Death Note: Netflix Film

fancy

pants
AKA
Fancy
What you’re saying about the world opening up in the past few decades and making foreign media more accessible now than ever before is true, but I don’t think it’s so much “changing things for American Audiences” than it is just adapting a popular story and telling it from a different perspective.

Japanese philosophies/values are not the same as American ones and Japanese media tends to portray things a bit differently than American media, so perhaps the American Death Note will offer something different enough from the Japanese original to warrant its existence. Kind of like how you can often count on Bollywood remakes to be a bit campier and melodramatic than the Hollywood original. Can’t forget the musical numbers either, lol. Besides, it’s not as though making this adaptation is going to replace the original; indeed, I’d wager that the majority of folks who are likely going to watch this series will have already been familiar with the manga/anime.

Now the implication that an “American Audience” needs a white actor is a different problem. They could have easily have casted a Japanese-American as Light and kept the last name "Yagami" as some anonymous voices on the internet have been arguing. That would have been just as fine, but still “American.”

Me, personally, my main beef is this plethora of remakes/reboots/sequels/prequels that’s been trending in film and television in general. I dunno if it’s always been like this but I never realised because I didn’t have the internet to tell me, or if Hollywood has been genuinely lazy in their efforts to put out original content. Methinks it's the latter.
 

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
idk about the comparison between scarjo gits and this death note film. this one at least made the effort to transplant the story to america so it's set in chicago or san diego or one of those america places. they've taken the story and put it somewhere else so light being a whitey isn't jarring. (i have seen internet comments complaining about having 'shinigami' in america but 1) i don't know if they're calling them 'shinigami' here and 2) i don't think you were meant to assume that these beings operated solely in japan). it looks like it's mostly done away with its japanese elements in favour of making an american version of the same basic story.

whereas ghost in the shell seems to have wanted to keep a bunch of the asian-themed trappings of earlier adaptations (geisha robots, the futuristic asian metropolis setting, a few asian supporting actors) without having an asian person front-and-centre on the cover. i don't know if they plan on explaining why you have white-major and white-batou in this seemingly asian city (is it some kind of future melting pot of every nationality? are they just visiting?) or why the head of her division is a guy who from his trailer appearances seems to only speak japanese. is section 9 not a part of the japanese government but now some kind of international police agency? but instead of just taking the core of the story and putting it in a futuristic america, they kept a bunch of the asian stuff while giving the main focus over to a white woman instead.

(plus that thing where they call her 'major' like it's a name even in places where 'the major' would sound better, such as that social media marketing thing with the 'i am major' slogan. why are you doing that. that mildly annoys me.)

not to say i don't get why they did it, and you're less like to get a large budget making the film in japan since the film industry is smaller there and some films are probably just better off being made elsewhere. (i haven't seen it but attack on titans seems like it would have been more suited for an american/european production. i saw this being brought up as a 'reverse white-washing' but if you're making a film in japan you're not going to fill such a large cast with good non-japanese actors. they just use models and like, english teachers who came to japan. the good actors aren't all going 'oh boy, i'm going to move to japan and because a great english-speaking actor!' and picking tokyo over hollywood.) big name japanese/asian actors wouldn't have the name value of a hollywood star, and hollywood isn't going to make much effort to develop an american-asian actor into a big name star because idk it's easier to just get scarlett johansson or something instead.


tl;dr at least death note is now set in america.

most of this could have gone in the ghost in the shell thread but it's here now so. deal with it.
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
@Hito: I made a VERY tl;dr GitS-specific response in that thread if you're interested.

Also, insofar as this being an Americanized adaptation of Death Note, I think that the premise works for the reasons hito mentioned, but as always these sort of things are really big potential opportunities for Asian actors even when the role isn't explicitly Japanese, so it's always a little sad when we don't get that. Despite how much I am stoked for the upcoming Ghost in the Shell and still feel that it was extremely well cast, I do still feel that that's unfortunate since it'd be nice to see Japanese actors getting some spotlight & breakout performances by bringing them in with stuff like this.





