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09-03-2019, 03:54 PM | #31 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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First of all, Maximum Gamer is one of my favorite Rider powerups ever. I love the gimmick of Ex-Aid having his own power armor. I love that they actually built a suit that bulky, and I love the gimmick of having him eject out of it to get more use out of the base form even way late in the show. Everything about it is just awesome and I could go like this for a while.
Second of all, I think I might be the only person on the planet who was totally satisfied with True Ending. I guess everybody just has the problem I had with the Den-O movie back when I first watched it, but I really think everyone's expectations don't match up with why it's actually called True Ending. It's literally just because it's set after the finale and they probably didn't know Another Ending would be a thing when they decided on the title. It acts as a nice, simple coda to the show that encapsulates its themes really nicely while delivering some big action you can't get on TV. The fact that it didn't concern itself with tying up loose ends (which Ex-Aid didn't leave a lot of), or advancing character arcs that were already over is the biggest point in its favor to me. It's the exact opposite of what went wrong with the Ghost movie. My guy Yuuya Takahashi knows what he can comfortably fit in an hour and also knew better than to try and make the TV finale the "fake" ending. So don't get too hung up on the "True" part of the title. Comparisons to 100% completion bonus endings or post-game content in video games are very warranted, and I think viewing it through that lens, it becomes easier to see what they were going for. Just a little extra Ex-Aid for the road. It's honestly my favorite summer movie (which I'll admit is weird in a world where W A to Z and Surprise Future both exist), so it bums me out how underwhelmed so many people seem to be with it, given how popular Ex-Aid as a whole is.
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09-03-2019, 09:17 PM | #32 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
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Quote:
Okay, so, here's my Kamen Rider origin story. I'm a Transformers fan, at least for the last eight years or so. (That's a completely separate, irrelevant origin story.) I lurked the TFW2005 boards for a long while. Sometimes, bored at work, I'd take a look at the other tabs up top. I've got a latent fascination with fan communities: how they're similar, how they're different, what they love, what they hate, the minutiae of the scene. I just think it's neat, in a sociological way. So occasionally, I'd click over to TokuNation. As I said before, I never got into Power Rangers as a kid, but I knew a bit about the history and the Japanese roots. I'd see articles about new Japanese episodes, or American episodes, and thought it looked goofy, but I didn't care a lot. But I'd see these articles for Kamen Rider figures, and I was fascinated. I'm not an action figure collector, but the Ex-Aid Figuart reviews were amazing to me. The designs were mind-blowing, the use of color was so far past the American-style muted, "realistic" colors of superheroes that I kept checking out the reviews when they'd go up: Action Gamer Level 2, Taddle Fantasy, Dragon Hunter, Bang Bang Simulations... I didn't know what show could possibly contain all of these designs. The little snippets of information that would precede a review, if anything, made me more perplexed: what the hell is a "gas hat"? They're all in a video game or something? Is this post-apocalyptic? After enough figure reviews, I was like, "I have to see what this crazy-ass show is like." And, Jesus, I never looked back. I'd've never watched a Kamen Rider anything if it wasn't for how extra these suit designs were. Quote:
First of all, Maximum Gamer is one of my favorite Rider powerups ever. I love the gimmick of Ex-Aid having his own power armor. I love that they actually built a suit that bulky, and I love the gimmick of having him eject out of it to get more use out of the base form even way late in the show. Everything about it is just awesome and I could go like this for a while.
Quote:
Second of all, I think I might be the only person on the planet who was totally satisfied with True Ending. I guess everybody just has the problem I had with the Den-O movie back when I first watched it, but I really think everyone's expectations don't match up with why it's actually called True Ending. It's literally just because it's set after the finale and they probably didn't know Another Ending would be a thing when they decided on the title.
