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Appleseed World Preview Minireview 147

Posted by michael from the geek-out dept.
darrellberry writes "We went to see the World Sneak Preview of Masamune Shirow's Appleseed at the ICA tonight. Complimentary sake and sushi, a loving but silly flipchart presentation from the producer about the politics of the world in which it is set, then the film. The animation is amazing the rendering of the city of Olympus is beautiful, the battle set-pieces are fluid and very well choreographed, and the fine line betwen genre conventions and attempts at hyper-realism is treated with respect. Although the first few minutes owe too much to The Matrix-meets-Avalon, and in parts (to my eye) the human characters suffer somewhat from traditional anime styling, Appleseed is something genuinely new in animation. Detail everywhere, lovingly rendered. Way too much exposition, in the style of some Russian epic from the 60s, and music supervision that was entirely wrong: it was nice to see Basement Jaxx turning up for the premiere, but their music and that of Oakenfold and the rest on the soundtrack made no sense thematically or emotionally. I can see that they are going for a big international release with Appleseed, but the music is just wrong. On the plus side, the motion capture-based character animation is very convincing, and the Mobile Fortresses out-scale any other city-stomping weapons platform I can remember. And lovely to see anime at a high frame-rate, not jumping in triples. Go see it at a big cinema with decent Dolby when it's on release next month, or get it on DVD (evidently on release in July) and turn up the sub-woofer." I don't know if we linked to the official site in our last story.
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Appleseed World Preview Minireview More

Appleseed World Preview Minireview

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  • just saw the trailer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jotaigna ( 749859 ) <jotaigna@yahoo.com> on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:04PM (#8476421) Homepage Journal
    its pure eye candy!!!. Last thing i've ever seen like this is ONI FPS game. Cant wait to watch it, although it means i have to wait like 8 months till it gets to Chile. 2 years if you are thinking of a legal copy.

  • Stop with the fucking spoilers! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:06PM (#8476442)
    I was going to see this movie but since you gave away the frame-rate I might as well stay home.
  • Anyone got Bittorrents for the Trailer(s)?

  • Yow! (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by wampus ( 1932 )
    Sounds like something to check out... but on a side note, PLEASE use the "Read More..." link! That writeup eats an entire page on my browser, I thought the Ruskies dropped the bomb when I first loaded the page.

  • Bad Anime Hall of Fame (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    IMO ... Appleseed was the beginning of the wave of bad anime that unfortunatly became the dominant style of the 90s. Everything about it is just as boring and contrived as American superhero comics. The last Appleseed movie nearly put me to sleep 10yrs ago, I assume this will be no different.

    • Re:Bad Anime Hall of Fame (Score:5, Informative)

      by andr0meda ( 167375 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:13PM (#8476505) Journal

      Actually this movie is a remake BECAUSE the last one was that bad. There would not be an audience if the last one truely rocked, like AKIRA or GITS still does today.

      If you read the Appleseed comic books (and I mean books) then you'll see that they're among the best comics around (imho).

    • Re:Bad Anime Hall of Fame (Score:5, Interesting)

      by John Whitley ( 6067 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:59PM (#8476994) Homepage
      Read the manga, from which the anime was derived. Judging Appleseed on the first anime version is like judging Frank Herbert's _Dune_ on David Lynch's 1984 movie.

      The challenge that any attempt to realize Appleseed as anime faces is that the manga has a *lot* going on. Global politics, layers of social and racial turmoil, the affects of high technology on society (and vice versa), etc. With such a rich world and story line, creating a compelling version of that story in even one or two movie length features is very difficult.

      Last but not least, if you want your notions of superhero comics turned on their head, go pick up one of the graphic novels from Kurt Busiek's _Astro City_ series. Great characters, detailed world, and compelling storytelling. Oh, yeah, and with superheroes. 8-)
      • The challenge that any attempt to realize Appleseed as anime faces is that the manga has a *lot* going on. Global politics, layers of social and racial turmoil, the affects of high technology on society (and vice versa), etc. With such a rich world and story line, creating a compelling version of that story in even one or two movie length features is very difficult.

