J.J. Abrams preps a new take on Mach GoGoGo for the streaming service.
Speed Racer, for those of you who didn’t start life as a midcentury modern child, was among the very first Japanese anime series. The show followed the adventures of blue-eyed, red scarf-wearing race driver Speed Racer, his extended family and the fabulous Mach 5 race car as he took on villainy around the world. Fortunately for our hero, most villainy in the Speed Racer universe is centered around extended road races and limited range animation.
No casting has been announced on this latest version of Speed Racer, but it’s unlikely that Emile Hirsch, who played Speed in the 2008 psychedelic live action, but also heavily CGI, version made by the Matrix tetralogy’s Wachowskis, will return. However, the Hollywood Reporter notes are that J.J Abrams, his Bad Robot TV production company, and Warner Bros. are hiring writers at this point and the logistics of production are underway. Maybe Apple, Inc. itself can appear playing the world’s most highly capitalized company bent on world domination.
How will the racing be portrayed? What about the cars? Will it be computer generated so heavily that every race takes place in the Uncanny Valley? All questions yet to be answered.
Speed Racer, known as Mach GoGoGo inside Japan, was created by Tatsuo Yashida and was first released as a comic book in 1966. It became a TV series using restricted animation techniques that reflected the budgeting of the project. But despite that, it became something of a worldwide classic appealing to kids around the world with its luridly cartoonish violence, family reliance and bold primary art colors that effectively defined the beginning of anime. Speed Racer was fast and furious before The Fast and the Furious. And no matter how cheesy the animation, Speed Racer the character always has seemed more lifelike than Vin Diesel.
In fact, after the last F&F is heaved up, the entire cast can port over to play the Speed Racer characters. Just a suggestion. Scott Eastwood can play Spritle, Kurt Russell should be Pops Racer, Helen Mirren was born to portray Mom Racer and Tyrese Gibson can be Racer X. As to Speed Racer? Let’s get Zendaya because there’s never enough Zendaya. And Vin Diesel would make an ideal Mammoth Car.
So go buy a new Apple product, or fire up the several you surely already have, and keep staring at them until the new Speed Racer shows up automatically on the screen whether you want it to or not. You know, like that U2 album you never knew you didn’t want until you got it.
It’s unlikely that the new Speed Racer will make it to the streaming universe until late 2023 at the earliest.