Mobile Suit Gundam: The Live Action Movie!

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MrWolverine
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Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2011 8:16 pm

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Live Action Movie!

Hi everyone! Excuse me if I am inopportune. I'm currently developing a facebook group to ask for a High Budget Live Action Hollywood movie about the first Gundam (0079). Some groups with the same end exist already in facebook. The idea is to join forces and reach a number of potential viewers that Hollywood Majors could not ignore (nor disappoint with crappy treatments, hopefully)... by the way, search for the group:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=gro ... 7765928623

I know we had already a bad experience with Live-Action Gundam (G-Saviour). The point is that times have changed since then. Comicbook big budget movies are now very common, some of them are nearly masterpieces, even when the original source was very hard to translate into a feature film. Michael Bay's Transformers and the upcoming Guillermo Del Toro's movie "Pacific Rim" proved Hollywood interest in giant robots. I think, and I hope I'm not the only one, that a masterpiece story like the One Year War deserves a good try and such a big budget effort...
MrWolverine
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Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2011 8:16 pm

Re: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Live Action Movie!

"Why do a movie based on the first "Mobile Suit Gundam" and not, for example, on "Gundam Wing" or on a brand new Side Story?"

In the first place, if you are reading this note, you may be evaluating the idea to join this group. For this reason, I have to thank you.

I've been asked the above question many, many times. It's all but a silly question.

The original Gundam series is very famous in Japan and Italy, while in North America "Gundam Wing" is more known, and in the rest of Europe the best known are the more recent "Gundam SEED" and "Gundam 00".

Moreover, Gundam fans, pretty much like any other big franchise fans, are wild and unsatisfied beasts, and is very difficult to deal with them: if you choose to do a film based on one of the original series, they'll be afraid you're going to ruin it, like "Dragonball Evolution": if you choose to work on a brand new story, fans will be pissed off because of the
distance between the movie and the source material (like "Final Fantasy").
There's no easy way out.

But I feel the need to tell you that, yes it's right to concern about these issues, but it's definitely wrong to assume that everything is bound to go wrong.

Works like "Watchmen" and "The Lord Of The Rings" were considered unfilmable. Today, these are good movies, maybe masterpieces in their own genre.
When Michael Keaton was chosen to be Bruce Wayne in Tim Burton's "Batman", or when Tobey Maguire was selected for the role of Peter Parker in "Spider-Man", fans went outrage. When Keaton and Maguire left those franchises, those same fans felt unhappy, worried, betrayed.

So there's no way to keep fans satisfied BEFORE shooting the movie. You can just try to do your best, and hope that once the film will be released they'll change their mind or, at least, will appreciate the effort.

First Gundam may be not the most famous nowadays, but -pretty sure!- it's the one featuring the most universal story. It has that taste for realism we all know about, but way before this, it is a story abouth youth, boys and girls, dealing with the horror of war.

-It's the story of Amuro Ray, a 16 years old kid who grows up by experiencing the abandon by his parents, the death of his friends, the betrayal's sorrow, the pain because of a single-sided love, the forced committment and a sense of duty he can't recognize as his own;

-It's the story of Char Aznable, a young man who committed himself in avenging his father's killing, but who's pushed away from his goal when a younger pilot seems to overtake him on the battlefield;

-It's the story of Bright Noah, a young officer who suddently becomes responsible of the lives of dozens of refugees, committed in a nearly impossible mission way before being ready for such a task;

-It's the story of Sayla Mass, who hates war but is forced to fight against her beloved, and long time lost, brother.

...And it's the story of many other young Brothers in Arms forced to fight a war that was declared by people from the previous generations, a war they can't understand, a war with no winner but just losers where the dividing line between Good and Evil, Heroes and Villians, is as much blurred as never before.

A Story (with capital "S") that moves away from its japanese origin, to become something more universal, multi-cultural pretty much like the White Base crew.

Because of the above mentioned universal aspects, some of them very useful also to INTRODUCE Gundam to an audience that may be not familiar with this franchise (you won't spend 300 million $ producing a film just for fans, won't you?) , I FEEL that a potential Gundam feature movie should deal with that original story, thus leaving side-stories to possible sequels, and alternate universes eventually to re-boots.

