More about Speed Racer (the hair!)
Friday / 12.14.07 / 09:12PM / Joe
First of all, I had to find out what music was used, because I really dig the ending bit. My research shows that the techno in the middle is "Race War" from the movie album More Fast and the Furious, which seems like a shame, doesn't it? Unfortunately - because I paid $1 on iTunes for it - "Race War" is not the supacool ending bit, where the music really starts sounding awesome. "Race War" is merely the repetitive bed in the middle. The ending is, some say, an altered version of "Superfabulous," also in iTunes. Both of the songs are by electronic artist BT. He must have a fan in the Wachowskis.
This is so F-Zero. This could be a hellishly cool racing game if somebody decent is behind it. Get the Burnout team off of doing more damn Burnout games and onto this.
I also like the visual trick of making it look like Japanese characters are zooming past and forming the English logo. At least, it looks like Japanese writing to my gaijin eye:
It's more obvious in motion.
But the hair! If this movie is getting anything right, it's the hair. Check out Speed's classic anime bouffant:
And here's those thugs I mentioned a couple of days ago:
See what I mean? Straight out of the show. Sunken dark eyes, thin lank hair, ridiculous loud clothing. These guys are going to say the word "boss" a lot.
But this is probably the surprise of the year... no CG monkey.
How predictable would it have been to do some kind of half-real, half-cartoon pile of ugly like Scooby-Doo. The Wachowskis should get some kind of special effects Oscar for not using a special effect here.
One thing, poor John Goodman just sounds like John Goodman. He's clearly capable of doing something that doesn't sound like Dan Conner, but he's not doing it here. Yet another role that would have gone to John Belushi if the jerk hadn't died.
I'm also happy that they didn't go for the obvious hi-tech remake Speed Racer theme song, just a tasteful little opener from the original. It was really, really annoying how the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon song (which suck(s/ed)) was shoehorned into all the Spider-Man movies. Like anybody under 40 gave two shits about that song. Pretty classy move to not go with the Go Speed Racer Go thing straight out with Trailer One.
If you want to watch the trailer, check it out here, where you can get a really nice high quality QuickTime of it. Fuck any trailer that you can't frame-by-frame, I say. | 
