They’re making a Patlabor movie! And these could be the first pictures from the movie’s set. That, or a new way for Japanese cops to keep the peace.
“Patlabor” is short for “patrol labour” and follows police in the near future who use mecha. The Patlabor anime and manga debuted in 1988, and earlier this spring, a “live-action/” Patlabor feature film was announced for 2014.
These photos were apparently taken near the port in Yokohama, Japan. They’re believed to be images of the production.
Last month, it was revealed that famed anime director Mamoru Oshii, who co-created Patlabor, was involved with the feature film. His role was not specified, however.
The film will probably feature CG, like the majority of movies do these days. Still, it’s cool to see that they seem to have built a huge Patlabor for the picture. Well, it’s just cool to see a life-sized Patlabor mecha.
実写版『機動警察パトレイバー』撮影風景？ 実物大イングラム [野良犬の塒]
sumihii, sumihii, sumihii, CHABACHI79, CHABACHI79
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Comments
12 responses to “Japanese Mecha Cop Hints At A Glorious Movie Future”
Damn this looks awesome. Makes me think – if they could build an external shell for mere entertainment, surely building a working version can’t be that unlikely, right…? 😛
I’m not much of a real life giant robot fan – I like ’em fictional and fantastic. But from what I’ve read, and a muddled understanding of physics: the problem is energy source and strength of the materials to overcome the huge difficulty in raising a centre of gravity. (Power to weight ratio.)
Larger things need increasingly more power to be mobile, which – at the moment – increases the weight, which increases the power requirement and so on. The frame then needs to be strong enough to support that, and currently our stronger materials are also heavier (outside of hyper-expensive/experimental nano-fibre materials), which only compounds the problem. And you’d never be able to put a person in it. Every spare inch/ounce would be dedicated to just keeping itself upright and ambulatory. If we ever see one, it’ll likely be hooked up to a power-source by lots of cabling to avoid having to carry around a battery/fuel-tank.
The main issue for a mech is the height/centre-of-gravity problem. And that’s a big deal – just think, if you have something incredibly heavy you need to move, you can move something much more easily if you keep it low to the ground on wheels (like on a trolley) than if you try to pick it up and walk around with it. There’s a reason the majority of our serious power-house vehicles are fairly similar in profile – longer rather than taller. This effect scales with size. The bigger you are, literally the harder you fall – gravity has a much bigger effect. It’s why an ant can fall off a single-story building without a scratch, but an elephant will break every bone in its body.
Creating a working cosmetic-only giant mech would be really, really difficult.
Maybe one day when we have portable fusion+ reactors, human-computer gyros, and reactive nano-fibre synthetic muscles for high-mobility mechs using ultra-hardened, ultra-light materials, we’ll get to see proper mechs! (As cosmetics only, though. Anything a humanoid can do, a built-to-spec machine can do better. )
Well said!
I approve of your post :3
That is awesome!
I’d be at a loss to explain what these were, if not images of the production…
holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit one of my favourite anime’s! live action is gonna be AWESOME!!!
And they managed to have a believable looking Type 97 Command Car as well.
Once Mamoru Oshii is done with this I hope he goes back to the Kerberos Saga.
As a big fan of the Patlabor movies, I’m really looking forward to this. 🙂
BRB, i just soiled myself.
mini-pato live action anyone?
Awwww yuss