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Death Note (Netflix Movie)


Clappy

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As some of you may know, Death Note is one of my favorite animes, probably my favorite.  When I first heard they were making a full length (at the time theatrical, but redirecting this to Netflix I don't mind either) movie out of this, I was initially excited.  Then...it sort of got delayed, once again probably due to studios backing out and then Netflix taking on the project.

I'll be honest.  I'm still slightly excited about this because for awhile, I didn't think this was going to happen.  Not sure how the casting is going to work out.  I don't mind Nat Wolff as Light and Willem Dafoe is mysterious as Ryuk...I like that so far.  Not sure how I feel about L yet, but he might warm up to me.

I just hope this isn't Ghost in the Shell levels of disappointing and the trailers just haven't gotten me as hyped as I've hoped.

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I love Death Note and I think this will probably be alright at the best. It looks faithful to it's source material (which IMO, Ghost In The Shell was also) and the acting looks alright. I guess I'll give it a shot, but I definitely think it looks a lot better than I thought it would.

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It looks like it'll take the general idea of it and then go with something completely different which is honestly fine, but it still feels like somethings are bound to be off like Light, I couldn't help but find some of his parts a little generic.

If he's changed into "normal member of society" and THEN goes into  100% "psychotic, sociopathic, god complex the person" mode then that'd also be interesting, but the line "we're not the good guys anymore" has me worried a tad bit here. There's different ways that I could think of it working in context, but there's still so many ways this could be underwhelming. It's hard to fit everything into movies, that's a given, but I do at least want some questioning of morality in here.

As of right now I'm stuck in the middle on how to feel about this, I can't honestly say I'd be surprised at it being a good movie, a bad one, or just something that I'll forget by next year. One thing I feel as of now is that regardless of the quality, it won't be leaning strongly in any specific tier of quality.

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1 hour ago, CyanideFishbone said:

It looks faithful to it's source material (which IMO, Ghost In The Shell was also)

Really? I dunno, they kind of mucked up Light's character a lot. In the anime he's this super good looking amazingly perfect intelligent alpha kind of guy, and here he looks very... opposite of most (if not all) of that. He's very underdogish here. Looks like a typical weirdo-outcast kind of guy and he gets bullied. Like they're trying to make him relatable. But - and I don't know about anyone else, maybe I just watched Death Note wrong - I didn't exactly find myself rooting for Light at all in the original. I wanted him to get got. Maybe they'll do something interesting with the underdog/weirdo trope and poke fun at it, but I think they just shouldn't have touched his character to begin with. It makes the dynamic between him and L less interesting when he's not perfect. If he's just some typical kid then I'll just be thinking "how is this guy beating L?!" the entire time.

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9 minutes ago, terminoob said:

Really? I dunno, they kind of mucked up Light's character a lot. In the anime he's this super good looking amazingly perfect intelligent alpha kind of guy, and here he looks very... opposite of most (if not all) of that. He's very underdogish here. Looks like a typical weirdo-outcast kind of guy and he gets bullied. Like they're trying to make him relatable. But - and I don't know about anyone else, maybe I just watched Death Note wrong - I didn't exactly find myself rooting for Light at all in the original. I wanted him to get got. Maybe they'll do something interesting with the underdog/weirdo trope and poke fun at it, but I think they just shouldn't have touched his character to begin with. It makes the dynamic between him and L less interesting when he's not perfect. If he's just some typical kid then I'll just be thinking "how is this guy beating L?!" the entire time.

To be fair, this is an adaptation that is trying to do something to set itself apart from the source material without going against too much of it. From what we've seen so far, there's no Mello or Near here, so it seems this is only based off the first half of Death Note. If it's true they're omitting them and L is meant to win in this version, it actually does make sense to make Light an underdog because that's what Mello and Near were, the ones who grew to be at L's level. If they work that conflict into Light's character as a substitute for their absence, it could make for something that's interesting and easy to condense into an hour and a half/two hour-long movie.

