Call it the one time I'll say "I wanted the theater experience for a movie" over the past two years. Besides, I'm not someone who goes to a theater for the consession stand, so I'd only be spending the dime for the ticket and seat. It's how I won the "Sat through Avengers Endgame AND Rise of Skywalker without needing a bathroom break" achievement. Why I'd be going solo is the only people I would see it with live in Loganville and Augusta Georgia, and Turlock California. So.. yeah. Even so, they've given me their log-in for Netflix a few times on occassion, and I have the big screen TV to watch it on. That's pretty much my point for personal preference I addressed above, but you also hit the lingering concern I've had on the longevity of the franchise outside of the target audience. I always had this impression Gundam wouldn't be for the general moviegoer who see "big robots fighting in space!" without the context of the Human Drama that drives it. This would risk promoting it in the US by the "based on an anime about robots, so it must be FOR KIDS" mentality, only to find out in the first space battle what a LOLTomino is. Remember Rambo 4, how it was advertised as another shlocky Sly Stallone bandana blowout, and ended up being so... visceral. I'm not saying the franchise is going to tank as a whole from one movie's projected poor performance, Gundam will survive with its core audiences as it always has. On the merchandising front, which is the "key to success" in some franchises, Bandai's toy aisle footprint is shrinking in the US and Gundam would be a fiscal hand grenade AGAIN. We all saw firsthand what the original US Gundam Boom was like, and how it mostly didn't succeed. Sure the franchise piqued the interest of some, and brought others into the hobby, but it didn't have the impact they were hoping for. Granted things seem differently in different places, but living in south Georgia, the only place I see Gundam Universe figures in a store are on the backwall of Target (next to the Funko Pops and adult-age toys by NECA) or buried in the "collectibles" shelves randomly at Walmart. Models are extremely rare in my part of the world too even with some showing up at Hobby Lobby or Gamestop. Gundam always means Gunpla, and with the limited exposure to that, a US demographic based primarily on selling action figure collections wouldn't appreciate it. In any case... with this decision by Sunrise/Legendary, we can can safely say the only Gundams that will ever appear in a movie theater are the Unicorn's cameo in Pacific Rim Uprising and the RX-78-2's theatrical debut in Ready Player One, and ... ..G-Saviour! Seriously, its hangar is hidden in an abandoned movie theather.
For someone who doesn't watch a lot of movies on a regular basis and already pays for cable and other streaming services... no, I don't see Netflix paying for itself enough to warrant picking it up for a single film that I had little faith in to begin with.
Netflix is so frontloaded with shit, I'm constantly on the verge of cancelling my subscription, only to watch one fucking thing a month and put it off.
Oh, yeah, well if you still have cable television for some reason in 2021, that changes things. What are you watching on cable television? That is a great example of something that is not worth its price.
With all of these talk about the upcoming Live-action Gundam movie distributed by Netflix and some mentioning of G-Saviour being thrown around, ironically enough... there's actually another plan for a live-action Gundam movie planned for Holywood that predates even G-Saviour (With Syd Mead of Turn A Gundam fame, being tasked with concept arts for said "movie"), and the bizarre story of such a plan that never came to fruition... When Gundam Came to Hollywood To sum it up, With the proven success of Gundam in Japan around the 80s, Mr Makoto Yamashina (Bandai Company president at that time) had his sights set on bringing the franchise to the American market with a feature film. For this idea, Bandai representatives brought the property to Lion's Gate Film, with screenwriter Chip Proser being hired to write the screenplay; Who went on to hire Syd Mead for some initial concept arts for this planned movie (NOTE: Syd Mead's involvement with the Lion's Gate Project marks his first time working on the Gundam franchise in any capacity, and he eventually get to work on Turn A Gundam) The projects most ambitious distinction was the idea to use CGI for the majority of its effects, at a time when it was almost entirely unheard of. Before the project's cancellation, Proser managed to complete a first draft of the script and commissioned storyboards of the opening scene; with the story settings differ significantly from Gundam series at that time. Many characters, including their roles, relationships, ages and names are changed. Amuro is called “Amaru” (though Proser admitted this was likely just a mistake), and among the characters, "Amaru" is the one who is least changed. Char, called “Sha” in the script (closer to his name in Japanese), is Amaru's 13-year old brother and is envious of the technical-minded Amaru's ability to relate with their scientist father. Despite the actual reason for the project's cancellation, was a bit murky, both Syd Mead and Proser do mention the fact that Bandai didn't have the go-ahead from all Gundam rights holders at that time, which may have contributed to the project's eventual cancellation. NGL, everything about this just sounds insane, but it's still an interesting read (And some of the concept arts by Syd Mead do look quite good)
Key Example: Mediacom. Cable, Internet, and Phone service at the arm and leg monthly cost for channels I don't watch and an internet connection with a wi-fi signal that spans my entire pasture. On the bright side because I already have the HBO package, I get HBO Max for free... which I've only used it to watch Godzilla Vs Kong. This hurt so much because it would have been so cool and that Syd Mead died last year. It's like the Stan Winston Godzilla we never got to see either.
Not to a Canadian where there's only two main providers and neither gives a shit about their customers.
NEWS｜『機動戦士ガンダム 閃光のハサウェイ』公式サイト Hathaway getting limited same day theater edition Blu-ray releases, who wants to pick me up one
The animation is incredible. You can tell it's cel drawn characters over a CGI environment but it doesn't feel as jarring with how the scenery is rendered so nearly photorealistic. Spaceballs was right... "instant cassettes! They're out in stores before the movie is finished!!"
subbed: it's clearly done in 2D computer animation with 3D environments. there aren't the hand-drawn textures from most anime older than 2007
Huh.. wasn't sure about the characters being drawn physically or digitally but you know what I mean though. The characters are drawn in the *traditional cel style* over digital scenery. I'm looking at it from the perspective of a movie like "Titan AE" that took this similar approach but you couldn't ignore the difference between the cel drawn characters in digital environments.
They're still drawn by hand regardless of whether that's on paper and then scanned in, or if it's hand drawn on a cintiq or tablet. But cels are that clear plastic film (never touched by the actual artists, ironically) that ink and paint people would trace the original drawings onto and then paint color onto. And that's gone forever. Digital ink and paint is faster and infinitely cheaper.
When are they releasing Hathaway's Flash in the US? Are they going to show it in theaters like they did with NT?
That remains a mystery right now I'm afraid. Considering the Live Action Movie plan witn Netflix, it wouldn't surprise me if they become its distributor in the US.
I hope not since that would mean it would take like 5 years to get a physical Blu-Ray release. I mean, the god damn Ultraman anime came out two years ago and we still don't have it on Blu-Ray. The Godzilla anime trilogy hasn't had a physical release yet either. Nor Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045.
