TBF, Mags, you have been doing a lot of the heavylifting for the quest, so this will be in good hands.
To be clear to everyone, this is just me burning out on imagination of the quest, since my muse has been hitting me over the head a lot with so many different ideas that I just can't find myself too interested in this.
I'll still hang out here, though, since this still does have a sepcial place in my heart.
I'd like to thank you all for making this a wonderful experience while it lasted.
I'd also like to thank @Magoose, @Fluffy_serpent, and @Martin Noctis for doing so much to help prepare and write this quest. I couldn't have done it without you all.
Well, this was a rather interesting release to say the least. While Dreamworks movies had broken the mold and weren't afraid to tackle more mature types of stories like John Henry and racism, Sword of the Stranger was the first truly mature animated movie that you had distributed and produced solely by Sunrise with no American involvement outside of a few animators as part of the exchange. Apparently after the success of Dreamworks film lineup, Makoto had called and requested for Sunrise to begin working on their in-studio movie and their first theatrical debut altogether. Makoto wanted to prove the talent of Sunrise on a global, theatrical stage and to expand the studio's lineup beyond magical girls and mecha. Considering that Dreamworks was full duty for Gundam, you were all for it, and thus Sword of the Stranger was born.
Taking place in the Sengoku period, the film starts with a group of Ming Chinese warriors lead by a elderly bureaucrat and a blonde blue eyed warrior from the West on a mission in Japan for the Emperor. After a battle scene, it cuts to a young boy named Kotaro, an orphan surviving in the countryside with his dog Tobimaru. Kotaro has an encounter with a samurai with no name (Called Nanashi in Sub). After a tense meeting, the two are encountered by the Chinese Warriors who are revealed to be after Kotaro. After Nanashi successfully fends them off without drawing his sword, Kotaro hires him for protection and the two and the dog Tobimaru go on a journey through the countryside, continually hunted by the Chinese who seek Kotaro as part of a ritual for eternal life and the forces loyal to the local Lord.
Overall it's not the greatest or most complex of stories with the narrative being complex, but it does its job well and you feel is a compelling enough tale. The story shares a lot of elements and tropes with classic samurai films, most especially taking after the legendary Lone Wolf and Cub with a stoic and troubled samurai traveling with his young charge, though Kotaro being older and slightly more capable than the titular cub. It plays the tropes mostly straight, though does it pretty well and the characters are likable to root for and get invested in. While it's not trying to be a grand epic, Sword really exceeds as an atmospheric film. The world feels really alive and intimate with the beautiful animation combined with the focus on experiences and personal emotions of the leads. It really captures that spirit of adventure, opportunity, mystery and more that comes in the best western films that make for a good time.
The characters are flat and save for Nanashi's arc of forming a bond with Kotaro, very static. Still, they are interesting enough to get invested in and Nanashi and Kotaro do have a strong and likable chemistry of the roguish wolf and the bratty cub with some spunk with Nanashi teaching Kotaro how to survive and Kotaro helping Nanashi find a sense of purpose and warmth. Everyone else is pretty one note and mostly defined by a single characteristic, if that, though the villains are interesting.
It's commonly assumed that the ahistorical choice of having Ming Chinese warriors in the Sengoku was sort of a reactionary decision in response to your attempted assassination attempt and the major spikes of sinophobia that took place in Japan after. While it may have cemented the decision, Akiko said that they were one of the many early concepts, to add some variety to the genre instead of just another evil lord, ninja clan, tyrant shogun, etc. While there are claims of bigotry, the Chinese in the film aren't exactly evil. They're just doing their job for the Emperor and don't do anything awful outside of their hunt for Kotaro as part of the mission. They've got some likable characters, very interesting designs and are competent foes. The bureaucrat Bai-Luan is an interesting sort of lawful evil. Dude is just super committed to the Emperor and will do anything for his master. Considering all the crazy historical shit Emperors could get into for immortality, it's kind of a believable plot.
Standing out above the rest is the western mercenary Luo-Lang. It's been commonly said that he's basically a villain Bruce O'Brian even though he bares no physical resemblance or personality to you. A badass westerner who speaks fluent Chinese and Japanese and is an absolute master at sword fighting and marital arts, always seeking strong opponents....yeah you guess you can see the resemblance. As a warrior always in search of his greatest fight, Luo wasn't the greatest or most complex like Char and Scirocco, but he's a fun bad guy who steals his scenes and makes for an awesome foe for Nanashi.