X :neo:
 
I havnt read every word in this thread, but i get the feeling none of you have mentioned the best part of this: William Dafoe is Ryuk. Nothing about Death note is Japan specific, and getting pissed that he's called Kira (with no context as to why), is just dumb.

Dafoe. Ryuk.
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
I havnt read every word in this thread, but i get the feeling none of you have mentioned the best part of this: William Dafoe is Ryuk. Nothing about Death note is Japan specific, and getting pissed that he's called Kira (with no context as to why), is just dumb.

Dafoe. Ryuk.

Yes. Best.





X :neo:
 

Kai Schulen

... ... ...▼
AKA
Trainer Red
I have no idea who Dafoe is, so I don't really care about that. :monster:

getting pissed that he's called Kira (with no context as to why), is just dumb.

Dafoe. Ryuk.

Cause the Japanese public started calling Light as "Kira" because it's the Japanese pronunciation of Killer. This was mentioned in the manga, yeah?

I mean, if Netflix is going to make an Americanized adaptation, but insist on using Japanese terms, it just seems...tacky and inconsistent. Unless Light is a weeaboo. Then it'll be just hilarious.
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
I have no idea who Dafoe is, so I don't really care about that. :monster:

hqdefault.jpg





X :neo:
 

Kai Schulen

... ... ...▼
AKA
Trainer Red
In my defense, I don't know a lot of actors and celebrities. It's a waste of time in my opinion to look up who's who and what not. :monster:

I mean, for years I didn't know who Benedict Cucumber was, I just thought that Benedict was a type of breakfast food.
 

Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
AKA
The Engineer
The thing is... names in English are rarely "English" terms. Most, if not all English names come from a foreign language anyway. IE: the reason a lot of Final Fantasy names are weird is because they're nouns in English. FFXIII have always sounded weird to me because they're common nouns in English. FFXV on the other hand... those names sound a lot more "normal" because they don't mean anything in English.

So long as an explanation is given for why the public is going with a Japanese term (Japanese-Americans posted about it online first?, etc.) then I could buy it. If it's not explained though... yeah, why aren't we calling him by an English name/title then?
 

fancy

pants
AKA
Fancy
I have no idea who Dafoe is, so I don't really care about that. :monster:

.

TFW when folks don't know
the-smile-man-willen-dafoe-creepy.gif

I kid, I'm largely in the dark when it comes to celebrity culture as well, lol. I happen to know about Dafoe because Sam Raimi's Spider-Man was my absolute favouriteas a child.

The thing you said about Benedict Cumberbatch cracked me up, lmfao!
 
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Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
tune into to netflix this august for the thrilling search for the mysterious ghostface killah



also it's actually willem defoe and not 'william'
 

Kai Schulen

... ... ...▼
AKA
Trainer Red
The thing you said about Benedict Cumberbatch cracked me up, lmfao!

Goddamnit I keep misspelling his surname. (But it is true, there's Eggs Benedict as a breakfast thing...)

All you muthafuckas who don't know who Willem Dafoe is need Jesus or some shit because that's just sad AF. :monster:

That's what people tell me when I say I don't know who Benedict Cumberbatch is. :monster:
 

Yvnie

Banned
Is it that hard to get some actor with brown hair and eyes who talks good and stuff.

And some british guy with messy black hair, i mean i have seen lots of british emo bands... its friggin easy to find one who could play L who is highly intelligent. Get someone from Asking Alexandria for example

Like why do they feel they need to ruin the original creators work. movies from 2014-2017, Annie2014(Will Smith rocks though), Ghostbusters remake, i mean whats next, final fantasy advent children? "shrugs"

Just endless destruction of political identity issues, they cant make something on their own so they leech of someone elses success. I just really wish they could respect the creativity of someone elses success if they are going to adapt it, if not create your own idea. I just really wish they could respect that. Like its ok, dont like it but please make your own or dont make it if you are not going to respect what work the creator put into it.
 
