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SPEED RACER — Description
WB Marketing art, SPEED RACER. Pencil.

Well... I reckon it's safe to post this now, seeing as the movie raced through its theatrical release as speedily as the title character's namesake. Heheh.

It's a very tricky thing translating a property from one medium to another, television to film, animation to live action, and vice versa. A balance must be properly struck that takes full advantage of the new medium, while taking care never to disrespect the original rendition (unless one is satirizing). A filmmaker must decide how faithful to be, while freely manifesting his/her own vision. It must be decided what to include in the adaptation, and what to wisely jettison.

In the case of SPEED RACER, and other notable cartoon-to-live action transfers, I continue to fail to understand why they try to so closely emulate animation. Full animation is an art form in which the human imagination is more unleashed, and it becomes pointless to expend the effort to capture this with real actors and situations. It's an exercise in futility really, and the result is most often merely an amusing oddity at best. Look what we can do with a hundred-plus million dollars.

So it is with SPEED RACER, a film only for the most ardent fans, and bedazzled children. It's a loving tribute to the cartoon, surely. But for all that, it's far too long, too technically glitzy, and a bit too silly.

I DO think the casting of the main characters was brilliant, though.

But in the end, was it all really necessary?

Image is copyrighted by Warner Bros Studios.