My Geeky Trivia

By Geeky Gem

The last couple of weeks of trivia have been a right mix and so they should be, you don’t want me going through a whole month on just one series of movies do you? any way this week I bring you fast cars and well more fast cars with The Fast and the Furious.

The house used as headquarters for the FBI and LAPD undercover investigation is the same house that was used as Walter Matthau’s house in Hanging Up.

Working titles for the movie included “Racer X”, “Redline” and “Race Wars”.

Neither Michelle Rodriguez nor Jordana Brewster had driver’s licenses or even learner’s permits before production of the film.

Dominic’s RX-7 originally had a roll cage. It was removed to accommodate Vin Diesel’s physique.

There are over 15,000 individual sound effects in the first street race.

Vin Diesel accidentally broke a stuntman’s nose.

Film-makers asked owners of houses in backgrounds to re-paint their houses with more muted colors to show off the colorful cars.

The only cars to feature in both “Fast and Furious” films was Neal H. Moritz’s navy-colored Ferrari F355, and Dom’s RX-7. In the first film, the F355 was used in the Malibu race scene and then parked outside Verone’s house in 2 Fast 2 Furious. The RX-7 was changed and used again in the second film as Orange Julius’ car in the first race scene.

There were more than 60 Japanese vehicles in this movie.

The Volkswagen Jetta that Jesse drives in the movie was later purchased by Frankie Muniz.

And there we have yet another week of trivia has come and gone. Untill next time bye bye.

My Geeky Trivia

By Geeky Gem

There are many things that I love in life, but two of my very favourite things are, trivia, and Anime. What better way to celebrate these two great loves than to write some trivia based on one of the greatest Anime films I have ever seen, and the film that started off my love for this Japanese art form, Akira. This movie was made back in 1988 but I didnt get to see it until much later. It was directed by Katsuhiro Ohtomo and here is some trivia about this frankly awesome movie.

This was one of the first Japanese anime films to have the character’s voices recorded before they were animated. While this is the typical practice in U.S. animation, in Japan the animation is generally produced first.

The film was re-released in 2001 with a new voice dub and soundtrack, reportedly costing over $1 million.

At one point in the 1990s, Sony contemplated a live-action version of the film, but scrapped the idea when the projected budget went north of US $300 million.

 

The music for the film was completed before any of the composers saw a frame of film or read the script. The music did have to be edited to fit some scenes though.

The production budget was nearly $10 million, a record sum for a Japanese animation film.

 

The movie consists of 2,212 shots and 160,000 single pictures, 2-3 times more than usual, using 327 different colors (another record in animation film), 50 of which were exclusively created for the film. The reason for this statistic is that most of the movie takes place at night, a setting that is traditionally avoided by animators because of the increased color requirements.

 

Katsuhiro Ohtomo originally created the AKIRA manga as an homage to manga artist Mitsuteru Yokoyama, who created Tetsujon Nijuhachi-Go (Tetsujin 28). Both AKIRA and Tetsujin 28 have a main character named Shotaro Kaneda and Akira’s no. 28 designation compares with the robot’s no.28 designation.

The 1940s-style song heard following the terrorist bombing is “Tokyo Shoe Shine Boy”, released in 1951 by jazz singer Teruko Akatsuki. The song was not included in either the Japanese or American releases of the soundtrack; however, it had previously appeared on the release of the soundtrack from MASH.

Because Madman Entertainment Pty. Ltd. licensed Akira through Manga Entertainment rather than Pioneer/Geneon, the Australian DVD release of Akira has both the original Streamline dub (which Manga has the license to) and Pioneer/Geneon’s new English dub.

 

In the scene where Kaneda is at the jukebox you can see the logos of three famous classic rock bands: Cream, Led Zeppelin and The Doors.

 

There you have some trivia about this brilliant anime that paved the way for all other animes to make it here to us in the West. So untill next week stay geeky.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Anime

 By Geeky Gem

Not so long ago I regaled you with the tale of my love for the Fullmetal Alchemist Manga. I explained how the Brother’s Elric were on a quest to find the Philosophers stone in order to regain their bodies after an alchemy mishap.

 

 

As I mentioned in my other piece about FMA there are, in fact, two anime’s made. There is the one that was made before the manga was finished, and is just called Fullmetal Alchemist, the one I talk about here, and there is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood,which I have yet to watch but do have ready to go. Any way if you read my piece on the manga, then you already have a brief knowledge of what I am going on about, if not then go read that and come back, go on I’ll wait.

Done? Good okay here we go. The first half of the animé basically follows that of the manga, but the plots do go away from each other and other things are different in the manga to the show. This happens near the middle of story as the manga series was not complete and this lead to this animé leading off in another direction with the story, thus making them two very different stories but both as enjoyable as one and another. This happens a lot in Japan, they start to make a series before a manga series is finalised and it leads to all sorts of different twists.

