That Damn Death Note Trailer

Once again, I find myself talking about how badly western filmmakers seem to be at adapting anime and manga. You all remember how baffled I was when I saw the Ghost in the Shell trailer (that movie, incidentally, comes out next Friday) - well, it's been a few months, and history seems to be repeating itself. I was on YouTube earlier today, and lo and behold, I'm recommended the brand new trailer for Netflix' upcoming film adaptation of the legendary Shonen Jump manga Death Note.

Death Note, for those of you who don't know, is the story of a high school student named Light Yagami, who one day finds a Death Note, a magical notebook that can kill anyone whose name is written in it. Armed with this new power, Light decides to use it to basically rid the world of all criminals - the story becomes a giant game of cat and mouse, with Light trying to evade the attention of the many investigators who want to see him dead (most notably, of course, being the eccentric PI named L). It's a phenomenal story - I remember when I was in high school and had just bought the first volume of the manga, I loved it so much that I immediately went back out and picked up the second volume the minute I finished reading the first.

Rumors of an American live action adaptation of Death Note have circulated since, to my knowledge, 2007, but it was only in 2009, when Warner Brothers secured the rights, that work began to begin in earnest. Yes, the film took nearly eight years to be produced - since then, Netflix has picked up the rights from WB. I was initially excited about Netflix' involvement in the project - after all, their work is uniformly both popular and critically acclaimed. But then I remembered: that's only for their TV shows. Their movies? Well, I'll just say Netflix is the same studio that signed a multi-film contract with Happy Madison, and leave it at that.

Why.

That was the first red flag. The second was, shortly before I queued up the trailer, I stumbled over to the film's Wikipedia page to check out the creative team behind it. The director, Adam Wingard, is the same man responsible for the recent Blair Witch film, and the screenwriter, Jeremy Slater, was one of the co-writers of the most recent Fantastic Four film - oh, excuse me, I meant Fan4stic. Come on. Come the fuck on. It's like Netflix is deliberately going out of their way to sign on the most creatively bankrupt team imaginable.

Oh, you don't believe me? Go ahead, watch the trailer - it's only a minute long, so you have no excuse not to.

Yes, only a minute long - it's a teaser, so basically, the only thing we're supposed to get out if it is, one, the movie is coming out soon, and two, LOOK AT ALL THESE COOL PICTURES. I suppose it succeeds well enough at the first point (how could it not?) - as for the second, even with only a minute to work with, the trailer demonstrates the filmmakers don't seem to understand what makes Death Note great.

So, let's get the easy shit out of the way first.

This guy, who looks like he hasn't washed his hair since before 9/11, is I guess Light Yagami (though we aren't told his name in the trailer itself). Like in the manga, he finds the Death Note outside his school one day. Unlike the manga, the very next scene in the trailer makes it clear that the film isn't set in Japan, but in Seattle.

Is this a problem? Yes and no. The core narrative is such that it could conceivably take place anywhere on Earth - indeed, there is at least one Death Note side story that was published years ago that took place in America. It wouldn't be hard - indeed, it would be pretty interesting - to see Death Note's core story injected with some more prototypical American social problems like bullying and societal violence. Is that what they're going to do? Somehow, I don't think so. Look at this.

"Kira" was Light's alter ego in the original manga. In that context, the name was perfect - Kira is a relatively common Japanese name, but it's also the Japanese way of phonetically spelling the English word "killer". It's a pun that makes no sense when translated into an American context. This is a little thing, I know, but at the same time it demonstrates how little the filmmakers cared about treating the material with any kind of artistic integrity and respect. Either keep the film set in Japan, or completely Americanize the entire thing, even if that requires a bit of cosmetic liberty. What this looks like, to me, is they're taking some of the superficial aspects of the story where they see fit.

I say superficial, because the rest of the trailer makes it clear that the filmmakers simply do not comprehend the kind of suspense needed for this story to work. Death Note was great not because there was a bunch of Mission Impossible caliber action and espionage. Tsugumi Ohba's command of dramatic irony is so incredible that he was able to make a bunch of guys sitting around in a room talking and writing a literal life or death struggle. And if you think for a second that sitting around in a room is impossible to make cinematic, you're dead wrong: Madhouse's anime adaptation of the manga is phenomenal, as this brief clip will demonstrate.

So, it can be done. Is that what this movie is doing? Not that I can see. We're shown someone running away maniacally, a ferris wheel collapsing, this asshole escaping the police.

All of this is just generic American action/thriller scenes. How is this Death Note? Granted, Light, or whatever the hell we're calling him, finds the Death Note and is obviously going to use it to kill people, but that doesn't necessarily make the film Death Note. It makes it a dumb action film with a stupid gimmick. Finding and using the Death Note is the most superficial aspect of the story - what makes the story so great is seeing how the Death Note changes Light over time, the tension of both sides trying to outsmart the other, in short, everything except stupid police chases.

One could certainly argue that all that stuff is in the movie, but the trailer decided to focus on other things instead. Perhaps. But to that I say, should a trailer not at least attempt to give an honest look at the movie it's designed to advertise? Can a trailer not be honest and thrilling? What in the silver fuck is this thing?

I foresee one of two possible outcomes. One: the trailer is honest, and the movie is as bad as I've suggested it could be. Or two: the movie is at least a bit closer in spirit to the original source material, making the trailer intentionally misleading. The frustrating thing is not having any idea which of the two is more likely.