[Den-O]

Quote:

Originally Posted by algo448

Watched Ultraman Zero: The Revenge of Belial.

And I absolutely loved it, it was great to finally see more of Zero as a character, since his role in Ultra Galaxy Legends was rather small. The other characters were great too Glenfire and Jean-Bot are polar opposites and played each other very well. Mirror Knight was definitely more quiet than the rest but I liked him too and he had some awesome moments.
The human side was good too, I didn't expect Nao to actually be likeable; like Mirror Knight Emerana was rather quiet but I liked her role. Ran was simply Zero's host and nothing else, so nothing much to say there.

The plot was simple but effective, a search to find the Shield of Baradhi aka Ultraman Noa, I have no idea how he ended up in an alternate universe though. And I seriously doubt Nexus will explain that.

And the music was great too! Loved the opening and ending themes.

On the other side I do have a few nitpicks, first of all the narrator, his exposition was completely unnecesary, everytime he says something it's either obvious or another character explains it too, making him redundant. I did like his final line.

And Belial didn't feel like such a big threat this time, last time he took on all the Ultras by himself, froze the land of light and had an army made of all the dead monsters. Whereas in this movie neither his army nor his final form. Were particulary impressive, he simply was in the movie because they needed a villain, which is a shame because he was really cool in Ultra Galaxy Legends.

But besides that I loved it, there's a certain charm about the Ultra heroes that the other Toku heroes don't have, like Superman I guess.

On the other side the more I like Zero the less I like Seven, I know it's unfair to judge him based on two movies that don't focus on him, but Seven could have avoided most of the problems with Belial if he had been a responsible parent for Zero.

It really is a great film. It's what got ,e into the Ultra franchise. Have you seen the Zero/Darklops side stories that go between Revenge and Galaxy? Also pretty good stuff. I'll agree with you on the characters too. Ultimate Force Zero is a solid roster, Glenfire is the Momotaros of Ultraman so of course I love him, and Jean-Bot is a fantastic robo design. Great voice overs all around too.

And the thing with Next/Noa/Nexus etc is that they're universe was originally conceived as a new alternate reboot universe to the original M78 Ultra universe. Nexus, or rather The Next, was meant to be the original Ultraman for a new generation. The basis of a rebooted franchise. But with poor ratings for Nexus, and it's abrupt cancellation Tsuburaya shifted gears to Max and went back to the original universe. Forgetting all about the Nexus-verse until the Revenge of Belial. Hence Noa became the lost Ultra.

And being the lost Ultra and all that, that's why Noa never had crossovers with his "predecessors" and he was never really included in the M78 universe. Noa/Nexus, Jean-Bot, Mirror Knight, and Glenfire are from the same universe. Of course outside of Noa the others have returned to M78 with Zero.