[DreadBringer]

I don't know if I should do this, but yeah... I want to post this screenshot though... even the subtitle was reversed!

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

"KAMEN RIDER KABUTO" - GOD SPEED LOVE

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.

Yeah as usual, Kabuto's main draw is the visuals, with Kabuto being a popcorn spectacle that is made to look cool.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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.

Kagami at the beginning wants to make peace between ZECT and Neo ZECT, but Kagami participated without question, only that he had to be tied in with the title character, by that they know, they have to fight against the system. Probably he's firmly on ZECT side but he wants for ZECT not to overpunish those that are against him. Although Yamato seems to exhibit a display of honor here, he's a full-blown villain though. And the one that is not a bad guy among the 3 Riders who use Kabutech is Oda a.k.a Kamen Rider Hercus. Yamato is a zealot for ZECT, and his final words are his alleigance to it while he burns like Ultraman Taro using Ultra Dynamite, and if not for Kagami here, he believes that anyone who betrayed ZECT must be destroyed.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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.

The most egregious sin is that there’s basically nothing from the Kabuto series in this movie. Some suits, sure (hope no one wanted to see Sasword’s suit outside of a brief shot from a big battle scene), but none of the themes or characters or warmth or humor or intelligence. Everything in it is at best a pointless deviation, and at worst a fundamental misinterpretation of what worked from the series.

Hiyori died due to an exposure of the meteor dust btw. Probably the intelligence part is in this movie, where as pointed out, Tendou is manipulative here and plays both ZECT and Neo ZECT like a fiddle; Tendou manipulates the Riders into fighting, Kagami into giving him intel on the space station, Neo-ZECT into trusting him, and then betrayed almost everyone.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Like, what the hell was this even about? Gone are the themes of humility, of teamwork, of empathy. Instead, there’s just this bland nationalism, two men dedicating themselves to saving a weak lady, and every character from the show saying some recognizable catchphrase before dying randomly. Daisuke is a freedom fighter, Hiyori smiles a lot, Kagami doesn’t trust Tendou, Tendou is demonstrative and emotional at the drop of a hat, Yaguruma is some stooge, Misaki contributes nothing besides looking great, everything’s post-apocalyptic and brutal… why would I want to watch a Kabuto movie that doesn’t include anything I love from the TV show? Megumi from Ryuki is in this, and she’s as close to her character from that show as the Kabuto actors are in this movie to their show. It’s all In Name Only bullshit, up and down the cast.

This movie is a prequel to the TV series where time travel is used to improve things where if in this movie, the meteor impact is enormous and dried the ocean, then Hyper Kabuto time travelling to the past to crash the present meteor into the first meteor, foiling Mishima's plan and minimizing the impact of the first meteor, into only damaging Shibuya and creates the birth of the Kabuto timeline you enjoy. Daisuke being a freedom fighter makes sense as he proclaims himself to be a wind which blows everywhere freely, so it fits his character to seek for that if, at least in Neo-ZECT's eyes, he's deprived of it. I thought you'd give a leeway on Hiyori smiling here, but actually no. Ironically Hiyori is uncharacteristically more upbeat here, despite the analogy mentioned above where Tokyo Tower got reduced to horrible mess which symbolizes miserable characters with pointless lives. Hiyori still has that personality too in the ending, altered timeline scene however, albeit this explains the source of the angelic entity she draws; it's based on Hyper Kabuto/Tendou, and him disappearing in an altered timeline. There's another likely flaw here too where in main series Hiyori remembers being trapped in a room, not under rubble, and only seeing Tendou from a distance, not knowing who he was. I want to ask though, wdym about Morishita (Megumi) being as close to her character from that show?

This is something about OOC, which I also detest if this happened (I'll give dislikes far more to adaptations, if they do something that far deviates from the original source, with OOC being one of them). but to make it fair, you gave more free pass if the OOC is about an attempt (emphasis on attempt, funny or not depends, like for example just turning anyone to assholes) at giving comedy (rule of funny)? I think for example in the franchise, Missing Ace's characters all turned into varying degrees of jerk (GSL's OOC is bad though, no defense for that). That won't be a fair judgment IMO though.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

God Speed Love took a series about humility, about self-improvement, about stepping aside when someone else is better suited to solve a problem… and it turned it into some weird thing about secret siblings and chemistry-free romance.

