Appleseed Ex Machina

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Appleseed Ex Machina
アップルシード (Appurushîdo)
Genre	Science fiction, Cyberpunk, Adventure
Animated movie
Director	Shinji Aramaki
Producer	John Woo
Studio	Micott & Bassara Digital Frontier
Licensor	Warner Home Video
Released	2007-10-20 2008-03-11[1]

Appleseed Ex Machina (Latin: Ex: 'outside / out of', Machina: 'machine', pronounced [eks mah-kee-nah], actually a wordplay on the Latin phrase Deus ex machina) is an anime film and is the sequel to the 2004 Appleseed film, similarly directed by Shinji Aramaki. It was released on 20th October 2007 in Japan and fully involved Hong Kong director and producer John Woo. The film made its American premiere at the Jules Verne Adventures Film Festival in Los Angeles on December 15th, 2007^[2]. The MPAA has Appleseed Ex Machina rated PG-13 for action/violence and brief strong language,^[3] though the first film was rated R for some violence. It was released by Warner Home Video on March 11, 2008, for DVD and Blu-Ray, and released for HD DVD on April 1, 2008.

Contents 1 Plot 1.1 Church scene and construction landmate battle 1.2 The birthday party 1.3 International Conference 1.4 The virus within 1.5 At Kestner's apartment 1.6 Halcon Facility 2 Differences between the Japanese and English releases 3 Cast 3.1 Motion capture actors 3.2 Costume design 4 Marketing 4.1 Merchandising 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Plot

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Year 2135. Following World War Three, which was a non-nuclear war that killed half the world's population, the city-nation of Olympus stands as a beacon of hope in a world of chaos and conflict. The utopian metropolis is governed by Gaia, a vast artificial intelligence, and administered by genetically engineered humanoids known as bioroid, whose designer DNA suppresses strong emotions. With bioroids being half of its population, peace and order are easily maintained.

Deunan Knute, a young female warrior, and Briareos, a veteran cyborg-soldier, are both partners and lovers. As members of E.S.W.A.T., the elite special forces serving Olympus, they are deployed whenever trouble strikes. During a mission involving several high-ranking E.U. officials held hostage by a group of unknown and heavily-armed cyborgs, Briareos is injured protecting Deunan from an ensuing blast. As a last ditch effort by an injured cyborg, E.S.W.A.T. assigns Deunan a new partner, a bioroid named Tereus. Largely based on Briareos' DNA, Tereus was designed as a prototype for a new kind of fighter bioroid. His appearance is very similar to the way Briareos looked before he became a cyborg. Deunan is not agreeable to the idea of having a new partner, but eventually befriends him.

[edit] Church scene and construction landmate battle

The movie opens with Deunan and Briareos being deployed as part as an E.S.W.A.T. operation to recover E.U. officials taken hostage by combat cyborgs. Deunan infiltrates the church and quickly subdues the cyborgs in a short firefight. She secures the hostages as other E.S.W.A.T. members arrive. She then follows some cyborgs into a worship hall when Briareos arrives. The cyborgs surround them, but the two kill them all easily. Briareos goes up to a fatally wounded cyborg and asks who sent him. When the cyborg's body counts down to detonate, he grabs Deunan jumping out of the chapel as it explodes. Briareos is unfortunately injured while saving Deunan and is taken to the hospital. The movie then goes to Deunan riding her motorcycle on her day off when she hears a police report of an enraged construction worker in a landmate. When she arrives, workers come running out and she stops one to ask what's happening: he tells her that the guy got fired and he went psycho. After the landmate shows up, he and Deunan have a short skirmish; Deunan disables the landmate, freezing the limbs so the pilot cannot move. Just as E.S.W.A.T. arrives and Deunan is about to leave, she sees someone with a face eerily similar to Briareos before he became a cyborg; Commander Lance introduces him as Tereus, a bioroid assigned to Deunan until Briareos is back. Later on, Deunan goes to Athena's adviser, Nike, and complains to her about getting a new partner. Nike tells Deunan that he is a new generation of combat bioroid, based on Briareos's human DNA, and takes her to see them being cloned at the bioroid facility.

