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Macross Frontier Movie 2 thread - Now available on Blu-ray/DVD


Tochiro

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Dang my 2007 computer can't handle this 1080 HD video. It gets all pixelated as the computer is trying to keep up. Anyone got a 720 or 480 quality of this?

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So it's 50/50 or a 5/10. I'll not be surprised if you kept on your rose-tinted lenses while saying DYRL was one true masterpiece of the whole franchise.

Sayonara no Tsubasa is way better paced film than DYRL ever was and I think narrative is much more skillfully manipulated... and multi-leveled to boot, which makes it all the more impressive. DYRL is fantastic and one of the best 80s anime films but I think it was one upped by Sayonara apart from nostalgia factor, especially in terms of storytelling.

nice to see the oh so familiar positive feedback flooding in here. That's exactly how I felt after getting my mind blown last spring :)

Edited by Xard
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Dang my 2007 computer can't handle this 1080 HD video. It gets all pixelated as the computer is trying to keep up. Anyone got a 720 or 480 quality of this?

Commie's own website has multiple options/resolutions. http://commiesubs.com/

Anyways---I liked the first movie a lot better.

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Commie's own website has multiple options/resolutions. http://commiesubs.com/

The problem, I believe, is the CCCP codec as they recently changed their subs into 10bit. I know they did it for HD subbed anime, so they might did it for 480 or 360 as well. Thus either you update your CCCP codec, or you download the HD version from other sub group, as downloading the lower res from commie probably dun work if you dun get the new CCCP.

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The problem, I believe, is the CCCP codec as they recently changed their subs into 10bit. I know they did it for HD subbed anime, so they might did it for 480 or 360 as well. Thus either you update your CCCP codec, or you download the HD version from other sub group, as downloading the lower res from commie probably dun work if you dun get the new CCCP.

I did not understand any of that. If this sub group will not work for me then will someone share the links to another sub group?

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I'm gonna agree with David. I didn't like this movie as much as the first one. The ending felt too much like Zero. It was good but I prefer the TV series over this.

I did not understand any of that. If this sub group will not work for me then will someone share the links to another sub group?

There are no other subs out right now. If you want another group, you'll have to wait. Otherwise, STOP WHINING.

http://commiesubs.com/playback/

If you want the .ass sub file, we already had a member who extracted it. -> http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=33650&view=findpost&p=936643

Download CCCP (July 30, 2011)

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Anyways---I liked the first movie a lot better.

I watched it with Chinese subtitles, I guess they were just acceptable. Any case, I was afraid to say this, but heck: I didn't like the second one.

Actually the problem was not only the Zero-type ending (which was predictable IMO). I felt that there was a general lack of creativity and although not much animation was recycled (only minor parts like the VF-171 launch?), there was a lot of Macross history tribute.

I guess what I am saying is: fan service for the younger viewers and lots of nostalgia for Macross fans, but lacking that edge SDF or DYRL had back in the day. Also, it'd probably be hard to digest for un-educated audiences that just want to watch good anime and not necessarily looking for moe.

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I was expecting Dyson's cameo to be more substantive more like the fur ball in the first few minutes of M+ from the first descriptions you gave months ago. It was still cool "yahoo" I was expecting him to bayonet a varga on screen.

thanks Raptor one I was using a tablet PC earlier and their was no spoiler button.

Edited by miles316
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Okay, since the spoiler deadline has passed, I'll give my extended impressions of the movie. If you haven't seen the movie yet, don't read this, as it will pretty much spoil everything about the movie! This is very TL;DR, but I felt like sharing my more significant thoughts on the movie:

Right out of the gate, I was blown away by Sheryl's opening concert scene. I had seen screenshots of this one and immediately thought it was pretty badass. I was not disappointed. Not only was the song brilliant, but the concert was just awesome. Whoever designed these things probably had the greatest job ever, to let their imagination run wild with whatever they could come up with. This concert was fraught with sexual innuendo, yet it was done with, in my opinion, fairly good taste. I've never liked gratuitous fanservice in the series I watch, but this was handled well. heh heh.... stamen and pistil...

