[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

I especially loved having Shotaro and Philip in there; the brief scene were all 3.5 Riders were interacting is a personal favorite. I was really looking forward to having all of the Phase 2 Riders keep showing up in subsequent films, but that obviously didn't happen. That leaves this movie as the one time when it really felt like Toei was developing a permanent bench of returning Kamen Riders.

Yeah, it's real nice. I like how both Eiji and Gentaro are like Help Us Double You're Our Only Hope. Later movies treat the returning Riders as additional fighters, or an extra push at the finale. This one really spent a few minutes with Shotaro and Philip as a steadying hand. Not just the sort of cryptic weirdo Tsukasa acts like in a film we'll cover in the future/probably Thursday, or the sort of random guest star Gentaro himself will eventually be, but someone the newer heroes can go to when things are too much for them. I really liked that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

There are times, though - and I think that the Fourze summer movie is probably the worst Rider example of this - where his appreciation for action girls starts getting into fetish territory.

Maybe! It's still fun to see Satonaka kick ass, so I don't know if I'm that mad at his choices here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

I'll always feel that having the O7 here feels kind of pointless in the overall scheme of the film's story. That said, I love getting to see all of the classic finishers done with modern cinematography, especially stuff like V3 and X's, which always depended on multiple shots to mask the questionable physics. It was also nice to see Stronger getting the leading role as a tribute to his actor, who had died earlier that year.

The other cool thing that they added to this film would be something we still get in crossover movies to this day: Legend Rider collectibles! There's the incredibly stupid plot point of Foundation X turning the Seven Legendary Riders into the exact right amount of collectibles to go in the OOO Driver and Fourze Driver, which launched a thousand Legend Rider gimmicks for every future DX Driver. (I mean, I think it debuted here? I don't recall the W or OOO movies featuring Legend Rider collectibles. Someone can let me know if I got the timeline wrong!) Just seeing Fourze open up the case with, like, a Riderman Astro-Switch... it's very dumb, and very cool.