Fullmetal Alchemist (2017 Live Action Film)

First Trailer Here.

Ed's line roughly translates to "“I will definitely bring back your body" or "I will get your body back, I promise", according to a Japanese-speaking friend I asked.

I've had my eye on this project since they announced an all-Asian cast a while back, which was the first sign it might be both a good movie and a faithful adaption. The trailer seems to confirm it's got potential.

For me, I'll need more than a thirty-three seconds teaser. Japan doesn't really have a good track record for live-action anime adaptations, as far as I've gathered, As for the cast, it's a Japanese studio; bigger shock would have been if they /had/ cast non-Japanese for everyone.

I know it's an anime, but I don't think it would be uncalled for or unfaithful at all if they cast non-Asians for the roles since most of the characters aren't actually Asian.

I gotta agree with ya, I don't know of many live-action anime adaptations that were really any good.

edited 15th Nov '16 10:41:13 PM by diyedas

Most good live-action adaptions tend to be longer series, and movies don't have super-great track records, but artistically the trailer shows a lot of good effort was put into replicating the feel of the anime: I can't pick out any effects, set pieces, or designs off the bat that look out of place or differ from the 'tone' of the anime or manga.

To me that's always the tricky part of live-action adaptions: replicating the feel of the source material. Usually it's pretty obvious when stuff is going left field of that, right off the bat.

Things I'm wondering about.

• Will they go in their own direction like the 2003 anime, or follow the manga's plot?

• If the latter, how of it will be in one movie? I could see it being a two-parter, but the first act's climax^note discovering Father's lair and the homunculi conspiracy is fairly action light. It'd be like splitting The Winter Soldier into two films right after discovering robo-Zola.

• The cast thus announced thus far is all Japanese, but I'm uncertain of a few unknowns. FMA has Fantasy Counterpart Cultures of China, Russia, and especially the Ainu, whose oppression and genocide is a core theme of the story. Will actors of Ainu ancestry be cast in the film, since the legacy of genocide and racial wounds is such a major plot point?

I don't see a Japanese studio including anything but Japanese actors unfortunately.

edited 15th Nov '16 11:36:57 PM by diyedas

They hire from a smaller talent pool, the effects are worse, and the stories usually aren't well done. Whine all you want about Ghost in the Shell (and many reasons to do so are valid) but it will have better acting and production values.

edited 16th Nov '16 3:41:51 AM by Beatman1

They said they will have an original ending. If there is a leaning (Homunculi lineup, Big Bad, etc.) I think it will lean manga/Brotherhood since it is more "canon" and popular. That said, I doubt Ling Yao and May Chang will show up beside cameo.

So far we only see the first few story arcs (Cornello and Tucker, specifically).

edited 16th Nov '16 5:30:54 AM by RAlexa21th

Yeah, apparently the AOT movie was bad for a number of reasons too.

I forgot about the Ainu.

Yeah, that's what the Ishvalans were supposed to represent.

I've seen people switching around the "Ghost in the Shell" argument, too, Japanese people playing characters that are essentially European in ethnic group (especially a blond Japanese person?)

Well, since FMA was published by Square Enix, and it's very likely that their CGI team will get involved, I think we can expect at very least that the CG will be pretty impresive, but there's always the possibility that it will clash horribly with the actors.

On the one hand, FMA could make the leap to live-action pretty easily. It's very narrative-driven rather than being episodic like many other animes. Taken together, it creates one smooth story from beginning to end.

But on the other hand, there's just so much of it. Brotherhood clocked in at 64 episodes. The equivalent of roughly 10-16 films. And they still needed to compress some parts.

I think that would only hurt it more. Sailor Moon and Naruto can easily divided into "arcs" and adaptations only need to tell one arc for a complete , or at least fulfilling experience. FMA is too interconnected and puzzle-like for that.

Indeed. And if they skip over a lot of the arcs it might ruin the story. They could maybe take out Scar and Cornello, along with the Maria Ross plot and the Xing characters, which would make it a better "two kids try and get their bodies back while attempting to stop a deadly conspiracy", but that still leaves a lot of plot to dump into a movie that's likely only 90 minutes long.

I do know Shou Tucker has been cast, and while his actions are thematically important on the protagonists, in the grand scheme of things he's a pretty minor subplot. So either this is going to take several movies or there's some super compression imminent.

Alphonse should be mostly live-action.

From what I've gathered, Al's CG. Ed will also be 20 instead of 15 and if this website is accurate, it's the complete story.

edited 16th Nov '16 6:13:01 PM by GethKnight

Man that is some shiny armor.

I wonder how short jokes will work with this Ed.

Saw the trailer, was not that impressed. The CGI train looked ...quite bad. (And is that just a trick of shadow, or is Ed wearing emo-dramatic amounts of eyeliner...?)

Dammit, Arakawa. I thought you were above this.

She probably has minimal influence, if any. I know in America, movie rights nearly always get signed over completely, meaning the author has no say in any of it. That's where all the terrible adaptations come from. Japan might be different, but I doubt it.

Pretty much. J.K. Rowling and some other very prolific authors who have big followings are the exception rather than the rule. I generally feel that having the creators on board of the production is a good idea: They know the gears of their own work better than anyone else. That isn't to say that they'll know how to adapt it, but they know what the original story's heart and soul are and if the adaptation is veering too far away from that, if not outright becoming something else.

Yeah, a lot of the "young adult" genre doesn't have any input from the creators unless it's stupid popular, such as Harry Potter, to the point where JK Rowling apparently helped write Fantastic Beasts.