You don't think that Sunrise was trying to create something to one up Gundam in terms of narrative, more of an experiment to test their limitations. A samurai film was chosen as it was one of Japan's most defining and popular genres and they had already tackled the other half of Japanese fame with Pacific Rim and Kaiju. Sure Sword of the Stranger was not the first animated samurai movie, but it was by far the most ambitious in terms of animation, most especially action. With this film, Sunrise has cemented their reputation as the masters of speed and action in anime.
The overall animation quality is interesting as while it's damn good, it chose some different directions from the Gundam formula. The Yasuhiko-Bluth school of character design is abandoned in favor of more simplistic and ugly to plain aesthetics for characters save for the main characters and the Ming who are more colorful and fantastical which makes them stand out and more interesting. Though this follows a style that Tadao Nagahama believed anime should adhere to, simplicity then excellence. Instead of striving for aristic perfection with "Every Frame a painting" that most of Dreamworks believes, Nagahama believes that most of the film should be simple in animation, and then have scenes of bold, beautiful and dynamic action or set design to make the most powerful and impactful scenes really stand out.
You can see where he's coming from cause when the style works, it works. It's something else when the film organically transitions from quiet and mundane travels into beautiful and captivating imagery and motion. In a divergence from Hiawatha, instead of impressionist backgrounds, the landsapes are traditional Japanese water colors which make the movie feels like it's one of the old stories comes to life. The climax similarly to Basil sees a cool 3D set piece of a giant ritual state which makes the final battle grandiose and epic. Then there is the action, where the film really comes alive with beautiful bladework in an epic back and forth. Everything is highly detailed with a beautiful clash of fighting styles and weaponry which follow sort of the spirit of HEMA. There's a great play in frame rates where it is being constantly switched with lower for quick and single strikes and higher for the epic and skilled clashes in a great mastery of Sakuga. Were it not for Gundam's fight scenes, you'd probably mark this as the best action you've seen in animation.
Soundtrack was probably the second best part of the film behind the fight scenes believe it or not. Just the perfect fusion of classical western and Japanese, a beautiful symphony of percussion and woodwind instruments that add majesty and beauty to every scene. The highlights are the horse travel scenes which are gorgeous and take you in from the soundtrack along with the action scenes where the grandiose orchestral sets make every battle great and intense.
Voice acting was an interesting story as while they had no problem casting the Japanese voice of Amuro for Nanashi, the producers wanted relatively unknown actors for the English dub so that way the film could stand on its own merits and not have people drawn in for anyone on the roster. Something George approves fully, but you thought it was a bit silly they didn't pick you for Luo-Lang when you are fluent in Japanese and Mandarin. As such, casting was lowkey and the only really notable presence on the cast was your Moonlight Dinner alumni Sean Astin whose acting seems to have improved since the horror film.
You also think you hit two incredible diamonds in the rough with the main hero and antagonist. Scott McNeil voices Luo-Lang, bringing a nice gruff, masculine and menacing authority that screams cool and danger. He also seems to have a fair amount of range and did his Mandarin lines pretty decently. Having just missed the mark for Rise of Cobra, Scott was brought in to read lines for Luo when they had a hard time finding someone with the right aura and he should be casted in the proper first season.
Then there's the star of the show, the man whose voice is laced with badassery in every syllable, Steve Blum. You thought you could never meet anyone in the rest of the 20th century who had a voice on the same level of awesome as Peter Cullen who absolutely killed it as Blex in Zeta Gundam. Yet it turns out the next best thing was right under youe nose the whole time as a slightly overweight mild mannered mail room worker at Dreamworks. With Sword's mandate for unknown, Steve was encouraged by some of the Dreamworks staff to try out thanks to his signature deep voice. While he had a way to go to yours or Mark's level, Steve really oozes charisma in his performance and has tons of natural screen presence along with good dramatic range, did fantastic as Nanashi and was a consistent point of praise from critics. You look forward to his future career.