It acts as a nice, simple coda to the show that encapsulates its themes really nicely while delivering some big action you can't get on TV. The fact that it didn't concern itself with tying up loose ends (which Ex-Aid didn't leave a lot of), or advancing character arcs that were already over is the biggest point in its favor to me. It's the exact opposite of what went wrong with the Ghost movie. My guy Yuuya Takahashi knows what he can comfortably fit in an hour and also knew better than to try and make the TV finale the "fake" ending. So don't get too hung up on the "True" part of the title. Comparisons to 100% completion bonus endings or post-game content in video games are very warranted, and I think viewing it through that lens, it becomes easier to see what they were going for. Just a little extra Ex-Aid for the road. It's honestly my favorite summer movie (which I'll admit is weird in a world where W A to Z and Surprise Future both exist), so it bums me out how underwhelmed so many people seem to be with it, given how popular Ex-Aid as a whole is. The main problem I have with the True Ending part is how it feels like it's making the Ex-Aid TV story sprawl out in a way I didn't like. If it'd just been "here's a down-the-road adventure with the Ex-Aid cast", and it wasn't tied up with the TV show ending, I wouldn't mind it as much. If this thing had been set a year or two later, like with RE:BIRTH, and they chopped off the Where They Went Next stuff from the end credits, it's a really enjoyable movie that I've only got a couple problems with. But, setting it more-or-less concurrent with the finale, regardless of the title, just bugged me. Mostly because, like I mentioned before, I love how Kamen Rider shows and stories end. They set out to tell a story, and then that story's over. They can show up in someone else's movie or series, but that's someone else's movie or series. Once they're like "Wait, there's a bigger villain and more for the whole cast to deal with", I feel like it's robbing the TV series of a bit of the finality that I think is one of its strongest narrative tools. And, y'know, maybe that's just my problem, and it's not fair to judge the movie for it. I don't know. I just feel like doing an Ending movie starring Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, for any value of Ending, made me like the story of the movie a little less. And, yeah, the movie was overall a good one! Maybe that's why I'm so harsh on the True Ending part, because the story is mostly super solid. First, it looks phenomenal. The effects and camerawork are stellar. The new suits, especially VRX, are killer. The way the plot involves every character in ways that make sense for their character, that's so hard to do with a sprawling cast of various bickering, duplicitous assholes. (The evolved forms of Taiga and Hiiro are just god-complex jerks who don't want to murder each other! I love the Ex-Aid cast so much, you guys!) The fight scenes are coherent and dramatic. The emotional climax is so well-acted and heartfelt, it almost made me forget that Kamen Rider Deadbeat Dad has a story that makes zero sense. If there's a non-title problem this movie has, it's this, and I just can't overlook it. (I am willing to let the Johnny Maxima/Gamedeus thing slide. It's not my favorite ending, but I don't think it comes close to tanking the film.) It is not that easy to see out how the motivations of one character can encompass both "I didn't care about my wife and daughter, so I abandoned them years ago" and "I am willing to destroy the world to keep my daughter safe and give her all of the happiness I never gave her before." That is, uh, that is a swing. There's maybe a way to explain it, and as a viewer I could probably concoct a headcanon motivation for why Kamen Rider Deadbeat Dad did both of those things, but I shouldn't have to. A baseline expectation for a villain whose emotional arc is the spine of the film is that his motivation and psychology should be expressed to the audience. Why Is He Doing This and Why Has He Changed are just, like, Intro To Screenwriting. This is not the sort of stuff that should be left to the audience. If they'd given us one scene where he explains why he abandoned his family, all of my concerns evaporate. I get why he's protecting his daughter, I just don't get why he didn't seem to care before. If it's just "I regretted being an asshole when I thought my daughter was going to die", y'know, understandable, but why? Why leave, and why come back to this insane extent? If the whole movie didn't orbit around Kamen Rider Deadbeat Dad and his decisions, it wouldn't be such a big deal to me. But it does, so it is. All of the Kiriya stuff was golden, though. He's the best. A thousand Lazer V-Cinemas!
