Fullmetal Alchemist is one of my all-time favorites (and fun fact, it was written by a woman, which is still uncommon for shonen) and I'd always hoped there'd be a live action film [series] one day. When the first movie stills were released a couple of years ago, I was a little disappointed. I appreciate wanting to use Japanese actors for a Japanese-created story, but given that FMA quite plainly takes place in a European setting, a more diverse cast would have made sense in this case. Ed's hair just looks... not great.
Staying true to character depictions is great and all, but a different shade would've looked so. much. better. And that doesn't even look yellow, it looks reddish orange. Here's the same actor, Ryusuke Yamada, with a lighter blond color.
ISN'T THAT A MILLION TIMES BETTER? Even the light brown the Young Ed has (mysteriously it changed color as he got older?) would've been fine.
Oh well. Hair aside, the trailers have eased my fears a bit. The effects look good, although they could be a tad more realistic (but maybe I'm being overly picky), and Alphonse looks amazing. I just hope it doesn't end up feeling cheesy. I'm also not sure how they'll manage to scale the plot back enough to fit in a single feature length film, as I haven't heard any talk of sequels. There are so many important characters and it'd be impossible to properly develop them all in one movie. Director Fumihiko Sori seems to genuinely care about doing the story justice, so for now I'll remain cautiously optimistic - this is definitely the largest scale Japanese live action adaptation yet, which is a feat in itself. Just please don't leave out Armstrong.
