Gui

The main problem of Ghost in the Shell, the Oshii's movies I mean, is IMO that it's far too much different than the original work of Shirow: in a interview given in the french edition of Dominion he said that he intended to make of his GitS manga some sort of action-police story set in a near future and in the style of the old TV series from the 60s and the 70s (or something like that, you get the point...), he actually never intended to make any sort of 'deep' work with sh!tload of sense value – or no sense value depending on your point of view... – but Oshii put his own vision onto it and now a lot of people thinks that GitS is a vastly profound piece of work or, worse, the quintessence of cyberpunk (which it is not, at least when you have read a bunch of books on the subject: let's say that this gender and this work share some similarities, like it's the case with Blade Runner or the Matrix, at least to some extent...); on the other hand, the TV series are far much more faithfull to the original manga and it's the one I'd recommend to the early fans

So, yes, GitS tends to be greatly overrated like a lot of animes and manga around, Evangelion being the most overrated of all but we always have a bunch of threads on this one so there's no need to get another one. But, like Eva, I think GitS is an interesting movie, it's just that it's complex surface tends to obscure a work of not as much value and depth than some (too much?) people think, to paraphrase a famous cinema critic about the David Lynch movies (which also deserve this judgement while I'm at it). It's actually worse with GitS 2: Innocence but at least this one is damn pretty although it's a double-sided sword because when the audience has a strong emotional relationship with a work (and the goal of art is to induce emotions into the spectator), people tend to see into this work things which are not there, or at least not as much as they would want them to be; again, we can find the same problem with Eva: people simply need to give value to things they like, and remove value to things they don't like, whatever signification they give to this verb. Anyway, this notion of 'sense' or 'depth' just depends on your level of general culture in the end

As for this 'new version' of the first GitS movie, a torrent is available and I began to watch it the day before yesterday but I couldn't finish it: it indeed looks far better but unfortunately just in the reanimated scenes; it results some sort of messy, unbalanced thing which tends to ruin all the efforts. Too bad: they should have reanimated it entirely instead of here and there

Because we already watched it 20 years ago

I found this one rather boring after the first bunch of eps, personnally...

Otherwise, Batman: Gotham Knight was a very pleasant surprise, both on the artistic side and on the narrative one: I recommend it

[...]

To me is logical that you see the original animation better because the detail level on each frame is insane (like the others works of Mamoru Oshii) but IMO the CGI animated secuence looks better

It looks damn great! This is far much more consistent with Innocence IMO, but does the rest of the film looks the same or is it just these 3 sequences which have been reanimated?

Actually, WE all exist in Kieth's delusional world.

Pete

You have read too much Philip K. Dick stuff...

That's a good remark, but I doubt it: if the gravity of this super massive black hole was as much high as you suppose, there wouldn't be as much stars around it as we see because they would simply fall into it. If the stars wich surround this black hole aren't affected by its gravity pit, we can assume it doesn't influence time neither. But the details are probably more complicated of course...

My previous message was about the rotation of the galaxy in fact: like all spinning objects, the borders of the galaxy move faster than any other places located closer to its center; according to relativity thingies, this implies that time slows down in these regions compared to others which move less fast

One must also keep in mind that time is slower on the borders of the galaxy than at its core

A new Kikaider anime?

Nope: the old animated TV series; I finished it yesterday: it's really not bad at all and worth a watch. I liked how it went on the 'short' side instead of running on dozens and dozens of episodes and each of them built around a 'monster of the week' plot. The basic idea is interesting too although it could have been more developped. I think I'll give a try to the OAV

Indulged some curiosity and looked into the first five episodes of After War Gundam-X.

Gundam-X? Came between Wing and SEED? Yes, its a Gundam series. No, really it exists. Honest...

Not only it exists, but it owns. The end is slightly rushed though, because of the usual 'not enough audience' thing which crippled First, Ideon and many others; I sometimes think that Gundam is somewhat cursed...

So I have been watching Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time and it has been taking me a while as my free time is limited but I got to episodes 21 - 24 last night and just wow! In episode 21 alone a whole lot of plot unraveled. I am going to watch the movie first before watching episodes 25-26 and then watch those as I have been advised. It is an amazing series. I am sure most of you have already seen it if not hudreds of times already.

Only once for me, thanks: it was more than enough; I had already seen the same thing in Alan Parker's Pink Floyd The Wall when I was 17 therefore Eva didn't impress me enough to make me want to watch it again, all the more as its pacing's rather slow and quickly becomes boring. The Rebuild of Eva first movie is overally in the same mood, so you may like it if you liked the TV series

I plan to watch Batman Gotham Knight tonight and after that I'll probably begin Generator Gawl

I'm onto Humanoid Kikaider : it's not bad at all

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Although I suspected that there are Zentraedi version of it somewhere.