If you just don't want to see that conflict at all, literally just the first half of Death Note in film form, I understand. But Death Note has been adapted into a movie before, and with how many adaptations there are of it, I think it's good that this one is trying to give itself an identity that's different from the original.

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Everything looks fine (and honestly the Death Note 2006 film sets the bar really low), but my only concern is why is L outside talking to people? If I recall correctly, L was this kind of character that doesn't really have any friends and never talks to people directly, only through a picture of the letter L. He has this mask on in the trailer, but even so, it's a character change. I hope Netflix gets this one right... Death Note as an anime was fantastic, but no movie to date has been able to match what the anime and manga has been able to bring to the table.

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2 hours ago, terminoob said:

Really? I dunno, they kind of mucked up Light's character a lot. In the anime he's this super good looking amazingly perfect intelligent alpha kind of guy, and here he looks very... opposite of most (if not all) of that. He's very underdogish here. Looks like a typical weirdo-outcast kind of guy and he gets bullied. Like they're trying to make him relatable. But - and I don't know about anyone else, maybe I just watched Death Note wrong - I didn't exactly find myself rooting for Light at all in the original. I wanted him to get got. Maybe they'll do something interesting with the underdog/weirdo trope and poke fun at it, but I think they just shouldn't have touched his character to begin with. It makes the dynamic between him and L less interesting when he's not perfect. If he's just some typical kid then I'll just be thinking "how is this guy beating L?!" the entire time.

Some of it makes sense with the differences in Japanese culture to ours, but yeah I have to agree that the portrayal of Light just doesn't scream "I can pull this off", and to answer your question about Death Note he was a sociopath with a God Complex, and it showed that even a so called perfect upstanding member society such as him would succumb to something with that power. There are different ways to interpret it but wanting Light to lose doesn't indicate that you looked at it wrong in the slightest. I just don't want all of that gone in place of a random generic teenager like this is showing, as L is supposed to be a world class detective which makes it a mental clash of titans. I get that adaptations change things but if it's going to be specifically Death Note, then at least some of that has to be there which this doesn't really show.

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3 hours ago, terminoob said:

Really? I dunno, they kind of mucked up Light's character a lot. In the anime he's this super good looking amazingly perfect intelligent alpha kind of guy, and here he looks very... opposite of most (if not all) of that. He's very underdogish here. Looks like a typical weirdo-outcast kind of guy and he gets bullied. Like they're trying to make him relatable. But - and I don't know about anyone else, maybe I just watched Death Note wrong - I didn't exactly find myself rooting for Light at all in the original. I wanted him to get got. Maybe they'll do something interesting with the underdog/weirdo trope and poke fun at it, but I think they just shouldn't have touched his character to begin with. It makes the dynamic between him and L less interesting when he's not perfect. If he's just some typical kid then I'll just be thinking "how is this guy beating L?!" the entire time.

Yeah I did notice that and honestly I can't say that I have any problems with that as a difference in this adaptation. Actually if that's the way it goes I'd be surprised how the story would change.

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On 7/2/2017 at 1:44 AM, CyanideFishbone said:

Yeah I did notice that and honestly I can't say that I have any problems with that as a difference in this adaptation. Actually if that's the way it goes I'd be surprised how the story would change.

I don't mind it doing it's own thing but for L to be tricked at all, considering he's supposed to be a world class detective (a trait that shouldn't be changed at all since y'know, WE'D WANT TO STOP AN UNKNOWN MASS MURDERER WHO'S PROVEN TO EXIST AND HAVE THIS EVENT NOT BE A BUNCH OF COINCIDENCES, something known by the death of heart attacks which is something this movie seems to change) he should be reasonably baffled by Light, which does sort of make sense with the change in cause of death to switch things up at the very least, Light is shown to get himself into deep trouble as shown by the ferris wheel clip, and the scene where he sees L face to face. A typical underdog story would be interesting but it looks like L catches on to him, whether they do it like the original where it's obvious but L can't reasonably prove it is another story. 