Even though I'd never actually WATCHED it, I immediately recognized the Astro Boy clips playing in the background. Nice touch.

Beach scene: this is the only fanservice that I could really complain about. Although it was nice scenery, it was an excuse to get the girls into bikini tops that were a little too tight and maybe they were drawn with some extra curves, if you know what I mean. I rolled my eyes, but smiled anyway... it was nice to look at. ;) I laughed so hard when Ozma caught Alto with his arm around Ranka. Captain Wilder on a surfboard? Hang ten, Cap!

The Boddole Zer Mobile Fortress was a nice touch. Felt good to see one of those things again.

The Ranka concert was, once again, pure win. Obviously, her music is aimed at a completely different demographic than Sheryl's, but I was VERY impressed with the production values. The song was so uplifting, and the concert scenes seemed like a tribute to the styles of The Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and Alice in Wonderland. Megumi Nakajima has really evolved into a much better singer than from the series. "Open, Ranka!"

The fight near the Mobile Fortress was fairly well-done. One thing that really jumped out at me was the new "chase camera" aspect they used in some of the combat scenes. Following the craft while it ducks and weaves its way through the incoming fire, while it shoots down some targets and flies through the debris... c'est magnifique! A little nod to DYRL when it showed Alto's MFD tracking the reaction missiles to their targets. The scene were the Quarter fires its buster cannon on the Vajra Queen's ship: greatest desktop wallpaper EVER.

Ranka's second costume reminds me of Wendy Ryder's costume from MII.

The scene where Alto's VF gets impaled was quite a surprise. Once again, Brera shows why he's such a badass... if only he wasn't such a dick sometimes... Ozma knows something's up with him when he's caught abandoning Alto.

I should have expected as much from Leon's efforts to foil Grace's plan. Some nice EX-gear action, there. Those soldiers were pretty badass to easily destroy all of those Galaxy agents.

I have to say, I like how Luca was actually made into a more useful character.

Okay, prison concert... I had to suspend my disbelief on this one. Why would they allow such a concert to happen, when they know that everyone in the band is close to Sheryl and EXTREMELY capable of breaking her out? I later realized that it was probably part of Leon's plan to allow it. It was absolutely perfect to have Klan, Michael, and Kanaria role-play as the members of Fire Bomber. I noticed Mena was playing keyboards, but I guess she was supposed to be the stand-in for Ray. Did anyone notice Temjin as one of the prisoners? Also, did anyone else lip sync the words to Seikan Hikou while they sang the song? :D "Tamashii ni ginga nadareteku!"

Ozma vs. Brera. Epic. I thought it was a great idea to have so much EX-gear action in this movie. I wondered why Michael and Klan inexplicably showed up in this scene and didn't really do anything, but I kind of wonder if it was just to troll the viewers when the hull breach happened. Fairly well-done scene. The loss of two of the story's heroes served as motivation for the rest of the characters to develop into something better. Sheryl's and Ozma's sacrifices were quite noble. Because of this, we see Alto evolve into the hero he truly was meant to be. You didn't see this transformation from anyone in the series. I loved how he shook off Michael's grip on his hand and returned the gesture in kind.

Good on Ranka for admitting her feelings for Alto. Mega bonus points for her maturity as a character, here in the movie.

The final battle is where the CGI really started to shine. At this point, I felt that this is where Macross sets itself apart from many other modern space combat animes. When I watched the movie, I didn't get the "Big Wednesday" reference, but I later looked it up. Very nice touch... Again, having the Quarter ride a giant piece of debris into the atmosphere to avoid burning up... another example of writing genius that not only explains how they survive re-entry, but also serves as a visually entertaining action scene. I almost cheered during that part.

Ozma and Sheryl reappear. I kind of half-expected this to happen, but to have Ai-kun show up out of nowhere and magically teleport them back inside of the dome... just seemed half-assed. I'm glad they survived to this point, but again... had to suspend my disbelief. Also, we saw Ozma spit up a bunch of blood earlier, but he seems to be okay now! Grace's redemption was a nice touch. I always suspected that she'd actually turn out to not really be the bad guy in the movie. I wonder, though... did she destroy her slave implant herself, or was it removed or destroyed by someone else? I immediately recognized Sheryl singing Northern Cross acapella, since it's my favorite song of hers.

