[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurona

Nothing's ever completely resolved and there's always remnants hiding in the shadows. I can totally believe that there would be some threat out there after the end of any given Rider series that our heroes would have to fight against, and that doesn't invalidate their stories or the value of an ending; it's something we could easily have assumed without the need of a Returns movie fleshing out the idea or a teamup movie giving us new antagonists. Our heroes still saved lives, still developed as people, still formed bonds and had their journey together -- it's just that there's other things remaining.

The way it bothers me most is in a thematic sense. The story that was designed around them, the villains they fought, the journey, that's over. If they fight another, bigger villain, if there's one more bigger crisis... it's like it cheapens the real ending of the story to me. (Controversial opinion: I maybe don't ever want Eiji to finish questing to bring back Ankh?) It's like in Ghost, when Takeru hugs Adel, that's the end of the story. That's everything the series was about, and it ended the story in the best way possible. Then Takeru detonates a giant monster. That extra, bigger boss, it makes me so mad because it takes a good ending and then puts another lesser ending after it. With a lot of the Another Ending movies, or New World movies, it's not they couldn't fight another monster, it's that narratively they shouldn't fight another monster.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurona

For returns movies specifically, they've got an interesting framing device to most of them: they always put a secondary rider in the spotlight. Now, I'm not saying that Chase or Hiiro weren't fully fleshed out riders who needed a movie to make them good characters; what I'm saying is that they were still secondary characters and hence while they had their own journeys, it was still Shinnosuke and Emu whose stories their series were about. So Returns movies can feel less like retreads in this sense because it's now positioning different people as the main characters.

To be my own Devil's Advocate, if movie sequels and follow-ups spotlight secondary Riders, I'm more than okay with it. I thought the Another Ending flicks were varying levels of quality (how could you forget the endless refrain of "Hiiro" from the Brave/Snipe movie, I wish I could), but I think the Lazer/Genm one was everything I'd've wanted from an Ex-Aid continuation. It took a plotline that maybe had a bit more juice in it, Kiriya V Kuroto, and gave it some space to find a sensible conclusion. (Like, obviously, giving Kiriya the spotlight is an easy way to elevate a film. That's a no-brainer.) That stuff, where it's a thread that needed a few more minutes, those are acceptable to me. But, like, then you get the Grease movie, which is about nothing new, it's all Greatest Hits, and it feels flimsy and poorly considered. It's a gamble to try to add more story, and I just don't think it's worth the risk.