Thankfully at the end of the day in spite of its mature, Sword of the Stranger wasn't counted as an R-rated film. While there was a ton of violence throughout, there wasn't any gore and it was mainly blood splatters and clean severed limbs if that makes any sense. The fact that there was no nudity, sex or swearing really seemed to save you, which means it got a clean PG-13, the first PG-13 animated film to come into existence. You're not sure whether to take that as an accomplishment.
Unfortunately, in spite of the greater accessed audience, Sword of the Stranger did above average in performance, being the lowest performing animated film under the Lucasfilms banner. Yeah, September wasn't the greatest month for debut but you had placed it in on Labor Day weekend for a decent start and advertising had pushed it being from the studio that created Gundam and Pacific Rim. Unfortunately, while Zeta Gundam was explosive in popularity, the association wasn't enough, especially when it wasn't a mecha or didn't involve Tomino. Maybe people just thought it was just going to be another Samurai movie and didn't pay too much mind when it didn't have the same universal acclaim of Lone Wolf and Cub. There were also more than a few parents who sent angry letters on why Lucasfilms supported the release of such a "Violent Adult Cartoon". Ugh, some people never change.
At the very least for anyone who was willing to get past the traditional animation biases, there was general enjoyment of Sword as a good and fun action movie. Not a bold innovator or among the greatest films in spite of its objective quality unfortunately, but still pretty good for anyone who loved Japanese media, action and animation. The plain old $52 million from a PG-13 animation in America was somewhat expected, but what really shocked you was how this above average returns was cemented with abroad runs. Sword of the Stranger was virtually non-existent outside of East Asia, and even when global marketing tried to stress the Sunrise-Lucsafilms connection, it just wasn't enough. Japan alone was responsible for $23 million while Hong Kong came in second of foreign markets with $6 million. So clearly if Japan wasn't zealous, then something must be wrong.
Perhaps part of the blame can be laid at the critics who you think were way too harsh. The general consensus was divided into thirds. One third loved the film, one third had mixed but positive reviews, one third absolutely hated it. One famous example is another legendary Siskel and Ebert divide where Siskel complained it was a "shallow copycat of Samurai films grasping for greatness" while Ebert enjoyed it as "A delightful spectacle of action and adventure in a love letter to the genre." Praise was given to voice acting for both sides of the Pacific, animation, and fight scene choreography. The story and characters were regarded as weak or bland with the film likely to have floundered if in live action. The fact that there were so many harsh critics when previous Dreamworks movies were usually held in high regard probably kept a decent chunk of the audience home at least stateside.
Fortunately, there was once again redemption in VHS where deep fans of Samurai movies, animation and action bought personal copies and it was a usual for movie nights where someone wanted more "adult" animation instead of the usual Disney stuff. Then again, there's plenty of fans in Japan and America who bought the VHS as part of the Dreamworks collections, but no matter the reason you're glad it's a usual sight in stores like Blockbuster.
When compared to the grand success and popular and cultural acclaim of Gundam and Macross, Sword of the Stranger was something of a pebble in the lake. Makes some strong ripples, but fades away to calm waters. If Disney keeps up the usual quality of its "rennasaince", then they might win this round with their upcoming Space Thanksgiving movie while there might not be another animated film til '84. Still, Sunrise didn't make Sword with the intention of the next Gundam, they just wanted to create a cool movie and really explore the studio's potential for theaters. In this, you think they more than succeeded, and with the money almost all going to Sunrise, they're going to invest that in continuing to create great anime.
From what I understand they originally were playing in the NFL's off season. So it wasn't to bad it just meant different football teams in different parts of the year. The deathknell of the team happened when they did decide to play during the same time as the NFL. So as long as they don't do that they should be fine.
Great then Carrie will own a team in a second tier league of american football and as a distraction when the mainshow is down. Ngl seems like a bad investmant of time, money and willpower, because we will still share the same draft class as the NFL. So good luck drafting great athletes when the Dixon plan has a salary cap on teams while the clubs in the NFL don't have a cap and have greater prestige. So we get the undrafted rif raf, washed up players and horrifically overpaid players that bankrupt teams.
Both of them made more than four times the budget and made a killing in VHS sales, I'd hardly call that underperformance. They just didn't do as good as our other movies.
