The Actual Live-Action Akira Script: Worse Than You Think

BRITISH DIRECTOR

There are 400 million Americans, a nation of consumers, desperate to find comfort from the disarray and terror of their world by spending money in ours ... Using your subject [Tetsuo] as a threat would clearly implicate us. And no one likes to be the bad guy ... but using his power simply presents another unsolved act of terrorism. Then we come in ... Heroes, breathing life into devastation once again.

Did you catch that? That subtle-as-a-shark-conducting-neurosurgery reference to 9/11? I speculated last week that making a movie all about 9/11 would be the cheapest way to steal meaning from another culture and make it relatable to ours. And sure enough, they're doing just that: Akira is now housed beneath the "memorial bunker" commemorating the initial destruction of the city. It's described as a blank expanse of concrete with two "massive blue spot lights beam[ing] into the heavens. Millions of names etched along the walls."

Sound familiar?

The only way they could be more overt would be to pencil in a new friend for Tetsuo named Ground Zero, whose only line of dialogue is "Never Forget!" screamed over a sound loop of eagles screeching. I'm only slightly exaggerating. In the intro to the movie, right as Akira is destroying the city for the first time, a grieving mother looks down at her children, Kaneda and Tetsuo, and one of the final lines out of her mouth, as the actual disaster is happening around them, is:

MOTHER

Don't ever forget.

Oh, that's another point: Kaneda and Tetsuo are brothers now, and in their early thirties. That's not the only change, either. Kaneda is now a bitter, jaded blackmarket doctor, and Tetsuo is a shell-shocked, tortured junkie, alienated from the world. That's right: They've rewritten the male leads of Akira as a segmented Dr. House. The pair even share a House/Wilson dynamic, as Kaneda both enables and lectures Tetsuo about his drug dependence. I would be utterly astounded if the finale of the second movie isn't just the brothers bolting together Voltron-style to form a multi-story Hugh Laurie that destroys Akira's self esteem with a well-timed witticism. Apparently, Hollywood was concerned that we wouldn't recognize a concept as complicated as "childhood friends," so they've altered the relationship between the main characters, which allows them to absolutely fill the script with generically emoted, soap opera/90210-esque moments like this:

KANEDA

This isn't you... Whatever is happening to you... You have the strength to stop it.

TETSUO

Do I? How would you know?

KANEDA

Because you've always had it. You just never knew...

Kaneda struggles with a confession --

KANEDA

Because I never let you. Let me help you now.

TETSUO

Help me now? I don't need your help. I haven't for a long time.

KANEDA

What are you talking about, Tetsuo? I've done everything for you. Like I promised.

TETSUO

Right. The promise. You're a criminal. A thug. A gang leader. You're everything except what I needed most... A brother!

The power of love is a big recurring theme here, and really, thank God the makers of Akira had the courage to step up and finally address this hotbutton issue, otherwise we, as movie viewers, would only have every single other film Hollywood has ever produced to study this phenomena. So they've changed the angry, confused biker kids into stubble-streaked human care bears, and it's a good thing, too, because they're going to need all the sweet, sticky love-power they can muster if they're going to beat the evil Akira. Yes, in the remake, they've changed Akira -- from a victim, a mysterious force, and a childlike god figure -- into a screen villain cliche: The generic scary child with psychic powers.

Hollywood Producer: "I love the Akira character! But let's make him more psychotic, combine it with Dragonball Z, and have you guys seen The Ring?"

The new Akira is the embodiment of every creepy kid archetype that's ever been, like Drew Barrymore in Firestarter, Damien from The Omen, or Samara from The Ring. He comes complete with all the old Hollywood tropes: He sings "unsettling" nursery rhymes, he carries around a disused stuffed animal, and casually murders people with his mind powers. Notice I put "unsettling" in quotes up there; that's because this script marks the moment when Hollywood officially ran out of genuinely creepy nursery rhymes to accompany their child villain stereotypes:

PLATOON LEADER

It's alright, Akira. Nobody's going to hurt you, son. Just come with us. And it'll all be fine.

The Little Boy looks up, HIS HAIR STANDING ON END, EMITTING A GENTLE PULSE OF STATIC ELECTRICITY as he begins to hum a slow, haunting version of "Frere Jacques." It chills to the bone.

That's not a joke. I did not make that up. And it's not just an isolated moment of laughable Horror ineptitude either, that's Akira's official theme. Every single time he makes an appearance, even if it's just in PTSD Tetsuo's nightmares, the script calls for 'Frere Jacques' to be played.

Clearly, the boys are going to need help defeating such a terrifying - and let's pause this sentence while the snickering dies down - supernatural enemy. Help like Kay, the female lead, who in the original film was a strong young woman that slowly developed the very start of a relationship with Kaneda. By the end of the animated Akira, the two got to a point where they acknowledged that they might care about each other, but never had a chance to act on it -- because it was the fucking apocalypse, and his best friend's arm just exploded into a giant tendon-dong while she was being possessed by three tiny geriatric children; they had other shit on their mind. But not in the remake: There's plenty of time for playful banter and lots of close-ups as Ky randomly strips naked and dons sexy outfits.

Ky and Kaneda reach the bottom of the stairs. Flip open their cases and begin peeling off their business attire, revealing street clothes beneath. Ky turns away. Her bare back exposed. She feels Kaneda's eyes on her. Peers over her shoulder.

KY

Pay attention, Kaneda. You're gonna shoot yourself in the foot.

She slips on something tight and sleek as he assembles his rifle.

KANEDA

Might be worth it.

Hollywood Producer: "I love the Kay character! But slut her up, throw some Jovovich in there, and do I even need to say it? Full leather bodysuit."

So they've effectively isolated everything us dumb ol' Americans can understand, and morphed every ambiguous moral decision, philosophical discussion, and inherently Japanese sentiment into the holy trinity of Fightin', Fuckin', and patriotic Fervor.

And oh God, the ending. I can't give too much away, but let's just say this: The original Akira ended a little strangely - in a violent, scarring burst of disturbing transformations. It was about overstepping our bounds as a species, about what happens when you play God, about anger, confusion, and adolescence - both the main character's adolescence and our collective adolescence as a species. Whereas the remake ends with somebody regretting all of their actions, turning good at the last minute, getting saved by the power of love, and probably combining forces with their loved ones to fight the great evil in the second movie. And it is truly a great and lasting evil; one that will rock you to your very core. Why, the closing scene alone will stay with you long leave after those credits roll:

And there, strolling in between it all... Akira, teddy bear gripped in his hand... Slowly, hauntingly humming the opening notes of "Frere Jacques."

SMASH TO BLACK.

I don't think there's a clap slow enough to properly pay tribute to that chilling final note.

You can buy Robert's book, Everything is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead, or follow him on Twitter and Facebook or, if you have experience in pitching, you can help him sell his new screenplay: Taxi Driver, starring Vin Diesel.

Don't worry, there could still be some hope. Just check out 7 Terrible Early Versions of Great Movies to see why. Or get some more Brockway, in Secondhand Nightmares: 10 Horrifying Thrift Store Finds.