Point 1: Coming home from 1st grade in 1973 and watching Speed Racer, Ultraman and Johnny Socko and his Flying Robot is one my most cherished childhood memories. The whole imagery, the music and the style lodged dreamlike feelings, mysterious aura and even a slightly haunting (I don't mean scary) impact into me as a child. For kids my age at that time, this was the first (and only for the time) intro to those big, overdrawn eyes from Japan, and there was just something...weirdly enticing about it. (I'll admit that Trixie was my first childhood crush...probably explains why I'm so screwed up today).
Point 2: When released on DVD several years ago, I started to watch them again, 30 years later, and I'll admit, I was like....ummmmm...maybe I should have just left it alone. Just killed another cherished childhood memory, dude. BUT, watching them, even though I had to admit as an adult that the stories, dialog and animation sucked, watching them 30 years later STILL invoked those dreamlike sensations and mysterious aura, and I was glad for that.
I cannot fathom how ANYONE, who either saw Speed Racer at age six in 1973 or never saw it, or saw at age 6 in 2003 even in the context of modernized entertainment, can like this movie. Like the original Speed Racer, it lacks decent dialog, a decent story, and believable action. But it commits the cardinal sin of making its action completely incomprehensible. Yes, the original Speed had preposterous physics, with cars going straight up mountains, sideways along cliffs, and bad animation with nothing more rotating backdrops behind a static Mach 5 with spinning wheels. But even a 6-year-old like me knew what was going on! You know that a filmmaker is either lazy or don't know what they're doing when each shot averages about .3 nanoseconds in length. Did someone get crazy with the editing scissors or they just didn't know how to construct good, coherent action. I never once felt involved in the action sequences, much less could follow them.
Some have complained that this movie is too bright, uses too many colors, and should have an epileptic seizure warning, but that was the least of my beefs. Yes, I did jokingly say after it was over, "Too many colors...I need aspirin", but it wouldn't have been so bad if I could follow what the hell was actually going on.
The BIGGEST SIN of this movie?????.....They KILLED the Theme Music!!!! Where was it???? That was the best part of the original Speed Racer Cartoon!!!! ARGGGGG!!!!!! And I don't want to hear some excuse like it is "dated", kids today would like, etc. etc.....My daughters (6 and 11) watch the old Speed Racer cartoons with me and they love that song!!!!!
Point 2: When released on DVD several years ago, I started to watch them again, 30 years later, and I'll admit, I was like....ummmmm...maybe I should have just left it alone. Just killed another cherished childhood memory, dude. BUT, watching them, even though I had to admit as an adult that the stories, dialog and animation sucked, watching them 30 years later STILL invoked those dreamlike sensations and mysterious aura, and I was glad for that.
I cannot fathom how ANYONE, who either saw Speed Racer at age six in 1973 or never saw it, or saw at age 6 in 2003 even in the context of modernized entertainment, can like this movie. Like the original Speed Racer, it lacks decent dialog, a decent story, and believable action. But it commits the cardinal sin of making its action completely incomprehensible. Yes, the original Speed had preposterous physics, with cars going straight up mountains, sideways along cliffs, and bad animation with nothing more rotating backdrops behind a static Mach 5 with spinning wheels. But even a 6-year-old like me knew what was going on! You know that a filmmaker is either lazy or don't know what they're doing when each shot averages about .3 nanoseconds in length. Did someone get crazy with the editing scissors or they just didn't know how to construct good, coherent action. I never once felt involved in the action sequences, much less could follow them.
Some have complained that this movie is too bright, uses too many colors, and should have an epileptic seizure warning, but that was the least of my beefs. Yes, I did jokingly say after it was over, "Too many colors...I need aspirin", but it wouldn't have been so bad if I could follow what the hell was actually going on.
The BIGGEST SIN of this movie?????.....They KILLED the Theme Music!!!! Where was it???? That was the best part of the original Speed Racer Cartoon!!!! ARGGGGG!!!!!! And I don't want to hear some excuse like it is "dated", kids today would like, etc. etc.....My daughters (6 and 11) watch the old Speed Racer cartoons with me and they love that song!!!!!