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10-13-2017, 03:52 PM | #1 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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I don't think anyone's made a discussion thread for this yet? It's been subbed by TV-Nihon for a while, but I guess nobody here was very enthusiastic about it. I don't blame them. If you enjoyed the first two SHT movies a lot, the good news is that this is one really SHT-y movie. If you were more of a fan of the notably more focused movies we've been getting since Kamen Rider Taisen, well, the bad news is this is one really SHT-Y movie, if you'll pardon my French.
It seriously feels like a regression, and while I've had my fun with these movies (I'm not afraid to admit I enjoyed SHT Z a lot), and even though I don't think Chou Super Hero Taisen is anywhere near as much of a misfire as the original, it didn't click with me at all, so I've decided to embrace the spirit of shoddily written, out of character behavior for this one. Just call me True Fish Sandwich, because I'll be ranting at length about what a mess this movie is like some kind of twisted mirror version of myself. We're talking a full summary here. The ULTIMATE analysis/roast of a film nobody, including me, cares about. Are you ready? Because I'm ready. The movie opens up with the Kyurangers fighting off a fleet of spaceships from the game Xevious. If this actually sounds awesome and not terrible, it is! But in a way that's even more terrible, because it tricks you into thinking this movie might be cool. The movie immediately tries to make up for having an effectively done intro that sets up both the Kamen Rider and the Super Sentai part of this crossover film by just sort of awkwardly cutting away mid-fight. Not after some climactic moment, like the Kyurangers being defeated, thus establishing how serious the threat is. They're just firing some lasers at each other when *BAM*! Title card! We then move on to the Ex-Aid cast treating a very familiar patient. It's Amu from Zyuohger! I'll get to describing how disappointing her role here is, but first, let's just take a second to appreciate this downright Shakespearean dialogue. Absolutely magical. We catch up with Amu after some offscreen surgery and find out, that, according to Emu (based entirely on her looking kind of sad when he brings up the subject), she has PTSD from whatever it was that resulted in her being injured. So that fun, perky character you remember fondly from TV? She ain't here. Hopefully you can make due because for the next hour and thirty minutes this is what you get instead. It's not like the whole appeal of a movie like this is seeing characters you like interact with each other... Hiiro is being his usual jerky self, straight out of early Ex-Aid, despite this taking place far enough into the show for Emu to have Maximum Mighty X. Strap in for another watered down version of the exact same character arc he has in everything else, only this time written with all the nuance and subtlety of... well, of a Super Hero Taisen film. Actually, I say "far enough into the show", but it's not like I know how any of the continuity here works out. Maybe this is a version of Hiiro who never had any of that growth. I weep for the poor souls that care about the concept of canon, because trying to put any thought into how the dozens of disparate shows from two entirely different franchises could POSSIBLY fit together will only bring pain and sadness. Amu mentions the ships that attacked Seoul in the opening apparently messed up Zyuland something fierce, but unless Kuroto Dan set up a branch of Genm Corp. in the entire other world where Zyuland exists, I have no clue how they got there. This is even before mentioning that Zyuland is a pretty low-tech place or how assuming the events of Zyuohger's finale happened only further confuse the issue. The next scene really highlights the single most massive problem with this whole series of movies. The Kyurangers show back up, and are after Poppy. Oh no! This is a thing the good guys say, apparently. Their entire basis for going after her is that, since she's a game character, she must have some connection to the game characters going around blowing places up. Emu makes half an attempt to talk things over but Taiga shows up and the CR crew just sort of decide to pick a fight with them? Taiga's actions here check out, and I'll give you Hiiro, but considering this is a universe where Emu and everybody else knows what a Sentai is, you'd think there'd be an inherent understanding they're not actually enemies? The Kyurangers likewise recognize Riders, but a throwaway line from Champ after the fight vaguely suggests they're considered untrustworthy? This is a potentially interesting idea, but again, don't go expecting world-building in a world that is inherently illogical. After the appearance of more vintage Namco enemies breaks up the fight and provides an opportunity to introduce True Brave and his army of virtual heroes, Emu remembers he's Emu and just tries asking Lucky to let them handle this whole game world invasion. Lucky remembers he's Lucky and agrees without a moment's hesitation, making the keen observation... Okay, so, let's just ignore how hilariously obvious this fact is, and instead focus on WHY YOU MORONS WERE EVEN FIGHTING EACH OTHER THEN!!! To recap, we've got Amu as a total buzzkill, a barely two-dimensional Hiiro, Kyurangers that engage in racial profiling, milquetoast Emu making no effort to avoid pointless fights, and meathead Lucky getting in pointless fights with people he knows are on the same side as him. This right here is where CSHT and its ilk always fail. They go beyond character assassination and into straight up character genocide all in the name of creating mildly entertaining action scenes that probably could've easily been created without actively crapping on everyone involved. Tell me, do you want to watch a movie where all your favorite heroes team up to fight evil? If you said "yes", I have a follow up question. Do you want to watch a movie where all your favorite heroes team up to look like f***ing idiots and maybe if they've got some spare time fight evil or something? If you said "no", you clearly weren't involved with the production of Chou Super Hero Taisen. I think the big reason this movie so profoundly failed to engage me is that I've just gotten done watching a ton of Ultraman movies, and quite