I'm up for the change but it seems like a huge risk in terms of making sense. I feel like it should raise a bit of a red flag that raises questions, which is the point of a trailer, to get me interested in it and this is a mysterious way of doing so for an adaptation. The changes it makes are definitely going to be risky and they deserve credit for not being cookie-cutter, but will it be good? My problem is an underlying sense of uncertainty and dread that this is going to be dumbed down so they can fit it into the timespan of a movie, which honestly sucks. I feel like this could somewhat work as a live action TV show but the movie format is what gets me antsy. :/

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7 hours ago, Doug Dimmadome said:

I don't mind it doing it's own thing but for L to be tricked at all, considering he's supposed to be a world class detective (a trait that shouldn't be changed at all since y'know, WE'D WANT TO STOP AN UNKNOWN MASS MURDERER WHO'S PROVEN TO EXIST AND HAVE THIS EVENT NOT BE A BUNCH OF COINCIDENCES, something known by the death of heart attacks which is something this movie seems to change) he should be reasonably baffled by Light, which does sort of make sense with the change in cause of death to switch things up at the very least, Light is shown to get himself into deep trouble as shown by the ferris wheel clip, and the scene where he sees L face to face. A typical underdog story would be interesting but it looks like L catches on to him, whether they do it like the original where it's obvious but L can't reasonably prove it is another story. 

I'm up for the change but it seems like a huge risk in terms of making sense. I feel like it should raise a bit of a red flag that raises questions, which is the point of a trailer, to get me interested in it and this is a mysterious way of doing so for an adaptation. The changes it makes are definitely going to be risky and they deserve credit for not being cookie-cutter, but will it be good? My problem is an underlying sense of uncertainty and dread that this is going to be dumbed down so they can fit it into the timespan of a movie, which honestly sucks. I feel like this could somewhat work as a live action TV show but the movie format is what gets me antsy. :/

Yeah, I know what you mean and I agree. I don't know how they're going to get a 37 (I think?) episode long anime into like an hour and a half/two hour time period and I feel like there might be a bit of dumbed-downess but I can't say for right now, but my general opinion is that while I think it looks fine, I don't want to raise my expectations at all.

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Welp another trailer is out and it honestly looks much better than previously advertised. Light seems a little too easily influenced here by Ryuk but if it goes for a theme on peer pressure and society which seems to be the case so far, I won't mind it as much as I previously stated

 

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Rule 1 to a live action anime adaptation (including the Last Airbender since that's close enough): Screw the source material

Rule 2: It can only be mediocre or the worst thing ever created

Rule 3: Cramming hours upon hours of a tv show into a 90-120 minute movie is surprisingly going to leave out a lot of important things.

Rule 4: Even when not compared to the source material, the changes must make no logical sense.

All rules gladly apply here! Simple checklist coming through!

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1 hour ago, Doug Dimmadome said:

Rule 1 to a live action anime adaptation (including the Last Airbender since that's close enough): Screw the source material

Rule 2: It can only be mediocre or the worst thing ever created

Rule 3: Cramming hours upon hours of a tv show into a 90-120 minute movie is surprisingly going to leave out a lot of important things.

Rule 4: Even when not compared to the source material, the changes must make no logical sense.

All rules gladly apply here! Simple checklist coming through!

Glad I didn't watch this. I want all of my memories of Death Note to be from watching the anime and being addicted to wanting to know what happens next and it's characters. Besides Misa. Never liked her. 

 

But yeah I fucking love Death Note. I've met one of the producers (Masao Maruyama) of the anime in person. 

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20 minutes ago, CyanideFishbone said:

Glad I didn't watch this.

Yeah if you needed further confirmation...this is just laughable and it's not even one of the plot related issues this has

 

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1 hour ago, CyanideFishbone said:

Glad I didn't watch this. I want all of my memories of Death Note to be from watching the anime and being addicted to wanting to know what happens next and it's characters. Besides Misa. Never liked her.

