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01-03-2021, 10:08 AM | #471 |
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Join Date: Jan 2020
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God Speed Love has the distinction of being the first Kamen Rider film I actually got to see in the theater, so I have a soft spot for it. (And also a nifty little card holder thingy that has had a Suica card in it for, uh. Almost 15 years. It sits on a shelf now, because Kamen Rider promotional items are not always well made and I would like for it not to fall apart due to overuse.) I want to join the camp of appreciating how amazing it looks - it is visually spectacular and I will occasionally go back to it for that alone.
Nostalgia and visuals not withstanding, I really enjoy AUs in the canon-divergence flavor; I think some really great character exploration can be done by altering the setting and looking at how characters might change. Experience is a huge part of building character and personality, so when the experiences that make a character who they are don't happen in the new canon, how does the character develop differently? Which is a bit of a roundabout way of saying I can see why the creative team went for a different setting and different versions of the characters. I don't think they did it well; it's really hard to see what might have led to the characters we see on screen coming out of the people we know and love from the show. Which is a more roundabout way of saying that it's a concept that I really love but I found the execution disappointing. I do have some new appreciation, given Fish's take on the bleakness providing a deliberate contrast to the joy at the end, instead of just being grimdark for the sake of being melodramatically grimdark. I always did love the rose bit, though. As for other Kamen Rider movies, because today apparently I'm just going to talk a lot I tend to have generally positive feelings about them (Hell Yes OOO In Generations Final, for example, and the Wizard movie was super fun, and there were multiple Den-Oh movies I enjoyed, and I could do this literally forever) but since I also really love time loops, I am the only person I know who liked the Kamen Rider 4 special for Drive It is my go-to for warm fuzzies or just to relax for a bit with something I don't have to think too hard about. There is no good reason for this, except time loop, lol Quote:
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01-03-2021, 10:46 AM | #472 |
Standing By
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: USA
Posts: 2,098
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"KAMEN RIDER KABUTO" - GOD SPEED LOVE
So, here’s two positive things. First, man, the director did an amazing job with this movie. Tons of inventive shots, great use of lighting, the dramatic scenes look properly cinematic and emotional (maybe could’ve toned down that gauzy filter), the fight scenes have heft, and there's a constant plussing of the material. Can’t really knock the visuals in this movie. Second, there’s a point in the beginning where ZECT and Neo-ZECT are facing off in the desert. Kagami pleads with Yamato to spare Oda and the rest of Neo-ZECT, since the real fight is against the Worms. And Yamato agrees. He bows down to Oda, begs him to come back to ZECT, offers to suffer any humiliation. And then Oda just kicks him and says something stupid about freedom (stay positive, stay positive, you’ll get a chance to be negative, just finish this last positive paragraph, you can do this) but the conception of Yamato here, I thought, was pretty interesting. I liked that he seemed to be someone who’d jump at the chance to bolster his forces, who didn’t let a dispute over ideology stand in the way of defeating a greater enemy. That’s a cool idea, even if it’s only for part of a scene. That was neat. I was really surprised by the part where Caucasus killed Kagami and Hyper Kabuto just went back and changed the outcome. Sure, it was kind of pointless since that version of Kagami ended up being negated by the next timeline change but I think it was a cool way to show off Hyper Kabuto's ability. This movie is also the debut of the Natives, those Worms with the large horns who fought Kabuto on the bridge. Quote:
The rest of the movie was probably the worst Kamen Rider thing I’ve ever experienced. It’s more awful, for a more sustained time, than anything I’ve ever seen from this franchise. The only delight it brought me was when I was howling in laughter at certain scenes (everyone humming God Bless America as Hiyori died of Narratively Convenient Illness, while wearing her wedding dress, was definitely in So Bad It’s Good territory), as well as the aforementioned directing. It’s astonishingly bad, a misfire on every single narrative level.
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Of all the alternate universe Heisei Rider summer movies, this is probably the one that most actively revels in the fact it takes place in an alternate universe. The characters are, by and large, wild offshoots of their television counterparts, but I can see the consideration being given to why and how they differ? Tendou is the easy example, so I'll focus on him. He's a lot more openly emotional, downright breaking down after Hiyori passes away, but, that's exactly it – he's in a scenario where he one of the people he cares about most is beyond his power to save, and that's something TV Tendou has never had to deal with.
There's a great moment, when Kagami is despairing after he learns about Hiyori's illness, where Tendou gives him a classic Yonemura slap to the face and yells at him. Just, maximum volume, zero subtlety screams to ask him if letting himself get caught up in his own misery will help Hiyori. It's macho melodrama taken at face value, but it's precisely because I know how Yonemura usually writes this guy on the small screen that I know for sure the whole point of that outburst is how unable Tendou is to process his own feelings of helplessness in this cruel joke of a world he's stuck in. He's still always on the move, always trying to make some plan, but he barely even knows why anymore, and it all comes out in that moment. How much he has force himself just to be Tendou. Quote:
There's a visual that reoccurs a few times throughout the film, in the backgrounds. It's Tokyo Tower, an iconic part of the show's imagery, reduced to a colorless, horribly bent mess, and I think that about sums it up. It feels wrong, and uncomfortable. Everything about this movie feels wrong and uncomfortable, and it's all 100% intentional. These lonely, miserable characters with pointless lives and even more pointless deaths, in a world that offers no hope of salvation.
