Stealing From Evangelion

Yesterday I talked about the Transformers movie. One of the things that bugged me was the extent to which its script stole from the greatest anime creation of all time, Evangelion. Specifically, the idea of a giant non-biological alien being frozen in polar ice and kept hidden by a secret government organization, while technologies are derived from it –and while its brethren seek it out– was stolen directly from the brilliance of Evangelion.

The image here is of the “angel” named “Adam“, which is at the centre of the great mystery of Evangelion. When the live action version finally comes out, some fool will claim that its makers stole the image from Transformers, rather than the other way around.

Speaking of great things coming to the big screen, the single finest comic book is Watchmen. It’s probably the only so-called “graphic novel” worthy of that lofty description, and is, I think, one of the finest works of English language literature of the latter half of the 20th century.

Well, word is out that after 20 years of being bandied about in various studios, Watchmen the movie is finally approaching production. My fear here is not that the film will suck (very high chance of that), but rather than the Hollywood marketing gurus will reduce this inspired piece of imagination into yet another comic book merchandising orgy. In other words, they will mistake this mature, adult tale for a children’s show and market it accordingly, complete with action figures and a new Saturday morning cartoon, complete with pre-teen protagonists, a talking animal and dialogue replete with many uses of “dude”, “super cool” and “extreme”.

Sigh. In other news…

Here’s where I plug my sitar teacher, Anwar Khurshid. Anwar mentioned to me that he just got a new gig “teaching some actor” that he’d never heard of. The actor? Mike Myers. Anwar, bless his soul, is blissfully unaware of anything in pop culture. Here’s hoping he can translate this opportunity into becoming sitar teacher to the stars.