Akira (Remake) - Script Review

Another Remake: Akira

The Verdict:

Condensing and remaking the story only leaves us with a highly visual movie, without an engaging plot or interesting characters to care for.

What's it about?

A young biker gang member gains uncontrollable psychic power and has to be stopped by his friends and the army.

Plot Summary:

Teaser: An explosions shatters Manhatten, in the crater stands a boy. Colonol Shackleton orders to put Subject 28 and the others into cryo-stasis. 

A text informs us, that Manhattan was sold to Japan, as the US hits a deep recession, following the total destruction of New York.

Meet Travis, orphaned, 11, on his first day of school: He gets bullied and befriends Kaneda, 14, who protects him.

10 years later, New Tokyo has risen on Manhatten. We meet the two again at a Bar, they established a biker gang (the Red devils); After a reckless Stunt, injuring his girlfriend Kaori, Travis goes to a 'mobile rehab van' by Vanguard, as he fears he will do drugs again. He has to wear an electronic band, but is promised to stay clean.

Soon after, Travis, while attacking a rival gang member, runs into Thomas, a little boy looking like an old man and is badly hurt. This strange child is escorted by Kay, who is arrested together with Kaneda, while Thomas is brought into a care facility by Shackleton. Kay and Kaneda are released, while Travis is in a hospital, completely healed already. He escapes, before Shackleton, who is informed that Travis' blood contains the mysterious Compound-A, arrives to get him. But later he gets him, when Travis is hidden away by Kaneda and Kay. So the group breaks into the facility to rescue Travis, who slowly discovers his unimaginable powers rips apart the whole facility. Only three other test subjects can stop him, but not kill him. Finally Shackleton finds out, that the 'mobile rehab' project injected Travis with the Compound, in order to restore America to it's old glory, but decides not to do anything about and continues hunting down Travis. 

Travis reaches the Crater, trying to free Akira, aka Subject 28, who was responsible for the first explosion. Kaneda, Kay and Shackleton try everything in their power to stop him, attacking him with tanks, lasers, solar beams, but only hurt Travis. But when he sees his girlfriend getting killed by bullet, meant for him, Travis goes totally insane and explodes. Shackleton, Kaneda and Kay can escape on board a helicopter in the last second and see New Tokyo falling to ashes. 

Final Image: Akira awakens, steps out of his Cyro-Chamber and Travis bows down before him...

Observations:

First off, of all the script I ever read, this was the most exhausting one. Walls of text littered over the pages, describing the action in so many details, it was like reading a novel. 

The visual detail and  ideas were astonishing. Whitta develops an interesting American-Japanese Hybrid-Culture, painting the co-existence of extreme poverty and wealth in grand pictures.

I don't like it, when the story is just happening to the characters, without them ever taking charge or making their own decisions. Unfortunately, it was like this in this script: Travis gets injected with Compound-A, gains uncontrollable power and runs amok. He isn't the active protagonist once throughout the whole script. I feel cheated and - to be honest - bored, when this happens.

The emotional angle was heavily underplayed, in my opinion. The friendship between Travis and Kaneda should come to a fulminant finale, but it fell flat. The script spends too much time with military personnel and the mythology, but forgot the characters at the heart of the story.

Differences to the 1988 Movie:

Names: Tetsuo = Travis; Takashi = Thomas; Kei = Kay; Shikishima = Shackleton; and so on...

The script adds a little bit of background to Akira's first explosion, explaining why New Tokyo is build on americal soil, but adds nothing significant new or exciting to the story.

The most radical change concerns the ending: Planned as the first part of a larger series (possibly a trilogy...) the movie ends shortly after Akira awakens and leaves most plot points hanging.

