How would you react to meeting a Death God?
Would you be calm and collected?
Would you be slightly scared, confused even?
Perhaps.
If you were Japanese anyways.
Apparently though, if you are an American, meeting a death god would go something like this:
Alright....Let's do this.
Death Note is a 2017 Netflix exclusive film
based on the Japanese Manga of the same name.
But I used the word “Based” very loosely because besides some core concepts and character
names there’s more differences between this film and the original material then there
are similarities.
Who is this film for?
Who should watch this particular version of the Death Note story?
I’m not entirely sure.
I’ve known the original Japanese story since its
anime adaptation aired in the mid to late 2000’s.
That was over 10 years ago.
But you know, fans of Death Note might get some kind of sadistic pleasure out of watching this.
Like when I was watching the film, I was face palming every couple of minutes and constantly
comparing it to the anime that I know and love, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the experience.
I just don’t think I had the reaction that the creators were wanting.
I very much saw this film less as the supernatural thriller it was probably meant to be and more…of
a comedy.
It’s not actually a comedy of course, but I liken it to knowing that the Exorcist was
once one of the scariest films ever, but I can’t help but laugh at the, what are now
cheesy effects of it.
Or how Shakespeare, and his tragedies are more comical today then his comedies.
That sort of thing.
Seeing the personality changes in some of the characters despite having the same names
at times made this film feel like it was some SNL skit making fun of the material rather
than seriously adapting it for an American audience.
It’s like the film was trying so hard to be this edgy dark thriller it ended up having
the opposite effect in the end.
The 2edgy4u attitude, the whiny emo git of a protagonist, a synth soundtrack because
hey Stranger Things was awesome right?
Just too many things in it that screams it’s trying to imamate what it thinks people want,
while not understanding what it actually haves.
Let’s quickly talk about a few things, first of all this film was too short.
I feel like this point is one that I make far too often on a lot of subjects, but here
it defiantly fits the bill.
The Netflix film is only an hour and 45 minutes long, and it tries to cover all the major
story beats from the first 58 chapters of manga material.
Previously that same amount of material took 25 episodes, or almost 10 and a half hours
to cover in the anime adaptation, and about 4 hours spread between two live action films
produced in Japan.
Now sure quite a lot of plot and story information is just straight up removed,
from some of these adaptations.
the Netflix adaptation
only has one real owner of the Death Note while the Manga and the Anime have several
by the time the story of Light and L actually completes, but those same plotlines were also removed
in the Japanese live action films.
So Netflix tries to do all of the same things in half the time that the previous Live Action
adaptation did it in, and that’s just simply not enough time.
It would have been better if much of the story and lore of Death Note was easily explainable.
If we weren’t dealing with supernatural elements like a Death God, the Note itself,
or even a investigative genius, things that aren’t common place and desperately need
explaining it would have been fine.
But it tries to just one liner its way through these things while hoping for the same kind
of emotional attachment to these elements.
But that doesn’t woprk.
A couple of sentences explaining L’s backstory is not enough to understand him as a character.
Hell, a few scenes barely explain how he works and what his methods are but here we are just
expected to go along with it.
If this were a miniseries let’s say there would have been more time to flesh out these details.
Might not have fixed everything, but it would have helped.
Of course, another thing is that unlike the original material, this film is not a thriller.
I’m not really sure what it is actually.
It has far more gore to it then the story ever called for, the intellectual battles
between Light and L are entirely non-existent, there’s a forced romance that’s completely
one-sided though the exact opposite of what was there originally.
Like what we have is just a mishmash of tied together story beats that didn’t really
build up to anything.
Didn’t really answer the question of what this was all for.
Instead after it all we had some weird convoluted explanation of why most of the major players
are still alive despite breaking the universe’s rules to do so, and a possible sequel hook?
Not sure if that’s going to work out, but hey Shyamalan confirmed that an Avatar 2 is
in the works so anything is possible.
I don’t feel like the creators of this film really knew what the original story was about,
this version of Death Note portrays Light as a victim of circumstance.
He was handed power he couldn’t control and was tempted to use it by both the death
god who handed it to him along with a girl he thought he loved.
He’s not exceptionally intelligent, and only survived the ordeal because, well I don’t
know why he survived.
He shouldn’t have honestly, he’s the only version of the character to have any kind
of final redemption and there was no real explanation for why it was deserved.
Though heck, you could make the argument that all the killings save for 1 in this film were
done either not by Light at all, or done under the influence or prodding of another character.
Like they were trying to absolve him of any wrong doing somehow but that’s not Light.
Light is an extremely intelligent, manipulative, entitled psychopath that has a goal to become
a god of the world and will stop at nothing to achieve that goal.
But that Light, is not the light of this film.
Which is probably why fans of the original material like me will come away from this
with our heads shaking.
Though it is a film though that completely met my expectations.
They were just really low to begin with.
What I would have liked, and what I was hoping for prior to heading all the details many
months back about this film’s plot, is a Death Note AU.
One where Ryuk instead of going to Japan and dropping off the note like he does in the
manga just drops it off in North America.
But not to a kid named Light.
No, have a different kind of person get the note, one who is not shackled by the expectations
of a character he could never hope to match.
Show us how that character would have dealt with having the note, how much would they
flaunt the power, how much would they fear it?
This latest adaptation added in hand-written messages in the note itself telling light
not to trust Ryuk, why not tell those stories?
If you are going to change as much as you did anyways why not go the whole way?
It still might have been a flop of a narrative, but it would have been unique, and something
that I could recommend a lot easier.
As it is, I won’t say not to watch this film.
It’s not THAT bad.
But it’s not a good starting point for the series, and should not be considered a replacement
for any adaptation that came before it.
I’d use it only as an example of where we can do better.
When I did a video on the Live Action Ghost in the Shell, I talked about how while that
film might not have been the greatest, it was a baby step in the right direction.
Here I think we are still taking baby steps, but they are so small I honestly can’t tell
what direction those steps are taken in.
With luck this will be another signal to film producers that you can’t just slap a familiar
title on a movie without taking into consideration what that’ll mean.
If you want to make a Death Note film, make a DEATH NOTE film, not just some cheap imitation
of one.
Understand what it means to tell a story about that notebook, and respect the things that
make it unique from everything else.
But hey if you think the film is garbage don’t worry, there are a ton of other adaptations
out there, even a recent sequel film series from Japan last year.
And I’m sure that this adaptation won’t be the last one either.
So, that’s it from me, a thank you to my patrons who support these videos, and make them possible
because without you, they would not be.
And until next time, ladies, gentlemen, and others: Stay Frosty.