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09-06-2019, 09:36 PM | #33 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,157
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KAMEN RIDER EX-AID MOVIES: ANOTHER ENDING
After rewatching these various Ex-Aid movies, and seeing the evolution of the cast across them, I realized what the "secret sauce" is that makes Ex-Aid work as a series: every one of the four main Riders thinks this is his show, and the other three Riders are his sidekicks. Brave is the hero, and if everyone would just stop being idiots and do what he says already, they'd be able to defeat the Bugsters and bring back those affected by the virus. Snipe is the hero, cast out after his failure, and his goal to redeem himself is constantly thwarted by the other Riders selfishly keeping the Gashats from the actual hero of the show, who'd be able to defeat the Bugsters and bring back those affected by the virus. Lazer is the hero, tracking down leads and getting killed when he gets too close to the truth, only to be resurrected in everyone's hour of need, instrumental in defeating the Bugsters and bringing back those affected by the virus. Ex-Aid is also a Rider. (Look, I'm just poking fun. There's a whole TV series about how Kamen Rider Ex-Aid is easily in the Top 5 Kamen Riders for the show of the same name.) It's because of this, the way every Rider views the events of the series as part of his personal, paramount journey, that these Another Ending spin-offs/epilogues work so well. It doesn't matter to Brave or Snipe or Lazer's stories that Ex-Aid isn't there, because he's just their sidekick. These stories are about them, like they've always been. And it starts with a solid story, drawing from not only the events of the series that tie Brave and Snipe together (Saki, being assholes to everyone they care about and probably dying alone), but the theme of letting go of the past and being a better/truer version of yourself hits the main characters of this movie equally. Hiiro needs to once and for all say goodbye to Saki. Taiga needs to stop torturing himself over Saki's death. Nico needs to stop defining herself by her crush on Taiga and go live her life. It's, yeah, a solid thematic line that the movie follows, largely successfully. I say "largely successfully", because you could argue that this whole story is a retread of the climactic Brave/Snipe story from Ex-Aid, where Hiiro sacrifices the ghost of Saki to save Taiga, and their feud/penance is put to rest. I think the movie gets away with it by pushing things a bit further, and making some key distinctions. Namely, there's a difference between "I don't wish you were dead for killing my girlfriend" and "I am ready to accept my girlfriend's death". There's enough sci-fi nonsense grey area to Saki's evaporation that I believe both characters would try to bring her back, no matter the odds. The movie hedges its bets by flat-out telling us in the first few minutes that it's totally possible to revive the infected dead. There's definitely some echoes to the series and how these characters stopped wanting to murder each other, but it never felt like a retread to me. I thought it all worked with Brave and Snipe's characters. The Nico stuff, that took me a bit to feel good about, and I don't know if I'm all the way there. First, I hate that creepy Denim Harry Potter and his stalkery vibe. The idea of Nico "ending up with" that dink got my blood boiling. She can do better! Everyone can do better! Second, for a minute I was like, "In what world is giving up on a career in medicine and dedicating your life to playing games a smart move?" The show seemed to imply that Nico had grown up, and found her true calling as a student of medicine. That seemed really positive! Then the movie's like, "Nope, she's abandoning her fake dream of medicine to follow her real passion, being a child and playing games! Hooray! It all worked out, finally!" And, no, I didn't think it did. It seemed like a regression. But, if I squint hard, I can go along with it. Maybe she never wanted to work in a clinic and help people. Maybe she was only ever doing it to get close to Taiga. Maybe she was putting her life on hold, staying away from games. Maybe maybe maybe. I don't know that I like it better as an ending for her than the TV show one, but I can see where the movie's coming from. Overall, Brave/Snipe was a really good start to the Another Ending trilogy. It managed to feel like a deeper exploration of both riders, without feeling like a retread or retcon of what the TV series did. Parado and Poppy are interesting characters to pair for a movie. Unlike the four main Riders, they are sidekicks. Parado exists to be Emu's Luigi, while Poppy is the maternal caregiver, keeping all these active boys from feeling too sad. Putting them together and making them the stars feels a bit like the movie lacks a spine, but it sort-of makes up for that by asking some interesting questions. Chiefly, what does it mean it to exist as a sidekick without a hero, and do Bugsters even have a right to exist? They're good questions, I think, and certainly enough to base a movie