The Project:

The script is based on the Manga by Katsuhiro Otomo from the year 1982. A hugely popular anime version of that movie was released in 1988. Shortly after that Warner Brothers bought the live-action rights, but nothing happened for the next 20 years. In 2008, Leonardo DiCaprio was set to produce a live-action adaptation with this script. In February 2010 the Hughes Brothers (From Hell) took over the Director's chair, but left it again in May 2011.
The following month Jaume Collet-Serra (of 'Unknown') was announced as the new director, with the hopes to realize this movie with the modest budget of 90 million dollars. (Source: FilmJunk)

The biggest concern of the studio is to find a suitable actor: many stars were offered the role, namely Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Franco, Zac Efron, Andrew Garfield, James McAvoy or Michael Fassbender, but nobody has signed up so far. Apparently the strongest contender for the role of Kaneda is Garrett Hedlund, the lead of Tron:Legacy. (Source: Movie|Line)

Gary Oldman is in talks to play Colonel Shackleton, while Helena Bonham-Carter is wanted to play Lady Miyako, another test subject and only a small role. (Source: TwitchFilm)

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All You Need Is Kill - Script Review

The Verdict:

The Non-Stop-Action of this Sci-Fi time-loop-movie leaves no room for character development or relationships in favor of huge action scenes, which are entertaining nonetheless.

What's it about?

An unskilled, new recruit dies in his first battle, but awakens one day prior to the battle, myteriously stuck in a temporal loop. He uses these repeats to master the art of killing and tries to win the battle and escape the loop.

Plot Summary [SPOILERS]:

The script starts with Cage jumping out of a burning Dropship into the 'Battle of Ruby Tuesday': Thousands of human soldiers fighting the insectoid Mimic. In this bloody and messy battle we meet Yonaburu, Cage's best friends, Rita, the best fighter in the world (and the female love interest). Cage's first instinct is to desert, which gets Yonaburu and him killed already on page 13. 

Loop 2: Cage re-awakens in the barracks, a day before the fight and can remember all of that happening before. Again, he drops into the Battle of Ruby Tuesday, this time dying, while trying to save Yonaburu.

Loop 3: Cage awakens again. This time he tries to flee, escaping to a near-by beach, where he is found by some scout Mimics and gets killed

Loop 4: Cage is desperate. Trying to break out of this never-ending nightmare, he kills himself.

Loop 5: Cage realises, that there is no way out of this loop. Now he starts questioning the senior offices, gathers information, in order to save some of his friends, but still - he dies.

In a quick training montage, cutting between Cage and his superior office sparring and one Battle of Ruby Tuesday after the other.

Loop 93: The training shows it's impact, Cage survives longer and longer with each try.

Loop 187 & 203: Cage uses his knowledge of all his repeats to get an Battle Axe and with it he can kill the Mimic mother insect, but still dies exactly at 4:19.Cage loses all hope of ever winning the battle or escaping the loop, until Rita asks him: "How many loops is this for you?", shortly before he dies again.

Loop 329: Now the focus of the script shifts shortly, showing us Rita awaking in her bed. Cage finds her and answers her question from the last loop. She explains, that she was stuck in a loop, too. The Mimic have Antenna & Receiver Mimics, which can send signals back in time to warn their fellow mimics, Rita was and Cage is caught up in this signal, so he has to kill it, to be free and win the battle. Cage & Rita kill the Antenna Mimic and all Receivers, but, still, he loops back to the beginning.

Loop 393: Cage & Rita fall in love anew every day, and on the last pages of the script they have something like a relationship in fast-forward. But in this loop the Mimic attack the base, again Cage and Rita kill the Antenna and Receiver Mimic. Then Rita reveals, that she must be another receiver, and kills herself: Cage is finally free and wins the battle.

Script Observations:

Two formal things that bugged me: The script uses many noises, like Shup! Twamp! do describe the action going on. I am not sure, if I like this, but it reads very weird. Aside from that half of the words are CAPITAL, it feels like they are screaming at me. Not pleasant.

Back to the artistic choices, the script presents: The writing is dense and spot-on, as it is always focused on the action.

Something strange happens on page 39: Suddenly we have a Voice Over by the main protagonist, explaining all the background information in a huge dump for 5 pages. After that the Voice Over is used quite regularly, but it seem to appear out of no-where.

Shallow Relationships: Cage is stuck in a battle zone, always fighting and dying. This leaves not much room for a romance, so it feels kinda forced, when he suddenly has a full-on relationship with Rita (10 pages before the end, of all places, just to make us feel sad when she dies 2 pages later.

