Miniforce: New Heroes Rise (original Korean title: 최강전사 미니특공대: 영웅의 탄생, Choegang Jeonsa Mini Teuggongdae: Yeong-ung-ui Tansaeng, literally “Strongest Warriors Mini Commando Squad: The Birth of Heroes”) is an animated film created by SAMG and originally released on February 4, 2016 in South Korea. It is based on the Miniforce animated TV series, and serves as a movie-length Prequel to the show. Just like the show it is based on, the movie takes on a Sentai style approach to its action.
The movie follows the Miniforce’s members Volt, Sammy, Max, and Lucy, as they face the threat of the Lizard Army, who have made off with Ellinium stolen from a lab they destroyed, and are after the Controlling Cube as a part of their conquest for ultimate power. It's all up to the Miniforce to foil the Lizard Army's evil schemes and save the day. But as time will prove, not everything is as it seems.
The English dub of the movie can be officially seen on YouTube in full here
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Miniforce: New Heroes Rise provides examples of the following tropes:
- Avenging the Villain: The very end has Pascal swearing revenge on the Miniforce because they defeated Pacas, who turned out to be Pascal’s brother, and thus breaking free from his chained imprisonment, leading up to his many plots against the Miniforce in the TV series.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: The Man Behind the Man of Pacas’ Lizard Army, Zeus, was actually Dr. Jeremy under the influence of Ellinium’s magnificent power.
- But Now I Must Go: At the end of the Miniforce’s mission, they say their goodbyes to Anna, as their assignment to Bluebell Village will take them significantly far away from headquarters. Volt gets a final kiss from Anna before departing, though.
- Crushing Handshake: Volt tries to shake Max’s hand, but Max proves too strong for Volt to handle, leading Max to accidentally throw him up in the air into the ceiling.
- Combined Energy Attack: The Miniforce use the remaining energy of their Force Bots combined with Volt’s Force Jet to try to defeat the Lizard Army’s near-invincible mecha robot. Even after all of that, the mecha still doesn't even have so much as a scratch on it.
- Disguised in Drag: Sammy disguises himself as a girl delivering pizza to the guards of the Lizard Army's headquarters to distract them from Volt sneaking in. Sammy obviously gets very embarrassed of this act.
- Distracted by the Sexy:
- Volt does well during the Miniforce’s training session, but then he saves Anna from a destroyed training robot head coming her way. Volt’s crush on Anna then kicks in, causing him to not be alert of a destroyed robot part coming his way, and as a result gets hit by it, causing injuries to Volt.
- Sammy disguises himself as a girl delivering pizza and acts all cute to distract the Lizard Army's guards.
- Dynamic Entry: When it comes to trying to save a scientist and her daughter from a Time Bomb, Volt enters the lab they're in by driving straight through the doors with his transforming Force Car, and continues to go through the lab’s hallways this way.
- Interspecies Romance: Volt the squirrel has a crush on Anna the bunny in this movie.
- It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Volt breaks in the Lizard Army's headquarters and main room while beating up guards without fail, commenting that it was too easy. Then Pacas thwarts Volt’s attempted hacking in their servers and told them that he's been expecting Volt to break in this whole time.
- Lizard Folk: The Lizard Army consists of these. In a scene where swarms of soldiers from the good and bad sides fight each other, the bad side has a few hulking lizard soldiers that stand out and are significantly larger than any of the others. The good side’s soldiers struggle with them, but the Miniforce make short work of them quickly.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Zeus, the villain that was behind the entire evil plot throughout this film, is revealed to be Dr. Jeremy, the father of Anna the rabbit. Up until that point, Anna thought that her father was murdered by the Lizard Army in the destruction of the science lab he worked at. Dr. Jeremy only revealed himself after he hurt his own daughter while fighting the Miniforce, and thus expressed deep regret for his past actions.
- The Man Behind the Man: The one who was behind the Lizard Army’s frequent plans and attacks is a strong captain named Zeus, who has absorbed enough Ellinium to make himself invincible. Which, in turn, turned out to be Dr. Jeremy, a rabbit Miniforce scientist who is the daughter of Anna and thought to have been dead for nearly the whole film.
