Tag: Gurren Lagann

mecha movie madness

via AICN I see that there’s a Voltron movie planned, and continued rumblings about Robotech:

MTV Splash Page notes that “The Losers” director Sylvain White has expressed interest in helming an adaptation of the classic “Robotech” animated series.

“Well, [‘Robotech’ is] not a project that’s greenlit,” related White during an appearance at last weekend’s WonderCon (via Sci-Fi Wire). “It’s a great cult series. When it came out, I actually saw it in France, growing up. I saw it in French. It’s a pretty amazing cartoon. And I’m hoping it’s going to come to fruition.”

“I read a draft that’s really good,” continued White. “I’m interested in doing it, but the project is not fast tracked or anything like that, so there’s no official thing. There’s no deal… They sent me a draft. I liked it. It’s a work in progress.”

Robotech was Harmony Gold’s compiled localization of mecha anime “The Super Dimension Fortress Macross,” “The Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross” and “Genesis Climber Mospeada.” However, given the level difficulties involved, a movie is more likely to be weighed toward South Cross and Mospeada than the moe popular Macross.
(…)
Corona Coming Attractions reports that efforts to make a Voltron movie are back to square one. Neither the Justin Marks script nor the more recent Jeff Davis rewrite will be the shooting script; the production is officially in “reboot mode” and Max Makowski is no longer attached to direct.

neither of these looks to be approaching production status anytime soon. However, there’s a website for a Gurren Lagann movie, which in many ways would be far cooler than either of the others.

What is it with mecha mania? I wonder if the Transformers movies have given a boost to the genre, or whether they are perceived as a separate sub-genre?

Gurren Lagann: piercing the heavens with a drill

I’ve been watching Gurren Lagann on Cartoon Network’s monday night anime block for the past couple of months, and have been really enjoying it. The design of the mecha are truly unique, gigantic faces as torsos, and the story is your classic young boy becomes a man, along with a big brother role model and love triangle on the side. Throw in your all-powerful (sorta) alien threat and scrappy humanity rising from the post-apocalyptic world and you’ve got a pretty solid series that isn’t surprising in any way, but still manages to be a lot of fun – and the technology deus ex machine that the hero Simon uses is just plain cool. There is a surprisingly mature introspection about Simon finding his identity not in being a flashy hero, but actually in the value of his humble profession (mining and digging) that lends the whole opera some serious emotional heft, too.

Actually the whole series is very evocative of Robotech, which seems so blatant at times that I wonder if it is deliberate.

For more substantive analysis, check out Drastic’s review (along with the iconic image of Yoko from the opener that should be a crowd-pleaser).