Pre Den-O movies had a tendency to spoil something from the main series, like previously in Faiz, where Takumi is actually an Orphnoch. In this case for God Speed Love, it spoils that Tendou and Hiyori are sisters. So yeah, Tendou had selective care towards family, like Juka, but as for why Tendou also cares for as much to Hiyori, it's the same as Juka's, Hiyori being Tendou's sister, they bring the best of him. So yeah, Yui Satonaka was actually sick in this film, and it was the beginning of her dwindling on the main series...

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

So of course this movie isn’t just Not Kabuto, it’s also set entirely within a Stupid Dystopia. The premise of it is ridiculous, in ways that are constantly, inescapably distracting. The asteroid that hits in 1999 vaporizes the world’s oceans, creating a brutal hellscape that ZECT rules with an iron fist. (if your government starts handing out half-capes to its soldiers and bureaucrats, congratulations, you now live in a parable about fascism!) Meanwhile, Neo-ZECT wars against ZECT, fighting for freedom.

Except, mostly it just looks like ZECT is keeping a world alive? There is a goddamn operating French restaurant, so it doesn’t seem like they’re so terrible? And, yes, I am aware that you can simultaneously have a fascist regime and French restaurants, but no one in La Salle seems especially oppressed or downtrodden. In fact, beyond a baffling third-act twist (we’ll get to it), we never really see ZECT do anything evil? Neo-ZECT keeps spouting off about freedom and oppression, but ZECT has somehow kept a world with no oceans running for seven years. Neo-ZECT comes off as terrorists and anarchists, with plenty of grievances and no proposed alternatives. I don’t… I don’t understand what the struggle is between these two factions. I never see ZECT being evil, and I’m not sure what Neo-ZECT is offering as an alternative. It’s just a bunch of fighting, and it’s about nothing.

Agree with this one. This is a post-apocalyptic planet where water is in short supply and ZECT is apparently the saviors of humanity, there should be a good reason for why there's another organization. It's unclear why Neo-ZECT wants freedom. And with you describing Neo-ZECT as terrorists and anarchists, probably that's the explanation of them wanting freedom; those 2 are the ones that take freedom to the extremes where they want to do anything that they feel like, and what I fear for those bringing up "freedom" (taking it to the extremes to do whatever they please), with the only rant from them being "doesn't like being ordered". It's also unclear where do they suspect ZECT as evil.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

That’s all cast off (if you will) with a third-act twist: Kagami Outrageous and Goro are bringing a new asteroid to Earth to wipe out what’s left of humanity.

WHY. WHY IN THE-- WHY. WHY.

Kizukeba I came too far...

Can't talk about this more as the plot for Kabuto recently is to uncover what lies behind ZECT, but in this movie yeah, Riku is also the main antagonist alongside Mishima.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It’s a movie that disappoints; constantly, repeatedly, thoroughly. No one does anything that makes any sense. (When Tendou tells Oda he might betray him, Oda’s like I Love It You’re The Best Tendou.) The golden Rider ends up being just some guy. Hiyori’s plot is hollow, miserablism disguised as profundity. It doesn’t feel like anyone in the film (outside of siblings) likes each other, cares about each other. There’s only one intentional joke that I saw, where Kagami stutters his way through a proposal. Otherwise, it’s just a bleak film where anyone you were excited to spend time with dies horribly. And they’re mostly meaningless deaths, unheroic in the moment (Oda, Daisuke) or missing enough context to feel integral (Yamato). Whatever fun or warmth there is in the Kabuto series, this movie not only lacks it, it replaces it with maudlin melodrama and pointless deaths.

Caucasus, the Golden Rider, parallels Odin yeah as been already said, both are golden Rider, ZECT's most powerful soldier and the biggest threat Tendou and Kagami have to contend with, the obstacle that has to be defeated if you want to win, appears as the final Rider after the other Riders are fighting each other - or when the hero calls/draws him out, something that the hero needs his super form with, blue rose petal to golden feathers, time based power in Hyper Clock Up time travel and Time Vent. So I guess, this is your limits regarding melodrama.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

A QUESTION

Please remind me of happier times. What’s your favorite Kamen Rider movie? (Please, no spoilers if it’s from Den-O through Decade or Zi-O up.)

Haven't seen much of the franchise's movies so can't say much. I wouldn't care if the discussion is about something that is a part of my happier times or the opposite though (so yeah, like if others have differing views about the movie, or if I'm still allowed to do this), I think I just jumped if a discussion comes and it's about something I know and followed, whenever liked or disliked, which I can participate.