        Well, definitely true. That's why I really like TV series like GiTS SAC (and SAC op.2), GiTS the movie was pretty short and understanding what

        • Here's another vote for GiTS "StandAlone / Complex" and "2nd GIG". Probably one of the best series of all-time. Great plotline (the "complex" episodes), and a number of the "stand alone" episodes which are also great.

          Highly recommended!

          Although I've (cawf) seen the entire SAC series and am working on watching the 2nd GIG series right now, I'm going to buy them the second they're released on DVD by Bandai.

          Truely top-notch storytelling and animation, and for those (like me), who believe there is more to
          • I believe there are no "stand alone" stories in the SAC series. They are all related, in some way or the other. The seemingly "stand-alone" stories contribute to the overall story very nicely.

            The characters' personalities are much better developed in the series, that is expected of course but why we still can't get Mokoto's interesting lesbian sex scenes in the anime, I can't understand!! . :-)

            • The info on the SA/C episodes is from the Production IG forum:

              http://64.41.72.200/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=14 &t =1921&s=0844ce20502c08467e54a542dfade28a

              Where they list each episode, and if it's SA or C.

              N.
          • Where can I get this? Will it be on sale in the states?

  • Wheres the gong? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by HullBreach ( 607816 )
    Im hoping they include the trust Gong 10-gauge pistol from the original in this one. That thing was bad-ass (Though in reality would result in broken wrists).
  • Just in case you were hoping to get some information out of it. Head thee to Babelfish first!
  • DVD release is supposed to be in July, but is this the Japanese release or NA with English subtitles? I would have RTFA, but it's all in Japanese :)

    • Re:Anime good! (Score:3, Informative)

      by tuffy ( 10202 )
      DVD release is supposed to be in July, but is this the Japanese release or NA with English subtitles? I would have RTFA, but it's all in Japanese :)

      Geneon (aka Pioneer) has the license according to Yahoo! Japan, but no R1 release date is set that I'm aware of.

    • Translation of the "What's new page" (as provided by Sherlock... it's almost there...).
      Any other pages I should translate?

      February 27th --- at prominent gallery ICA of test copying meeting &
      ??? decisive London, sneaking ????? decided in London.
      As for details please view the ?and others densely.
      January 31st ---
      the trailer the UP theater trailer UP was done. Clicking "TRAILER",
      viewing.
      January 23rd --- ' APPLESEED Original Soundtrack '
      information the Hollywood sound track which is due to UP3 month 24 da

  • people! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by minshrine ( 759474 )
    come on people! how come any form of media that involes sci fi elements is ripping off the Gaytrix....the Matrix ripped off so many other things that is stupid to compare to anything.

  • Exponential Exposition (Score:3, Funny)

    by daVinci1980 ( 73174 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:44PM (#8476800) Homepage
    Way too much exposition, in the style of some Russian epic from the 60s

    What series isn't filled with way too much exposition? I mean... Have you ever seen Gundam W?
    • Gundam Wing raises philosophical exposition to an artform.

      Any battles that don't involve the opposing sides lecturing eachother for 10+ minutes on exactly why they hate each other and why the other side really has no purpose in life...Just don't do it for me after that series. Really.
    • What series isn't filled with way too much exposition?

      The recent Last Exile anime is refreshingly low on exposition. (Almost excessively... the world background is a little threadbare)

  • Enthusiasm or shock? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cruciform ( 42896 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:45PM (#8476814) Homepage
    It's funny how the Japanese appears on the site when you don't have the fonts installed. Looks like a fanboy forum. :)

    ????1995?????
    Ghost in the Shell?????????
    ???3D????
    2004?????????
    CG?????? ?

