I’ve never read Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s Akira manga, and the last time I saw the anime adaptation of it—which Ôtomo directed—I was in high school. (The only things I remember about it are that the motorcycles looked badass, it ended with some kind of mutated thing and a nuclear explosion [possibly a mutated thing turning into a nuclear explosion?], and that I understood none of it.) Akira‘s been rumored to be getting an American remake for a while now, with—unsurprisingly—the action being moved from Japan to New York, and the cast being chock full of white dudes. The current casting shortlist reads like a who’s who of actors my girlfriend has crushes on. Via Deadline:
The picture is finally taking shape for an August start, following the delivery of a rewrite by Steve Kloves that has director Albert Hughes and the studio brass excited. The story takes place in the rebuilt New Manhattan where a leader of a biker gang saves his friend from a medical experiment. There are two major roles, and I’m told that for Tetsuo, Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy have been given the new script. For the role of Kaneda, the script has been given to Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix.
(Okay, FINE, even I kind of have a crush on Andrew Garfield. WHO DOESN’T, I ASK.)
You know who does remember/understand Akira, though? Local podcaster (and occasional Mercury freelancer) Bobby “Fatboy” Roberts, who’s posted some thoughts about the remake over on his blog. He’s got some pretty good points.
There’s no way to adapt this story without bumping up against some serious problems. Ôtomo himself didn’t do it all that well. But there’s two decades’ worth of time with the material, of familiarity with the text, of audiences steeping in the imagery and the aesthetic. In fact, while the comics industry continues to suffer shrinking audiences and a general inability to crack any market other than the stranglehold it has on arrested adolescents from the mid-’90s, manga and anime are enjoying ridiculous success. Trying to tackle Akira in 2011 would be hard, but it’d be a hell of lot easier than the late ’80s had it.
Of all the problems I anticipated, I never thought whitewashing the fucking cast would be one of them.
I didn’t think taking Japan out of the story entirely would be another.
And yet Akira, a story that depends very much on Japanese history, on understanding the effects of being the only country to have nuclear weapons dropped on them, will be set in New York.
The whole thing’s worth a read—especially since groups like Racebending, the community that voiced their justified anger when M. Night Shyamalan made The Last Airbender with a bunch of white kids—are already making their concerns known about the film. Read Bobby’s piece here.
Nerd.
All of these actors are far too old for these roles. I don’t buy any of them as ‘at risk’ youths.
Jesus, nerds.
I loved Akira as a high schooler, even though I had (and have) absolutely no fucking clue what was going on, including no fucking clue how Akira had anything to do with Japanese history.
It’s a beautiful, ass-kicking action movie about an out-of-control fucked-up future, and it could be wildly appreciated by people who had no fucking clue what was going on. Why can’t we make a movie about that set in NY that includes some white people?
Would we be whining as much if the remake were set in dystopic future Nairobi and featured mostly black people?
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I meant that boo about the Akira remake, not Fatboy’s piece. I liked that.
White people are a tiny minority of Nairobi, so one would expect a story set there to feature mostly black people, unless of course it’s set in a dystopian future in which the black population has been wiped out. Non-Hispanic whites make up only about a 1/3 of NYC, so if all or nearly all the principals in the Akira remake are white, does that mean that whites will have re-conquered the city and killed or driven out the non-white majority?
No, we white folks still generally tend to think of ourselves as the generic “regular” human beings. Lots of white folks argue that they represent the “real America” and that English is the “national language” (having in mind the mainstream of spoken English of course, not including African-American vernacular or anything like that) even though such things are not only vague and untrue but essentially xenophobic and/or racist. But the most of the filmgoing public that will make or break a big blockbuster still wants to see a nearly-all-white cast most of the time, unless occasionally with film explicitly *about* other racial or ethnic groups per se. Or we’ll generally accept a black costar in something like a buddy flick about cops. And beautiful, light-skinned black women like Halle Berry and Beyonce are generally always welcome to the white filmgoing party. But in general, anything set in New York that actually looks like the city is not going to make boatloads of cash.
@ geyser, Thanks for putting that novella in my mouth, out of “some white people.”
As you pointed out, making films is about money. Putting aside NY, where whites make up the largest segment of the population, the film would be released nationally, where whites make up the majority of filmgoers, and have generally stupid, unimaginative tastes. They will thus get a stupid, unimaginative action movie starring more white people.
All that I am saying is that from a creative standpoint, the strength of the basic story doesn’t depend on it’s original setting and racial composition.
I think the basic lesson is don’t remake classic movies. Reimagine movies that were relatively crappy the first time around.
If you’ve heard that Akira is good, go check out the original manga or movie. Both solid.
The other lesson is that Hollywood is completely bankrupt of new ideas. “So what hasn’t been a movie yet? Silly Putty? Let’s do that!”
Wait, aren’t Japanese white?
@CC: I don’t believe I put any words in your mouth. I was trying to explain, some of the more general context of the “default whiteness” thing, at least as I see it. More specifically there is apparently a widespread problem of “whitewashing” in sci-fi and fantasy. The awful miniseries based on Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea books is another example of this, and here we have an example of where the strength of the basic story very much did depend on the setting and its racial composition. And yet it was deemed necessary to make all the major characters white, save for a token Danny Glover (always an “acceptable” black presence in films that appeal to most white viewers). Akira and Japan/Japaneseness might be more debatable; I’m not familiar enough with it to say, but I understand criticisms from others more knowledgeable that something essential will be lost.
Just adapt Full Throttle into a movie instead. It’s got white dudes on future motorcycles. Let’s be honest, nothing else is going to make it in anyway.
Problem solved! YOU’RE WELCOME, INTERNET.