Just got and am very excited. It's a 2 disc set with behind the scenes stuff. I know the story isn't the best thing, but it's really pretty!

I've watched it a few times now and also watched most of the second disc. I haven't tried the commentary yet and I don't even know if they'll put up captions in English for me or what.

The second disc is pretty neat. You can see how they did their motion capture, both body and facial. They also talk to the voice actors and mocap actors. That is pretty interesting because aside from the animators, each main character may have 2 or 3 or 4 actors that make up their performance. Like the stunt actor is different than the non-stunt actor and those people are different than the voice actor. It was actually a little funny because they talked to two of the woman voice actors about the facial motion capture. BOTH of them considered the fact that they were asked to remove all of their makeup and then be in front of people as the most memorable part of the experience...

SPOILER stuff below:

Can anyone tell me why the multi-legged platforms come to life at the end? I thought since the Elders didn't get to press the red button, that Athena had basically stopped their plan dead in its tracks.

Now WHO did Briareos work for? Is it that he worked for the Elders, but the regular army knew about it? Or did he work for the regular army under the Elders orders? The scene with Briareos, Deunan, Hades and the general all out on the platform is a little confusing because it's not too clear who Briareos is allied with. The army guys know a lot about him, but he doesn't want to to do exactly what they want to do...

It's a fun movie with great visuals. I'd at least rent it if you want to see the state of 3DCG (celshaded) in a theatrical realease film.

It was AWSOME!

Favorite Parts -

a) Gunfight in the beginning (I felt the way they were shaded in this part should have been continued throughout the movie)
The training sequence
c) Cyborg-ladies with the whips
d) Power armor attack on the city!

Visually stunning. But Paul's right, a lot of the important backstory from the original manga must have gotten chopped out to condense it into the movie.

unfortunately, moviemakers feel they have to drain the source material dry with their first film.

They thereby produce a story with the broadest scope, but greatly reduce their chances at making a compelling sequel or two, 'cuz they've run thru the whole story arc.

appleseed, akira, the teen titans cartoon, and every comicbook movie ever made have all burned thru years of material in under an hour, for the sake of an explosive (and usually hollywood) ending.

it's not a horrible tradeoff, but it's one i wish they didn't feel compelled to make.

-jon

i did like the new appleseed film, but i can't say it felt shirow, and thats a bad thing.

Yeah, but did anyone actually read the original manga in this case? The story problems with the movie were certainly not due to poorly condensed material. Virtually nothing about the comic was preserved in the movie, aside from the setting and the character's names.

In the comic, Briareos and Deunan are longtime partners from the badlands who are "invited" to relocate to the paradise city known as Poseidon. Most of their adventures stem from their attempts to deal with the low-level crime and "growing pains" of a newly formed utopia.

In the movie, Briareos and Deunan haven't seen each other in years, and the story seems to be some sort of conspiracy involving Deunan's mom and a magic crystal...

Someday they'll do a great adaptation of Appleseed (perhaps in live-action?), but this wasn't it.

I agree with Kricket, though, the cyborgs-with-whips sequence was beautiful.

luckbat: word. it's the whole 'you made me. no, you made me' crap that pervades so many comicbook adaptions.

the joker killed bruce wayne's parents? puppet, please.

in this case, it really was more than mere condensing -- it's as you say: little more than a trite little plot inflicted on the master's characters and settings.

at least it was pretty, and deunan didn't sleep in a bed. ' ' )

-jon

Briareos putting a hurt on the Whip-Fem-bots is the best action in the movie, I think. Could you imagine being the animator who gets the shot of Briareos punching through one of them? It doesn't matter if you are in XSI, AM, Maya or God's personal CG animation kit... that was a lot of work. And well done!

Mike: how far back would I need to look for some Appleseed manga?

don't get me wrong. from an action adventure standpoint, the movie was very good.

from an eye-candy standpoint, it was freakin' awesome. ' ' )

i feel geezerly. appleseed is 20 years old!

-jon

Do it, Paul! They're sooo good!

sounds too good to pass up! Thanks!

Just got the new Aplleseed myself last weekend, an incredible improvement over the OAV version from a while back.

Been a longtime follower of Shirow's work and started with the Appleseed manga, which unfortunately he has not decided to finish (Dark Horse does have the workes so far condensed to 4 volumes, and there are a few sub stories out as well that are not collected that are hard to find) -that sucks, but the artwork is phenominal all the more since it's all drawn by him. While I agree that the movie corrupts the story by basically tossing most out but the barest elements, I don't think they could have done a good job with the manga as a near direct translation (a TV series yes, but movie it obviously was too hard hence the route they chose).

Loved the Landmate scenes and I also thought the tank chase was particularly well done (gotta love those gattling guns) along with everything else mentioned.

I would naturally recommend Ghost in the Shell (manga as well as films/tv series) and if you can aford the $50 bucks a pop Ballistic Intron Depot art collection books that chronicles his work from his debut to current cutting edge digital painting/3d composites since he provides details on what media he used and how he did some of the work -great great stuff!!!