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I had a great time with this movie. It's no Paradise Lost (nothing is), and I can totally sympathize with Die's problems, but man, I think it has some redeeming qualities, for sure. I mean, how can a movie where you get to see a Kamen Rider die from atmospheric reentry while using his last breaths to proudly declare his loyalty to a militarized organization of nebulous authority be a total wash, right?
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The AU-ness of this one is sometimes debated. It's occasionally argued that the movie is a prequel to the series, with Tendou's time travel gimmick being where the belt came from on the show, too. Avoiding any specific spoilers, there are multiple inconsistencies between what we see in the film and the eventual backstory we'll get on the show. It's a bit like Ryuki's movie in that sense - arguably but not explicitly canon.
Anyway, when I watched Dinosaur Panic last year, I thought the whole breaking a giant meteor in to a smaller meteor in the past thing seemed familiar and after rewatching God Speed Love, well now I get it. The major difference is that Dinosaur Panic exists in a causal loop whereas God Speed Love is literally removed from the main timeline.
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心 と 刃 Last edited by Sh Ranger; 01-03-2021 at 11:00 AM.. Reason: typo |
01-03-2021, 10:58 AM | #473 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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I’ll be honest, I don’t have much to say about this movie. Just that Caucasus reminds me heavily of Odin from Ryuki.
So to fill this comment out, I’ll discuss the various ways the video game changes up the plot of the film * Kabuto's fight with Ketaros is staged within the water dam instead. Ketaros' death was also altered, which he died by fighting instead of being crashing into the earth. * Caucasus was defeated by both Kabuto and Gatack instead. * In Story mode, if the team-up fight alongside Kamen Rider Hercus is won without changing to Rider Form, Kamen Rider Kabuto will appear riding the Kabuto Extender in its EX Mode while still in Masked Form. * Ketaros is able to use a Rider Beat finisher in the game, despite it never being shown in the movie. Also worth mentioning that while not shown in the movie or represented on the toy, the “Kabutick Riders” (the official names for our Movie Riders) do have a Masked Form. It’s only in the form of the action figures released alongside the show. You can see the, at the bottom of that link below this paragraph. https://kamenrider.fandom.com/wiki/Masked_Form Quote:
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As for other Kamen Rider movies, because today apparently I'm just going to talk a lot I tend to have generally positive feelings about them (Hell Yes OOO In Generations Final, for example, and the Wizard movie was super fun, and there were multiple Den-Oh movies I enjoyed, and I could do this literally forever) but since I also really love time loops, I am the only person I know who liked the Kamen Rider 4 special for Drive It is my go-to for warm fuzzies or just to relax for a bit with something I don't have to think too hard about. There is no good reason for this, except time loop, lol
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01-03-2021, 11:18 AM | #474 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Yes. Hard. Her death was something that already didn't really work (she doesn't get to do anything in the movie beyond act as a concept for Tendou and Kagami to protect, so her dying from Narratively Convenient Illness isn't doing anything for the story), and then they dressed her up in a wedding dress, and then everyone's humming her childhood song of God Bless America (?????), and then it all just keeps going into Grim Determination as two skinny men walk along a beach... It takes a scene that doesn't work, piles on elements that are insane, and then stays on the scene way longer than they should've. I was dying watching it, just like Hiyori. Quote:
Replace "Kabuto" with "Hibiki" and I feel like we had this exact same conversation about that movie except our roles were reversed. I find it humorous that you critique God Speed Love for the characters acting like different people but not Hibiki's movie where the characters were literally different people. Can you identify anything specific to God Speed Love that elaborates on why it didn't work for you by comparison?
I think the main difference, and the thing that buys a lot of Let's See Where This Goes from me, is that the story in Hibiki was fun? It's an AU set in a totally different world with totally different characters, but it has an energy to it, a playfulness, that GSL just doesn't have at all, outside a death scene or two. There's a cast of fun characters, and a bunch of good gags. Hard to get too grumpy when I'm being entertained. Plus, the story in Hibiki has more to care about? Kabuki alone is a hell of a villain, and that dude's story is incredibly compelling. By comparison, who is there to get invested in from this movie, as far as villains go? What is there about ZECT's plan that even makes sense, let alone allows for introspection or pathos? Finally, while I didn't care about the formation of Takeshi like Kurona did, that's at least something of value for the main narrative. Here, you can maybe argue that this is a prequel to the main series, but it's really hard to see how that Tendou/Hiyori scene lines up with Hiyori's TV flashbacks. Beyond that, it's neither addressing the themes of the series (something Hibiki is also guilty of) nor adding to our understanding of the characters. (For me, anyway; I know that you and Fish found something of worth in the new versions of our old favorites, but it didn't work for me at all.)
