From Comic Book pages to the SILVER SCREEN - "GEN 13", a review

So funny.... I'm just doing ma' thang on YouTube as usual, and after watching Appleseed (2004) this gem pops up in my suggested. For some reason it sounded familiar and I was intrigued...

I clicked on it and this AWFUL DivX rip that was blockier than lego popped up. I couldn't bare to watch. Maybe I should have stopped there... but I was curious and I searched and found a MUCH better version. So I watched.

And within 15 or so minutes I realized this was a film adaptation of the IMAGE COMICS series of the same name.

Over all a pretty cool story akin to that of X-Men from the Marvel universe. The problems though majorly impacted how GOOD this movie could and SHOULD have been. A lot of the script reads like a comic book (needless self-dialogue to explain the thoughts of the character just like speech bubbles in every frame on a page, when well written stories that tell themselves through moving images require little to no dialogue at all, and this was really hurtful to the movie playing out). There's also really clumsy writing just as we see in comic books that need to be whipped together in days so they can be put out every month...

... but when you're putting all your eggs in one basket, spending hundreds of thousands on an animation company to make your film, a REALLY amazing script is needed. And it should be written perhaps by the comic book writers so intimately familiar with the characters and story, but then finessed by a fan who's talented in writing screenplays.

Along with that, I know a company like IMAGE back in the day when comics, although selling billions of dollars (maybe?), didn't usually have MASSIVE profits back then (now maybe they do thanks to the incredible explosion of popularity due to the Marvel cinematic universe), but regardless of how much money you are dumping into a project, wouldn't you want to ensure the most success?

If this project had been done right we would have seen a revolution in film-making and a totally different direction than we went. Rather than CGI taking over everything to make our films exciting and explosive and beyond belief, we would have (to some extent - CGI still would have taken a huge chunk of the film evolution) animated films that people would flock to.

This came to my mind the other day watching Appleseed. I was considering why anime is so much a part of the Japanese culture. I couldn't help but think it spawned out of the reality that the stories they wanted to tell just could not be done by the production companies then with their limited budgets (not poo-poo'ing on Godzilla movies... surely some of those cost a great deal, but the things we witness in their stories would've rivaled 'Star Wars' level budgets and capabilities).

So if IMAGE or "Wildstorm" which is who apparently put it out (Wildstorm being a story arch in the IMAGE universe) would have put the effort in and the money, and the TIME, to REALLY put an incredible movie together that just happened to be animated, what a niche we would have seen explode.

But the animation in this is really quite poor, on par with something from a 90's saturday morning cartoon. Honestly, as I've said in recent reviews, anime generally needs more frames per second to be fluid and enjoyable (low frames rates and janky animation is not a "style", it's called poor production).

But take a look at the cover art from GEN-13 and imagine THAT drawn into a movie, action packed and dynamic, and you would have had the Marvel Cinematic Universe we now enjoy 20 years ago, just drawn. Would it have taken time to draw each second of the film? Yes. Would it have cost more for the animators? Yes (but you can reduce cost by taking more time)... Would it have appealed to less audiences, those familiar with comics as Gen-13 was already niche as it was, and a gamble for any production company already? Yes. Would word of mouth and hype exponentially grown the fan base and interest just as Star Wars did in the 70's?

Absolutely.

Just LOOK at that art? Wow!

What was in the film?

It's about as good as Scooby-Doo.

Hats off to them for trying, and the film was pretty neat... but nothing compared to what it should and could have been.

Quickly, I just add the messaging of "We can be gods" in this film, because if humans can "evolve" upwards, we'll be so wonderfully powerful. Right. Look up "genetic entropy". We've been devolving since the 'Fall'.

Anyway, this movie was 2/5 stars **
(definitely 18+, illustrated nudity, sexuality, etc)

If you must watch it, you'll find it on YouTube.


Thanks all for stopping by. Feel free to follow me on Twitch.tv to see more geeky goodness!

Past VODs are all at my YouTube channel.

And I also hope your conscience towards God has been stirred. You can ask Him questions at a website I'm still constructing - www.HeHasAnswers.com - and even read what I've written thus far regarding the irrefutable evidence of His existence (or LISTEN to a rough recording of that at my ministry YouTube channel)

God bless you and good night!