[edit] The birthday party

Deunan meets up with her bioroid friend Hitomi after leaving the bioroid facility. Hitomi then takes Deunan to the cyborg hospital to see Briareos, and along the way, Deunan notices people wearing devices that cast a holographic ring around their eyes. Hitomi tells her that they are called Connexus and that everybody has them, then Hitomi takes out a pair and Deunan tries them on. Hitomi tells her to open a message: it's a message inviting Deunan to her birthday party. Later on at Hitomi's birthday, Deunan arrives slightly depressed, but she raises her spirits when she sees Briareos at the party; they have a short conversation until it is interrupted with the arrival of Tereus. Deunan and Tereus then sit down and have a conversation in which he asks Deunan to accept him as her partner until she gets Briareos back. The scene then goes to Aeacus and Briareos talking and discussing what it's like to be cyborgs. Briareos asks what Aeacus is wearing on his ear, and Aeacus tells him its a Connexus.

[edit] International Conference

The movie then goes to an International Conference that will be discussing putting all the nations' satellites under Olympus' control. There is massive security outside that is banning cyborgs from the premises, and requires all motorists entering the conference to pass through police checkpoints. But soon, a bus blasts through a checkpoint and is destroyed, but there are incidents like that at every checkpoint, and civilians are engaging the police. Soon, E.S.W.A.T. is deployed, but Aeacus, feeling sick, stays on board the ship. The police, not realizing the rioters are human, engage them. Deunan arrives in a landmate and destroys a construction landmate attacking the police. When she opens the hatch, she finds out that the rioters are humans, not cyborgs, but she does find a fried Connexus and takes it for keeping. The scene then goes to Aeacus, mindlessly walking up to the flight officer and shooting him; Briareos, now fully engaged in his landmate suit, sees the ship explode and Aeacus fly off in a landmate towards the building in which the conference is being held. Briareos tries to calm Aeacus down, but keeps noticing a skull coming at and saying "we are one". Inside the conference, the delegates become worried, but are asked to return to the meeting. Unable to calm Aeacus down, Briareos shoots Aeacus, who then, in his final moments, seems to return to normal as he falls out of the sky. It then cuts to Aeacus' funeral, in which Briareos questions his decision to shoot Aeacus.

[edit] The virus within

Briareos then goes to his cyborg doctor, Dr. Kestner and asks if he's going insane; Dr. Kestner assures him that everything is fine and sends him off. It then goes to the chancellor discussing the attack and with a Poseidon corporation executive. At E.S.W.A.T. headquarters, Briareos and Tereus fight, ending with Briareos beating Tereus and telling him to not let anything happen to Deunan. Later, at a debriefing, a robotic pigeon sends out a signal. Deunan, Briareos, and Tereus go out to have a drink; when a holographic show of an olive tree captivates the people in the mall, an out of control vehicle crashes into Briareos. He becomes unstable, runs over to a terminal and connects his vision scopes to a sensor, sending a virus that attacks Olympus' satellite control; Briareos then blacks out. Tereus is being patched up in a hospital after being thrown against a wall from Briareos' rage fit; in another part of the hospital, Briareos is held in a isolation cell, with Hitomi keeping him company. He asks her to look up reasons for the cyborg virus; Hitomi takes her laptop and researches until she finds Project HALCON, a project that researched into helping brain damaged veterans during the war with advanced AI. When the project leader was killed, Dr. Kestner took over. Briareos believes that he is the source of the problem, and breaks out of the cell using his sonic generators. Hitomi reluctantly drives him out of the hospital towards Dr. Kestner's apartment. Tereus pursues him, thinking that he was having a rage fit. When the police catch up with Hitomi and Briareos, he jumps on a semi-truck getting in a tunnel, taking him to Kestner's house. The police stop Hitomi's car and Tereus asks Hitomi where he went, she says she doesn't know and Tereus goes off to find him.

[edit] At Kestner's apartment

Dr. Kestner arrives at his apartment to find Briareos waiting for him. Kestner tells him that with the uniting of the satellites and the Connexus, Kestner believes that he and the others will create a slaved human and cyborg race that will not fight and will obey their leaders perfectly. He also explains that while Briareos was being repaired he infected him with nanomachines, that active when Briareos' adrenaline passes a certain level causing him him to enter an uncontrolled rage. Just before the police arrive, Kestner pulls out a gun and commits suicide to prevent to cops from knowing. Briareos goes into a rage fit and jumps out a window. From there, he makes his way to a rooftop where Tereus expects him to come. Tereus is about to take him in when Deunan arrives in a mecha with a cyborg virus antidote just as Briareos goes into a rage. Deunan gets the antidote in him, but it's not permanent. Unfortunately, anyone wearing a Connexus gets controlled by it and go for Tartarus (Olympus capital).

