Speed Racer Trailer Hits the Web
The first trailer for the the Wachowski brothers’ live action Speed Racer movie hit the Web on Friday. It looks like a colorful, retro-futuristic, and fundamentally silly movie with exciting races, two-dimensional characters, and ridiculously over-the-top villains. A lot like the cartoon, in other words. You can watch the trailer in high-definition QuickTime format, or check out the fuzzier YouTubeized version below.
When I was a kid I thought that the original Speed Racer cartoon was awesome, but I’m not sure that nostalgia is enough reason to see this movie in a theatre. I’m withholding final judgment until there’s more than one trailer to go on. What’s interesting about the trailer is the several direct visual references to the opening sequence of the cartoon — both the Japanese and English versions.
The race sequences themselves owe an obvious debt to the F-Zero and Wipeout video game franchises. It’ll be interesting to see whether these varied influences can be knit together into a coherent movie.
More Speed Elsewhere
- Joe Hallock takes a brief look at the original Japanese anime and its differences from the American translation.
- ComingSoon.net has the company line on the movie’s plot.
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