 Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Matt Rogers and welcome to the trailer discussion for the 2017 remake of Death Note. Now, to say this Netflix original is controversial is a bit of an understatement. At the time of filming this, the trailer on YouTube had just as many dislikes as it did likes, which I think is saying a lot about the critical reception that this movie has got so far. I don't know, we might be surprised, it may be amazing, but I think I speak for everyone when I say that we are incredibly doubtful. But anyway, they've dropped a teaser trailer so far, not giving too much away, sort of giving us a taste, but today they dropped the full trailer, which is giving us a closer look at, I guess, the storyline and some of the characters. So let's take a look. In the opening scene here, we see Light witnessing a bullying attack, I suppose, which I guess inspires him to start using the Death Note. Now, next to him we see his girlfriend, which in the original Death Note's name is Misa, but in this they've changed her name to Mia, which I guess is just to Americanize it, which makes sense. She is going to be played by Margaret Quali, and Light's last name has also changed. In the original Death Note, his last name was Yegami, but in the 2017 version, his last name is Turner, again, probably just for the Americanization of the whole thing. And it's probably worth mentioning that Mia, or Misa, is a cheerleader in this one, whereas in the original Death Note anime she was obviously a pop star, so they're obviously making it a more high school thing, making her popular in a high school rather than popular worldwide. We've got Ryuuk's famous Red Apples there before the book drops from the skies. Obviously the first time that Light picks up the Death Note, and obviously reads it and finds out what it actually does. Now here we see our first look at Ryuuk, which everyone was wondering whether he would be live-action, just played by Willem Defoe, which is a great casting choice, by the way. When I was watching the original anime, he actually did sound like Willem Defoe. I thought that before he was even cast, but now that he's casted it, that's probably the only casting choice that is not getting as much of an argument. We'll go more into that later, but as I was saying, the Ryuuk's character, people were wondering whether he would be live-action or whether he would be a CGI character. Now on IMDb, Willem Defoe is credited only for the voice and not actually for the performance, which is interesting because later on we'll see a bit more of a realistic looking, like it could be an actor portraying it, may not even be Willem Defoe, but it does definitely look like a person with CGI effects obviously put onto the face and maybe with the little horns and spikes that he has on his back and his head. There's a closer look at Ryuuk there, as I was saying, CGI looking face as of this point. What people are worried about with this is that they're making it a bit too grounded, a bit too like high school-y, drama-teen, drama-type thing, which is definitely an interesting choice. There's lots of ways to interpret Death Note, but this one is probably not one of the most popular opinions. Like as we can see here, we've got Light talking to Mia, explaining himself saying that, oh, we can make a better world, killing all the criminals. There's a lot more to Death Note than just a teen with a notebook and I feel like they're concentrating a lot on that. The main focus for me, at least, of Death Note was the whole chase between Light and Elle, which we'll talk about Elle a bit more later, but it looks like they're concentrating too much on the teen drama, him trying to be a godside of it rather than all the other stuff that goes on, because Death Note obviously is a very full universe, lots of stuff going on, lots of things to concentrate on instead of just Light and Mia's story. Got some criminals dying there. This is interesting. Obviously, we have a few Kira worshippers, which was from the manga and the anime. If we move forward here, we can see that he's actually reveling in the people worshipping him. It looks like he's watching them from the candlelit glow that we can see on their faces. Mia looks like she's a big part of this. She's obviously encouraging him pretty much every step of the way, which Misa in the anime and the manga, she sort of got into that point just because she loves Light so much, but Mia looks like she's just genuinely enjoying the process here. And here we have a close up of Elle, one of the most controversial parts of this Netflix original. The casting obviously was the main cause of the controversy. LaKeith Stanfield was cast. We've most recently seen him in the movie Get Out, which he was quite good in. He didn't have a major role in that, but that was probably his most recent notable role. I'm very skeptical about his portrayal of Elle. I just think they needed someone to look like Elle at least. People were saying it's because he's black that it's not a racist thing. It's just because usually in movies they cast someone that at least resembles the original character. And obviously they've gone completely different way with this, which may work out. I'm very doubtful of that as I said before, but I'm at least willing to give LaKeith a chance just to see how he goes, but yeah, he sort of has the world against him with this role. I do like this detail as much as everyone hates the casting of Elle. At least he still has the mannerisms. Later on there's another thing that is a call back to the anime and the manga, but at least here we see him sitting like Elle, or crouching if you would call it that. Now we saw a bit of this Ferris wheel scene in the teaser. We see that Light and Mia seem to have some sort of disaster going on during it, whether that's his own causing or whether someone else gets a death note and causes this to happen. I think it's obviously something to do with the death note, but we have Ryuk looking over the scene here. We have LaKeith walking down a hallway as Elle here. I don't know how I feel about the face mask either. That obviously was never a thing that Elle had, but he was hiding his identity in the anime, but in a completely different way. The face mask was an interesting choice so he can just see his eyes, but again I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not liking it so far. Now as we can see here, another call back to the original. We have Elle eating what seems to be like some sort of multicolored candies, whether they're smarties or M&Ms, just something. At least that's another character trait that they've brought back with this one. It'd be interesting to see if we constantly see him eating desserts throughout the Netflix original, but I doubt we'll be seeing him eating sweets and cakes and all those things he did throughout the anime. I have to mention the cover of Bitter Sweets Symphony throughout this is beautiful. I hope they actually released this officially, whether it's on the soundtrack or not. Typical example of trailers using haunting covers of pop songs, which I am not against at all. It's definitely overdone, but not a bad thing. I love the scary versions of popular songs. It's great. And there we have it ladies and gentlemen, that is Death Note Trailer 1. I guess leading up to August 25th we might see another trailer. Usually Netflix is known for doing at least a few teases before it comes out just to get people in the mood for it. But there we have it. So let me know what you think in the comments. I know most of you are going to hate this movie's guts. But let us know what you think. Tell us what you're excited for. I know you may hate it, but what are you looking forward to? Are you looking forward to Death Note being a new pop culture thing that's getting a new generation of fans into this? Or do you just hate the whole thing altogether? I wish they'd just leave it as the manga and the anime. I can understand both points of view, but let us know what you think. But thanks so much for hanging out. If you had a good time, then spank that like button. And if you subscribe during this video, then walk on my board. This is Matt Rogers, signing off.