When we get to the middle of anime we find that Ed and Alphonse have reunited with their teacher Izumi Curtis in order to find a former lover of Hohenheim (Ed and Al’s father) and the former mentor to their own teacher, Dante. Dante acts as the series’ main antagonist, appearing only in the anime. Centuries ago, the two perfected methods for making the Philosopher’s Stone, achieving a sort of immortality by transferring their soul and intellect into others’ bodies as they age. Dante’s body is giving up and the only way she can survive is to move into a new body with a Philsophers stone that will wipe out an entire town. However there is already a Philosophers stone inside Alphonse leading to him being kidnapped. I will not tell you any more as it may spoil it for you. Needless to say, it is very, very good, and all the loose ends from the series are tied up in Fullmetal Alchemist The Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa, which I have yet to watch but I will.

 The animation on this show is fantastic and both the Japanese and English voice cast are brilliant. Most of the time I will watch a show in both languages as you sometimes get a bit more story in Japanese that can be left out in English, as it wont translate over. However, with FMA, you don’t get that problem. The whole thing translates really well. I always love the opening songs for anime as they are always catchy. However you do find that they change it ever 5 to 10 episodes which is always interesting my favourite one from this anime is by a Japanese band called Larc En Ciel and is called Ready, Steady, Go! It’s a fantastic track and fits this anime really well.

 If you like animation but haven’t tried one yet, then why not give it go, I am off to watch the movie, so I can find out what happens next.

The Magical World of Miyazaki: Kiki’s Delivery Service

  By Geeky Gem

As you all know I have a thing for Studio Ghibli movies and have seen close to all of them, in these articles I have and will continue to tell you about them. This time I thought I would tell you about Kiki’s Delivery Service.

Kiki’s Delivery Service first came out in Japan in 1989, and was translated and released in the UK in 1997. It was the first release from the Disney/Ghibli partnership. The film was a success for Ghibli as are so many of their movies. It won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989, the movie is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Eiko Kadono. Again this movie was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

According to Miyazaki the movie touches on the gulf that exists between independence and reliance in Japanese teenage girls. Going beyond the coming of age themes, this movie deals with the nature of creativity and talent, and the central difficulty every person faces in becoming themselves, whether through luck, hard work or confidence: the inner movie explores the same questions that are later asked in Whisper of the Heart, which we will come to on this journey.

Kiki is a 13 year old witch-in-training, living in a village where her mother is local herbalist. It is traditional for witches to live for a year on their own when they reach 13 years of age. At the start of the story Kiki takes off for the big city with her best friends Jiji her cat. Kiki decides to live in the city of Koirko which is on the coast near a beautiful sea. After a hard start, Kiki finds herself some friends and a place to stay. But she only has one of her witch abilities which is she can fly a broomstick. Which at first she is not very good at. She decides in order to look after herself and earn some money that she will open a delivery service.

As you can imagine Kiki does have some set backs, and many are to do with her adolescent worries. She is also chased all over town by a boy called Tombo, the local crazy boy who is mad about aviation and is fascinated by Kiki’s ability to fly. Kiki eventually warms up to him and they become friends. After a nasty event involving some of Tombo’s friends Kiki is left very upset, so much so that her ability to talk to Jiji and fly disappears. She now has to figure out how to get these powers back. When Tombo’s ends up in some trouble, Kiki must try to save him, but she still has no powers. It is with this attempt to save him that she regains her powers and rescues her friend. The story carries on through the closing credits, you see Kiki settle into her new home, and she is somewhat of a local celebrity.

By now you should being seeing the themes that run through Miyazaki movies, he wants to portray the struggles of his characters but he makes them so you can relate to them in some way. Here for example we meet Kiki and her struggles to deal with adolescence, something I could relate to very easily, the awkwardness of being a teenager and finding you are now of an age where you have to start being responsible for your actions and choices. This is a hard thing for anyone to get used to. This again is one of Miyazaki’s life telling stories, I think this is the real reason why I like these movies so much.

Again the music is beautiful and always fits fantastically with the action on the screen. Its one thing that isn’t lost in the translation. I have seen this movie in both Japanese and English and as always the voice for both languages is brilliant. There is something about the way Miyazaki picked his actors and he does have a say on who is cats in the English dub version which I think is really important.

This is the part where I tell you if you haven’t seen it then you must, but if you have read the other pieces I have done on Miyazaki and you have liked them and have indeed liked the films if you have seen any of them, then I don’t need to tell you, this Is a must see. You’ll just know, and you’ll add it to the list of things you have to see.