- Misguided Missile: Near the end of the film, Zeus launches a missile that is aimed at Amazon City. Volt, with the combined power of his Force Bot and Commander Chen’s airplane, use all their strength to divert it into the air.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Zeus, who is really Dr. Jeremy, reacts like this when his trying to attack the Miniforce leads to her daughter Anna being hurt by his attacks.
- Never Be Hurt Again: The Lizard Army places a Time Bomb in a human laboratory, with a scientist tied up. That scientist’s daughter runs over to see him in her worry. Anna, seeing this and being reminded of a similar tragic incident involving the lab that her father worked at (shown at the beginning of the movie), tells Volt to stop the bomb first over dealing with the Lizard Army head-on to prevent the lab from blowing up (despite Commander Chen telling him to stick to the current mission), which Volt complied to.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Sammy tries to distract some guards while dressed as a girl with only a wig and some lipstick on his beak. It's enough to fool them.
- Playing Sick: Volt, after being injured during a training session, pretends to be way more hurt than he actually is with bandages and a crutch, all to impress his crush Anna. His trickery is revealed when Lucy brings him peanuts and Volt runs over to them without issue, upsetting the rest of the Miniforce and Anna.
- Power Fist: Volt's mecha receives this powerup as a Heroic Second Wind at the end of the battle against the Lizard Army's mecha. Despite the latter being so invincible as to tank the team's best Finishing Move at the time, this succeeds in destroying it.
- Prequel: This movie serves as one to the Miniforce TV show.
- Reverse Psychology: Anna the bunny convinces Sammy to join the mission to defeat the Lizard Army by saying that the mission is way too dangerous and that a “scared ranger” shouldn't take it. Sammy gets upset by this remark, not wanting to be taken for a coward.
- Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: The Miniforce go through a chute that lands them in a trash-destroying conveyor belt, leading this trope to play out to them, all while trying to carry an unconscious Max through. Volt stops the final phase of those traps (a giant trash roller) by throwing pipes at it to make it slow down and explode.
- This Is Unforgivable!: When the Lizard Army’s mecha shot down Max, Sammy, and Lucy’s Force Cars and put them out of commission, Volt reacted like this and went all out on the mecha, even slicing off one of its arms.
- Time Bomb: The Lizard Army put a time bomb in the humans’ lab, Pacas revealing it while he was battling Volt with their mecha robots.
- Tragic Keepsake: Anna keeps a pocketwatch that her presumed dead father Dr. Jeremy once kept, found at the remains of the lab that the Lizard Army destroyed. The pocketwatch even contains a photo of Dr. Jeremy and Anna together.
- Trash Landing: The Miniforce, trying to sneak into a lab, tried to hide themselves in a trash can when they saw someone coming. Unfortunately, that person was taking out the trash, so he put the trash can’s contents through a chute, leading the Miniforce to land on a conveyor belt where trash gets destroyed.
- Unguided Lab Tour: The Miniforce tries but fails to sneak into a lab to take the Control Cube so that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
- Unobtainium: The “Ellinium” that the scientists were investigating before it got stolen by the Lizard Army, along with the Controlling Cube. There's also a third element involved, but it goes unidentified.
- Watching the Sunset: There is a scene where Volt and Anna talk while doing this, right after Volt saved some scientists from a time bomb.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Like the show it takes after, there is no indication of where in the world this movie takes place, although clearly it is very far from the show's setting of Bluebell Village. If a viewer looks closely, they'll notice that computers used in the movie use
AZERTY layout keyboards (rather than Korean hangul keyboards as one would expect from a South Korea-produced movie), which might suggest that the movie takes place somewhere in France or Belgium, but it's also possible the AZERTY keyboards are merely a reused 3D model asset from Miraculous Ladybug (a France-produced show that SAMG, the studio behind this movie, also had a hand in animating), so who the heck knows?
