Apparently the Wachowski brothers are working on a live action version of the classic bad anime of our youth. Emile Hirsch (Lords of Dogtown) stars as Speed, with Christina Ricci as Trixie and Mathew Fox as Racer X. A real chimpanzee will play Chim Chim.
This USA Today article features a picture of the Mach 5. No word yet on whether there will be a tie in promotional with a razor blade company.
I thought the reason Speed Racer is popular is due to the fact that it is so bad that it is funny
I don’t think so. In its heyday, it was actually pretty sophisticated in comparison to the other cartoons on US airwaves.
That was part of its appeal. Speed Racer showed that you can incorporate drama and pathos into a cartoon in a manner that children would appreciate.
Speed Racer rocked. Now, as a grownup, I enjoy because it is so bad that it is funny, but as a kid I was totally immersed in that fantasy.
I remember being shocked by the little clip in the intro where they spun the guy in front of the car, frozen in pose. 3D, man! Maybe this is why the Wachows like it (and/or got inspired for their frozen camera spin thingamabob they do)
I don’t see why you think this is so weird. The premise is no stranger than that of dozens of movies that come out each year. It’s even quite a bit less strange than Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four.
I have the first season of the cartoon on DVD. The animation was so rudimentary that all 15 episodes fit on a single disc.
Matthew Fox as Racer X, huh? Interesting. You know…tell me if I’m crazy, but I’ve always thought Racer X bore a more than passing resemblance to Speed’s long-lost older brother Rex Racer.
Good God.
Even as a kid, I thought Spped Racer was dumb. But if they’re making a Big Budget "Transformers: movie, I guess they can make a big budget Speed Racer movie.
Is it too much to ask that they make at least one halfway decent science fiction film a year? I guess so.
How could you tell? Racer X wore a mask, bucko.
Methinks you’ve just been fooled by the similarity of their names.
I just hope they get the sound track out of sync with the video just like the cartoons. Plus, they’ve got to get the really breathy vocal mannerism down so that the pauses are all in the wrong places and thenthedialoguespeedsupattheend. Oh, and the big anime-style eyes.
Pauses? Did the **ever ** pause!?
I guess I don’t know how DVDs work. Why does rudimentary animation take up less space? I would have thought a frame takes up the same amount of space no matter what’s on it.
Do DVDs work by recording only changed pixels or something? I think some recording technologies do that, right?
But then, I’ve got some cartoons on DVD, and they’re all right around two hours per disk. You’d think if DVDs worked on the “changing pixels” method then you could usually fit more on a DVD of cartoons than you could on a live action DVD.
Of course, the publishers might not always have an economic interest in cramming as much as they can on a DVD…
-FrL-
“Do you get “SpeedRacer” here, eh?”
The Hanson Brothers from the movie “Slapshot”.
By the way that’s a bad link in the OP.
-FrL-
I think the complexity of the image has something to do with it as well, when the information is digitally stored. A frame from the “Battle of Helm’s Deep” sequence in The Two Towers will have much more information in it than a frame from Speed Racer, which was stingy with its backgrounds.
Also, I’m pretty sure Speed Racer had many fewer than the standard 30 frames per second.
What? People go to the links? Sorry
DVDs use various forms of image compression (part of which is a sophisticated version of “recording only the changed pixels”). The more redundancy there is in a given block of data, the more it can be compressed – obviously, a minute of rudimentary animation has a much higher redundancy level than a minute of live video.
How hard this will suck will be in direct proportion to the ratio of Spritle and Chim Chim screen time to overall film length. Speed Racer film = potential for great coolness. Speed Racer film, heavy with Chim Chim = suckage of truly impressive magnitude.
I’m not familiar with Emile Hirsh but he looks the part. Matthew Fox playing it unironically and Ricci playing it deeply ironically should be fun.
This is a funny coincidence because of my post in this [thread=422975]thread[/thread].
I can’t say I’m surprised about this movie.
He did a pretty good job in Lords of Dogtown.
Pssst… I’ll let you in on a secret.
:: takes a deep breath ::
UnbenknownsttoSpeed, RacerXisreallyRexRacer, SpeedRacer’solderbrotherwhoranawayfrom homeyearsagoafteranargumentwithPops.
God I loved that show for the sheer crap-itude. Loved it!
[QUOTE=zweisamkeitUnbenknownsttoSpeed, RacerXisreallyRexRacer, SpeedRacer’solderbrotherwhoranawayfrom homeyearsagoafteranargumentwithPops.[/QUOTE]
Oooohhhh!
