Fullmetal Alchemist (2017 Live Action Film)

Japanese copyright law gives the original creator a lot of control over derivative works. In practice they're still rarely directly involved in production, but they generally have to sign off on major changes

JK didn't 'help' write Fantastic Beasts, she wrote it. (No joke, the entire screen play is hers.)

Also while it's early in the process to say about Arakawa total influence, I don't find anything actually objectionable about the trailer: the CJI is decent, the cast looks good, and...I don't know. It feels like it's FMA, through and through.

It stuck a cord with me, which trailers rarely do, it made me want more, and pulled me into the project from the get go, which trailer/teasers should do.

The teaser has so little, that I don't see much cause for doubt about them matching the setting of the series, the tone of the serious parts (the humor is still in question), and the temperament of the characters. I'm more skeptical of just how much of the plot they intend to do in a single film. Either it's going to be a really cramped faithful adaptation, its own unique story, or a faithful adaptation split in multiple films. Which would come off as a first film that feels like it ends early in the second act without any climax, followed by a sequel with lots of subplots and an absurdly long climax.

edited 2nd Jan '17 12:28:44 AM by Tuckerscreator

Well, they have have chance to improve the CGI in post-production (that train... urgh... ) Some of it looked better, like that snippet from a fight scene, but I don't know... on the other hand, that fight scene looked bit too much like a trailer for a Square Enix game.

I like drawn animation for fantasy settings because it's can be suggestive on how stuff looks like instead of necessitating use of hyper-realistic CGI. Today it can be made to look realistic, but if a fantastical thing looks realistic, I believe some of the magic is lost.

And distilling the whole plot into one movie, yeah, that would be problem. Hopes are that they are trying to just distill the beginning parts into a coherent arc, ending with "to be continued"?

But my most important objection is to Ed's character design. Me not like.

edited 2nd Jan '17 1:57:27 AM by maus42

This is going to be a bit odd, especially seeing how much of a European flavor Fullmetal Alchemist actually had.

I had always thought the Ishvalans were supposed to be stand-ins for the Jews.

edited 2nd Jan '17 9:50:09 AM by Robbery

They're more of a stand-in for the Ainu IIRC.

I'm just trying to figure out what's 'wrong' with the train...

I have a friend who's bitter about them using CGI for Alphonse instead of just making a proper costume/crafting a real suit.

I'm kind of conflicted on that myself.

I think this is one of the few cases where making an actual puppet/real suit with CGI supplements would be feasible and the ideal solution, but Japan doesn't have as many resources as Hollywood does.

That's also a reason why I'm willing to give some things a pass. I can't hold them to the same standard of Hollywood.

I am ambivalent till I see the final product re: Al's armor. I've seen excellent CGI, and terrible CGI. It's not hard for me to imagine them pulling it off, but it's also not hard for me to imagine it being screwed up.

I think it's also a practicality reason.

That's what I usually say, but Alphonse is one of those rare anime character who could be realistically done. I mean, they pulled off Teenage Mutant Ninjas in the 90's with just costumes. Alphonse would only need CGI for the more intense scenes. Edward participates in more battles than Alphonse does anyway.

The suit just seems too cumbersome to use in a practical shoot. And the heating problem would be a pain in the ass. Also, poor visibility, on the actor's part wearing the suit.

Not to mention finding an actor actor tall enough to move in it…

Yeah, I think CGI does make the most sense because while it's not unheard of to have a stunt person do body movements while an actor provides a voice (i.e. Darth Vader), in this case you would need someone who is very tall and broad and can do martial arts moves. I mean there's always going to be some camera trickery involved, but my impression from relative sizes is that the person in Al's suit would have to have to around the size of Hafthor Bjornsson.

Not to mention that the suit was designed for animation where it can do the martial arts because the artists makes it so. That works less so if its a physical suit. The design might end up being too cumbersome to work with not even counting the weight of it all.

I honestly prefer practical effects over all CGI, but there are limits.

I think it would be nice if they could do Alphonse with practical effects (because I always appreciate that), but I agree that this may be a case where it just may not be...well, practical. For one, you would indeed need one hell of a big guy to fill that suit, and remember that an actor of that stature would probably be even harder to come by in Japan than in other places, given the fact that Japanese people tend to be relatively small compared to people of other ethnicities.

I don't think the cumbersome nature of the suit would be problem in most scenes, though, since Al isn't usually doing all that much. In the anime, he frequently does appear slightly cumbersome in the way he moves, with a lot of clanking and grinding as he moves. But fight scenes are a different matter entirely, and you probably would have to switch to CGI for those. So maybe they figured if they were already using CGI for those scenes, they might as well go the whole hog, because it ironically might end up being less distracting if he was constantly a CGI character as compared to if he was switching back and forth in every other scene.

Draghinazzo's probably right that the ideal solution might be to do like Iron Man in the MCU and have a real suit with CGI enhancements (because that looks pretty damn good when it's done properly), but maybe they just don't have the resources to do something like that convincingly.

Also, add me to the list of people who think they absolutely should cast Ainu actors as Scar and the other Ishavalans. I don't expect them to, but they should.

teaser 2, featuring Al's helmet, human transmutation, and Ed transmuting a spear.

edited 7th Apr '17 10:18:12 AM by RAlexa21th

And terrible child actors.

I've been reading the manga and in Vol 15 extra Arakawa and her assistants talk about who they'd cast in a live-action (one assistant even complains about the Asian cast).

Al = CGI

Ed = Neko Hiroshi

Yoki = Masahiko Nishimura

Greed = Tomoyasu Hotei

Lust = one of the Kano sisters

Bradley = Tetsuya Watari

Mustang = Mitsuhiro Oikawa

Directed by Stephen Chow

…That's pretty hilarious in hindsight.

It would be even more hilarious if they actually took "Mitchy" for Mustang.

Well shit, if Disney can make live-action Beauty and the Beast, we can make live-action Jojo/Fullmetal/Parayste.

There's been a live action Parasyte. Two, in fact.

Something about the transmutation doesn't sit right with me. I think it might be that he's tearing apart the entire house. Though, that might be for dramatic purposes. And I would have liked to see Ed's actor with gold contacts, at least.

Addition: I didn't even realize that we're probably going to see Shou and Nina Tucker in live action. That'll be weird.

edited 9th Apr '17 10:18:56 AM by GethKnight

http://comicbook.com/anime/2017/07/03/fullmetal-alchemist-live-action-movie-reaction

Here's some hope.