Satoshi Kon's The Dream Machine - Unmade Masterpieces

Satoshi Kon was hard at work on The Dream Machine, a family film about robots, in the final years of his life. After his death, the movie was to be finished by his production team. Over a decade later, it remains incomplete. Will this much-discussed project ever see a release?
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[@jbirzer]

Everything about Kon's death is frustrating. Had he lived a few more years, he might have enjoyed the success that Hosoda and Shinkai have had. The fate of The Dream Machine frustrates me. I get that maybe they couldn't find a director to do it justice, but the fact that what did get made still sits in a vault somewhere is just sad. He's a man who should be celebrated, and it is still frustrating that he's still kinda obscure to the general public.

[@bijoychandraroy]

Well said, I truly wish they release that 26 minutes.

[@jos3goodkid]

Bring back the OG unmade masterpieces tune

[@mr.fiction1558]

Called it. XD
Anyway...another way we could find out what Kon had in mind for his future career is possibly through private sketchbooks. Most artists I know draw out their ideas and even storyboard stuff before organizing things into coherent stories. Its possible that Kon already wrote out all of Dreaming Machine through his sketches already....just not in a organized fashion.

[@mojojonesy]

I think Masaaki Yuasa could do it. Especially if he got help from other great directors, Otomo has already proved he can do a great adaptation in the style of another artist when he did Metropolis. Yuasa can go a little off the rails, but I think if he had a clear vision (and maybe a team to restrain him a little bit when he gets a little too weird) he could really capture the essence of what Kon was going for. And Yuasa is pretty versatile as far as style goes, a lot of his works stand out and look pretty different, but the style of Kaiba is a little reminiscent of Dream Machine to me, or at least that same astro boy type of look that it was going for. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that we might get to see it completed some day. When Kon was dying he begged his producer to see it finished, they owe it to him as the man's dying wish.

[@josefranciscovazquezbaeza4143]

This ☝🏻

[@Lifesizemortal]

If you're doing unmade anime, I would highly suggest looking into Uru in Blue. It's the far future sequel to Gainax's groundbreaking film Royal Space Force.

[@residentgrigo4701]

The M2 (Pluto) founder, who also founded MAPPA and Madhouse said that they want to adapt Kon´s manga OPUS into a film. I never considered him that great a mangaka and it is fairly forgettable. We´ll see.

[@residentgrigo4701]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_(manga)

[@sara.cbc92]

I wish they could just release the unfinished movie

[@axneon]

Excellent insight! I wonder if this film has any correlation with Susumu Hirasawas song of the same name. Hirasawa has done music for at least 3 of Kons projects, so I think it wouldn't be totally out there for Kon to try making a movie adaptation of one of his songs.

[@baraka99]

Satoshi Kon is Japan's Stanley Kubrick.

[@RajdeepMajumdar-qj7rn]

*was