67.149.69.119
Since: Dec, 1969
09/09/2009 00:00:00
Well, if anything else, be happy Parallel Works 8(?) was made cannon, giving us a better idea of Lordgenome's past.
tikkihikki
Since: Jan, 2001
09/29/2009 00:00:00
From everything I've heard of the second movie, that's where the real substance is.
Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow.
94.68.253.67
Since: Dec, 1969
KendraKirai
Since: Jan, 2001
01/20/2011 00:00:00
Yeah, pretty much everything after Simon's 'Rebirth' is all-new, though there are 'milestone' scenes that play out very similarly.
ThePigKing
Since: Apr, 2010
03/19/2011 00:00:00
The second movie is pretty similar to the first in the sense that the rest of the movie is fairly rushed and compressed to make room for the final battle, which puts the original to shame. You're better off skipping to the last half hour or so of both, although the second movie does have HACKING.
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The Crimson Lotus Chapter: How does the movie stand up?
Well, it's springtime and the first movie of the remake duology is probably hitting a torrent near you. Does it stack up to the original series? Does it manage to capture that same intense rush of emotion and fieriness of the TV series? Let's find out, shall we?
The first three-fourths of the film cover the events of the Kamina arc and the beginning of the Nia arc. The term "remake" is stretching it a bit, as while a few scenes do have slightly more polished animation, we are watching footage ripped straight from the TV series, right down to the infamous art style from episode 4 that sent viewers into a childish tizzy. Pacing is an issue here, as while there is some compression, there's not enough of it and the movie starts to drag a bit. It's not until forty-five minutes into the film that the group even sets out with the Gurren Lagann. Consequently, major events such as the meeting of Kittan and Rossiu are done in a Time Compression Montage, resulting in one only knowing the characters' names and not much else about them, or why they're tagging along.
The climatic battle of the movie is where we finally get a completely original sequence, with full-borne movie quality animation. The three remaining Generals, including Viral with his own version of the Dai-Gunzan attack the Dai-Gurren in an all-out assault, with the intent of showing the humans around the world their defeat, much like Guame tried to do in the original series. I liked this battle because it let all of the members of the group, like Kidd and Zoshi, do something, even if it's just holding off grunt Gunmans. Yoko even gets to show off her Action Girl credentials by taking on a horde of Beastmen and Adiane by herself. Simon's "rebirth", as it's called, is just as much fun to watch this time around as it was the last. The whole thing ends with the Generals' motherships combining to form a humongous craft which is sadly taken down before it does much of anything. In fact, apart from Adiane's fight with Yoko, the Generals really don't do all that much in the battle. Heck, all Cytomander really gets to do is menace Nia a bit and scream like a girl.
If you're looking for an entirely new product, you're out of luck, and better off skipping to the last half-hour. If you want a reminder of what the series originally had to offer, go right ahead and enjoy.