AKIRA is a Japanese manga created in 1982 by Katsuhiro Omoto. It tells the story of Shotaro Kaneda's fight against his own friend, Tetsuo Shima, who wants to release Akira, a boy who helds a dangerous psychic ability. Later in 1988, a fully-animated movie were made. Although the movie follows the story within by the manga, the plot was shortened. Currently, AKIRA has become one of the most influental manga and movie, and its influence is not restricted within Japan only.
Warner Bros. has acquired the right to create a live-action remake of this legendary manga in 2002. It has create quite a fuss within Japanese popular culture fandom in western countries recently, due to the concern of its Caucasian-filled possible cast list.
There are several reports and rumors that mentioned names of actors and actresses that were offered roles for this remake, such as: Robert Pattinson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Garett Hedlund, Helena Bonham Carter, Kristen Stewart, Zac Efron, Mila Kunis, Keira Knightley, and many more. Ken Watanabe is the only Asian actor that were offered a part.
Moreover, the movie description posted in Acting Audition's website shows that the setting and several aspect of the story were completely changed.
"Kaneda is a bar owner in Neo-Manhattan who is stunned when his brother, Tetsuo, is abducted by government agents led by The Colonel.
Desperate to get his brother back, Kaneda agrees to join with Ky Reed and her underground movement who are intent on revealing to the world what truly happened to New York City thirty years ago when it was destroyed. Kaneda believes their theories to be ludicrous but after finding his brother again, is shocked when he displays telekinetic powers.
Ky believes Tetsuo is headed to release a young boy, Akira, who has taken control of Tetsuo's mind. Kaneda clashes with The Colonel's troops on his way to stop Tetsuo from releasing Akira but arrives too late. Akira soon emerges from his prison courtesy of Tetsuo as Kaneda races in to save his brother beore Akira once again destroys Manhattan island, as he did thirty years ago."A lot people may haven't forget by James Wong's Dragonball Evolution and M. Night Shyalaman's The Last Airbender, in a bad way. I remember I was so excited when I knew that a live action movie of these two epic series were made, and I can't wait to see it. but after I watched it in a theater, I have to control the urge of asking my money back from the theater. Both movies have plots that strayed from the original ones, and the main cast were filled by Caucasian actors even though both original series depicts Asian society (plus Alaskan Native and South-America for The Last Airbender). These changes was probably an attempt from the producers to be more original, or to make the United States viewer to be more familiar with the movie. But it serves no purposes and only greatly disappoint fans of both original series because it does not depicts the real story of both series accurately. These epic series were remade into catastrophes, and AKIRA may be next in line.
George Takei, who is widely known as Hikaru Sulu from Star Trek, voiced his concern on Hollywood's whitewashing on AKIRA in an interview.
"The manga and anime phenomenon is mostly white in this country. It originated in Japan, and, of course, it has a huge Asian fan following. But it's the multi-ethnic Americans who are fans of Akira and manga. The idea of buying the rights to do that and in fact change it seems rather pointless. If they're going to do that, why don't they do something original, because what they do is offend Asians, number 1; number 2, they offend the fans."Takei also argued that the lack of Asian-American's progress within the entertainment industry is one of the factors.
"Can you name one bankable Asian-American star? No. There isn't. You have Denzel Washington, Samuel Jackson. A whole host of them. One can't name a single Asian-American whose name you can take to the bank and get a project financed. We are making headways. I'm not a pessimist. We have made tremendous headways from the time I started in this business in 1957. Asian faces are part of the ensemble in many TV shows playing not roles that are specifically Asian, but playing doctors and detectives. Advances have been made, but we have still not caught up with the African-American achievements."Recently, it was announced that Warner Bros. has stopped this movie's production due to budget, casting and script trouble. A lot of AKIRA's fans hoped that this project has eventually meets its final end. But it is possible that Warner Bros. are just temporarily stopping the production, since it is not the first time that this project has been shut down and then brought back to life.
Even when this project gets through, let's just hope that it wouldn't turn out like this video below.
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