OOO/W Movie Great War Core Released

[takenoko]

So I'm starting to see a pattern that I'm not liking in Kamen Rider movies. A lot of people like Kamen Rider because "That's the realistic one" or "That's the one for both kids and adults". But lately it seems like the fantastical elements are getting out of hand. I think their stories would be a lot better if they reigned some of that in and kept things realistic, at least to the extent that the world its based on allows.

This is probably an unfair criticism, since it can be applied to so many other situations, but if the enemy is right there, don't let them run away and do more crimes. Just stop them right there! That seems like the biggest problem for the heroes in these movies.

Remember my Accel Movie post? So... the villain isn't the obvious one, but the smiling, helpful, friendly one? That's a shocker.

First, the Skull movie was really awesome. Just like with the Accel movie, Soukichi is this really interesting character that people would love to know more about. Plus we get an origin story for Skull, background for Shroud, and the rest of the setup for what becomes the Narumi Detective Agency. That's pretty good stuff. (Nitpick, Soukichi sliding down the rope and knocking all those guys down, it was clear he didn't touch any of them)

I just kind of wish Matsu was a better villain. I really liked his character, but his reasons for doing stuff are kinda lame. It's like Anakin in the prequels, the guy was set up to be a villain from the very beginning. So the fall from grace subplot is kind of weak, completely nonexistant. Basically the guy kills people because he's super jealous. Even the part where he puts the spider in Soukichi doesn't make too much sense, since he already put one in Melissa. If you want to kill the guy, just kill him. Don't do a bunch of weird, convoluted stuff just to create a weird explanation for other aspects of the show.

The problem comes in when we learn this stuff from a flying pterodactyl Yummy with a Memory Memory. Where did he get that? No explanation. Okay, well, where did he come from? I mean, we know how it would work now, considering how far we're in the TV series, but because of a lot of incongruous elements, I'm not sure if OOO is in the same canon as the TV series.

Nothing is worse for a fan than to see stuff that doesn't align with the preestablished rules. Dinosaur Yummy, they only give one Medal because they don't grow or produce desire, they obliterate it. I'm not really convinced that Maki has the purple Greeed powers yet. Ankh didn't have all those red Medals till he got them in the TV series. So there were two Births before Date? And Gotou clearly doesn't know how to use Birth in the TV series. And so on and so on, it's maddening.

But let's put that aside, and focus on the story of the OOO movie. Oda Nobunaga is brought back to life and he hangs out with Eiji and friends. Okay, that's a pretty farfetch story, the writing better be damn topnotch or else... Oh, Nobunaga is an amnesiac killer who at one point is naked with Eiji wearing the same underpants, and at another has magic healing hands that appear out of nowhere. Suspension of disbelief = totally fucked.

I mean, I don't want to be too critical of the OOO movie, because I did like the idea of Nobunaga just being a symbol of pure desire. But it throws too many things at the audience and expects them to just buy it. Like why is Nobunaga a super hacker? The last battle with the contrast between Eiji and Nobunaga fighting along with the ballerina dancing was really neat. I also liked Nobunaga's death in Eiji's arms. But the stuff that leads up to it was kind of a mess.

The fantastical is fine if it works within the world. But you can't just throw things at the audience and expect them to stick. If there's no grounding, the fantastical elements don't have as much of an impact. Half of the cool factor of special effects is having it appear as part of a strong plot point. Let's go back to W for a bit, when Soukichi is thrown into a wall, but is saved because Shroud transforms him into Skull. He goes through the wall, punches an enemy on the way out, then mutters with surprise and disappointment, "So this is my face?" That really works because weird stuff doesn't just happen for no reason, but in the real world, when it does, people are shocked by it.

By contrast, Obunaga is a monsterous killer, but Eiji lets him escape several times, and not once does he go, "What the hell is that thing?" Another problem with the OOO movie is that it was the OOO characters were more side characters for Nobunaga's story. The fact that OOO and Ankh only meet up briefly at the end highlights this more than anything. It's like they had a real good W story and only a little time to come up with an OOO story.

And the third part is just special effects wanking. I can't fault it. It is what it is. But it's nice looking fan wanking. But let's contrast this a bit with the Sentai crossovers. The real good Sentai crossovers work because the characters do something meaningful and interact in an interesting way. Plus they have a common enemy that's usually built up from leftover aspects of their respective series. OOO/W has a Memory Memory combine with some Core Medals and OOO and W don't interact, they just join up and beat up the enemy. It's just not really satisfying.

The only other thing about the third part that bothers me is the forced explanation for why Soukichi never visited Akiko. I think I would have been fine if they just left it at "Soukichi was just a bad father" or "he was always busy with work". I don't really buy the "there's people in the city who are walking around with bomb spiders in their hands". I guess all those people died before the start of the series, but overall it comes off as a clunky addition to the continuity. Argh, even as I work on it, it makes no sense. Why would Soukichi ask his girlfriend/daughter, whose stalker he just killed, for that favor? It makes no sense!

Maybe they should just stop the Great War crossovers. So far, it has resulted in one good movie, and one movie that's not as good, and one movie that's totally random. It's not a formula that's working for me, because there's no significance in the crossovers. Just drop the crossover part and just have it be a dual feature or something. I want to like these movies, but the flaws in them really pull me out of it. Story's important. Tokusatsu without a good story grounding is just boring special effects.