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01-03-2021, 11:20 AM | #475 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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It was... something! I think it infected my brain.
I guess to actually get around to the question... my favourite summer movies are OOO, Build's and Fourze's; because the movie apple doesn't fall far from the series tree; or something! Something I like about a summer movie most is when it's able to basically just be the series in a nice hour/hour-and-a-half package; something you can just watch and all the feelings and vibes from it come rushing to you and is exactly what the season was about -- and OOO and Fourze's are exactly that! Do I need to say much more than Eiji proclaiming every single person is his family, or Gentarou making friends with a freaking space station? I can't really say much more; those alone are just perfect and it's pulled off so well! Build's on the other hand enhances the experience for me. If OOO and Fourze's movies are what it's about then Build the series was almost set-up for everywhere Build's takes it. Does it have uninspiring villains? Sure. Does it flounder a little? Yeah. Does it suck that multiple emotional high points in the series are retconned as things The Blood Squad did? ... yeah, what the fuck?? But that cannot take away from a movie where Banjou and Sento's relationship reaches its apex; as they're torn away from each other only for them to come back together and fuse into a mess of a being that saves the day with love & peace. What more could I want?
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01-03-2021, 12:07 PM | #476 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 2,551
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I think I should mention that the actress playing Hiyori got ill for real while filming this movie. So the character will be phased out of the show for the next few episodes, though not without some awkwardness involved.
And history repeated itself next year, when Den-O’s leading lady got ill filming their movie. Though instead of phasing her out until she could return, they just pulled a Doctor Who on the situation. |
01-03-2021, 12:22 PM | #477 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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I guess to actually get around to the question... my favourite summer movies are OOO, Build's and Fourze's; because the movie apple doesn't fall far from the series tree; or something! Something I like about a summer movie most is when it's able to basically just be the series in a nice hour/hour-and-a-half package; something you can just watch and all the feelings and vibes from it come rushing to you and is exactly what the season was about -- and OOO and Fourze's are exactly that! Do I need to say much more than Eiji proclaiming every single person is his family, or Gentarou making friends with a freaking space station? I can't really say much more; those alone are just perfect and it's pulled off so well!
(Also, I love that the Wizard cameo has him proclaiming that he's "Kamen Rider Wizard", a thing I'm pretty sure he never refers to himself as on his TV show.) Quote:
I think I should mention that the actress playing Hiyori got ill for real while filming this movie. So the character will be phased out of the show for the next few episodes, though not without some awkwardness involved.
And history repeated itself next year, when Den-O’s leading lady got ill filming their movie. Though instead of phasing her out until she could return, they just pulled a Doctor Who on the situation.
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01-03-2021, 12:49 PM | #478 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Ketaros' death scene is easily the most humorous moment in the movie for me, especially with how it happens immediately after Neo-ZECT Girl says to Hercus "We still have Yamato!" I mean, talk about irony!
Well at least she's still the most relatable character then! I'm honestly not even sure why I feel as generous towards this movie as I do, when it's doing so many things I don't really like as ideas any more than you do. I guess the way I'd put it is that I just found it interesting as I was watching it? Like, "fun" isn't quite the right word, but I also wasn't bored, or mad, or anything like that. It goes all in on the weird choices it makes in a way I find a little fascinating. Plus, Hiyori did get to say "nande boku ga...", so maybe that's enough to keep me happy. Or maybe it just really is *that* stylish visually, who knows? This is definitely what I like to see too! I don't know if you could say that about God Speed Love outside of it being really weird, which Kabuto is in spades, but the ones I'd consider truly great all meet these criteria. Which is actually a whole lot of them, now that I think about it. Like, I was going to name some examples, but nearly half of them that even exist instantly leapt to mind. Huh.
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01-03-2021, 12:55 PM | #479 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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This is definitely what I like to see too! I don't know if you could say that about God Speed Love outside of it being really weird, which Kabuto is in spades, but the ones I'd consider truly great all meet these criteria. Which is actually a whole lot of them, now that I think about it. Like, I was going to name some examples, but nearly half of them that even exist instantly leapt to mind. Huh.
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01-03-2021, 12:59 PM | #480 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,420
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I think I should mention that the actress playing Hiyori got ill for real while filming this movie. So the character will be phased out of the show for the next few episodes, though not without some awkwardness involved.
And history repeated itself next year, when Den-O’s leading lady got ill filming their movie. Though instead of phasing her out until she could return, they just pulled a Doctor Who on the situation. I stumbled across this video a week or two ago while looking up some Kabuto information and it gives a pretty decently researched rundown of what happened. There's not a lot of public information about it, but what actually may have been more complex then the "she got sick" explanation I'd always heard. |
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