In comes the cavalry! As expected, I almost squealed when Isamu showed up. "Ikeze (sp?), kawaii ko-chan!" I was a little disappointed that that was all we saw of him. Nice to know he's still alive and flying to his heart's content. Can you imagine the fun he probably had fighting the huge armada in front of him?

Another medley to finish out the movie, which is a nice touch. The final song was also great, too... Ranka's and Sheryl's costumes looked like something out of a Final Fantasy game. When the Vajra started humming the tune to "Aimo", I literally got the chills. Another nice touch.

Alto used himself as some sort of liason to convince the Vajra Queen that the people of Frontier are not a threat. We see that he does, in fact, make his choice as to who he wants to be with. It's unfortunate that he did not choose Ranka, but Sheryl is a better match for him. He tries to tell Sheryl, but is stopped by the Queen's fold-out. I'm pretty sure he was saying "Ai shiteru" to her when he was cut short.

At the movie's end, we're left wondering what happened to Alto, much like the ending of Zero. As has been mentioned in earlier posts, there's some kind of relationship between this ending and that of Shin and Sara. At this point, it's all conjecture, but it does a good job of making your imagination try to consider the possibilities. Although she's in a coma at the end, we all know Sheryl will make the comeback. We see her moving her lips to Ranka's song during the credits. The second song kind of implies some sort of comeback concert with Ranka.

Music/concerts: 10/10

As I mentioned earlier, the producers really outdid themselves on every level when it came to the songs and concert scenes. I really can't say much more about this subject, because I honestly don't have to! Yoko Kanno... WINNING!

CGI: 10/10

I thought the first movie was a considerable step up from the series's graphics. This movie's CGI is, yet again, another vast improvement in quality. The only thing I can think of that was negative was when they rendered the Sheryl dancers in the first concert, and the some of the fans at Ranka's concert. Everything else was a visual treat. Both the mecha and concerts were equally well-done, a balance that is harder to achieve than one would intially think.

Character development: 8.5/10

I was slightly disappointed in that many of the supporting cast did not get much of a role in EITHER of these movies. Relationships were implied and rarely, if ever, did any of those relationships find a challenge. Klan/Michael, Ozma/Cathy, Monica/Wilder... all of them seemed to already exist in their current forms. Of course, we see that Monica is simply smitten with the Captain, but he never shows any kind of behavior in return. Points were regained when we saw Alto's transformation into a hero. Still, I would have liked to see some more interaction between Klan/Michael and Ozma/Cathy. Such things would have given the movie a bit more depth in other dimensions. Ozma really shone as the "big brother" character we've all grown to love since Roy Focker. If it was possible, I'd love to have a few beers with him someday.

Combat: 9.5/10

Once again, the combat coreography was top-notch. The YF-29 is a gorgeous design, but it really didn't do much more than a similarly-equipped VF-25 with a super or tornado pack. This is where the combat lost a few points with me. As has been mentioned several times, the 29 was put in as an attempt to sell more toys. Anyone who denies that is an outright liar. ;) The chase-camera wasn't used enough, but was effective when it was implemented. I'd like to see more of that kind of cinematography in future titles. I could almost physically feel the beam cannon effects during combat. NUNS pilots were actually competent, which is something I always have to give points for.

Story: 8.5/10

We all know why this lost points. Everything was going great until the end. The ending was pretty cool, but I felt somewhat underwhelmed by the result. If Alto had been KILLED, I think it would have made better marks. However, having him disappear like that kind of rubs my fur the wrong way. I didn't feel this way about Zero's ending, and that's probably why I didn't like it in this movie; it's already been done, so cut that out! All throughout this flick, I was having to guess at who really was the bad guy. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it isn't. I like to know who to root for, besides the main characters. Leon turned out to not be such a bad guy, but he had a little bit of a mean streak in him. Trying to off Luca like that was pretty underhanded. However, his handling of the Galaxy takeover was very impressive and would have worked, if it wasn't for that meddling kid, Brera. Overall, the pacing was good. Different types of action scenes kept things spiced up. The first movie suffered from a gaping hole in the pacing, as the best parts were at the beginning and ending of the movie. This one was chock full of tempo swings and really resonated well with my attention span.

