Warner Bros. Acquires Death Note

[TheFuture]

A really pathetic adaptation to be honest. Usually I'm easy going about taking liberties towards the source material as long as the changes are worthwhile and can stand on their own to make a worthy film, but the utter bastardisation of the story here was non sensical at best.

No idea why they essentially added a new character here in Mia, a role they couldn't even cast competently. She was there purely to throw a spanner in the works and

Spoiler

prove to be Light's undoing, robbing the story of Light's disturbing journey to self destruction.

Spoiler

L was performed admirably and retained some of his quirks, but the absurdity of the situation he finds himself in here, as well as his suspicion of Light, doesn't quite work.

Ryuk was perfectly voiced by Dafoe yet relegated to the sidelines here. While they got his sinister indifference essentially right, we weren't given the time with the character that made him truly memorable in the source. He didn't do much of anything in fact.

Whignam was wasted.

In summary quite an awful effort. As I said I'm usually fine with liberties being taken towards a source but when it's so poorly executed, it's genuinely maddening. It makes you wonder they bothered in the first place. The fact they went with a 90 minute movie is even more bizarre as they instantly cut their own legs from beneath. While the anime is not perfect and lingered on repetitively at times, they went to the other extreme here. A miniseries would have worked better.

 

[Lord]

Seeing Ryuk threaten Light so much was kinda odd. Always though his indiference helped make him unique. Here he just acts more like a generic demon.

 

[sweetre15]

Death Note IMHO is further proof that you can't make a successful Hollywood version of Naruto or Bleach for that matter.

Plus it seems like Death Note rushed through everything.

Like I don't even know how you begin to condense Naruto at all into a digestible plot for a Hollywood audience.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/death_note_2017/

It's not a matter of it being impossible imo, it's a matter of Hollywood assuming they have to run it through a mill of cliches.

A story about someone's downward spiral into a villain due to developing a god complex on his road to creating a "utopia" is something that should be understandable in every culture. The need to turn this into Cruel Intentions meets Twilight meets D Grade was not one done out of necessity....just creative laziness.

For Naruto, a story about a kid whose ostracized by people for reasons by his control and aspires to make people look up to him instead of looking down on him is a premise that also shouldn't be too far off from people's understanding in any culture.

 

[chamber-music]

Man they rushed this movie. The Light vs L battle of wits was way to fast.

 

[venom892]

Seeing Ryuk threaten Light so much was kinda odd. Always though his indiference helped make him unique. Here he just acts more like a generic demon.

I felt the same way, I liked Dafoe's performance, but Ryuk like the rest of the film was generic. Originally he was just bored, in this film he seems to want to do evil.

 

[Lord]

Death Note IMHO is further proof that you can't make a successful Hollywood version of Naruto or Bleach for that matter.

Plus it seems like Death Note rushed through everything.

Like I don't even know how you begin to condense Naruto at all into a digestible plot for a Hollywood audience.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/death_note_2017/

It's not a matter of it being impossible imo, it's a matter of Hollywood assuming they have to run it through a mill of cliches.

A story about someone's downward spiral into a villain due to developing a god complex on his road to creating a "utopia" is something that should be understandable in every culture. The need to turn this into Cruel Intentions meets Twilight meets D Grade was not one done out of necessity....just creative laziness.

For Naruto, a story about a kid whose ostracized by people for reasons by his control and aspires to make people look up to him instead of looking down on him is a premise that also shouldn't be too far off from people's understanding in any culture.

I would say that Naruto and Bleach's worlds are more difficult to pull off due to the budget necessarity, but both have a major advantage over Death Note: They both have an initial quality but closed storyline (Zabuza arc and Grand Fisher). They wouldn't need to end on any cliffhanger on the first film. Even Attack on Titan and Fullmetal Alchemist, which are far more adaptable for Hollywood, would need some kind of selection of their first volumes in order for a first film to offer a full experience.

 

[Joe Von Zombie]

I would have done an American story set in the same universe as the anime/manga. The only thing that would have carried over was Ryuk and the Death Note itself. New characters, new situations etc.

 

[Saitou Hajime]

Seeing Ryuk threaten Light so much was kinda odd. Always though his indiference helped make him unique. Here he just acts more like a generic demon.

The moment I saw Dafoe's Ryuk hamming it up in the trailers I knew they were going with this stupid direction with the character.

 

[TheDreamMaster]

A really pathetic adaptation to be honest. Usually I'm easy going about taking liberties towards the source material as long as the changes are worthwhile and can stand on their own to make a worthy film, but the utter bastardisation of the story here was non sensical at best.

No idea why they essentially added a new character here in Mia, a role they couldn't even cast competently. She was there purely to throw a spanner in the works and

Spoiler

prove to be Light's undoing, robbing the story of Light's disturbing journey to self destruction.