bluntly, Tsuburaya makes Toei's attempts at fanservice look absolutely pathetic. You could watch Ultraman Saga knowing literally nothing about the franchise and come out with a strong desire to watch Ultraman Dyna. With these train wrecks? If you knew nothing about the shows involved, you'd probably assume they're as brainless and dull as the movie you just watched was. There's no love here, and even worse, no respect. Where's the fun in watching one of my favorite Zyuohgers violently claw at one of my favorite Showa Riders, you know? One is horribly mischaracterized and the other is just a suit and some grunts. ARE they even characters? There should be this simple joy to seeing so many familiar faces on screen at once and yet Toei keeps finding ways to make it feel hollow. I could probably stop this whole post right here. I mean, I think those last couple paragraphs tell you all you need to know. But belive it or not, there's still more problems to discover here. The first of which being, don't get too attached to the Kyurangers. You may have gotten the impression this story was going to be some kind of team up between the then-currently airing Rider and Sentai, but if you got that impression, you haven't been paying attention. The Kyurangers by and large leave the story until towards the end here, with the exception of Naga and ONLY Naga, due to his lack of emotions tying into the plot. The CR crew is very clearly at the center of the film, further undermining the entire premise by putting more focus on one franchise than the other. I know people get tired of Reds getting too much attention, but surely in a big, "event" film like this, the leader of the newest Sentai should be there repping his franchise? The narrative is ultimately about Hiiro, but they didn't just shunt Emu out of the plot 20 minutes in. Case in point, the next 25 minutes or so of the movie center around the heroes' attempt to get the virtual heroes of the game world to help fight the virtual bad guys, with the focus being on Emu and his ragtag team of heroes participating in a tournament against other teams of heroes to become the Go-Riders and go save the world. If this sounds like a simple and fun premise for a big team up film, that's because it is! But of course, CSHT manages to suck all the joy out of this idea by making it a single act of the plot rather than the focus of the whole thing. How rushed is it? We just skip over all but the first and last fights of Emu's team. No joke. All those fun team lineups you saw in the trailer? Hope you weren't dead set on seeing most of them. We also get some more half-hearted fanservice. No you aren't! You're at best 1/5 of Den-O! Momo, man, I love ya', but just because Takeru Satou is now far too big to ever come back to Toku doesn't mean you get to go around claiming to be him. Stop showing up in movies and doing this! Oh, and CSHT is so shockingly lazy they didn't even remember to do the obligatory "Momotaros possesses current Rider lead" gag. I guess they at least have Momotaros mistakenly call Emu Ryoutarou? Like, that's something? Oh, and just in case this trotting out of a once beloved character wasn't insulting enough, Urataros briefly shows up solely to hit on ToQ 5, who I'll remind you is an actual child. Anyway, during all this, we cut to some scenes establishing the backstory with the kid who created Chou Super Hero Taisen. The game IN the movie, I mean. A child probably would've made a better film than this. This kid, Eito (who is a kid in Tokusatsu and thus unlikable) has some history with Hiiro that plays into the whole deal with True Brave. It's the emotional throughline of the story, and if I'm being honest, it's not horrible or anything, but the redundant nature of Hiiro's arc, and all the other nonsense surrounding it make the whole thing exceptionally dull. At any rate, the gist is that Eito is a genius programmer with a serious lack of emotions who refused treatment for his illness. Hiiro, consummate professional that he is, didn't perform an operation on an unwilling patient, and shortly thereafter Eito mysteriously disappeared into his own game. Emu's team finally win the tournament and become the Go-Riders, and while the following sequence would make a great climax to the version of this movie that was actually about the tournament, here it's just another in the long line of non-sequitur action scenes you get in a film like this. Afterwards the whole thing is revealed as an elaborate ruse, and it turns out True Brave is actually plotting to make the game world real by destroying the real world, thus allowing Eito to get back to the real world, which would then be the game world. If that sounds like nonsense, it isn't, but it DOES sound pretty stupid. This is the part where things go nuts. We've got a ton of heroes in the real world fighting off the hordes of villains from the game world, Hiiro going into the game world to sever the connection between it and the real world, and Emu, Poppy, and Naga going into the game world to talk to Eito. These all play out simultaneously but I'm going to cover them in isolation. The real world stuff is mostly just there to bring the big action, so mostly I just want to further show how completely inept the storytelling is when it comes to the universe by pointing out that the rest of the Zyuohgers show up to bail Amu out of trouble, and a quick line where she expresses surprise that they're alive is all the resolution we get on the whole "Zyuland got destroyed" thing. It's a great payoff, I know. Emu's chunk of the game world plotline merges with Hiiro's eventually but not before he gets into a fight with more pointless cameos while Poppy and Naga go on ahead. It's actually a sort of highlight of the film, as Emu gets to show his gamer skills by searching for power ups to even the odds in a tough fight. The problem being he's running around repeatedly smashing his face into walls. The perfect metaphor for what it feels like to watch this movie, really. I don't know, it's just... I don't feel particularly clever when I run around mashing the open key on every inch of wall to find secret doors in Doom, you know? Naga and Poppy chat it up with Eito, leading to a frustratingly well done scene where Naga is brought to tears by how sad Eito's lack of emotions is. I say frustrating because, like, dang, maybe just save a huge moment like Naga crying for his show? Again, every solid element of this movie gets