Overall: 9.3/10

I'll highly recommend this movie to all of my friends. Aside from a few snags here and there, it was an overly entertaining movie that didn't get hijacked by things like fanservice and pointless filler material. A lot happened in this movie and I found myself checking the progress bar to see how far along I'd gotten. When I expected to be 3/4 of the way through, it was actually only 1/3 done. Normally, that sounds like a bad thing, but it's not! It's as if I'd come to expect a certain amount of material and when I sensed that my quota had been met, I found out that there was still so much more to come! I had this same feeling when watching the Lord of the Rings movies. It was nice to get a bit of a follow-up scene at the end of the movie to let everyone know everything's going to be alright. When I got done watching the movie, I felt pretty good about the outcome. Aside from Alto's mysterious disappearance, everything came out with a positive tone. This movie somewhat whetted my appetite for all things Macross, but I'm still going to be patiently looking forward to the next installment in this magnificent franchise. "DECULTURE!"

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To those who haven't seen the movie but are concerned by the comments that the end is like the end of "Macross Zero", take it with a grain of salt. I did not get that vibe at all. No one is magicked away without explanation. What happens is very cut and dry.

It's just that the fate of one character is left a mystery. Personally, it felt like a heavy handed, but not unwelcome, way to suggest that this story will be seeing a continuation.

That said...Goddamn this movie was full of amazing moments!

I wouldn't say it was perfect, I agree some sequences required more than an acceptable amount of suspension of disbelief, but I can forgive it that for the parts that had me leaping out of my seat exclaiming, "HOLY CRAP!"

I always liked Captain Wilder, but after "Big Wednesday" he's exceptionally awesome.

The Isamu cameo was a great touch, I'd been avoiding any and all trailers, spoilers or chatter about this movie so I did not see it coming. Being that I had no warning of it, this was one of those "HOLY CRAP" moments that, literally, had me falling out of my seat. Having it happen along with the arrival of the Union fleet was pure awesome. It had my eyes glued to the screen trying to see if they snuck in any more cameos (I was expecting Battle 7 Diamond Force in VF-22s some VF-X raven coloured fighters, alas I saw nothing.)

If anyone had tried to explain "Big Wednesday" to me without having seen the movie I'd have groaned and began dreading seeing the movie, but seeing it first hand it is now one of my favourite Macross Frontier moments.

I think it loses something in the fact that every main "good guy" character, as far as we know, survives. Still, with the Vajra having no choice but to take Alto with them and Sheryl's state at the end, it manages a bittersweet ending which makes it stronger than the end of the TV series. Beyond being simply mysterious or open ended, the end of this second movie really looks like an intentional "to be continued". I mean, it's not like the Vajra are incapable of folding back with Alto if he survived.

Of course, now I'm expecting Ranka sitting there at Sheryle's bedside when a wild eyed Alto throws open the door, "Roads? Where we're going, we won't need any roads!"

I loved the movie. Agree that it doesn't have the edge of SDF, DYRL, Zero or Plus, but it was still a lot of fun. To me, Macross doesn't have to be just one thing, Frontier was a great series and, along with these two movies, a great send-up to the franchise.

I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it next.

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Okay thanks.

I made up a Japanese PSN account so I could watch the live PS Home concert a few months ago.

I hope that works.

EDIT: Heck yeah...got the Sheryl and Ranka themes off the JPN PS Store. :)

Edited by UN Spacy
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Okay, prison concert... I had to suspend my disbelief on this one. Why would they allow such a concert to happen, when they know that everyone in the band is close to Sheryl and EXTREMELY capable of breaking her out? I later realized that it was probably part of Leon's plan to allow it. It was absolutely perfect to have Klan, Michael, and Kanaria role-play as the members of Fire Bomber. I noticed Mena was playing keyboards, but I guess she was supposed to be the stand-in for Ray.

