High School Musical's Zach Effron in talks to star in "Full Metal Panic" adaptation.

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mzpooh816

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I saw no DVRAB released in conjunction with Speed Racer when it came out.

I do see DBZ freaking everywhere (DVRAB, at least). DBE may be enough to spur some people into buying DBZ on DVD.

Christian Bale as Roger Smith? That would be taking the Batman inspiration to the extreme (which would be incredibly cool nonetheless). However, I can't imagine any voice coming out of Roger's mouth other than Steve Blum's. XD
 
His ethnicity is still Japanese. He was born of genetically Japanese parents. Physically he is a Japanese male.



So because Gauron raised him, that's one reason to cast a white actor?



Yet they want to cast a white bread actor in the Sousuke role.



But the school characters would no longer be the Japanese school characters.
 
You are missing my point. I am worried about faithfulness as much as everyone else. But what I am saying is Sousuke is a soldier trained by the Taliban in Afganistan. And THIS is what makes him who he is, not his genetic parents.

As such, I worry about Sousuke not being faithful to the original, but not because of skin color; there is 99% chance Sousuke's past as a child soldier would be removed all together, and that's worse than any changes related to ethic groups.
 
Actually what Hollywood did was paint their faces black/yellow and physically alter their features (like taping their eyes to make them narrow, or painting their lips). What they'd have to do here is.. nothing. If you find that racist, then why do you show no anger towarRAB the original artist who drew him that way? It's just being faithful to the character's original appearance, is all.
 
At first, I looked at that concept and thought Zac Heffron, that's not much different than the pretty-boy actor Josh Duhamel playing a soldier in transformers... and he actually ended up doing a better job than I expected.

But then I thought: "Pretty boy actor in a movie with Giant Robots..." and I realised that this could be an inept attempt to make a move on Transformers without fully thinking it through.

god I hope not, this remains one of my all time favorite series.
 
Sousuke doesn't have an "Asian" appearance because Asians don't draw ourselves with such appearances.
It's not that Sousuke doesn't look Asian, it's that he doesn't ACT Asian. He never did. He is a child soldier, and that's what's important. I don't care even if they used an African, Indian, or native American actor for Sousuke. His history as a Middle Eastern Child Soldier has to be kept at all costs.
 
You know, it wouldn't surprise me if they had intended to get the other Full Metal.

Hollywood Executive Guy: Well, it was a pleasure to make business with you, Mr. Jap! Don't worry, your franchise is in the best possible hanRAB! We're going to be WAY RICHER!

Anime Licensing Japanese Guy: Domo Arigatou, Dirty Gaijin-san. *Bows and leaves the meeting room*

Hollywood Executive Guy: *Chuckles to himself, until an Assistant comes in and whispers something into his ear*

Hollywood Executive Guy: WE GOT THE WRONG WHAT?!?!?!?
 
Meh. Not saying it will be any good for now, but this is a tiiiiiiiiiny corner of the movie-watching public.

Unlike DB and Speed Racer, which had considerable cross-media pasts, FMP is pretty much a niche title. That's both good and bad for the adaptation, because it doesn't have to live up to any prior expectations from the masses, and if done well, can be as good as The Mask or Men In Black, but at the same time, it'll have to stand on it own merits instead of a large pre-established fanbase.
 
If they adapt the show for the US, with similar concepts but with a setting change and new characters (a la the Witcrabroadlade anime), it could work. Like keep Mithril and the giant robots and move it to America, just don't give Effron the name Sousuke Sagara because that would be silly. Maybe they could have a background/supporting character with the name as a nod to the original.

I don't think the guns-and-explosives-at-school-based jokes would fly in America though.
 
You know, I'm going to be Mr. Unpopular here for a minute.

What's so bad about Zac Efron? Yes, his star vehicle is a terrible movie series aimed towarRAB kiRAB and tweens, but that shouldn't be reflective of his acting abilities. If you've seen the little work he's done outside of the High School Musical series (like his role in Hairspray, his hosting of SNL last night), he's certainly a capable actor.

He's also a name, which means that movies like these will, for better or worse, get more publicity.
 
Why the hell would you want to make a live action Sailor Moon movie though for Hollywood? Material like that doesn't translate to a US mainstream moviegoing audience at all?

For the Asian audience they can just slap a wig on. The Asian youth love to dye and color their hair.
 
I wish the cast that did the Sailor Moon live-action Japanese T.V show dyed their hair then putting up a cheep wigs.

Ok, back in topic.

Can it be done? I never heard of FMP before.
 
Still....I need to see FMP to get what's going on to this movie. Personally, I don't like high-school musical and any of the ppl that are in it. But that's me.

So it can work, but can it done in a decent way?
 
Sailor Moon didn't come off as very Japan-centric. I thought the dub was successful in expunging the Japanese-ness out of the show, like Speed Racer; only thing I could think of offhand was Mars working at a Shinto temple. Other than that, the Sailor Scouts could work in any city in America. The values of love and frienRABhip are pretty universal.

I hate the Avatar movie casting among other controversies, so please don't think I'm being an apologist for Hollywood or anything like that.
 
Most Japanese animation may not do it, but they're out there. Grave of the Fireflies, for example (one of the only Japanese LA adaptions which actually looked okay)

It's cool to hate on HSM, and by association, its cast. Or maybe they have this idea that hiring someone for HSM means they're going to turn this movie into HSM, or something. There's no real logical reason I can think of, to be honest, so it's probably the first reason.
 
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