The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Hmm, the only Metropolis I know of is a German silent film.

john m wrote:When I judge a dub, I don't do so based on the movement of the mouths being in sync with the speech (because it would be unfair - though, when they do line up, like in Bebop, it's a great bonus). Rather, I judge whether the voice actor sounds believable as the character,

But take Bebop. The characters are pretty much caucasian. So you could argue that caucasian voices are more in character than the original japanese ones.

What would be cool is if they did something like Escaflowne with a mix -- have the Japanese characters speak Japanese, and the old-English-world characters speak English. Of course, then you're stuck with dubs or subs no matter what you speak, unless you're bi-lingual, but it'd still be kinda cool.

Generic wrote:Hmm, the only Metropolis I know of is a German silent film.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0293416/

"The story is an update of the fantastic silent film Metropolis"
I saw a preview for this at some point.
-bill

Apparently, the filmmaker never actually saw Fritz Lang's Metropolis, but was inspired by the poster. Cool.

c hack wrote:What would be cool is if they did something like Escaflowne with a mix -- have the Japanese characters speak Japanese, and the old-English-world characters speak English.

It's a cool idea in thought, but so bad in practice. 95% of Japanese voice talent can't speak English nearly as well as they think they can, and the studios never hire English voice talent, so you end up with all this great Japanese dialogue with some God-awful unintelligible Engrish character ruining things. (It's even worse when they speak languages other than English. Evangelion's Asuka speaking German is pretty bad, and that's one of the better examples.)

Tezuka's Metropolis is in some ways similar to Fritz Lang's Metropolis but they are different movies.

HeuristicsInc wrote:

Generic wrote:Hmm, the only Metropolis I know of is a German silent film.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0293416/

"The story is an update of the fantastic silent film Metropolis"
I saw a preview for this at some point.
-bill

I've seen it. It's OK but it's not got nothing to do with the original. Plus it's a little too derivative of Akira, Ghost in the Machine et al. And the animation is a bit bizzarre in the sense of cute anime blended with more gothic matrix-style stuff. Too long as well. A real curate's egg. I wouldn't reccommend it, myself.

j$

Yes, Cowboy Bebop is the best show I've seen, anime or otherwise, which is depressing because few things I've seen since measure up. This show did a great job of making me like music I shouldn't. [GOOD]

I hate Aqua Teen Hunger Force with the burning rage of a thousand suns. Yes, I have seen the episodes with the Mooninites. I still hate the show. It belongs on newgrounds, not TV. Can anyone explain one good thing about it? [BAD]

I've never been able to understand Home Movies. It's probably pretty good (I mean, the writing would have to be good to make up for the animation), but there is seriously something wrong with the audio on every episode I've seen. It sounds like the whole show has gone through a low-pass filter. I have to turn it up so loud to hear what they are saying, only to be blasted by properly mixed tampon ads during the commercial breaks. [BAD]

Finally, The Critic is [OK] if you like watered-down family guy from the early 90's. Undergrads is great if you think non-stop obscure Star Wars references are funny, and is less great if you don't like slow paced obtuse college dram-edies. [GOOD]

Puce wrote:Can anyone explain one good thing about it?

The dialogue, the non-sequitur humor, the characters. The complete lack of coherent plot.

AKA everything.

I don't like the Mooninites.

However, ATHF isn't for everyone. If you don't like it, you don't like it.

Puce wrote:This show did a great job of making me like music I shouldn't.

Please explain.
-bill

HeuristicsInc wrote:

Puce wrote:This show did a great job of making me like music I shouldn't.

Please explain.

It's got a perfect soundtrack comprised entirely of music that is "not my thing". I was constantly finding myself grooving out to smooth jazz during fierce dogfights.

oh, cool. i love that soundtrack. i bought the 4-disk set after only watching the first dvd's worth of episodes and i'm not sad i did.
-bill

j$ wrote:It's OK but it's not got nothing to do with the original. Plus it's a little too derivative of Akira, Ghost in the Machine et al. And the animation is a bit bizzarre in the sense of cute anime blended with more gothic matrix-style stuff. Too long as well. A real curate's egg. I wouldn't reccommend it, myself.

Well, I would. The animation isn't so much cute as it is old fashioned, I think, and I personally enjoyed it more than Akira. You just can't fit 5 or 6 volumes of fantastic manga in one movie and expect it to work. Of course, there's also the fact of the sountrack to Metropolis... jazz! Dunno where you get "gothic matrix-style stuff".

I totally agree with you about the Bebop soundtracks, Puce - it doesn't matter what genre it is, all the music rocks my world. "Pushing the Sky" starts out in 7/8, too, which I didn't realise for about a year.

Always good to see Kanno-sama getting her due.

(Er, I mean... even if it's only Cowboy Bebop! You should listen to all her stuff. Yeah.)

the Jazz wrote: The animation isn't so much cute as it is old fashioned, I think, and I personally enjoyed it more than Akira. You just can't fit 5 or 6 volumes of fantastic manga in one movie and expect it to work. Of course, there's also the fact of the sountrack to Metropolis... jazz! Dunno where you get "gothic matrix-style stuff".

Gothic style - Oh from the building, from the ending, from the architecture in general. The very Akira-explosion at the end (where the explosion becomes fluid almost like tentacles. Far too many moody establishing shots. Even the melding of jazz with ultra-modern setting. Like, seen/heard it already!)

And animation wise - you have cutesy Astroboy hero, some annyoing cute 'Short Circuit' style robots, more 'Area 88' style young moody style anti-hero, buffoon cartoon uncle, the more realistic bad guys. The more I think about it, the more average I realise this is.

Oh and jazz soundtrack. Yeah, I like dixieland, but it added nothing to the film apart from 'oh that's different'. And frankly I've heard it done a hundred times in other anime.

"You just can't fit 5 or 6 volumes of fantastic manga in one movie and expect it to work" - did I say I did? All I expect is the film to be an enjoyable experience in its own right. Which it wasn't. Nearly but not quite. It needed to be honed more. (although I will grant you that this is a problem I have with Akira as well. It doesn't make enough sense unless you know the story in advance,)

So thanks for helping me grade this down from a C+ to a C-

j$

I like what I've seen of:

Aqua Teen Hunger Force
Sealab 2021
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law
The Brak Show

I only saw first season episodes of these shows, and none of the other Adult Swim stuff. But I liked everything I saw. Birdman is probably my favorite.

I didn't mean you personally, J$. Just thinking out loud.

the Jazz wrote:"Pushing the Sky" starts out in 7/8

I disagree.

I'm with J$ on this one. I found Metroplis way too complicated and kinda boring. That's also my problem with Akira and Ghost in the Shell. But the gorgeous animation of Ghost in the Shell makes up for it, and the unfuckingbelievable art in the Akira manga more than makes up for it.

john m wrote:

the Jazz wrote:"Pushing the Sky" starts out in 7/8

I disagree.

Hm. Listened to it again and you're right... Hmmmmm. I remember listening to it some time a couple years ago and deciding it was in 7... Maybe I was thinking of a different song. Argh! The guitar riff is like... fake-out 7 or something... I am so vexed, I'm going to use one of these completely random icons.

EDIT: Ah-HA! It's a different track that's in 7! I'm not crazy!!!! But somehow all the track names on that minidisc got ERASED (my sister probably did it) so I don't know what it's called. But I wasn't thinking of "Pushing the Sky" after all. The one right after "What Planet Is This?"

"7 Minutes."