Generic Alien of the Week: The idea of aliens sending messages back in time to win battles is really neat, but other than that the Mimic are as bland and uninspiring as they come. Their aggressive behaviour, for example, isn't explained or discussed.

The Solution: I really hoped, that the solution to winning the battle and escaping the loop is surprising and refreshing, but, alas, it is fighting harder and killing more Mimic than before. It feels like a wasted chance. Afterall the script is trapped in the same militaristic view as the Ender's Game script I reviewed. The bland enemy reduces the action to routine killings, as we have in ego-shooters, as the reader has no emotional investment in the fights. As such, it feels a lot like the Halo Script, which also had non-stop action without an emotional core.

The Project:

Warner Brothers bought the spec script for a low-seven figure  from Dante Harper (Deadline: Hollywood), shortly after that, Doug Liman was slated to direct the movie for a 2012 release ( Variety). The spec is based on the 2004 novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka (Wikipedia). 

As the hunt for the lead actor has started, two names have been popping up: First Warner Brothers offered the project to Brad Pitt (Vulture). To be honest I can't see him doing such a mindless popcorn flick, on the other hand is was revealed, that Tom Cruise is in talks to take over the lead (THR). Cage is described as being 20, so both actors would be too old to take over that role, most probably there were changes made to the script to accomodate this.

Warner Brothers wants to get a huge star, as the movie will cost them about 150$ and to get the money back WB wants a big name attached to the posters.

As always, I look forward to hear from you. Post your comments without registrations below!

Have a great day,

- Tristan

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Silver Surfer - Script Review

Post based on the script 'Silver Surfer' by John Turman.

The Verdict:

On-the-nose writing and a far too alien superhero weigh this script down, although it has many good ideas.

What's it about?

Silver Surfer comes to Earth as the herald for the planet-eating alien Galactus. But with human contact, the Silver Surfer learns about compassion, friendship and love, all the while a philandering, alien-sceptic SETI worker and a blind woman have to find a way to stop Galactus.

Observations:

1. The Writing is so 'in your face' sometimes, like this (p. 39):

She looks transcendent in her compassion. Ray's in love, he just doesn't know it yet.

This is the end of the interrogation scene between Ray and Alicia, but instead of showing his beginng love to us, the script just says Ray's in love, which is kind of lazy.

2. The Structure of the movie was really off: The Set-Up and whole first act took ages, it is only on p. 66 that both protagonists define their goal of the movie:

RAY

And save the world?

ALICIA

Why not? Someone's got to.

3.  Two unbalanced main characters: The logline says it all. Silver Surfer comes to Earth and goes on a sight-seeing tour, he is stunned by the human's capability to love and feel and frightened that so many of them choose to be evil. On the other hand are Ray and Alicia, who desperately try to save Silver Surfer from the army (which he can do own his own, by the way) and finally stopping Galactus from eating Earth. But they didn't need the help of the Silver Surfer to stop doom. Ray figured out Galactus' interest in music, it was nothing Silver Surfer learned on Earth, or something Ray from Silver Surfer.
Unfortunately this plays out like an alien invasion script with a silver guy surfing through it.
I understand the problem, Silver Surfer, or Norrin-Rad, is too alien for the typical superhero movie. His backstory doesn't play on Earth, so it is really hard to find a concept that makes him relatable. Regrettably, this script makes him far too removed from the protagonists.

The Project: 
A long list of people where attached to the adaptation of Silver Surfer over the years. Starting with Bernd Eichinger and George Lucas, then Quentin Tarantino. Many screenwriters like Richard Jefferies, Rudy Gaines, John Rice, Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en, Sleepy Hollow), Don Payne (Thor, Fantastic Four 2), J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) tried their hands at the script over the last two decades, but after the box office failure of Fantastic Four 2 it doesn't seem too likely, that there will ever be a Silver Surfer movie on the silver screen.


As always, I would like to hear your opinions on the topic: Would you like to see a Silver Surfer Sequel? Or rather a reboot/re-imagening? Did you read Turman's script? What is your impression of the writing?
Comment section works without registration, just choose Anonymous and write on!

- Tristan

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