Remove ads

Netflix's One Piece

S

silentorphan

Location
USA
Cowboy Bebop didn't work out, and Death Note was terrible, but surely third time's the charm.

This was last month.
One Piece Live-Action Netflix Series Begins Production
Netflix has not yet released a premiere date for the first season, but has revealed it will include ten episodes.

Netflix officially announced a live-action adaptation of the popular manga and anime series, One Piece, back in January 2020, but development was put on hold shortly after due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The live-action adaptation will feature all the loved characters from the anime, which includes Nami (Emily Rudd), Usopp (Romaro Gibson), Sanji (Taz Skylar), and, of course, Monkey D. Luffy (Iñaki Godoy).

... Steven Maeda, who has written for popular shows like The X-Files and CSI: Miami, will act as showrunner, executive producer, and co-writer along with Matt Owens.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This is this month.
variety.com

‘One Piece’ Netflix Live-Action Series Adds Six to Cast

The "One Piece" live-action series at Netflix has added six new cast members, Variety has learned.
variety.com variety.com
Morgan Davies ("The End," "The Evil Dead: Rise"), Ilia Isorelýs Paulino ("The Sex Lives of College Girls," "Me Time"), Aidan Scott ("Action Point," "Between the Devil"), Jeff Ward ("Brand New Cherry Flavor," "Hack"), McKinley Belcher III ("Ozark," "The Good Lord Bird") and Vincent Regan ("300," "Troy") have all joined the series.

They join previously announced cast members Iñaki Godoy, Mackenyu, Emily Rudd, Jacob Romero Gibson and Taz Skylar. The new cast members will appear as the following characters: Davies as Koby, Paulino as Alvida, Scott as Helmeppo, Ward as Buggy, Belcher as Arlong, and Regan as Garp.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
So her part is done. Not sure about the others', though.

One Piece Nami Actor Celebrates Filming Wrap With Heartfelt Post
In an emotional post on Instagram, Emily Rudd announced she has finished filming One Piece season 1. The Nami actor called the past year of production a "wild and wonderful" time and thanked Netflix and everyone involved for "making this one of the most special experiences of [her] life and career."

...

With the core cast beginning to wrap up their time on One Piece season 1, this is a fairly good indication the show's full production wrap is right around the corner. Once filming is finished, the show will likely require a lengthy post-production period since a lot of special effects will be needed to bring the adventures of Luffy and the Straw Hats to life. Netflix hasn't announced an official release date for One Piece yet, so it may not hit the streaming service until the summer of 2023 at the earliest.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
I'm willing to give it a chance. If anything it will be not as insulting as the Cowboy Bebop live action adaptation


Weird how we don't have a Onepiece thread?
 
Last edited:
I'm really excited for this because it's perhaps the worst idea I've ever seen make it to production for a biggish studio.

I'm sure there have been worse back in the day but for my money this might be the worst entertainment property decision of the 21st century.
 
Egleris said:
Really? You think this is worse than letting Tom Hooper try to adapt Cats?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah, and let's dig into why.

First of all, One Piece is the most popular comic in the world, and getting close to being arguably the most popular comic in history. It has for a long time lacked cultural penetration into the US but in Japan and even other western countries like France, One Piece is a juggernaut. It passed Batman awhile ago on the list of most copies of comics in circulation and is likely to overtake Superman for the top spot at some point soonish. Keeping in mind that there are some obvious technical differences between the mechanism of sale you can interpret this as either a massive accomplishment or a stupendously impossible miracle. The point is that conceptually what you have as the producer here is one of the hottest products on the planet right now, I would go so far as to say that from Hollywood's point of view this might be quite literally the biggest thing to have not been attempted for adaptation before to cross their books in decades.

Second of all, live-action One Piece is the dumbest idea ever. It's a cartoon that knows it's a cartoon. One of the main character's latest powerups is to physically make himself and everyone around him into a looney tunes character. It's full of wacky character designs and outlandish proportions and moments that don't have to make literal sense like a character drinking milk to regrow their teeth. The juxtaposition of this cartoonish reality with the serious topics it often deals with is not just incidental, it's thematically central to the struggle between freedom and tyranny that drives the thousand and fifty chapter long megaplot.

So you have this heady mix of both it being probably the highest potential the industry has seen in years and the worst possible way to adapt it. The sheer hubris and lack of awareness is mind boggling. In terms of scale versus stupidity, this takes the cake.
 
Last edited:
I mean, that's a valid argument, no questions from me; I do agree that, especially with the latest revelations making it clear that the cartoonishness is thematic and not just stylistic, there's certainly plenty of reasons to worry. I'm not saying you're wrong, per se.