Yeah, even when I was fully engrossed in the story, I could not bring myself to like Misa. Her selfishness and brattiness, I never found cute, just disturbing. Which is why I want to puke a little every time I think of that conversation Rem has with her when she gets her memories back...

"MISA YOU MIGHT BE PURER THAN LIGHT"

...Shut up.

51 minutes ago, Doug Dimmadome said:

Yeah if you needed further confirmation...this is just laughable and it's not even one of the plot related issues this has

 

At least that has comedic value.

aah aah what the fuck

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3 hours ago, Metal Snake said:

Yeah, even when I was fully engrossed in the story, I could not bring myself to like Misa. Her selfishness and brattiness, I never found cute, just disturbing. Which is why I want to puke a little every time I think of that conversation Rem has with her when she gets her memories back...

"MISA YOU MIGHT BE PURER THAN LIGHT"

...Shut up.

At least that has comedic value.

aah aah what the fuck

The thing about Misa is i get that she's supposed to be annoying, but shouldn't be annoying to the audience, but the characters. Also her voice was annoying, just saying

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1 hour ago, CyanideFishbone said:

The thing about Misa is i get that she's supposed to be annoying, but shouldn't be annoying to the audience, but the characters. Also her voice was annoying, just saying

I know she's not supposed to be likable, her unlikability being annoying rather than cute or funny is what I was getting at.

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5 hours ago, Doug Dimmadome said:

Yeah if you needed further confirmation...this is just laughable and it's not even one of the plot related issues this has

 

 

I've been seeing this particular scene brought up elsewhere, and I don't totally know why. Are you thinking that was supposed to be played seriously? It felt intentional to me, just the problem with it being the rest of the movie didn't ever get this over-the-top (except the end on the Ferris wheel, which I thought was a much worse scene that no one seems to be talking about).

Spoiler

I had to get up early this morning for work, so I ended up watching this as a way to waste time and I was almost late because I was very invested in how many poor storytelling choices they decided to make.

L is superficially the same character but fundamentally different, which was an odd decision. I'll give props to Lakeith Stanfield for trying his best with what he was given, but he wasn't given anything great. I think they should've just nixed the sitting positions and candy and overall weird quirkiness if they weren't going to fully commit to that type of character.

I never felt invested in what Light and Mia were doing. I cared about Light individually, because he had a real motive and drive to want to do good, but Mia needed more fleshing out because she felt very... stock crazy character. I think I was generally with the movie up until Light killed his mom's murderer, and then after that it was off the rails. Light felt more like a vessel for Mia to control, which on paper I'm totally cool with but we didn't learn enough about Mia for me to care about her. I think they either needed to make her the main character instead of Light (because she felt very anime-Light) or cut the romance and make them siblings so we could understand both of their motivations right off the bat and then we could see the characters diverge from there.

The end "twist" was well done but I'm left conflicted. I really liked Light being able to plan that far ahead and ensure his win, but it felt out of character for this version of Light because we never saw him be that clever and calculating. We were shown once in the very beginning that he's supposed to be super smart, but afterward they didn't really bother bringing it up again.

L felt inconsequential to the plot. I understood his plan but it was very far out there, and Light doesn't even beat him in the end - they have that absurd chase scene and then L gets hit over the head by that Kira-worshipper (which I was fine with but that also felt odd because that dude just took L at face value when he had no reason to). I did enjoy him just popping into rooms though. I thought him just showing up at the dinner table and telling Mia to leave was really funny, and the movie could've used more low-key comedic moments like that. His "moment of clarity" thing at the end when he realized there was a page of the Death Note in Light's calculus book was a weird jump in logic that I wasn't super on board with. He had already searched his house, he should've found something when he did that. Like, if he originally found the calculus book with the page but didn't know what the fuck it was (could've just as easily been a blank page) and he put it back and then he has that realization at the end because of his conversation with Light I think it would've worked better.