[edit] Halcon Facility

The three then journey into the ocean and intercept a Poseidon ship. The executive on board tells them that Halcon is the source of the problems and that they are en route to destroy the facility. Deunan, Briareos, Tereus, and a Poseidon task force fly off in ships towards the floating Facility. The facility looks like a giant cube with smaller cubes sticking out from it. They go into the main hatch and are met by drones that kill off most of the task force. Most are killed except for Argus who continues to assist them. They fight their way to the core, where Briareos is taken by the virus. As it tries to kill Deunan, Tereus steps in front of the machine's pincers which impale him; Deunan fights her way to the cyborg controlling it all. Dr. Kestner fused the virus with Dr. Zander's body. Deunan uses Briareos' last virus serum and stabs it into the cyborg's neck; Dr. Zander momentarily reverts back to her human self and asks Deunan to shoot her to prevent the virus from winning. As the virus takes control again, Deunan shoots her through the head, destroying HALCON. The virus lets go of Briareos, as well as anyone wearing a Connexus, and the three run as the facility falls apart. They get to a ledge and Tereus asks them to leave him, but they deny it just as Argus shows up with the ship, and they escape the collapsing facility. Deunan and Briareos share an intimate hug together; Tereus is confident that he will find his own woman; Argus jokes that he could just make one. Their transports then speed off to Olmypus.

[edit] Differences between the Japanese and English releases

• Briareos, in the Japanese version, says: "How do you like the new model?" In the English version, he says: "I'd being wearing it if it weren't pink."

[edit] Cast

The English cast were voice actors from ADV Films.

Role	Japanese seiyuu	English voice actor
Deunan Knute	Ai Kobayashi	Luci Christian
Briareos Hecatonchires	Kōichi Yamadera	David Matranga (voice actor)
Tereus	Yūji Kishi	Illich Guardiola
Athena	Gara Takashima	Allison L. Sumrall
Nike	Rei Igarashi	Shelley Calene-Black
Hitomi	Miyuki Sawashiro	Hilary Haag
Commander Lance	Shinpachi Tsuji	Chris Hutchison
Manuel Aeacus	Kong Kuwata	Mike MacRae
Dr. Riharuto Kestner	Takaya Hashi	John Gremillion
Yoshino	Rika Fukami	Melissa Davis
Arges	Takaya Kuroda	Quentin Haag
Dr. Xander	Naoko Kouda	Alice Fulks
Yoshitsune	Yasuyuki Kase	Chris Patton

[edit] Motion capture actors

Role	Mocap actor
Deunan Knute	Toyoe Sekita
Briareos Hecatonchires	Moki Ogawa
Tereus	Yoshiyuki Kamata
Manuel Aeacus	Taisuke Nishimura
Commander Lance	Michihiko Kuwagaki
Athena	Miyoko Hanai
Nike	Hideka Suzuki
Yoshino	Junko Hiratsuka
Dr. Riharuto Kestner	Inaho Miyazaki
Hitomi	Naoko Ito
Yoshitsune	PEPE
Aeacus' son	Tomoki Mure

[edit] Costume design

In this film, two of Deunan's costumes were designed by Italian fashion designer Miuccia Prada.^[4][5] Prada was apparently already a fan of the first Appleseed movie, and she jumped at the chance to work on the second installment. At a press conference for the film, she said:

“	Watching the previous 'Appleseed,' I thought that the expression of contrast in man and machine, violence and love was wonderful.	”
	— Miuccia Prada[4]

[edit] Marketing

Warner Home Video created a trailer remix contest^[6] in December 2007 to promote the release of the film. The contest's aim was to have fans remix the Appleseed Ex Machina trailer into new short videos, using clips from the film and songs from the soundtrack. Fans could put these assets together into new short videos within an editing program on the contest site. Visitors to the site then voted on their favorite video, with the creator of the winning video winning a trip to WonderCon 2008. The contest ended February 7th 2008.

[edit] Merchandising

Following the release of the film, Hot Toys released 1/6th scale poseable action figures of Deunan Knute and Briareos Hecatonchires.^[7]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official North American DVD release (English) Appleseed Ex Machina (2007) movie website
• Official (Japanese) Appleseed Ex Machina (2007) movie website
• Official DVD release contest homepage
• Official webpage announcement on Twitch
• Ex Machina (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
• Appleseed Saga: Ex Machina (2007) at the Internet Movie Database

v • d • e Masamune Shirow's Appleseed Anime Appleseed OVA • Appleseed • Appleseed Ex Machina Video games Appleseed SNES • Appleseed EX Characters Briareos Hecatonchires • Deunan Knute Universe ESWAT • Seburo