Magus
10-01-2006, 01:06 AM
I liked it. I've managed to accept the anime's parallel universe conjecture, unlike some people, and so I found it quite enjoyable, except for one or two things.
Fairly good film, but it seemed too short for the amount of stuff they stuffed into it. If it had still been the series it would've taken something like a whole arc of episodes, possibly seven, to get through all of this stuff. It just felt awful watered down or moving too fast, or something. Then again with the amount of dialogue being put into this movie those episodes may have been a little on the slow side.
The English dub kept the meaning fairly well, except they threw in an in-joke near the end that doesn't exist in the Japanese version. This is the only instance where the dialogue is completely different and it doesn't even have the pretense of being similar to the original Japanse. Anyway, the English dub is good like with the rest of the series, but it certainly won't cause anyone who hates the idea of English dubs to quit watching it in Japanese if they're really die hard about it.
The movie looks very good, much like any other big budget anime movie, except for the CGI soldiers. I didn't even notice all the other CGI, because it looks good, but the CGI soldiers (who are Nazi zombies, by the way) looked bad in at least one scene, the first one you see them in. After that they were okay, but I still don't know why they look this bad. From what I could tell in the making of the film segment they used CGI simply because they had enough money to do so. Is this a disease? Because it appears to be spreading.
The music was pretty awesome.
Note: Obviously you wouldn't want to watch this movie without seeing the end of the series, though it is technically somewhat standalone with a very, very vague opening titles synopsis after something like the first ten minutes of the movie.
SPOILERS:
The backdrop of this movie is great, the post-WWI Germany stuff happening with Ed was great, all the alternate versions of the people like Alphonse Heiderich, Maes Hughes, even the person Fuhrer Bradley was based upon's double (real-life film creator Fritz Lang). I loved it. And the FMA universe is of course very cool by default. They managed to work some humor into an otherwise dramatic story, much like with the series.
Some of the cooler elements in my opinion were the atrociously disturbing Gluttony. For some inane reason the little booklet that came with the English DVD says that he has been deformed because he may have been eating dirt, but any person who's seen the anime can figure out that it is because he devoured Dante AND her weakened Philosopher's Stone. Homonculi are changed into human-like form from their wretched deformed state by eating red stones, so eating the Dante's real Stone made Gluttony's body mutate out of control. This is also why his pores puss with pure red water. This is the only glaring error in the little booklet, but it is annoying that they apparently got some reviewer to write it and not actually someone involved with the actual creating of the film.
Another cool thing was Eckhart's transformation, it was pretty sweet, and the sword fight was good even if it was short. All in all that brings us back to the shortness, the epic battle at the end was simply too short. Too much of the movie was involved with getting to "Shamballa" and then a pittance involved with the conflict between our world and the FMA world.
I hated Alphonse stupid ponytail. Edward's looks sort've hip (why he dropped the braid I dunno) but Alphonse's is dumb. His running around in Ed's clothes I could stand, but c'mon. Apparently at the end he's decided he's going to commit identity fraud on the recently shot Alfons Heiderich and gets rid of his ponytail.
I also rebel against the ending. It's happy, but not as happy as it could be. Still, it allows for a continuation with the brothers moving forward and with a mission, and it's not too sad, like as if they were seperated forever on two sides of the gate. Just enough that you're annoyed they couldn't stay in their own world. I suppose it's trying to be realistic, but still, life is already depressing enough. That is a topic for another thread, however.
Oh, and I'm under the impression that they CAN still use Alchemy in our world, just it always requires some of the blood of someone from Asmestris to activate it. So people from our world can never really use Alchemy, but someone from their world can as long as they use a drop of their blood when they do a transmutation. So the series could technically continue, if the gateway in the Thule castle wasn't just some sort of exception (in which case I think the plot hole is rather large, or they'd better come up with a really good explanation). Perhaps the power and longevity of the transmuation is determined by how much Asmestris blood is used, since Hohenheim used all of his to create a lasting link between the worlds?
