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News: Live action Gaiking trailer

Posted on : 29-03-2010 | By : | In : News, Videos

Hardware: ,

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This has been going the rounds as of late, as it seems that a live action Gaiking is in production. The teaser trailer shows that, much like Michael Bay’s recent Transformers films, this Gaiking remake is massively over detailing its designs. The reasoning behind this is obviously because some muppet thinks that this makes the mecha look more realistic; the problem is that they picked Gaiking.

Gaiking is a super robot with MASSIVE horns on its head and a giant mouth in its chest. I mean, honestly, it’s hardly a realistic place to start. Yet going to all that realistic detail in the cockpit and all the visual kibble adorning the mecha’s body is utterly missing the point. At least with the recent animated sequel a few years back they managed to at least get the tone right. This just looks very silly, simply because it’s taking itself desperately seriously. Super robots are meant to be preposterous fun, making them realistic just makes it all very dull.

Gaiking was also one of the mecha mecha in the Shogun Warriors toys/comics line. These were basically a means to sell totally disparate Japanese mecha toys from separate series all under one line back in the late 70s and early 80s (a bit like a super robot version of Robotech). The only heartwarming thought about all this is that Go Nagai might get to finally see some Gaiking royalties if this is actually made.

The original Gaiking and its recent sequel have also been featured in numerous Super Robot Wars games over the years. Our personal favourites are Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 and Super Robot Wars K. Both games come highly recommended.

Thanks to Plastic Pals for the heads up.

Spoiler

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS6E-Nu3xsg]

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Comments (12)

Really dont like the look of that at all, shame as I quite like how Yamato is looking.

The cockpit looks more like something that belongs in the tank from Blaster Master, or perhaps G-Saviour 2: Secret of the Ooze.

The image makes Gaiking look like Wheeljack for Transformers G1 😮

Crap.

On the other hand, the Gaiking design revamp looks a lot hotter than Bayformers, and at least they tried to stay truthful to the original design (and quite successfully at that IMHO), whilst Bayformers are just a bunch of scrap metals.

Well, thinking the transformers designs would stay truthful to the original cartoon is fundamentally misunderstanding how the Transformers license works. It absolutely thrives on reinventing itself (a bit like, say, Super Sentai, but on a deeper level), keeping the past stuff to visual nods and collector-oriented items primarily developed for japan by Takara (like the masterpiece toys), this of course because since it’s primarily toy-based and with lines focused on a younger audience it needs fresh new designs each year (and it works, since the two most profitable lines beyond the original launch are beast wars and the bayformers).

The issue isn’t the reinvention, as it does indeed work – as Gundam and Macross do the same. The issue is that the contemporary Western approach is so utterly backward in terms of design.

By all means reinvent a saga’s aesthetic – just don’t make it look some idiot covered an action figure in glue and rolled it in car parts.

Knew this would be on here, however Ive never watched shogun warriors, if it is indeed a super robot show then Im confused at the design, I thought the cockpit was rather cool, but now you’ve told me its a super robot show, that dont really make sense.

It does sound like the people involed care alot more about the source material than Bay, in the end whenever something comes to Hollywood they always got to change it, Godzilla anyone?

Its a pity Japanese Film industry cant afford to make a mecha movie so we can actually get a good one, then again they did make Gunhed, which was pants after the first 10mins, damn shame, could have been great.

Even though its cheesy as hell, Robot Jox is still my fav big giant robot movie.

Wonder if they’re still going to do that Robotech movie.

First of all, let me say I love your Blog. I’m in my mid 30ies and I spent good part of my childhood watching mecha animes of all kinds, which where shown on many italian TV channels during the eighties. Gaiking was one of my favourites (next to Daitarn III, Daltanious, Jeeg, and others), and as a purist I didn’t like the sequel at all. I was really intrigued by the idea of seing a live action movie of Gaiking at first, but after watching the trailer I’m a bit disappointed. As with the Transformers movies, everything looks much too tecchie and too dull, lacking the vibrant colors of the original material. I think it’s a bit of a shame. Still I’m kind of interested in the end result.

I was never a super robot fan, so the creative license doesn’t bother me much. It looked pretty cool up until the pilot’s face was revealed. What the hell was that? The CG robot looked more realistic. Who’s making this?

It really doesn’t surprise me. You have to consider the average movie goer. There is no distinction between super and real robots to them. When you think how possibly the biggest machine they work with or use is their own car, it’s not that much of a stretch to make them think that a big machine needs all those moving parts and engines to look reasonably real. Since they aren’t mecha enthusiasts like us, it wouldn’t make sense to them for a giant machine with only rudimentary geometric shapes to move.

I honestly don’t mind the design (though that cockpit was just silly) so long as it pulls of insane super like action.

I still have my beat up VHS copy of Gaiking when it aired on showtime in the 80’s. I’m pleasantly surprised that it actually looks like Gaiking; live action super robots with disaster movie FX. I like it. Yes it needs more color. -also, big fan of this blog.

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