Great then Carrie will own a team in a second tier league of american football and as a distraction when the mainshow is down. Ngl seems like a bad investmant of time, money and willpower, because we will still share the same draft class as the NFL. So good luck drafting great athletes when the Dixon plan has a salary cap on teams while the clubs in the NFL don't have a cap and have greater prestige. So we get the undrafted rif raf, washed up players and horrifically overpaid players that bankrupt teams.
Both of the made more than four times the budget and made a killing in VHS sales, I'd hardly call that underperformance. They just didn't do as good as our other movies.
More like we have some very big names that can help us build the league's prestige and have it fight with the big boys.
But its only one draft class.
Jim Kelly, John Elway, and yes, Dan Marino, have been selected by the USFL draft in the first round and that is just the QB's, and many more smaller names but no less legends in the game.
Especially since a lot of older or cut NFL players who want to stay in football are flocking to the banner of the USFL.
And the NFL might strike much much sooner and much longer then IRL, due to... issues.
You will see what happened in the next draft, but three big names helped really seal the deal in how serious this entire endeavor is.
Carrie O'Brian, Dixon... and, as much as I hate to say it, Donald J Trump...
Before you ask how Trump is a good thing in this situation... His bragadose attitude keeps the league in the press and on the lips of everyones mouths and its free advertizing at this point that is drawing people to at least look at it, especially since he got John Elway in the first round.
Carrie brings her own prestige and winning culture... and her very large pocket book to fund a lot of teams like she is spending only pocket change.
And Dixon founded the league that is about to fucking burn the NFL monopoly to the ground.
Both ideas were reasonable and you could definitely have gone with either one had you not, on the most coincidental of all chances, found yourself turning on the TV one night before going to bed and coming across, of all things, an interview with the man who managed to gain acclaim with his adaptation of The Elephant Man. You recalled how Mark had been disappointed he'd not been able to get the role like he did in the Theatre adaptation, and hearing the man in charge speak about the project, how he had to come to understand and bring about his vision of the story while also keeping to the overall message of the play and book... well, perhaps it was your instincts, or maybe it was just impulsiveness, but at that moment you just knew... you'd found your director.
Small correction and I don't blame you since I didn't highlight it, I kind of wrote in one of my sidestories Mark being given the role of John Merrick in The Elephant Man which was his first role after Empire and the birth of his son Nathan. My reasoning was that Mark as an A-lister, wouldn't have time or motivation to go to Broadway, and he would earn the role here due to him being considered an awesome actor instead of a gimmick as Luke Skywalker, so Mark is in The Elephant Man, but in film not Broadway.
Call it my euro brain moment because when I searched USFL some time ago and I saw United States Football League, I thought " Oh wow Carrie is starting a proto-MLS league". Now when I looked at it again I finally saw that it was an american football league that tried to compete with the NFL. I'm not an American but isn't that a really bad idea? What is its purpose? To get absorbed into the NFL or really trying to compete with the NFL for real and make a parallel league? The fact that it died in two years should be damning. But I'll wait and see.
Great then Carrie will own a team in a second tier league of american football and as a distraction when the mainshow is down. Ngl seems like a bad investmant of time, money and willpower, because we will still share the same draft class as the NFL. So good luck drafting great athletes when the Dixon plan has a salary cap on teams while the clubs in the NFL don't have a cap and have greater prestige. So we get the undrafted rif raf, washed up players and horrifically overpaid players that bankrupt teams.
So basically for non-Americans and non-Football fans, the 80s NFL is an interesting transitional period. It's sort of the halfway point of the league from its early days as a novelty into the hypersport that absolutely dominates American culture and is a multi-billion dollar industry. It's in the 80s where the NFL really starts to take off thanks to a combination of several icons across the League, the rise of showtime football similar to the NFL, and Super Bowls really transcending to become fantastic and iconic games. We're right on the verge of that so now is the perfect time to make a competitor considering the XFL and other lesser leagues were competing with the modern NFL's monopoly.
