I just want to point out this page at Scifi Japan, a really long set of interviews with the creators about the production of Speed Racer. It’s just a promotion piece, but it’s better than average because in the case of this movie, they successfully pulled everything off. The page is super long and I can’t imagine anyone reading the whole thing (myself included), so here are a few examples, mostly from the section on “The Hyper-Stylized World of Speed Racer:
“Larry and Andy had a strong desire to make a family film; they wanted to create a movie their nieces and nephews could see. They wrote a pure family movie, maintaining the essence of the original centered on Speed and his family in a completely new adventure,” adds Silver. “SPEED RACER is for everybody. It’s got great characters, great action beats and, of course, great visuals.”
“Anime is such an expressive format,” states Gaeta. “In the cartoon series, which was of course hand drawn, there are unrealistic perspectives deliberately created to spark emotions. It’s less about what’s real and more about what the artist wants you to feel. Translating this into live action involved a process that is, in the simplest terms, like creating moving collages.”
Coordination between Owen Paterson and costume designer Kym Barrett was essential. Says Barrett, “All the characters have a color palette: Pops and Mom are red and green, respectively; Speed wears blue and white. To set off those costume colors, we used a lot of orange, turquoise and fuchsia pink in the house. We tied it all together with red floors, ‘Racer Red’ as we called it.” For sequences shot against green screen, Barrett had to find alternative color schemes as anything green would disappear onscreen. The costumes maintain the character color palettes of the original cartoon show.”
In my first meeting with Larry and Andy, they told me they wanted rich primary colors,” continues Barrett. “Instead of getting into too many specifics right away, they started the process by describing their concept of creating a live-action cartoon for all ages. Once that was established, they left me to my own devices.”
“The fight sequence involving Racer X, Speed and the ninjas was a lot of fun to create,” says supervising stunt coordinator Chad Stahelski. “The tone for each of the fights was decidedly different. The ninja that fights Racer X is pretty serious, so he gives Racer X a run for his money, but the ninja that fights Speed is actually more of a ‘nonja,’ because we wanted it to be a little more comedic.”
“What I love most about this project is that the story is about hopes and dreams. So when kids see this movie, the story might give them hope that if you try very hard, you can accomplish amazing things.”
As I blogged on Closed Caption, I really think Speed Racer is a great, well-written action movie with, um, kind of traditional, boring, but effective themes, and it’s also so well produced. It’s surprising because its tone is so silly but I always recommend it.