  • FYI If you're in Japan at the moment (Score:5, Informative)

    by Pope ( 17780 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:50PM (#8476889)

    Innocence, the new Ghost In The Shell movie, is playing this weekend:

    The Theatrical Release in Japan (English Subtitled Version)

    Roppongi Hills -Virgin Cinema-

    Released from March 6th 2004 (Late Show Only) LInky [animaxis.com]

  • OK... a lot of us like anime... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Trolling4Dollars ( 627073 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @01:57PM (#8476974) Journal
    ...we get that. But I really want some of you to take a look at this [xmission.com] guy's rant about Anime nerds. He's spot on. Sure, I've got my DVD of Akira, some old VHS tapes with Ghost in the Shell, Armitige, etc... I've enjoyed Totoro, Iria, and the like. I even took Japanese (long before I watched anime with any regularity) because I am into it. But, you wouldn't catch me anywhere talking about the philosophy behind an anime film and how it applies to the real world. I will never get into heated discussions about the balance of good and evil in a cartoon, or come to the defense of my favorite anime character (must admit that I don't have one) when someone else assails them for being a weak person. Get a life people! Oh... and the link I referred to above is hillarious. Check it out. Really.
    • "this guy"?
      That's Maddox! ....and yes, if you're going to wear a shirt that says something in Japanese, make sure it's something that would be interesting if it were in English.
      • I will keep wearing t-shirts that are complete nonsense in Japanese until they stop first! [engrish.com]

        But to keep this somewhat on topic, Appleseed needed a high-budget remake as the first one was so cheezy! The political machinations and the obsessive detailing of technology that Shirow is best at was totally lost on the first Appleseed anime.

    • Re:OK... a lot of us like anime... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      But the junk philosophy behind The Matrix? That's OK to discuss? Anything can containing philosophical lessons, no matter how silly it may look. What is the reason you can have serious philosophical discussions about books or live-action films, but you shouldn't take anime seriously? It all depends on the story in question.

      That said, the next person to try and extract any meaning out of Evangelion gets a free lobotomy, compliments of a sharp knife from my kitchen.
    • this guy's rant about Anime nerds. He's spot on.

      Actually, I went to go see Spirited Away. I didn't see a single type of the person he mentions. In fact, there were a number of older couples, and a lot of normal teenybopper middle school kids. Plenty of people went to see it here in Boston because it got a great review in the Globe.

      The guy has more pent up anger than I've seen in ages. You want a perfect example? How about this [xmission.com]. He's mentally ill, complaining about people who go "Hmmmm" while thin

  • Bad review (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Although the first few minutes owe too much to The Matrix-meets-Avalon

    Um, you do realize that Appleseed was conceived long before The Matrix, and The Matrix stole much of its styling from Anime in the first place, right?

    the human characters suffer somewhat from traditional anime styling

    HAhahah. The next thing you're going to tell me is that film noire is just too dark and brooding. I mean, seriously, "This Anime is too Anime-ish!"

    Way too much exposition, in the style of some Russian epic from the 60
  • This article's comments have the lowest signal to noise ratio I've seen in a long time.

    Does anyone have a link to still shots of the movie? I can't get streaming media through our company's proxy.
    • Just download the .asx file (This is the file that launches the streaming video) to your hard-drive, and open it in notepad. With just a little bit of brain power you should be able to figure out where the actual movie resides (Its in plain text, and the file is really short). From there its trivial to either put it directly into your browser, though this tends to lauch it as streaming video (for me), or put a link to it in a short HTML file, open said HTML file in your choosen browser, Right-Click and sa
  • Shirow to the core.

    Pretty pictures, pretty girls, and entirely empty. At least The Matrix was filled with something which captured the imagination; was filled with human reactions.

    They presented a flow chart to explain the politics in the story? Oh dear. That sounds like an exciting time.

    Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of Shirow's art and design. I loved the early Appleseed books, (which actually HAD some story and some interesting characters. For a little while, anyway. . .) But honestly! Shirow i
    • Uhhhh... right. First of all, if you don't like big-breasted women, you might want to consider a genre other than anime. Secondly, this anime is based on the second Appleseed graphic novel, the core of which is simply an incredible set of ideas, and not a particularly compelling drama (go back and actually read the boring political stuff - there are some interesting ideas there). There are other satisfying genres out there if drama is your thing.
      Is Shirow immature, or perhaps the question would be, mor
      • Is Shirow immature, or perhaps the question would be, more so than his contemporaries? Have you read any other sci-fi (I'm thinking Stephenson, but one could just as easily point to Asimov)? Lastly, take a look at where you're posting; accusations of immaturity don't hold much currency around here.

        Accusations?

        Sounds like you're taking my observations personally. Don't waste your time. It makes no difference to me or anybody what you like or dislike. Watch and enjoy whatever you want.

        Fact is, I find S
        • I think the larger question, the one I was attempting to address, was that most sci-fi writers tend to be immature in some sense. Whether this is simply knowing one's market, or a byproduct of focusing too narrowly on one's craft, I couldn't say. As to taking things personally... yeah, you could probably level that criticism at me. But you're not exactly above it yourself, gauging from the tone of your reply.
          On the other hand, I think you are absolutely right on several counts. But to deconstruct som
    • I'm sorry that you can't follow Shirow's stories. Perhaps if you realise that he askes questions but doesn't answer them, that might help you cope. Appleseed, Orion and to some extend Dominion Tank Police are all questions about sustainable society, spirituality and militarisation of the police, repectively. No, the movie may not contain as much story as his comics, but "Shirow to the core: Pretty pictures, pretty girls, and entirely empty" is just wrong. If he was born in the english-speaking western w
      • I'm sorry that you can't follow Shirow's stories. Perhaps if you realise that he askes questions but doesn't answer them, that might help you cope. Appleseed, Orion and to some extend Dominion Tank Police are all questions about sustainable society, spirituality and militarisation of the police, repectively.

        Oh, I didn't say I couldn't follow his narrative style. I just wasn't very impressed by it. Appleseed started off on excellent footing; the trick is to marry interesting, engaging characters with an

    • Pretty pictures, pretty girls, and entirely empty. At least The Matrix was filled with something which captured the imagination; was filled with human reactions.

      Pfft, come on.... pretty girls and technology? What more could a geek ask for? :p

      On the other hand, I've watched the original Appleseed recently, and since it's around 10 years old, you can't compare the animation in that to the trailer. Appleseed was one of the first of Shirow's works, so that could explain the 'shoddyness' of it, as not everyo

    • Shirow was never really about telling interesting narratives. His manga were always a lot more like Gibson in that they would paint a compelling picture of the future and then raise a few thorny issues to make you realize that all the advances had drawbacks and unintended consequences as well.

      Basically standard sci fi. His depictions of mecha and guns in the future were definitely among the more compelling and interesting ones found in anime/manga and the stories he told were good science fiction.

      I'm glad
  • I bought and loved the Appleseed books back in the early 90s, but I'm not generally an anime person, so the idiot-level questions that I have aren't really covered by this article or the links. Can someone translate into stupid for me?

    1) If there's a "world sneak preview," does that mean this will come out in US theaters anytime soon?

    2) Will the July DVD release be Japanese only, subtitled, dubbed, what?

    In other words, how soon - if ever - can someone who's not that big on watching a movie in just Japan
  • This movie looks amazing! Personally I can't wait to see it.

    As a 13 year old American kid who read mostly Marvel, DC and Dark Horse, Appleseed struck a chord with me in a way no other manga series had before or since. With a combination of Masamune's amazing art, a complex story, and intriguing characters, this is a comic which was more than the sum of it's parts, and has always deserved a movie that lives up to it's promise, as the origional did not do it justice. Can't wait for the US premier!!

  • dl the music video (it's tight) (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The techno group Boom Boom Satelites are on the soundtrack for this anime and they recently released a music video to promote this with scenes from the anime and some original footage. It is in perfect quality and is probably the best quality video you can see of this on the net. You can download it with bit torrent at this page:

    http://bunko.theppn.org/details.php?id=4151
  • Can't read worth a damn at their website... But.. I know it's a remake.. Did they keep the original characters??

