now a bitter, jaded blackmarket doctor, and Tetsuo is a shell-shocked, tortured junkie, alienated from the world.

PLATOON LEADER

It's alright, Akira. Nobody's going to hurt you, son. Just come with us. And it'll all be fine.

The Little Boy looks up, HIS HAIR STANDING ON END, EMITTING A GENTLE PULSE OF STATIC ELECTRICITY as he begins to hum a slow, haunting version of "Frere Jacques." It chills to the bone.

Oh. Oh joy.

Don't worry, folks, the American version IS dead (for now at least) but this is cool:

http://io9.com/5943526/these-unused-american-akira-storyboards-are-actually-quite-gorgeous

those look pretty true to the source

IT LIVES

http://io9.com/akira-movie-lives-on-despite-everyone-trying-to-kill-i-1001620450

It's a real shame that this seems to have been dragged along in the undertow of lots of bad contemporary disaster movies, because those haunting pictures of a destroyed Tokyo (especially in the comic) and the sheer strangeness of the telepaths aren't so distinctive.

*are

That line was going to be 'aren't like anything else' but I guess they must have precursors

Rewatching this right now for class... probably haven't seen it since 1996 or something. I'd always kind of written it off in a doth-protest-too-much way - anime's not all stylized violence guys, not just that Akira stuff! But's holding up really well... so freakily disjointed and weird. Really nice to finally see it in Japanese with subtitles, much as I loved Leonardo the ninja turtle screaming TETSUUOOO four hundred times.

oh ha ha i see we already got into that upthread

https://www.facebook.com/projectakira

this is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1GO-93Nt3c#t=201

Saw the movie on a big screen for the first time in like 17 years. Still a mindfuck.

www.npr.org/2016/03/17/470558333/first-listen-bwana-capsules-pride

oh awesome that this was bumped for the bwana album, which is AMAZING. caused me to rewatch the movie the other night, but i guess i watched it so much when i was a teenager that i still have it memorized?

i also read the comic last year and was surprised to find i like the movie more? like the expanded characterization and plot and political stuff is all great but i love how ambiguous parts of the movie are. there's really nothing ambiguous about the comic

I made it through the first two books of the comic. Haven't felt inclined to finish up.

but the art!

This is a little old, and apparently based off of a comic book, but I hadn't seen it until just now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SWt6OQ4Nl4

hahaaaaaa awesome.

that's great

I have just bought the bluray. I am looking forward to watching this for the first time in... 20 years?

currently on netflix (uk), am gonna watch for the first time in... well over 20 years?

not currently on netflix uk: hey duggee including the future badge episode

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EJkQ6q7XUAErQlV.jpg

and this is the disappeared youtube link upthread (for Bartkira the Animated Trailer):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SWt6OQ4Nl4

Watching the subtitled version in a theater was a Good Idea for the day.