The case for and against Christopher Nolan directing an AKIRA trilogy

Editor’s note: This post literally has nothing to do with Mormonism. That is, unless you think AKIRA is actually about the dark side of human deification. If that’s the case, then sure, it’s about Mormonism. 

Recent buzz has made the rounds claiming that Christopher Nolan, the man behind The Dark Knight Trilogy and some other stuff, is attached to somehow be involved with a new live-action adaptation of the manga/anime AKIRA.

Den of Geek reports:

“We’ve now heard from a source close to Warner Bros. that the studio is planning to make a trilogy of films based on Akira – all the better to do justice to Otomo’s sprawling dystopian sci-fi yarn, perhaps. Most intriguingly of all, we’re told that Christopher Nolan has met with a previously attached filmmaker (who we can’t name here) within the past three months to talk about the project.”

If you want to know exactly what AKIRA is, you should probably just watch the  animated film. I can’t really explain it here. At least not well. If you don’t want to do that, just read the Wikipedia page.

Also, I’ll let you check out DOG for all the deets on the rumors surrounding the adaptation, but suffice it to say this news has a lot of people wondering if this signals Nolan’s entrance into yet another mega-trilogy for Warner Bros, now that they can’t rely on him for Batman stuff. The presumption is, of course, that he would full on Batman it, meaning he would co-write, direct and produce all three films. There is, of course, the other (possibly more likely) option that he will simply produce.

But in the event that he does end up in the director’s chair for this one, what might seem like a surefire solution to WB’s problem (they’ve reportedly been trying to get a film made out of this property for over a decade) could end up being, well, not so surefire.

In full disclosure, I’m a big Chris Nolan fan. That’s partly because I’m a big Batman fan (and I love his Batman movies) but I also love everything else I’ve seen him do. I’m unapologetically in love with Interstellar and I think The Prestige is an underrated masterpiece.

I also happen to think that his films receive a strange amount of petty criticism. So in that way, I’m your typical Chris Nolan fan boy hack.

But having said that, I’m not totally sold on the idea of him as the director of AKIRA. But I do think there is some possible sense to it. So here I’ve outlined 3 reasons why I think he’s perfect for the job, and 3 reasons why I think he should pass on the project.

The upside

1. No one does practical effects like Chris Nolan

Things are shifting around in Hollywood. The message is finally getting across that audiences get annoyed when too much CGI is spilled all over fight scenes, etc. Even the folks at Lucasfilm knew that they could only win back their Star Wars audience by shifting back to practical effects.

In this realm, I think it’s hard to argue that anyone can handle practical effects better than Nolan. It’s almost become a trite part of conversation surrounding his movies.

AKIRA is a very stylistic story, set in a futuristic Neo-Tokyo, which means it could be easy for a director to take the lame way out and do CGI sets etc. Which would make for a very frustrating and boring interpretation. At the very minimum, Nolan would probably oversee the creation of a very compelling world, made primarily with nuts, bolts and real sets. Possibly even real cities.

2. These are definitely characters that he can handle

I’m not really going into the story of AKIRA for this post, which was a conscious decision on my part because there is no way I could do it without making this thing 3,000 words long. But one thing you’ll have to trust me on is that the characters in this story wouldn’t be a stretch for Nolan’s sensibilities. There’s a lot of self-deception, a Nolan favorite, and plenty of exploration on the nature of heroism, another old standard in the Nolan songbook. But even more important, the story hinges on the impact of systematic deception on a massive scale. Very, very Nolan. It also somehow manages to be both darkly pessimistic and refreshingly optimistic. Again, super Nolan.

3. Nolan has an eye for this type of sci-fi

As I mentioned above, Nolan will clearly focus on making the visual style of this film something worth caring about. But I think that, even beyond just the use of practical effects, AKIRA fits visually right in Nolan’s wheelhouse. Even just the sentence “motorcycle race in a futuristic Tokyo” screams CHRISTOPHER NOLAN. He loves shooting motorcycles, and he’s very good at it. He’s also at his best when he’s working with urban settings. The world of AKIRA certainly seems like his kind of playground. 

The Downside

1. This is basically an impossible film to make

Nolan should learn a lesson from his friend Zach Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Namely, that some artistic properties just were not meant to be turned into movies. Snyder’s Watchmen is a fine movie, but that just isn’t good enough. The book is great. When you make a “fine” movie out of a great comic book, you might as well just read the comic book.

That’s the kind of problem Nolan would be up against with AKIRA. How could anyone possibly top the animated film? If they stick too close to it, then you have a Watchmen problem. It comes out stale but digestible. If they deviate too much from the animated version, then it becomes frustrating for fans to see the property toyed with. Add to that, the animated film is pretty violent. Like, rated “R” kind of violent. There is no way Warner’s is going to want to produce a massive Chris Nolan epic trilogy extravaganza that requires14 year-olds to have a parent present. Plus, if the negative hype surrounding Batman V Superman is to be believed, audiences (or more likely, critics) aren’t in the mood for really moody doomsday stories.

But if they lighten this thing up and slap on a PG-13 rating, I have a feeling fans of the original will not be happy. It just seems like a lose/lose situation. It’s a great cartoon, and a movie just doesn’t seem necessary.

2. There would be way too much action in the final act and that would upset pretty much everyone.

The final act of AKIRA is straight up bonkers. It’s a beautiful kind of bonkers, but it’s bonkers nonetheless. A lot of things get destroyed. As in, if you were bothered by how much destruction there was in Man of Steel, you will probably try to start burning the theater down once Neo-Tokyo starts falling apart.

Even though directors have been destroying entire cities ever since SFX technology made it possible, these days people get really touchy about such things. There’s a growing stigma for using 9/11 iconography, even if it’s not intended to be such. So much so that Joe Quesada argued in response to MOS (which did use 9/11 imagery on purpose) that it would have been better for Superman to allow mass genocide of all humans than for him to recklessly destroy downtown Metropolis (no joke).

In fact, AKIRA the animated film is based on a manga, and rumor has it that the film CUT OUT MUCH OF THE DESTRUCTION IN THE FINAL ACT. I’ve read that if they really do take the trilogy route, they’ll rely heavier on the manga than the film, which means the third film in the series will possibly just be 2 and half hours of Neo-Tokyo being destroyed. I just don’t think people will handle an adaptation of this property very well.

3. Nolan may have overstayed his welcome

As I mentioned earlier, I’m a big Nolan fan. But one of the trends in his movies that I think has some former fans souring on his brand is how huge they’ve become. If you track the trajectory from Memento (or especially, The Following) to Interstellar, Nolan’s scope as a filmmaker has grown to astounding levels. Some would say frustrating levels.

Both The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar are huge movies. Tons of SFX, heart pounding soundtracks, shot largely in IMAX and well over 2 and a half hours. It’s almost hard to remember that this guy started out as an indie disciple of Steven Soderbergh.

Now, I personally think that his huge movies are great. Certainly better that any of the other huge movies out there. But critics and audiences have gotten a little restless. People are devoting their time to parsing out meaningless plot holes instead of just enjoying the films. His films are becoming almost partisan in nature. Either you’re a Nolan defender or you’re not. It didn’t used to be that way, and that’s kind of sucking the fun out of it a little bit.

That’s why it seems to me like a better move might be to make something smaller than recent entries. Pull a Spielberg. Go back to roots, and do an intimate psychological thriller, just to remind audiences that he can do it. Doing a massive sci-fi trilogy based on Japanese manga is basically the exact opposite of that.

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No matter which way this all plays out, I hope they end up making a good movie. If they don’t, however, I’ll probably go see it anyway.