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Sky Crawlers, The
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Animation - 8.5 |
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Sound - 8.5 |
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Story - 6.8 |
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Character - 7.3 |
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Value - 7.5 |
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Enjoyment - 7.3 |
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Average - 7.6 |
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Avalanche |
(2009-10-21 10:51:20) 2009-10-21 10:08:46 |
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| Average |
6.5 |
| Animation |
9 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Story |
4 |
| Character |
7 |
| Value |
5 |
| Enjoyment |
6 |
| Sky Crawlers is the most recent work of the famed anime director Mamoru Oshii. It is a movie which is very different from Oshii’s previous works (GITS, Jin-Roh) in the sense that there is no concrete plot in the movie – it is more like that the viewer is shown a small part of a larger picture, with the larger picture is left for the viewer to interpret. I went into the film with little expectation or background and came out with mixed emotions. It is certainly not a bad movie, but it can be said for certain that this is not a movie which can be seen by the average anime viewer. Indeed I would have a hard time recommending this movie to anyone expect those who like works which border on the avant-garde or those who like independent cinema with a huge focus on the auteur theory of film making.
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| Average |
9.3 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Story |
10 |
| Character |
9 |
| Value |
10 |
| Enjoyment |
10 |
| This is a story about Eternal Child who fight the war just to entertain people. The eternal child is despite from normal human, where they can live as long as they want and remain child form. Main reason why eternal child have thrown to war for rest of their "life", or there is no "life" to begin with.
This movie does not have a simple story that everyone would understand. It seems to be nothing and emptiness in general, but the story itself is quite deep. It requires a lot of Literature skills to understand the whole movie. Especially there is a lot of symbolism into this one.
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| Average |
6.2 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Story |
5 |
| Character |
5 |
| Value |
7 |
| Enjoyment |
4 |
| Simply put, Sky Crawlers is a movie about young fighter pilots. It is extremely slow paced, has dead characters (think Napoleon Dynamite with out the comedy) and has none of the thematic elements that make a story engaging or entertaining. While it is a passable social critique (if you know what the critique is before you watch it, otherwise you will never figure it out), it utterly fails as an interesting movie.
Depending on who you talk to, Sky Crawlers is either a social commentary about the anime industry and how it produces the same cookie cutter stories over and over again, or it is about Japanese youth (the otaku and hikikomori) who are content to live their lives doing the same thing every day with no social interaction and no progression. However, this movie is so far removed from what it is actually commenting on, no one would know what sort of critique it was trying to make if its director had not explicitly explained it in a series of interviews after the movie was released. The fact that no one could figure out what the movie was actually about with out the director's help does not indicate a polished product at a story or commentary level.
The reason Sky Crawlers is a commentary instead of a movie is because it is lacking the basic elements that a good story is supposed to have. A story should have a theme and a plot. While Sky Crawlers is oozing with theme, it is severely lacking in the plot department. A plot generally involves a struggle or conflict that reaches a climax and then has some sort of resolution. Sky Crawlers, instead, had a string of related events with no real build up or resolution to any conflict. A story should also have an antagonist. If there is nothing at stake, there is no story. However, Sky Crawlers had none. Finally, a good story needs a transformation. If nothing changed from the beginning to the end, what was the point of the story? This is exactly the problem with Sky Crawlers, nothing changed for the whole movie. And while this worked to create social commentary on the monotony of the anime industry or Japanese youth, it sacrificed the plot and the entertainment of its viewers to do so.
If you want to watch social commentary in abstract form, this movie is for you. If you are looking for an actual story and want to actually enjoy what you watch, stay far far away.
Average Rating is a 7
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|
fnord |
(2009-03-18 11:09:56) 2009-03-02 08:27:45 |
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| Average |
8.5 |
| Animation |
9 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Story |
8 |
| Character |
8 |
| Value |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
9 |
| The Sky Crawlers is a movie about children immune to aging fighting a reglemented war until they are killed in the skies.
Animation:
High-quality cell animation and immaculate CG during aerial combat. The dogfights are flawless, but some of the cell movement seems slow. This could have been done for artistic purposes, but slightly faster movements would have improved this category to perfection. Artwork-wise I was hard-pressed to decide whether the character designs work. I would say 'yes', but since I thought about it for so long, it is definitely a 'yes' with reservations.
Sound:
Top-notch sound effects and great music. The main seiyuu speaks surprisingly good english, not only from a grammatical but also from a pronounciation point of view.
Story:
Apart from the setting, not a whole lot of imagination went into the plot structure. Since it isn't the emphasis though (which are the characters) this can be forgiven.
Characters:
The conflict of the characters in relation to their semi-mortality is the heart of the movie. What exactly the characters think about it, though, is only told indirectly and fairly slowly. In conjunction with the not-so-speedy plot, an unmotivated viewer is easily lead to think the movie is pointless and slow. However, the views of the characters are quite intricate, even though a lot of it is only hinted at. Except for structural points, characterization is good.
Value:
My own subs were just watchable, nothing that I would like to archive. Since I will buy the DVD, that is not a permanent problem. Rewatch value is probably moderate, it's a good movie after all. I am likely to bump up this category once different subs/dubs have become available.
edit: Bumped from 7 to 8 due to much better subs.
Enjoyment:
It requires a little patience and the motivation to actively think while watching, but is definitely a great movie. I would recommend this to everyone who is aware that it isn't a light watch.
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