    People like Arugess, Brontes, Athena, Nike, Fang Berylbone A10F, Briareos Hecatochires and of course.. Deunan Knute... ;-)

    Appleseed Rocks!!

  • Aside from the comment about "Way too much exposition," I didn't catch any reference in this review to how the story was- all they talked about was the animation and music. I'm taking this as a bad sign... I've seen lots of anime that had amazing visuals and great music but was painful to watch because of the horrible dialogue/plot.
    • because of the horrible dialogue/plot.

      Which is it? Dialogue is completely separate from plot. Especially if you get dubs, you should expect the dialog to stink (there've been only 3-4 exceptions I've heard)
      • because of the horrible dialogue/plot.

        Which is it? Dialogue is completely separate from plot.

        I've seen them with each and both, and I'm not just talking about dubs. Not to say all anime movies are like this of course, but I've certainly seen quite a few (Sturgeon's Law [wikipedia.org] is in effect).

  • Technical milestone? (Score:5, Informative)

    by mblase ( 200735 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @03:23PM (#8477901)
    As far as I know (which, I admit, isn't as complete as I'd like), this is the first feature-length movie which renders its human characters completely using cel-shaded CGI [celshader.com]. (The buildings and machines are rendered more realistically using 3-D shading.)

    Cel shading is used extensively for humans in some other media, most notably MTV's "Spider-Man" series, but this movie looks like a step up. The more common cel shading becomes, the more I think we can expect traditional animation to fade into a quaint and over-expensive technique. (I wouldn't be surprised if this is already the thinking at Disney's studios, now that they've closed their traditional animation departments.)
    • the thinking at Disney's studios, now that they've closed their traditional animation departments.

      Oh well, when was the last time they put up a really good traditional anime? CGI won't save their ass if they keep on producing crap. Compare any Disney movie with Miyazaki's worst (and I'm even not a fan of Miyazaki). They are really producing nothing but crap for some time. :(

      I started watching cartoons watching Disney products and they always had something special for me. No more, I found what I want in an

    • Titan AE [foxhome.com] - which wasn't that great a movie, used a cell shader for the entire movie, not just the human (and alien) characters...
  • There's no reason why this story needs to be three times bigger than every other story on the front page.

  • Saw Apple, Mini, and review, and my brain somehow inferred quite independently of actually reading that Appleseed was a new video player device from Apple. After having read the actual post and visited the website, I have to say that an Apple video player was a heck of a lot more exciting, although it would probably really be named iSeed if it were truly an Apple product.

    Oh well.
  • And I'm guessing us Englanders won't get this (or Innocence) until at least christmas, if it's deemed wothy of being taken here at all...

    England - the Debian-Stable of anime...

  • "turn up the sub-woofer?"

    What the hell? That eliminates any pretense of accuracy. I suppose a lot of people gladly trade accuracy for something that's just loud and boomy.

    Oh well.
  • When will these GREAT animators STOP making the eyes so damn big?

    The rest of the animation is mindblowingly superb but the noses, eyes and faces are pretty disturbing.

    If a woman had eyes and an iris that big, she could star as ET's sister.

  • Another appleseed? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by butane_bob2003 ( 632007 ) on Friday March 05, 2004 @07:04PM (#8480350) Homepage
    About time someone did Appleseed AGAIN. The first effort was not so good, I didn't like it at all. It's very, very difficult to pull off Shirow's style in animation, you would almost need him to draw every 10th frame to get it right. I was just thinking yesterday that if someone where to animate Appleseed , they should use the book's illustrations as a starting point and build it out from there. I don't know why the characters have to be completely redrawn for animation, it seems like it would be less work to use more of the original art. Fans would love it if the characters 'came to life' off the pages instead of being restyled for the screen. In short, too bad Shirow does not have more to do with the artwork when his works are put on screen.

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