Spoiler

L was performed admirably and retained some of his quirks, but the absurdity of the situation he finds himself in here, as well as his suspicion of Light, doesn't quite work.

Ryuk was perfectly voiced by Dafoe yet relegated to the sidelines here. While they got his sinister indifference essentially right, we weren't given the time with the character that made him truly memorable in the source. He didn't do much of anything in fact.

Whignam was wasted.

In summary quite an awful effort. As I said I'm usually fine with liberties being taken towards a source but when it's so poorly executed, it's genuinely maddening. It makes you wonder they bothered in the first place. The fact they went with a 90 minute movie is even more bizarre as they instantly cut their own legs from beneath. While the anime is not perfect and lingered on repetitively at times, they went to the other extreme here. A miniseries would have worked better.

Mia wasn't a new character. She was supposed to be a take on Misa, but Misa had purpose, and had her own Death Note at that. She did things her own way but she looked up to Light and his ideals. Meanwhile, there was no real love story there, Light literally used Misa (she got the Shinigami eyes which cut her life in half) so he didn't have to sacrifice his lifespan. Which saying all this now makes me realize even more how off the mark this film was.

I'm also extremely annoyed about how they handled Watari.

Spoiler

Like, they always needed a full name, and I'm 99% sure Watari had a full name in the manga, it's been a while since I read it though. It's the reason, even with a face, you couldn't just write "Tom" or something. And then L, the master detective who always keeps it together, chasing Light with a ****ing gun. Really?

 

[TheFuture]

Different name and as you point out as well little to do with Misa. Hence, my opinion she was a show invention.

 

[Luigi]

This film sure made me miss Simon Barrett.

 

[The Apocalypse]

I would have done an American story set in the same universe as the anime/manga. The only thing that would have carried over was Ryuk and the Death Note itself. New characters, new situations etc.

That's all they had to do.

 

[Stringer]

Could have benefited from a longer runtime. Would be better as a miniseries.

 

[Lord]

Funny how when Death Note rights got to Netflix they decided to make a film, instead of taking the oportunity to actualy make a tv series out of this. We're reaching a point where "Americanizing" isn't working that well in marketing these stuff. They should just go the Girls with the Dragon Tatoo route of setting these stories in their country of origin but with everyone speaking english in order to sell it better in the USA and other english-speaking countries. That way, they wouldn't have all of these problems with whitewashing or having to compress the story. Unlike One Piece, Death Note is possible to do with a TV budget.

 

[TheVileOne]

I still don't know how they seriously think they can make a live-action Hollywood One Piece TV series.

 

[TheFuture]

I had always assumed it was a tv series until reading just before the release it was a film. I knew it was a mountain to climb from there. I knew things would either be cut (Rem) or watered down (Light's intellect/megalomania, L's cold calculating).

 

[Neno_Kos]

Funny how when Death Note rights got to Netflix they decided to make a film, instead of taking the oportunity to actualy make a tv series out of this. We're reaching a point where "Americanizing" isn't working that well in marketing these stuff. They should just go the Girls with the Dragon Tatoo route of setting these stories in their country of origin but with everyone speaking english in order to sell it better in the USA and other english-speaking countries. That way, they wouldn't have all of these problems with whitewashing or having to compress the story. Unlike One Piece, Death Note is possible to do with a TV budget.

I am more glad they decided to make whitewashed bad movie than whitewashed bad series without actually having much connection to anime I adore. In my hopes I want neither. But if I need to chose lesser evil, I choose it.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Or if you do gotta make it american setting. Set it up after the events of the anime. Ryuk finding an american kid and go from there. This new kid learning from the mistakes of the previous Kira, while still being a cold blooded prick etc. New story, new characters, and no headache from most of the fandom. lol

Near has replaced L.

 

[Golgo-13]

I would have done an American story set in the same universe as the anime/manga. The only thing that would have carried over was Ryuk and the Death Note itself. New characters, new situations etc.

 

[Darkness Falls]

rewatching it to see if my opinion changes
i can accept that it was never going to be a shot for shot recreation so i see this movie as an "Elseworlds" death note

but the "Don't trust ryuk" note in the death note is a definite plot hole considering the rules

dunno how i missed that the first time

 

[Alien Anal]

Damn it why die they not make this a series. I was having a lot of fun when light started killing people and the cat and mouse games started...but then it stopped and the movie was over. Wasted opportunity.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Question: Is this the entertaining kind of bad, or just bad?

 

[samsnee]

Neither to me. It's just there.

 

[TheFuture]

Question: Is this the entertaining kind of bad, or just bad?

Pointless with no real strong element, so bad in my opinion.

 

[Lencho01]

I thought this was boring. But, it got me to watch the show, which has been pretty great so far. Another anime Hollywood has used to show they have no idea what they're doing when it comes to these properties.