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X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
FWIW: This was ALWAYS a remake of Death Note based in America – a frequent comparison I've seen is likening it to The Departed & Infernal Affairs. It was never meant to be a direct live-action adaptation of the original, but rather a retelling of that story within a current American setting, so there are intentional changes for the setting and characters. I know IGN had a little focus on this recently: http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/06...-the-original-story-with-its-american-setting






X :neo:
 

Yvnie

Banned
FWIW: This was ALWAYS a remake of Death Note based in America – a frequent comparison I've seen is likening it to The Departed & Infernal Affairs. It was never meant to be a direct live-action adaptation of the original, but rather a retelling of that story within a current American setting, so there are intentional changes for the setting and characters. I know IGN had a little focus on this recently: http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/06...-the-original-story-with-its-american-setting






X :neo:

Well its still a dumb idea. Probably the audience are too stupid to actually watch it in anything else. So they just make it fitting to their culture. Its the same thing with prince and the pauper disney version, the live action one from 2007.(not to insult the actors, its just to make a point that it ignores the actual historical value of it) didnt like the mickey mouse one. There was this old animation on it but its rare and i can only find it in danish and swedish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYMNCJguWnU

But its basically in medieval time, but probably too hard for a moral lesson so they just americanized it in modern pop culture of famous guy vs middle class workers or something.
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Adapting stories from other cultures or time periods (often both) has been going for literally as long as human beings have been telling stories. It's a staple of the species, and a positive one.
 

Channy

Bad Habit
AKA
Ruby Rose, Lucy
I dunno, I like it. There hasn't been a reboot or sequel or something that's made me recoil. I'm fairly optimistic of most things and dare I say, this looks great, regardless of whatever "americanizing" they had to do.
 

Geostigma

Pro Adventurer
AKA
gabe
I dunno, I like it. There hasn't been a reboot or sequel or something that's made me recoil. I'm fairly optimistic of most things and dare I say, this looks great, regardless of whatever "americanizing" they had to do.

People are extremely cynical and often times pair that cynicism with being ill informed.

I remember the Total Recall remake with Colin Farrell getting totally shit on by people for "not being faithful to the original" , and when they said original they meant the Arnie movie.

Instead of the original book it's based on , which the remake was waaay more faithful too than the Arnie movie was lol. Kind of in the same vain as all the 90's kids shitting on the TMNT movie for not having the same origin as the late 80's movie, not realizing the origin in that movie also wasn't the original , nor realizing the origin changes all the freaking time lol.


This looks decent enough and Imma still hold off on judging it till the credits roll rather than crap on it like a ton of people are currently doing.
Though I am a little apprehensive regarding the direction they are taking Light. He seems idk like cautious or reserved about his actions here , and imo one of the better parts about Death Note was that he was arrogant and headstrong till the bitter end.
 

ChipNoir

Pro Adventurer
I dunno, I like it. There hasn't been a reboot or sequel or something that's made me recoil. I'm fairly optimistic of most things and dare I say, this looks great, regardless of whatever "americanizing" they had to do.

People are extremely cynical and often times pair that cynicism with being ill informed.

I remember the Total Recall remake with Colin Farrell getting totally shit on by people for "not being faithful to the original" , and when they said original they meant the Arnie movie.

Instead of the original book it's based on , which the remake was waaay more faithful too than the Arnie movie was lol. Kind of in the same vain as all the 90's kids shitting on the TMNT movie for not having the same origin as the late 80's movie, not realizing the origin in that movie also wasn't the original , nor realizing the origin changes all the freaking time lol.


This looks decent enough and Imma still hold off on judging it till the credits roll rather than crap on it like a ton of people are currently doing.
Though I am a little apprehensive regarding the direction they are taking Light. He seems idk like cautious or reserved about his actions here , and imo one of the better parts about Death Note was that he was arrogant and headstrong till the bitter end.

I think the studio has reservations about a "Protagonist" like Light heading a film. Between his ultra student persona and his god complex, he's not a character typical U.S audiences would be used to getting behind. There is so much baggage from Japanese's education/work culture that feeds into Light's personality that it'd be almost impossible to really translate that to a character typical non-manga viewers would even understand. So instead they edge pretty close to a Peter Parker story here, because they know that works for audiences they're going for.

At that point though, why even bother adapting the story?
 
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