[EVA] Evangelion Tokusatsu?

[Bernabe Apolinario]

I would dig it if they just made it straight-up kaiju eiga, a la Toho's
movies. But, since companies from the United States and New Zealand are
involved, that almost certainly won't happen. Only if it were slated for an
exclusively domestic release in Japan would that occur. How "Americanized"
the movie adaptation becomes remains to be seen.

The only correlation to this situation I could think of off the top of my
head would be the G-Saviour movie. G-Saviour is a live-action movie set in
Mobile Soldier Gundam's Universal Century continuity. I haven't seen either
Mobile Soldier Gundam or G-Saviour so I can't comment on the "success" of
the movie. I believe G-Saviour, like Gunhed, features an international cast
of American and Japanese actors: In Gunhed at least, the Americans spoke in
english accompanied by japanese subtitles and the Japanese spoke japanese
accompanied with english subs. If this process is utilized for the
Evangelion movie, I wouldn't mind one bit.

Anno's involvement in this project hasn't been mentioned yet, but we know he
digs kaiju eiga since made that show about the making of the second Gamera
movie remake a few years back, if my memory serves me well. The guys at
GAiNAX grew up fans of tokusatsu shows and movies. I can only hope this
doesn't turn out like the American version of Godzilla (not Gojira) in the
nineties. Since a visual effects company is involved, I'm afraid that
they'll CGI the hell out of it. Scale models and rubber costumes are
appropriate for monster movies and battle team/hero shows. If people outside
of Japan think it looks ridiculous, then to hell with them.

Alas, since ADV is financing this, they undoubtedly will release this
outside of Japan (like how they financed the production of Burn Up Excess
and the Sin animation so they could release it in the states and elsewhere).
So that pretty much rules the "pilots as sentai battling daikaiju"
live-action approach that I'd love to see happen an impossibility. They want
to make money with this movie in America.