dragged down by all the nonsense surrounding it, making it real hard to get invested in anything happening. On which note, Brave and Brave fighting is a fine enough face-off in which Hiiro (the real one) spells out the reasons he's the good guy here despite his attitude, but unfortunately in the process he inadvertently reveals the crippling flaw with his role in this story. Oops. Once everybody catches up to each other, Hiiro engages in some classic forced drama as he refuses to explain to his friends what his plan is as he severs the connection between the worlds. Literally severs. It's a big blue light made of pixels shooting into the sky he cuts with his sword. This seemingly screws over Eito's hopes of ever returning to reality. After the big slam-bang climax (which is, again, frustratingly fine taken by itself), we of course find out this isn't the case, and he somehow left just enough of the connection for Eito to leave? That sounds like nonsense to me, but hey, there's nothing Hiiro can't cut. Or not cut, in this case. He's very precise is the point. Long story short, everything works out, the heroes all say their goodbyes (another frustratingly well done moment), the overly dramatic song playing during the credits tries desperately to convince you the film you just watched was about something, and just like that, you've blown 94 minutes of your life. So that's pretty much Chou Super Hero Taisen? Is anybody even still reading this? Did anybody even watch the movie? I'd be especially curious to hear any differing opinions. I played up the bit a little, but I really didn't have a great time with this one, and I figure if I don't like it, everybody else must hate it? At least I think that's how this works. I don't know why I felt so inspired to talk about CSHT, or how bored I must've been to write this overly long recap, but to be honest I'm just glad I found a way to get some real enjoyment out of it at the end of the day.
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Last edited by Fish Sandwich; 10-13-2017 at 03:59 PM.. |
10-13-2017, 04:11 PM | #2 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,424
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I knew, logically speaking, that there was one of these this year, but god as my witness I had forgotten ever seeing any of the promotional material for it. I guess this is what the Kamen Gorider thing was from, though, wasn't it?
In any case, I'm probably going to skip it. I kinda really hate the Kyurangers. |
10-13-2017, 10:58 PM | #3 |
Member
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 843
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You know, the frustrating thing about Toei is that, despite constantly forcing crossovers down our throat every year, they never really go all the way with it. Kamen Rider kind of exists in a connected world... except it doesn't. New Kamen Riders use the powers and abilities of old riders but they rarely have any meaningful interaction them. Even worse, old Kamen Riders never really talk with their Kouhai about meaning of the title and the sacrifices they would have to make by taking it.
I'm not asking for special where Build and Ex-Aid are forced to come to terms with the fact they will now be fighting Shocker for all eternity, because lord knows that even if something were to happened to them they will be brought back from the dead every single time those damn zombies come back, I just want something that shows that they actually give a damn about their legacy. Say what you will about Ultraman's crossovers, at least they give you a reason to give a damn about its heroes. As for the movie itself... I didn't hate it. It was exactly what I expected from a Super Hero Taisen movie. I kind of want to say that the video game versions of these characters shouldn't be compared so closely to their real life counterparts, maybe this version of Kagura is an adult?, but I don't really want to give this movie that much credit so... |
10-13-2017, 11:30 PM | #4 |
take me to space
Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 1,406
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I've long since resigned that these movies are just excuses for flashy action and special effects scenes, and go in with that expectation, but it perplexes me how they seem to both put in too little and too much effort at the same time. There's usually rather nonsensical plot to justify the different heroes coming together which gets way more attention and detail than it really needs, and yet it still feels like the movie does not care at all about said plot. (I think GP two years ago at least came close, though.)
How hard is it really to just nail down a simple premise of 'bad guy shows up, heroes then go after them'? I mean, that's really the only ultimate goal of these movies anyhow, so why bother making it more convoluted than it needs to be. Also all those cameos from returning actors were totally wasted. As for this movie specifically, there's nothing worthwhile to note, I don't think, and it was near-impossible to care about any of the story or characters. Biggest highlight to me will probably always be the goofy 'fight' of Ex-Aid Level 10 vs Triple Amazon Threat. |
10-15-2017, 09:40 AM | #5 |
Professional Lurker
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 124
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Honestly to me, CSHT is one of those movies that I get more enjoyment making fun of it than actually watching it. Case in point, I thought your little review/rant was hilarious and I'm glad I read it, while the movie just kind of... annoyed me at some points. I still liked bits of it, but unless I have someone else to crack jokes with, I dont see myself watching this movie in its entirety ever again.
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10-15-2017, 09:58 AM | #6 |
New Member
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 34
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It just felt like they were fighting for the sake of fighting. And I was literally nodding off at the part where Naaga was talking to Eito about his tears.
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10-15-2017, 10:05 AM | #7 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 2,486
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no offense, but they should take a break with these special movies.
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