The Genre: Sci-Fi

The Format: DVD from Optimum Asia.

The plot: It’s 2131 AD and the future of the human race hangs in the balance. Female soldier Deunan Knute has survived a major war that has pushed the earth to the brink of destruction. Located in a bombed-out urban wasteland, Deunan is transported to the Utopian city of Olympus and reunited with her former lover Briareos whose body is now half man, half cyborg. In Olympus City, half the population is made up of Bioroids, a genetically engineered species with a limited life span who are designed without unstable human emotions in order to create a peaceful society and protect the remaining members of the human race.

In utopia, however, all is not as it seems. A group of rebel humans, who perceive bioroids as a threat to the integrity and future of mankind, try to sabotage the Olympus city computer and destroy the ability to re-activate the bioroid reproductive functions. As Deunan battles to stop the terrorists and find the ‘Appleseed’ data needed to extend bioroid life, the question of who she can trust and who is actually right- their society, or the terrorists- continues to arise.

I'm a big fan of Masamune Shirow. When I was getting back into anime and manga a few years ago, he was my 'go-to guy'; the one artist that really gave me something to be pleased about all the time. And no matter what your opinions are on his work since he 'went digital' (and the girls went greasy), you can't deny the quality and the impact of his early works.

Ghost in the Shell especially has had such an impact that, like Akira before it, it's now almost a flagship for the entire industry, with multiple movies and series, as well as toys and games, and even a sequel by the man himself, called Man-Machine-Interface. But I'm not here to talk about GitS; I'm here to talk about the most recent adaptation of one of his earliest works, Appleseed.

Appleseed is an odd story for a modern adaptation in many ways, because it's very much a product of its era. When Appleseed was created, the world was still in the grip of the cold war, with the threat of a third world war, and a nuclear one at that, on people's minds.

Bioroids, then, are essentially organic robots, programmed to protect humanity, or rather to serve humanity's best interests, and, as with Asimov's work, this is the source of many of the fundamental stories. The stories come from finding loopholes, exploiting contradictions or simply disobeying the laws.

Being the future, and being Shirow, we not only have bioroids, but we also have plenty of cyborgs too. Much of the world's population, you see, is still human, and many of them are still very much war-oriented, or suffering the after-effects of war, so we have lots of cyborgs. It's only really in Olympus do we have the bioroids.

Olympus is kind of like a city-Eden, and is the seat of what you could think of as the UN of the future. Only, it's not really the UN, it's more like the UN Security Council. And so, as the seat of power and the home of the world's peace keeping force, the bioroids that govern Olympus also need to bring in humans from around the world to fill military and police positions.

Which is where our protagonist comes in; Deunan Knute is one such human brought into Olympus, to join E-SWAT, which is a kind of "super police force", and Appleseed follows her.

Right, so, I've gone to the lengths I have explaining the above because it pretty much forms the background to both the manga and the film. However, given this same set-up, the film does diverge quite considerably from the manga.

I mean, the same basic plot of the first volume of the manga is followed, which involves a kind of conspiracy against one the three laws, but the route taken and the twists involved are somewhat different.

Which is where it started to fall apart a bit for me. The original just sort of worked better than the film version.

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate they obviously had to change stuff. The original's set-up with the Cold War as its inspiration is now out-of-whack, and nuclear destruction isn't just around the corner, for example. But then, these things were really just trimmings in the original.

This is a shame, because the Appleseed movie has a lot going for it otherwise. It's animated using 3D, and though perhaps not up to the standard of FF: Spirits Within in terms of realist character appearance and movement, you can't fault the beauty of the visuals.

Similarly, the soundtrack is good, with rousing dance numbers and a quite beautiful 5.1 mix. The dub is pretty damn good too, though obviously is slightly hampered by the specifics of the motion capture technology that was used on the Japanese Voice Actors.

Extras on the release are also pretty reasonable, though admittedly perhaps a little flimsy to justify the two disks here.

So a pretty good release--I just wish they'd stuck a little more closely to the story of the Japanese original, especially with the little subtleties.

On a final note, and I saved this until last because it's a big whammy of a spoiler for the manga and you may want to skip it, my point is best emphasised by the title. In the manga, the Appleseed title refers to an apple seed pip that is fired by Deunan at the control panel to switch off the mobile defence fortresses.

In the movie, this basic plot point of having to shoot the panel is maintained, but now there's no longer an actual apple seed involved, hence kinda undermining the whole title. To me, this just sort of covers my whole feeling on the movie--it just slightly missed the mark by a seed's breadth.

The Summary: Looks great and is entertaining, but it messes with the source material just that little bit too much for me.

The Score: 2/5

The Pictures:

(click for larger versions)