Anyway, I can't say I HOPE for a sequel where the Elric brother's are fighting Nazis with Alchemy, but I wouldn't MIND it. B^)
Fairly good film, but it seemed too short for the amount of stuff they stuffed into it. If it had still been the series it would've taken something like a whole arc of episodes, possibly seven, to get through all of this stuff. It just felt awful watered down or moving too fast, or something. Then again with the amount of dialogue being put into this movie those episodes may have been a little on the slow side.
The English dub kept the meaning fairly well, except they threw in an in-joke near the end that doesn't exist in the Japanese version. This is the only instance where the dialogue is completely different and it doesn't even have the pretense of being similar to the original Japanse. Anyway, the English dub is good like with the rest of the series, but it certainly won't cause anyone who hates the idea of English dubs to quit watching it in Japanese if they're really die hard about it.
The movie looks very good, much like any other big budget anime movie, except for the CGI soldiers. I didn't even notice all the other CGI, because it looks good, but the CGI soldiers (who are Nazi zombies, by the way) looked bad in at least one scene, the first one you see them in. After that they were okay, but I still don't know why they look this bad. From what I could tell in the making of the film segment they used CGI simply because they had enough money to do so. Is this a disease? Because it appears to be spreading.
The music was pretty awesome.
Note: Obviously you wouldn't want to watch this movie without seeing the end of the series, though it is technically somewhat standalone with a very, very vague opening titles synopsis after something like the first ten minutes of the movie.
SPOILERS:
The backdrop of this movie is great, the post-WWI Germany stuff happening with Ed was great, all the alternate versions of the people like Alphonse Heiderich, Maes Hughes, even the person Fuhrer Bradley was based upon's double (real-life film creator Fritz Lang). I loved it. And the FMA universe is of course very cool by default. They managed to work some humor into an otherwise dramatic story, much like with the series.
Some of the cooler elements in my opinion were the atrociously disturbing Gluttony. For some inane reason the little booklet that came with the English DVD says that he has been deformed because he may have been eating dirt, but any person who's seen the anime can figure out that it is because he devoured Dante AND her weakened Philosopher's Stone. Homonculi are changed into human-like form from their wretched deformed state by eating red stones, so eating the Dante's real Stone made Gluttony's body mutate out of control. This is also why his pores puss with pure red water. This is the only glaring error in the little booklet, but it is annoying that they apparently got some reviewer to write it and not actually someone involved with the actual creating of the film.
Another cool thing was Eckhart's transformation, it was pretty sweet, and the sword fight was good even if it was short. All in all that brings us back to the shortness, the epic battle at the end was simply too short. Too much of the movie was involved with getting to "Shamballa" and then a pittance involved with the conflict between our world and the FMA world.
I hated Alphonse stupid ponytail. Edward's looks sort've hip (why he dropped the braid I dunno) but Alphonse's is dumb. His running around in Ed's clothes I could stand, but c'mon. Apparently at the end he's decided he's going to commit identity fraud on the recently shot Alfons Heiderich and gets rid of his ponytail.
I also rebel against the ending. It's happy, but not as happy as it could be. Still, it allows for a continuation with the brothers moving forward and with a mission, and it's not too sad, like as if they were seperated forever on two sides of the gate. Just enough that you're annoyed they couldn't stay in their own world. I suppose it's trying to be realistic, but still, life is already depressing enough. That is a topic for another thread, however.
Oh, and I'm under the impression that they CAN still use Alchemy in our world, just it always requires some of the blood of someone from Asmestris to activate it. So people from our world can never really use Alchemy, but someone from their world can as long as they use a drop of their blood when they do a transmutation. So the series could technically continue, if the gateway in the Thule castle wasn't just some sort of exception (in which case I think the plot hole is rather large, or they'd better come up with a really good explanation). Perhaps the power and longevity of the transmuation is determined by how much Asmestris blood is used, since Hohenheim used all of his to create a lasting link between the worlds?
Anyway, I can't say I HOPE for a sequel where the Elric brother's are fighting Nazis with Alchemy, but I wouldn't MIND it. B^)