Appleseed - Old and New

[RoninBuddha]

Let's Disscuss Appleseed, one of Shirou Masamue's weel reknowned works..
it was a hit back in the 80's-90's, and Recently a new Appleseed movie was released, The original and the mangas was a classic, , excellent artwork,great story, great characters, executed quite well....about the Moive, it was mindblowin cuz the entire movie was in Cel-Shaded CG format..., which imo, works well in Anime, hopefully, if ever the Anime Industry goes full 3D just like Damn Disney/PIXAR and thier rivals, it should be in this style...

here: are some pics:

OLD


NEW

official site
www.a-seed.jp

[Raiken]

I've never seen the old version but I did buy the new movie when it came out and liked it a lot. The fights scenes in the first part of the movie were awesome

[Kazuya_UK]

I used to like the old version - I'm not the biggest fan of it, but I did enjoy it and wouldn't mind seeing it again. This new version though - WOW, that looks awesome as far as the art goes! I'm gonna have to look that one up!

Kaz

[jelle]

I have the old movie, diden't even know there was a new one. Defenitly looks like it's worth a look.

[sepiasongs]

the old one's alright, but to be honest, i really don't think appleseed as a whole works that well as an action film.

i mean, the comic books go through a lot of big philosophical debates such as the one surrounding the central question of whether is it better to allow people to choose to do evil than be conditioned so that they only do good, (something also central to a clockwork orange, funnily enough). not to mention all the influences from ancient greece and rome and thier role combined with classic literary themes such as man's search for utopia, the impact of technology on personal relationships etc.. the former in itself can be one way of explaining the the title insofar as the seed (gaia¹) is protected and nourished by the surrounding fruit and skin of olympus and its citizens until it is ready to be dropped in the correct place for the whole process to start again. there's also the traditional symbolism of the apple as one of love, sexuality and immorality² (think adam and eve for example), which again can't be ignored given the bioroids, the debate outlined above and the numerous refrences to antiquity. to me these issues are what forms the heart of appleseed and what makes it so interesting and amazing as a work, and its because the film doesn't address these that well, that it is in my eyes flawed.

there's also the issue of shirow's art. the one thing that always blows me away is the unbelieveable level of detail; details which while always aesthetically pleasing can sometimes be quite revealing about other things in appleseed. the same is also true of his stroy telling and refrencing found in his footnotes. but in the film you don't really get the oppertunity to appreciate these, partly as a result of the overall look and production values not being that great; just compare it with the much underrated, but brilliant patlabor 1, or akira (which came out in the same year), but also becase its primarily an action film. thus its for these reasons that while its entertaining, its ulitimately flawed.

¹en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_%28mythology%29#In_Greek_mythology

²en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple#Cultural_aspects