It's not at all impossible to create another football league as technically, College Football is in a similar state. They play on Saturdays and despite the fact it takes place in the same season as the NFL, it has just as many viewers, if not far more diehard fans due to alumni ties and local loyalty. College Football in many ways is basically a secondary pro league and the money it makes has consistently been in a similar league to the NFL. They're both at the same level, so it's proof people will watch more than the NFL.
To clarify, we're not at all competing with the NFL directly, and that's a good thing as it's what caused the USFL to be a brief success and when it tried to directly compete, it died. The USFL if like OTL will take place from March to July. The NFL takes place from September to February. So right when the Super Bowl ends, USFL fever starts. While we will technically compete with Baseball and Basketball, since both sports have more than or near 100 games respectively and take place throughout the week, there's not a strong urge to see the two over the USFL which is a dozen games. That's one strong advantage football has, only being between 10-20 games makes each game a prestige match and matter to the final standings.
There has always been a strong market for spring football, but everytime it happens, ownership and league organization tends to fuck things up just as it gets off the ground and gets really spectacular. XFL has sort of become mediocre because The Rock was never seriously invested in it and there's hardly any media presence. As for the USFL, it performed well with general audiences and by all metrics should have been a mainstay. The play was high quality and often regarded as better than the NFL, it had lots of NFL level talent and alumni, very passionate fans, good seat sells and viewership. It had it all. What killed the USFL was it being a shitshow of ownership where most of the team's owners didn't know what they were doing, were incompetent or didn't follow the sensible rules.
As you can see by Magoose who sort of Ninja'd my post, Carrie managed to kill those problems in the cradle and presumably most of the owners from OTL have been replaced with competent, ambitious and intelligent people who want the League to succeed. Carrie has also probably infused a great deal of cash to give the team's generous budgets and help them go through the early struggles of a new business. Of course you also have Trump who OTL was a major factor in killing the League by advocating for it to move to the fall, now being motivated to invest and win due to his rivalry with the O'Brians. Plus it might be hard to imagine, but pre-2016 Trump was excellent as an ad guy in hyping up products and people due to his personality. Though that pales in comparison to Carrie's involvement which will have loads of Star Wars fans show up. And Return of the Jedi is gonna show in the middle of the season.
So yeah, we have a real shot at making this a mainstay and introducing diversity to pro sports.
Small correction and I don't blame you since I didn't highlight it, I kind of wrote in one of my sidestories Mark being given the role of John Merrick in The Elephant Man which was his first role after Empire and the birth of his son Nathan. My reasoning was that Mark as an A-lister, wouldn't have time or motivation to go to Broadway, and he would earn the role here due to him being considered an awesome actor instead of a gimmick as Luke Skywalker, so Mark is in The Elephant Man, but in film not Broadway.
Huh, so instead of Mark getting the role in Broadway, he managed it in the film version. Thanks, I'll see if I can make some changes to it so that it fits better then.
As you can see by Magoose who sort of Ninja'd my post, Carrie managed to kill those problems in the cradle and presumably most of the owners from OTL have been replaced with competent, ambitious and intelligent people who want the League to succeed.
But at least we won't have absolute morons running their teams into the ground and decent football men running the show so that the product on field will be brilliant.
To clarify, we're not at all competing with the NFL directly, and that's a good thing as it's what caused the USFL to be a brief success and when it tried to directly compete, it died. The USFL if like OTL will take place from March to July. The NFL takes place from September to February. So right when the Super Bowl ends, USFL fever starts. While we will technically compete with Baseball and Basketball, since both sports have more than or near 100 games respectively and take place throughout the week, there's not a strong urge to see the two over the USFL which is a dozen games. That's one strong advantage football has, only being between 10-20 games makes each game a prestige match and matter to the final standings.
Seems that we're gonna have to really step it up though in our next Action Plan. We should also probably try and pitch more OVA's or anime films instead of just shows.
And can we produce any film script available to us, or only those pitched for Ardmore? I ask because overmind made We Happy Few ages ago, and although we don't have a script for it yet, I think it would be better as an Ardmore film in the future, so I'm curious if we could technically do that.
And can we produce any film script available to us, or only those pitched for Ardmore? I ask because overmind made We Happy Few ages ago, and although we don't have a script for it yet, I think it would be better as an Ardmore film in the future, so I'm curious if we could technically do that.