around, but I don't know if Paradox/Poppy does enough with them. To the first question, I was really hoping that the initial appearance of Parado, bored on a roof with no villains to fight, meant that we'd get to see what the next stage would be for him. Sadly, it wasn't. Beyond a renewed dedication to fighting Bugsters and bringing back virus victims, the movie doesn't really give a sense to what Parado's actually going to do with the life he's been granted. I didn't mind the show not really delving into it in the third act, since they had an apocalypse or two to avert. But all the movie gives us for Parado to define himself with is "I have a heart and I deserve to exist". That's noble, but it's also something that I feel like was settled back in the series. There's incremental growth to his character, but I'd hoped for more in the spotlight. And, boy, is it ever Parado's spotlight. Poppy gets co-lead billing, but she's as much a sidekick in this as she ever was on the show. There's never a point where I feel like Poppy asserts herself, and while that's disappointing, it's not the end of the world. The movie mostly uses her to explore the second question of the movie, whether Bugsters like Parado and Poppy, viruses that harm or kill their host, even deserve to still exist. I think it's a fair question. Sakurako Dan was killed so Poppy could exist. Poppy didn't ask for that, but there's no denying it happened. Shouldn't Poppy be eradicated so a human being can be reborn? It's intriguing, and like the first question, the movie seems to think posing the question is sufficient. It isn't! Poppy and Parado would both just rather not die, thank you. Now that the threat of the Bugsters is largely over (according to multiple characters across the first two Another Ending movies, also about to be proven completely incorrect), why should two uncured diseases be allowed to roam around? There's a perfect opportunity to delineate the terms of Bugster existence, and why specifically Parado and Poppy have a right to live, but the movie doesn't come close to getting into it. That's really my problem as a whole with Paradox/Poppy. There's a bunch of potential that the movie just doesn't do much with. The majority of the questions it answers are about what villain is doing which thing for what reason. It's content to connect the plots of all three Another Ending movies, but it misses out on saying something of its own. Okay, I'm still not crazy about the idea of Kamen Rider TV series concluding/"concluding" in a series of movies. Ex-Aid as a series left a bunch of dangling plot threads, so the movies had legitimate stuff to deal with, but I still wish the story of Ex-Aid (the Dans, the Bugsters, Game Disease) had been finished on TV. I'm not sure I'm ever going to feel differently. But. I really, really liked how Another Ending ended. It packed an emotional wallop, and it did it with the best villain facing off against the best Rider. Yeah, I said it. When I was first watching Ex-Aid, I didn't know much of the formula for Kamen Rider shows. I didn't know that a) Kiriya could get killed, or that b) Kiriya would obviously not stay dead. All of that was a shock to me. I completely bought the stakes of what I was seeing. Some of that was a lack of familiarity with formula, but some was just because Kiriya was so, so good. Again, it's because all of the Riders act like the show's about them. Kiriya has the swagger of a star, the guilt of a star (his best friend was killed by Game Disease!), the skills of a star, the resurrection of a star. If you could end the series with any Rider other than Emu, it makes perfect sense to do it with Kiriya, especially as his main grudge was with the show's best villain. Another Ending buys a lot of goodwill from me by centering the villainy not on Masamune Dan, not on a new villain, but where it belongs: Kuroto Dan. All hail Kamen Rider Genm. I get why the show would want to shift him into an antagonistic hero-y role, all bug eyes and humiliating punishments, but it was inevitable that he'd reach for a villainous plan again, and it's the best way to send off the franchise. It just means more as an ending for Kuroto Dan to end with it. It feels final. The other Riders, Brave and Snipe and Poppy and Paradox, they didn't get much to do in this finale. I'm okay with that, they got their movies. I'm extra okay with them staying true to their non-team dynamic, everybody pursuing their own goals, barely communicating, never asking for or offering help. It's great. Emu's laid up, so he's got an excuse, but it is so utterly in character for Brave and Snipe to just be doing their own thing while Lazer investigates, researches, puts the clues together, and tricks his way to victory. It's a celebration of nearly everything Ex-Aid did well as a franchise, and I'm glad I rewatched it. Especially after that goddamn True Ending movie. (Sorry.) I think that's it for Ex-Aid movie rewatches! Obviously, I'd love to keep chatting with people on their thoughts about these films, so feel free to chime in if you feel like it. For me, it's Build next, probably starting next weekend. Hope to see you there!