Ryuk was fine enough, I guess. I dunno, I don't have an actual opinion on him but nothing he did felt out of character for that particular Ryuk. It made me happy that they included his obsession with apples.

Pacing was bad. Needed to be a lot slower and a lot more careful about shot choices because they were trying to condense a decent chunk of anime into 1hr 40min which is very hard. Ended strangely. Light's dad didn't even seem to react to finding out his son is Kira, aforementioned L scene, and then it cuts before the audience gets any kind of resolution to the problem.

Score, atmosphere, cinematography were all great. Soundtrack was weird.

 

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1 hour ago, terminoob said:

I've been seeing this particular scene brought up elsewhere, and I don't totally know why. Are you thinking that was supposed to be played seriously? It felt intentional to me, just the problem with it being the rest of the movie didn't ever get this over-the-top (except the end on the Ferris wheel, which I thought was a much worse scene that no one seems to be talking about).

  Reveal hidden contents

I had to get up early this morning for work, so I ended up watching this as a way to waste time and I was almost late because I was very invested in how many poor storytelling choices they decided to make.

L is superficially the same character but fundamentally different, which was an odd decision. I'll give props to Lakeith Stanfield for trying his best with what he was given, but he wasn't given anything great. I think they should've just nixed the sitting positions and candy and overall weird quirkiness if they weren't going to fully commit to that type of character.

I never felt invested in what Light and Mia were doing. I cared about Light individually, because he had a real motive and drive to want to do good, but Mia needed more fleshing out because she felt very... stock crazy character. I think I was generally with the movie up until Light killed his mom's murderer, and then after that it was off the rails. Light felt more like a vessel for Mia to control, which on paper I'm totally cool with but we didn't learn enough about Mia for me to care about her. I think they either needed to make her the main character instead of Light (because she felt very anime-Light) or cut the romance and make them siblings so we could understand both of their motivations right off the bat and then we could see the characters diverge from there.

The end "twist" was well done but I'm left conflicted. I really liked Light being able to plan that far ahead and ensure his win, but it felt out of character for this version of Light because we never saw him be that clever and calculating. We were shown once in the very beginning that he's supposed to be super smart, but afterward they didn't really bother bringing it up again.

L felt inconsequential to the plot. I understood his plan but it was very far out there, and Light doesn't even beat him in the end - they have that absurd chase scene and then L gets hit over the head by that Kira-worshipper (which I was fine with but that also felt odd because that dude just took L at face value when he had no reason to). I did enjoy him just popping into rooms though. I thought him just showing up at the dinner table and telling Mia to leave was really funny, and the movie could've used more low-key comedic moments like that. His "moment of clarity" thing at the end when he realized there was a page of the Death Note in Light's calculus book was a weird jump in logic that I wasn't super on board with. He had already searched his house, he should've found something when he did that. Like, if he originally found the calculus book with the page but didn't know what the fuck it was (could've just as easily been a blank page) and he put it back and then he has that realization at the end because of his conversation with Light I think it would've worked better.

Ryuk was fine enough, I guess. I dunno, I don't have an actual opinion on him but nothing he did felt out of character for that particular Ryuk. It made me happy that they included his obsession with apples.

Pacing was bad. Needed to be a lot slower and a lot more careful about shot choices because they were trying to condense a decent chunk of anime into 1hr 40min which is very hard. Ended strangely. Light's dad didn't even seem to react to finding out his son is Kira, aforementioned L scene, and then it cuts before the audience gets any kind of resolution to the problem.

Score, atmosphere, cinematography were all great. Soundtrack was weird.

 

It's that this is over the top and instead of having a serious effect it gives off a more comedic vibe which seems just like an extremely bad choice. He can still flip the fuck out because any sane person would but goddamn the pitch of the scream is what makes me find it laughably bad more than anything. It still wasn't as bad as the music choice for the ferris wheel though, they just went full "generic action movie" with the explosions and "I regret how this happened" music as I like to call it playing in the background.

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