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TR Contest: Future Casualties of American Cultural Imperialism


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?A lot of you have sent me this article from Cracked.com this week, titled The Actual Live-Action Akira Script: Worse Than You Think, where Robert Brockway goes through a possibly leaked version of the U.S. adaptation and points out everything that’s godawful about it. While I’m not 100% sure why someone would send an authentic Akira script to Cracked, I do think the script described in the article is so awful — and more importantly, so awful in the standard, Hollywood machine way — that’s it’s probably accurate. Making major characters randomly related? Check. Simplifying the story by making an evil corporation and its evil CEO the bad guys? Getting rid of all nuance and moral ambiguity to shove in generic action sequences? Check.

This is (often) what Hollywood does. It takes unique and interesting ideas from around the world and turns them into the same shitty action movie, leaving only the original characters’ names (although sometimes not even that). Tank Girl. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Dragonball Z. The list goes on and on.

So since we did a Japan’s Revenge for the U.S. Akira a few week’s ago, let’s go ahead and try the other side. This week’s contest — American-ize (in the shitty, Hollywood action movie way) an awesome foreign property that doesn’t deserve it. Note — this property has to be foreign, and for the geographically challenged that means stuff from Canada and the U.K. does actually count.

All I’m looking for is a plot summary and a few character descriptions; if you pick a subject that’s pretty obscure, you should definitely explain it, though, so we understand the changes. This will require a few words, but try to keep it under 200 or so, pretty please. One entry per person. The contest ends at 12:01 am EST on Monday, April 11th.

Oh! And now that we have this fancy new commenting system, let’s make sure we use it. If you see entries you think should win, “like” ’em. Let me know. I’m not saying the most liked entries will win, but I will be paying attention. And maybe I’ll let the readers pick a winner here and there. Work for you guys? Enh, whatever. I’m gone. Have a good weekend anyways.