Obviously, this is just MY feeling, and it deals just partially with this group's purpose, the Main Goal being to find out how the land lies under the idea of a Gundam big budget movie, understand if there's a potential audience interested in it, and publish the results for Hollywood Studios attention.

The Plan is to be so many that cinema related internet sites and blogs will start dealing with our group. The mean is very difficult but not impossible: gather 1 million members in this group.

If Hollywood's Top Brass will discover such a potential audience, they'll begin to look at anyone of us as at a 10$ bill... And we'll get the movie!
IT WILL BE A HISTORIC EVENT, BECAUSE IT WILL BE THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY THAT THE AUDIENCE ORDERS DIRECTLY TO THE CINEMA INDUSTRY WHICH FILM TO PRODUCE.
That's the funny side of social networking, I guess...
By the way, I'm afraid that, if we succed, we won't have any real power to decide also WHICH KIND of movie would be produced...
...but I can tell you that since 2001 Yoshiyuki Tomino, Gundam's original creator, is in charge of give/deny permission to EVERY UC-related new production. So if Hollywood wants to make a UC-related Gundam movie Tomino will be the Executive Producer AT LEAST. I think i sounds like MORE than a good guarantee...
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ShadowCell
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Live Action Movie!

oh boy, another "if we all believe, the powers that be will spontaneously bestow upon us a Gundam movie that is exactly what we want and speaks directly to the secret yearning for Japanese giant robot cartoons that beats still in the very heart of the nation!" thread

welp, into Anime and Manga you go
MrWolverine
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Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2011 8:16 pm

Re: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Live Action Movie!

ShadowCell wrote:oh boy, another "if we all believe, the powers that be will spontaneously bestow upon us a Gundam movie that is exactly what we want and speaks directly to the secret yearning for Japanese giant robot cartoons that beats still in the very heart of the nation!" thread

welp, into Anime and Manga you go
Well, I don't know if this has been tried before, using a social network I mean, nor I'm so naive to think that a cartoon-turned to-movie can deal with higher matters and/or phylosophy. I know there are people that would like to see Gundam into a movie, a seriously made one and this was the best I could think of. That's it.

If you have a better idea, then you're more than welcome to share it with us.

I hope you HAD to move this thread here, making it lose some visibility maybe (I really think it was more a general subject), because it would be very sad and unfair if you moved it because you're reluctant with it...
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ShadowCell
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Live Action Movie!

i moved it here because it's supposed to be here. this is where all our other Gundam live action movie threads have gone. there's one a few pages back and everything. that this is a completely ridiculous idea is beside the point.

not that we should lose sight of the fact that this is a completely ridiculous idea. there is no way you can find enough people who can whine loudly enough for a Gundam movie that meets your exacting specifications that someone will blow so many millions of dollars on a movie only a handful of people will want to see. even if you do somehow manage to get a Gundam movie out of all this, it will more than likely be a thalidomide baby conceived in an unholy union in a studio boardroom and squirted upon us as though we should be grateful. so even if you do succeed in cajoling the mysterious hands that rest on the levers of entertainment power to hand us a Gundam movie, you're probably going to wish you hadn't.

in which case, no, i would rather not see a Gundam live action movie, because it will be a ridiculous Hollywood affair that drains away everything we Gundam fans like about it, it will utterly and horribly bomb, and then there will be a great big argument for Bandai to stop throwing this market the few bones they already give us. and i'd rather not let them have such an argument, so i'll pass on watching Shia LaBeouf try to be Andrew Ray and Johnny Depp try to be Charles Aznable and whatever, thanks.

but in that regard, i've got nothing to worry about anyway, because you aren't going to get a Facebook page to somehow prove to said mysterious hands of power that a live action Gundam movie would be anything other than a gigantic financial boondoggle.

and no, it is not getting less visibility here.
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Chris
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Live Action Movie!

Sorry, this is nothing but ridiculous fanboy nonsense, and there's no topic to discuss here. Closed.
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