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09-06-2019, 10:53 PM | #34 |
take me to space
Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 1,406
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I can't speak for anyone else, but I never expected Kiriya or Kuroto to come back after their initial deaths in the show, so that was a fun surprise when they did. But yeah, glad you liked the Another Ending movies! I pretty much like them in increasing order. In fact, I'm pretty sure I flat-out wasn't impressed with the Brave and Snipe one (even as someone who is neutral on Nico, I got kinda angry at what they did with her!), but the time I got to the end of the third movie, I had a good time. I am persobally plenty satisfied with the ending of the TV show, but Lazer vs Genm is perfectly fine as an addition.
I am curious if you've delved into the expensive world of owning any Rider merchandise of your own? |
09-06-2019, 11:15 PM | #35 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,157
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Quote:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I never expected Kiriya or Kuroto to come back after their initial deaths in the show, so that was a fun surprise when they did. But yeah, glad you liked the Another Ending movies! I pretty much like them in increasing order. In fact, I'm pretty sure I flat-out wasn't impressed with the Brave and Snipe one (even as someone who is neutral on Nico, I got kinda angry at what they did with her!), but the time I got to the end of the third movie, I had a good time. I am persobally plenty satisfied with the ending of the TV show, but Lazer vs Genm is perfectly fine as an addition.
I definitely think I liked Brave/Snipe better the second time, and maybe liked Paradox/Poppy a little less. Which is kind-of weird, since that is the opposite of how much I like those pairings of characters. (What the show does with Parado's arc is... what is the emoji tag for "chef's kiss"?) I just felt this time that Brave/Snipe is about something in a way that Paradox/Poppy felt a little hollow. Yeah, I think viewing Genm vs Lazer as an "addition" to the show's ending is the right move. All of Emu's stuff gets thoroughly wrapped up in the show, the Another Ending movies are for everyone else's threads. Quote:
HUGE respect for the folks who go all in on show merch, though. It's a dream to have enough space and/or money to own those CSM replica drivers.
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09-07-2019, 07:11 AM | #36 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
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Don't get me wrong, that obviously could've been a really strong arc if that was what Ex-Aid was going for. Obnoxious teenage girl learns that Life is Beautiful from hanging out with superhero doctors and decides to follow in their selfless footsteps? Man, that actually sounds awesome. But unless I'm forgetting something here, that was never quite the focus of her character, which did, in large part, revolve around her crush Taiga, so I think it's more than fair for Another Ending to have getting over that to go back to her incredibly profitable e-sports career be the way she "grows up", just like she got over her obsession with Emu. There's no maybe about it as far as I'm concerned, at least when it comes to the question of how much it lines up with what happened on TV. I think the whole direction Another Ending took was largely about going into more detail about things like that that weren't totally clear in the show (just like True Ending, actually advancing the story is a secondary concern, it even that), and while I think that leads to the feeling of retreading old ground they can have, I also think they're great for people who "need" the help. The first two felt largely redundant to me as someone who was already invested enough in those characters to draw all these conclusions, but on the other hand, as someone who got very, very sick of Kuroto after his resurrection, Genm vs. Lazer seriously impressed me with how it put things into context to show how, far from a walking set of repetitive gags, he's arguably the single most complex and deep character in the series.
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09-07-2019, 09:46 AM | #37 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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I've gotta disagree here. At least, that was never the impression I got from the show, and I think the only reason it's easy to come to that conclusion is because most shows with a character like Nico would have the endpoint of their development be getting a "real" job.