While it was probably also a part of Leon's plan I never found that part difficult to believe in principle. We're not let on in close detail to the actual planning and preparations of the concert and I'm not at all convinced the guards etc. knew who members of Ranka's crew were. For most part they were just S.M.S. grunt soldiers after all and they probably all had false identities. Alto for sure was not being Alto there in papers *laugh* And why asume bunch of entertainers pose such a thread or have suck hacking etc. capabilities? Famous people holding such concerts isn't unheard of and Ranka herself was in plain view all the time and Sheryl being in there was also reasonable motif for Ranka to do it. Perhaps she wanted to do at least that for her friend...what they didn't realize was that her plan went quite a bit further, hah

The Ai-kun bit didn't really bother me either. It has a habit of following Ranka around after all. As for the capabilities, well, frakking Vajra. You never know with them. All in all neither plussed me in any way.

Edited by Xard
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I was expecting Dyson's cameo to be more substantive more like the fur ball in the first few minutes of M+ from the first descriptions you gave months ago. It was still cool "yahoo" I was expecting him to bayonet a varga on screen.

Won't that violate the definition of a "cameo appearance"?

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If you go to their site, they have a link to a codec pack called "CCCP". Install it and your media player will play the movie flawlessly.

unfortunately that isn't the case for me as I finally went and tested the file (download finished ages ago). It's still pixelated crap despite that I downloaded the 2011-07-30 CCCP, installed it and used the newest version of media player classic on my PC - and it should be the newest. The hell.

I guess I have to uninstall them all and try again... Hi10p is pain in the ass

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Won't that violate the definition of a "cameo appearance"?

I didn't get to watch the first movie with Subtitles till a few days ago so I have been reading post talking about Izamu cameo for a while I thought with the hype on here he was going to play a definitive part in the last part of the movie but his brief shot was cool.

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unfortunately that isn't the case for me as I finally went and tested the file (download finished ages ago). It's still pixelated crap despite that I downloaded the 2011-07-30 CCCP, installed it and used the newest version of media player classic on my PC - and it should be the newest. The hell.

I guess I have to uninstall them all and try again... Hi10p is pain in the ass

Just remove everything and use this guide. http://haruhichan.co...og/?p=205#guide LAV is much better than ffdshow and make 1080p files work perfectly on my 4 years old computer. (with cccp/ffdshow, it can't handle any action packed scene). And hi10p is well Worth the troubles :) Edited by flobo
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Sayonara no Tsubasa is way better paced film than DYRL ever was and I think narrative is much more skillfully manipulated... and multi-leveled to boot, which makes it all the more impressive. DYRL is fantastic and one of the best 80s anime films but I think it was one upped by Sayonara apart from nostalgia factor, especially in terms of storytelling. nice to see the oh so familiar positive feedback flooding in here. That's exactly how I felt after getting my mind blown last spring :)

Really? I thought its pacing was the movie's biggest problem. It rarely ever allowed itself to breathe in any meaningful way. The only point I felt that really tried was the mirrored confession by Ranka, and even that was just speeding along. The more I think about it the more I do feel that the movie was brilliant in how it just completely knew how fans were going to react at every moment. It was fanservice after fanservice, awesome moments strung together without stucture, it was almost stream of consciousness in how efficiently it threw fist-pumpingly awesome moments at us. The problem is, by doing that the overall story suffered. The film is nothing but plot twists and OMG haha/badass moments, structurally it had major issues.

Evidence of this can be seen by the regular visits of the exposition fairy. She was all over the place, it seemed that 5 minutes couldn't go by without someone monologing for an eternity about some random bit of information that the filmmakers couldn't be bothered to explain organically. It bordered on self parody at points. Then we have the fake out deaths, I believe I counted about 5 of them, in a single two hour movie. That is a TON. Add those to the other plot twists, I mean here is a non-comprehensive list of the ones I remember:

-Sheryl knew she was being used. Pretty cool, but kinda makes her a hard core bitch when you take the events of the first movie into account, and it doesn't make a lot of sense.

-Sheryl is dying

-Killing Ranka will save Sheryl.

-Galaxy attempts an infiltration

-Wait Leon has a countermove,

-Sheryl will be executed.

-Wait he kills Luca

-Just kidding

-Hey Ranka, I'm your Brother, just thought you should know.