That would own as hell!

I wasn't really thrilled by the concept when I first heard about it on ANN but I have to say that this trailer got my interest: I'll take a close look at it when it'll be available

While we're at it, someone knows if any group plans to sub this one?

It's all the fault of EVA...

Well, like we said on the podcasts, Gandahar's animation is not as impressive as Time Masters', but Time Maters has a shitty story and annoying kid sidekick who whines through the whole movie and that deus ex machina ending blows. [...]

That's the main problem of Stefan Wul's novels: this guy never learnt how to end his stories On the other hand, I didn't find the little Piel annoying: it was rather realistically presented actually; what a young boy is supposed to do when he's lost onto such planet anyway ?

To be honnest, I don't remember a lot of things about Light Years, just that it was boring. Maybe I should watch it again...

Sorry to disappoint you, but that was a joke.

[...]

Laloux being dead since 2004, it would have been difficult to do otherwise...

I really like this director, and since my very childhood when I saw Time Masters with my cousin. Fantastic Planet interested me less even if it's a deeper story and a far much more personnal art style. But all this is probably related to nostalgia anyway

Light Years... Well, it disappointed me since the very first time I watched it: Caza's art doesn't work well on the big screen IMO and the animation quality looked very average to me. Later, I read the book this movie is inspired from (Jean-Pierre Andrevon is a very famous SF writer in France...) and it interested me more, even if it isn't a masterpiece neither

While I'm at it, I've recently added Fireball to my weekly list: it's a series of very short (about 1 - 2 minutes for each ep) set in some distant future and about a (presumed) young robot lady and her mechanic servant living in some sort of futuristic citadel in the middle of a dark city surrounded by a vast desert; it doesn't pretend to make any sense and actually reminds me of some sort of Monty Python-ish weird/absurd humour but in a Tim Burton like atmosphere (except that it's rather bright, visually speaking): a somewhat funny show overally, which deserves to be better known IMO

You'll find the official site here, but in japanese because life's unfair

The good thing is it reminds me of Ramba Ral's Gouf in MSG. The BAD thing though is that those "beam fingers" also reminds me a lot of "Shining Finger."

There's nothing wrong in these "Shining Fingers" neither: they're also badass, in their own and very special way...

Finished Cybuster a few days ago: too bad its animation's so horrible because this series has a lot of originalities in its concept, setting, plot and designs. If such defect doesn't turn you off, don't miss this show, it's very interesting in its own way...

Otherwise, I also finished – finally – Legend of Galactic Heroes: definitely one of the best animes I've seen so far. If you haven't watched it yet and you don't plan to do so, shame on you!

I'm on an anime break for now and I watch season 3 of Babylon 5

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/8628/1228034650425yx7.jpg

Fingers as a beam sabers?

That is badass

I've always wanted to see something like that one day: thanks Sunrise

The good part is that it revived the interest of the producers for another BGC project

I'll check this movie out anyway: die-hard BGC fan inside... and I know you'll all do the same

Well, it wasn't as overt in MSG, but there are some definite parallels. A blitzkrieg using superior technology and new tactics, turning into a protracted war where the other wise eventually brings it's full production capabilities to bear and slowly crushes an overspread enemy on multiple fronts.

[...]

Other parallels include the newtype theory which recalls the aryan creed of the nazi, or the absolute need of Zeon for more vital space and material ressources which finds its equivalent in the german Anschluss on Austria in 1938, and there's more...

First Gundam being an allegory of WW2, it makes sense that some of its designs are inspired by this period

I agree this slightly looks out of place now, but 30 years ago it wasn't as much disturbing than it is now, and we all know how fans hate it when designs evolve too much from one iteration of a show to another...

In the case of First, I'm now used to it; actually, it's always a pleasure to see this now familiar style

Probably

They're mutilating his baby

He doesn't like that

At all

You have way too much imagination: these things NEVER happen in animes...

[...]

Not sure what you are saying there dude???

Mac F wouldn't reference Mac 2 since it's outside the Nue continuity. There were a few visual and throw away homages to Mac 2, but no historical references made as with other Nue stories.

Nue, Tatsunoko, Harmony Gold,... Whatever...

hobbes221 said there's 7 Macross shows (Mac 2 included in his count) and that it may be the reason why Alto's plane numbered 7. Having in mind that Kawamori doesn't acknowledge Mac2 as canon, I just replied it would be surprising. Then Mr. March quotes the Macross Chronicle which says there's indeed 7 time frames but, IMO, it doesn't demonstrate anything, for the above-mentioned reason concerning the fact that Kawamori doesn't acknowledge Mac 2 as being canon: I meant by this that it'd be surprising he takes into account Mac 2 for this number onto Alto's plane and that therefore there should be another explanation for this. That's all...

Still need aspirin?