Don't get me wrong, that obviously could've been a really strong arc if that was what Ex-Aid was going for. Obnoxious teenage girl learns that Life is Beautiful from hanging out with superhero doctors and decides to follow in their selfless footsteps? Man, that actually sounds awesome. But unless I'm forgetting something here, that was never quite the focus of her character, which did, in large part, revolve around her crush Taiga, so I think it's more than fair for Another Ending to have getting over that to go back to her incredibly profitable e-sports career be the way she "grows up", just like she got over her obsession with Emu. There's no maybe about it as far as I'm concerned, at least when it comes to the question of how much it lines up with what happened on TV. I think the whole direction Another Ending took was largely about going into more detail about things like that that weren't totally clear in the show (just like True Ending, actually advancing the story is a secondary concern, it even that), and while I think that leads to the feeling of retreading old ground they can have, I also think they're great for people who "need" the help. The first two felt largely redundant to me as someone who was already invested enough in those characters to draw all these conclusions, but on the other hand, as someone who got very, very sick of Kuroto after his resurrection, Genm vs. Lazer seriously impressed me with how it put things into context to show how, far from a walking set of repetitive gags, he's arguably the single most complex and deep character in the series.
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09-08-2019, 07:56 AM | #38 |
Junior Member
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Quote:
First, Rider/Sentai movies are so weirdly constructed, at least the bunch I've seen. Rather than the Rider fall movies that feature two main Riders at least, and possibly two full casts, the crossover movies seem to be built around Who From The Last Few Years Is Available and Who Can We Spare From The Current Shows. Like, the Fourze/Go-Busters one? The main Rider characters are Hina from OOO and Diend from Decade! There's some fun to the randomness of the cast, but it's to the detriment of a cohesive story. I never get the feeling that a story was constructed, with a clear thematic goal, and then a cast was hired to support that goal. Instead, it's like 75% of the asks came back No, so they cobbled together something for the 25% who said Yes. It's not that you can't tell a story like that, but it's very difficult to tell a good story. The most you can do is distract people with a lot of costumes.
The Spring crossover movies were all contracted after the fact and separately from the tv series, so cast availability, even for the current shows was wildly variable. On top of that, they all had the same writer and producer behind them so there's much less variation among them than among the series themselves. Also, all the ones that feature big Sentai crossovers also had the same director (Osamu Kaneda) who is just weak all around and a really bad fit for these movies specifically. The ones where Sentai only appears for one fighting scene had a different director (Kamen Rider Taisen and GP Rider 3), although still the same writer and producer. Osamu Kaneda directed Decade's movie, All Riders vs Dai-Shocker which had the highest box office for a Rider movie, and due to that kept getting calling back for future mega crossovers involving Rider, but it's clear he just didn't care for the concept at all. All Riders vs Dai-Shocker itself was fairly inconsistent in terms of presentation with some attempts at using practical effects for some scenes before they just give up and go back to cg and green screening later on, with most Riders in the final battle just doing generic punches and kicks outside of a couple of specific shots, but rather than building up on it and improving, Kaneda actually seemed to get worse later on. The big fighting scenes with many suits just became sloppier in his later movies and he often just tried to get rid of them to go back to less suits (like them all disappearing during the Den-O power up scene in Let's Go Kamen Riders). However, those movies had high box office and his attempts at branching out all ended up in box office failure - Kaneda directed the new Gavan movie, Gaim summer movie, Drive x Ghost and Rider 1, all movies which performed badly, and in fact got increasingly lower numbers if you don't count Gavan. So, he returned to the mega crossover movies with Chou Super Hero Taisen for seemingly a last attempt at this directing gig - They even hid name from the marketing, only listing him as the director when there was the first screening. That shows pretty clearly even Toei realized that his name was poison (He is the CEO of JAE too, from where Toei gets most of their suit actors, which is probably why he got so many chances). CSHT performed even worse than Rider 1 though, marking the end of the spring crossover movies and Osamu Kaneda's career as a director (well, he technically "directed" a compilation movie for Amazons s1 but that's