I Am Very Curious About This Movie

Looks like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow meets Serenity.  Thumbs up or down?  Can’t tell yet.  View the trailer here.

This makes me so unspeakably angry.

Sometimes I hate Hollywood.  They took something special to me and bastardized it.  And whoever thought of “modernizing” the story should be taken to the back and stabbed repeatedly with a spoon.  The same should be done with whoever is heading up the Streetfighter Legend of Chun-Li picture.  Good lord that is going to be so bad.  I’m about ready to go Christian Bale on somebody’s ass.

When dealing with something created in another culture or time several things need to be kept in mind:

1. Some things do not translate over languages and cultures.  American “My Sassy Girl” was a bad idea.  When you change the cultural context you can potentially lose an essential part of the subject’s soul.  Especially when you “Americanize” it.  And we wonder why the international community hates us.

2. Treat the subject with respect or leave it alone.  Respect the author’s original intentions.  Respect the original designs.  Respect the audience’s nostalgia.  Things are the way they are for a reason.  There are times when you can’t take creative license over something just because you think you know what would be “cooler.”  Understand that line.  Using present day cars and changing the design of Optimus Prime in Transformers was fine because it still held true to the general design (and it might have been weirder to shift everything back to the 80’s) and the transforming sequences kicked ass.  Putting a mouth on him was not.  Who ok’d that?  The facemask is part of what makes him infinitely more hard than Megatron.  Giving him lips made me think of James Earl Jones everytime he talked.  Don’t ask why.

3. Don’t change characters’ ethnicities.  That’s disrespectful*.

4. Since we’re on the subject of ethnicity, don’t put in random people of other ethnicities who never existed in the original story just because you want to be “fair.”  There is no affirmative action in the recreation of someone else’s world.  It just makes things look weird, corny, and fake.  I’m all for equal representation but I would never cast an asian in a Viking movie.  Neither would I cast a black knight.  There were no black knights during medieval times.  Nor were there white samurais (cough, cough).

I wish more artists produced movies–not just big suits looking to make a quick buck off an uneducated audience.

*I know, Goku technically isn’t even human, but his character was definitely meant to look Japanese–or at least asian.

Wowee!

Kollaboration 2009

After watching this promo video about 5x, I decided to buy a ticket to this year’s Kollaboration.  Not because I needed convincing, but because it was so good.  Traditionally Kollaboration has supported Korean American artists in pursuing their dreams in the entertainment industry, but this year, they’ve opened the event to showcase Asian Americans in general.  The musical talent this year looks amazing.  Check it out, and if you’re interested, buy a ticket here.

I’m so excited…

via Rottentomatoes