That said, Cats has been one of the greatest musicals in the history of musical theater, and is as much a "for the stage only" production as One Piece is a "cartoon only" story, I would think; I'm not sure how you would compare Cats' success as a musical with One Piece's success as a comic, but I would argue that some comparison can be made here. So, if we assume that Cats and One Piece are comparable as "a masterpiece that is almost perfectly suited to take advantage of its own medium", then I would think the production team should be what makes the difference, and it would seem to me that the people handling this series are at least trying to give it justice, which I think it was clear from before he shot a single frame Tom Hooper would not be.

Of course, in the end both are a result of out culture arrogant assumption that live action movies are somehow a "superior" medium to anything else, which is obviously false, but if putting that aside, while I am also doubtful the One Piece adaptation will be good, it seems unlikely to me that it might be as big a disaster as Cats was.
 
I'm actually looking forward to this live action. While animation is still superior, one piece does have a (pretty long) history of stage adaptations. The cast also looks really good.
So I have hope (for now).
 
Well Oda seems mostly happy, so that's probably a good sign. We also don't know the length of each episode so they could be quite long 🤞
 
stratigo said:
Why is netflix doing this? Why make live action adaptations of anime?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Same reason live action adaptations of western comics get made - live action is seen as more adult and more authentic than animation and gets bigger view numbers as a result from all the folks who might be interested but wouldnt give an animated thing the time of day. Animation fits the work better but live action can get more profit, at least from a Western perspective
 
Zap Rowsdower said:
Animation fits the work better but live action can get more profit, at least from a Western perspective
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean, sad as it is, that's true, isn't it? Neither the new "Beauty and the Beast" nor the new "Lion King" are anywhere near comparable to the original animated versions by any metric one can care to name (the Lion King especially so), yet they earned a ton more money than a re-release of the originals would have. It's ridiculous, and wrong, and it propagates a very harmful stereotype, but it doesn't make it any less true.

As for the trailer, I don't know - from dialogue alone, this Luffy seems substantially different in characterization from the original, and I didn't miss that the only use of the gum-gum fruit that was shown didn't really seem up to par in terms of effects, but I imagine that, if they stuck close enough to the source material to be a carbon copy like the Disney remakes do instead of messing with the plot and visuals, and they didn't mess up the effects too much, it will do fine.
 
stratigo said:
Why is netflix doing this? Why make live action adaptations of anime?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

For money.

Zap is probably right about everything, I will just add this : most of high quality animation costs a bunch of money, more than live action.
You can do a cheap live action and it can be at least OK-tier, it's almost impossible to have a cheap high quality animation (it's still possible to have a good movie even with cheap animation though).

All things accounted, the return of investment is way much better on live action.
 
Not going to lie, put me down as cautiously optimistic, was rather pessimistic about it before the latest trailer but it really feels like the cast and crew really get it more than what has happened with adaptations like Death Note or Dragon Ball.
 
Egleris said:
I mean, sad as it is, that's true, isn't it? Neither the new "Beauty and the Beast" nor the new "Lion King" are anywhere near comparable to the original animated versions by any metric one can care to name (the Lion King especially so), yet they earned a ton more money than a re-release of the originals would have. It's ridiculous, and wrong, and it propagates a very harmful stereotype, but it doesn't make it any less true.

As for the trailer, I don't know - from dialogue alone, this Luffy seems substantially different in characterization from the original, and I didn't miss that the only use of the gum-gum fruit that was shown didn't really seem up to par in terms of effects, but I imagine that, if they stuck close enough to the source material to be a carbon copy like the Disney remakes do instead of messing with the plot and visuals, and they didn't mess up the effects too much, it will do fine.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


On the other hand, live action adaptation of anime largely flop hard.

Readappting a movie into another movie makes a boring paint by numbers movie. Trying to adapt a tv series has a lot more pitfalls because budgets are just way tighter and animation, ESPECIALLY anime, runs much cheaper.

Corti said:
For money.

Zap is probably right about everything, I will just add this : most of high quality animation costs a bunch of money, more than live action.
You can do a cheap live action and it can be at least OK-tier, it's almost impossible to have a cheap high quality animation (it's still possible to have a good movie even with cheap animation though).

All things accounted, the return of investment is way much better on live action.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

In its weight class, animation almost universally is cheaper than live action, because live action, as it scales up, is about 75 percent animation anyways, but it has to be ultra photorealistic too. Avatar's an animated movie, but it has to feel real enough that you don't trip the uncanny valley and that more expensive then a hyper stylized animation technique like across the spider verse. Or to be a more direct comaprison, no way home was twice the budget of across the spiderverse.
 
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top