-In order to stop Frontier's government who is now to a man inexplicably evil, SMS with an inexplicably alive Luca, and Ranka, will rescue Sheryl. Who is an avowed spy. You guys do know that this is High TREASON right?

-Alcatraz is run by idiots.

-Wait Brera is under the control of Galaxy

-Ozma is dead!

-Brera is dead!

-Sheryl is dead!

-You Believe us THIS TIME right?

-We've tracked the Vajra to their home planet, time to do evil.

-Thankfully we have an unlimited supply of Fold Quartz, and can control them with our Deus Ex Machine.

-SMS has to fight the Vajra and the frontier. By themselves.

-The Quarter can surf, which is kinda awesome.

-Ozma, Brera, and Sheryl are alive? Who knew?

-The Galaxy was in control the WHOLE TIME!!!! Bwa-ha!

-The combined NUNS and SMS fleet were able to instantly jump to the Vajra homeworld to stop the Frontier, or is it the Galaxy at this point, who cares? I know I don't.

-Isamu is awesome. Seriously, I know I am bitching about the nonstop nonsense, but man this cameo almost wipes it all away.

-Suddenly Alto states to the SMS what every video game player has known since the days of the Famicom. SHOOT THE GLOWY BITS!!!!

-Did I mention the Quarter is still surfing?

-"Ranka, I like womens." "Sheryl, I love you, but sadly I need to recreate the ending of the movie we filmed in an alternate universe."

-Shoji Kawamori REALLY likes Macross ZERO for some reason.

I mean, dear God!

Commie's own website has multiple options/resolutions. http://commiesubs.com/ Anyways---I liked the first movie a lot better.

Glad to see I am not alone. I really think that as people rewatch this film, opinions are going to cool.

I watched it with Chinese subtitles, I guess they were just acceptable. Any case, I was afraid to say this, but heck: I didn't like the second one. Actually the problem was not only the Zero-type ending (which was predictable IMO). I felt that there was a general lack of creativity and although not much animation was recycled (only minor parts like the VF-171 launch?), there was a lot of Macross history tribute. I guess what I am saying is: fan service for the younger viewers and lots of nostalgia for Macross fans, but lacking that edge SDF or DYRL had back in the day. Also, it'd probably be hard to digest for un-educated audiences that just want to watch good anime and not necessarily looking for moe.

Pretty much, this film is essentially Macross Porn. Not high quality porn like EP 26, but Bang Bus style nasty stuff. Yeah it gets you off, but you feel kinda dirty afterwards.

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Enjoy it for what it is I suppose. If you like it, more power to you, but honestly I feel that it just isn't that great a film. The first one was stronger overall, and MacF, warts and all did a better job in its final act than this one did. I mean, this is a discussion forum, and I was disappointed, hence me coming here to discuss it. I loved False Diva, I thought it did a bang up job of adding new twists to the old story and ended on one hell of a high note. They did a great job condensing the story, and making the characters shine, especially the triangle. I actually ended up liking Ranka quite a bit in movie 1, as opposed to being at best ambivalent to her in MacF. Wings did a lot of new things, but it really did altogether too many of them, the pacing of the film was off, the climaxes weren't as grand, and the ending was a retread of Zero. Again, not to say it didn't have some fist-pumpingly amazing moments, it did, but they didn't flow together well. The prison was manned by idiots, the NUNS fleet broke the laws of space-time, the Galaxy/Frontier war just kinda happened willy-nilly, and the fake deaths got old, fast.

That said, I loved the Fire Bomber nods, the fun stuff with the SMS, Isamu, and the other epic moments, but by the end of the film it was clear that the tapestry they were woven into was flimsy at best. I'll watch it again soon I'm sure, and maybe my opinion will change, but as it stands Wings is half Awesome! half Awful!.

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If the supplementary light novels were to be fan-translated, I'd be reading them because they (supposedly) supply some of those details missing and addressing the loose ends seen in both the TV series and the movies.

If this flick were to be three hours, then there might be some more coherence, but since this runs to almost two hours, some things had to be cut out... not until we might get an extended Director's Cut or something.

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