just cutting and pasting existing footage). Kaneda's Super Hero Taisen movies specifically have assistant directors who often handle some secondary battles, which helps improving them visually, but it all falls apart when the big climatic battles are handled in a sloppy way due to going back to Kaneda's main staff. In Chou Super Hero Taisen, specifically, you've got the fairly dynamic battles in the tournament... which are basically irrelevant story-wise and basically have no script (with only Momotaros getting a scene outside of battle), but then the big climatic Brave vs True Brave battle, which should be the big emotional climax of the story, is a sloppy brawl where they just slash each other until the finisher, with no abilities used beforehand or any real flow to the fight. And then you have the actual final battle where you just get both heroes and villains one shot by weak looking finishers too (wasting even the returning heroes with actors, like Zolda). Last edited by NeonZ; 09-08-2019 at 08:17 AM.. |
09-08-2019, 09:21 AM | #39 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,157
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The Spring crossover movies were all contracted after the fact and separately from the tv series, so cast availability, even for the current shows was wildly variable. On top of that, they all had the same writer and producer behind them so there's much less variation among them than among the series themselves. Also, all the ones that feature big Sentai crossovers also had the same director (Osamu Kaneda) who is just weak all around and a really bad fit for these movies specifically. The ones where Sentai only appears for one fighting scene had a different director (Kamen Rider Taisen and GP Rider 3), although still the same writer and producer.
Osamu Kaneda directed Decade's movie, All Riders vs Dai-Shocker which had the highest box office for a Rider movie, and due to that kept getting calling back for future mega crossovers involving Rider, but it's clear he just didn't care for the concept at all. All Riders vs Dai-Shocker itself was fairly inconsistent in terms of presentation with some attempts at using practical effects for some scenes before they just give up and go back to cg and green screening later on, with most Riders in the final battle just doing generic punches and kicks outside of a couple of specific shots, but rather than building up on it and improving, Kaneda actually seemed to get worse later on. The big fighting scenes with many suits just became sloppier in his later movies and he often just tried to get rid of them to go back to less suits (like them all disappearing during the Den-O power up scene in Let's Go Kamen Riders). However, those movies had high box office and his attempts at branching out all ended up in box office failure - Kaneda directed the new Gavan movie, Gaim summer movie, Drive x Ghost and Rider 1, all movies which performed badly, and in fact got increasingly lower numbers if you don't count Gavan. So, he returned to the mega crossover movies with Chou Super Hero Taisen for seemingly a last attempt at this directing gig - They even hid name from the marketing, only listing him as the director when there was the first screening. That shows pretty clearly even Toei realized that his name was poison (He is the CEO of JAE too, from where Toei gets most of their suit actors, which is probably why he got so many chances). CSHT performed even worse than Rider 1 though, marking the end of the spring crossover movies and Osamu Kaneda's career as a director (well, he technically "directed" a compilation movie for Amazons s1 but that's just cutting and pasting existing footage). Kaneda's Super Hero Taisen movies specifically have assistant directors who often handle some secondary battles, which helps improving them visually, but it all falls apart when the big climatic battles are handled in a sloppy way due to going back to Kaneda's main staff. In Chou Super Hero Taisen, specifically, you've got the fairly dynamic battles in the tournament... which are basically irrelevant story-wise and basically have no script (with only Momotaros getting a scene outside of battle), but then the big climatic Brave vs True Brave battle, which should be the big emotional climax of the story, is a sloppy brawl where they just slash each other until the finisher, with no abilities used beforehand or any real flow to the fight. And then you have the actual final battle where you just get both heroes and villains one shot by weak looking finishers too (wasting even the returning heroes with actors, like Zolda).
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09-08-2019, 05:18 PM | #40 |
Master Procrastinator
Join Date: Sep 2015
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I agree with you on the True and Another Ending movies. True was mostly forgettable with nothing to do with the series really while Another actually wrapped up the dangling plot threads and developed the characters further. I consider it the real ending to the series, whatever it might be called.
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