Trivia:
Oda Nobunaga's tea set thing is real, it was at the Edo museum at one point:
http://www.edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp/kikak ... /0719.html

Apparently, there were three of these three tea caddy's which were called the the Three Tea Caddy's Under Heaven (Tenka no San Katatsuki) which were Narashiba(oakbrush), Hatsuhana(first flower), and Nitta(new field). I think this blog says one of them is gone in real life:
http://dongurya.blog24.fc2.com/blog-entry-533.html

Akechi Mitsuhide's betrayal was the main cause of Nobunaga's death (or so I read). But apparently he had good reason for doing it, since Nobunaga had the guy's mom/aunt killed. After Nobunaga died, he was shogun for a ridiculously short period of time before getting killed himself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akechi_Mitsuhide

I'm not sure why Kougami told Nobunaga to find the last flower. Sounds like it's a reference to something. All I can do is assume it's related to Nobunaga's crest which has the flower on it.

If you liked Kadena Reon (Bat Dopant), she's also been in Maid Deka and MGS 3
http://www.toei.co.jp/tv/meido/index.html

[Phoenix512]

For some reason, they really know how to make great W stories for these "War" movies but with the others, not so much. I felt the OOO part of the movie should have been first since it seems to me that it started first before the W part of the movie does. Anyway, I'll start with the Skull part first.

As I said before, the Skull part was really good. My main thing about it was that I didn't really like how Matsu was a carbon copy of Philip in terms of searching. I could live without having him being compared to Philip in that way. It would be nice if they expanded the line about how Soukichi was a childhood friend to Shroud. I like the cameo of young Shoutarou and his childhood friend, Marina (who becomes the T-Rex Dopant 10 years later). It seem weird to me that Soukichi would allow the Bat Dopant to die like. I thought he was the type of person that he saves everyone regardless if they are good or evil.

I would disagree about Matsu wanting to kill Soukichi. The spiders were more for making a person suffer than for killing. Using that logic, I understand why the spider was in Soukichi because he would have to live knowing that he couldn't be with Akiko without the possibility of killing her. For Melissa, it was more of forcing her to be with Matsu than trying to kill Soukichi. I believe that he wanted Soukichi to suffer forever compared to easily killing him.

For Soukichi asking Melissa for that favor, was he going to ask Shroud to do it? Of course not but in all seriousness, Melissa loved Soukichi. She may not being able to touch him but at least she could do this since she knows the pain that Soukichi has because he won't be able to be with Akiko ever again. I think Soukichi knew that and trusted her to do him that favor.

I didn't realized that Melissa was played by Akiko as well. I guess with a more mature hair style, she looks completely different. I give props to her for pulling off Melissa very well.

Now for OOO. You try to do so much but fail very badly at almost every level. Take was right about the good part of the movie which was the final fight. They needed to focus on either Nobunaga or the Dinosaur Yummy and their creator. Nobunaga could have been a much more believable character if he didn't display all these abilities so suddenly or at least believable growth not like going from not knowing what underwear is to CEO of a major company as an example.

Let's talk about the creator of the Dinosaur Yummy. He only appears in one scene and gets mention in another. He appears when he creates the second Yummy from the ballerina slipper and the following scene when Kazari refers to a Greeed named Gills. And that's it. Gills doesn't get mention or even involved with the movie after that. I didn't really think much about it until I hit that line that Gills say to the ballerina and had to ask take about it. That made me so angry about the OOO part of the movie even more.

And there's the third part of the movie. I agreed with what take mostly said about the common enemy. It would made sense if Gills was related to Kamen Rider Core but no, they decided to use the Black Cores instead. The Black Cores didn't make sense though unless they wanted to show how Birth came from.

After watching this, the OOO in the movie is related to the one that showed up in the A to Z movie so there's a seperate OOO in the W universe. The OOO in the TV series has no relation with this movie at all especially with the Medal count shown at the end of the OOO part of the movie. There was no way that OOO in the TV series had that combination of Medals at any point (especially at the beginning). I hope with W probably leaving the "War" movies when the next Kamen Rider comes out that all three aren't going to be bad.

[takenoko]

I thought it was weird that he let Bat die in such a way too, but you have to keep in mind that she killed Stone while he was begging for his life. She really deserved to die. Also, it might be worth noting that she speaks with a weird accent. I think the bat monster in Kuuga does as well, if memory serves me right.

I didn't recognize Akiko as Melissa either. Had to read the credits for that, lol. But it explains why you see Melissa in her mourning outfit, even though all these people died like years ago.

Yeah, I was like WTF Gill? They created a character shown off screen and that was never used in the TV series? What was the point? Why does he have a name?! What was he trying to do?!

[zeta_gundam]

Remember kids, the sky is blue! (Seriously, wtf is that supposed to mean Eiji?) And what's with his random lines to Akiko? That didn't really make sense, considering how they probably have not met before.

I'm going to assume that the OOO side story isn't canon, and that the movie-verse is. We have W recognizing OOO from the A to Z movie, so I guess this is in the same universe as the A to Z movie, which would make it in the same reality as W...

But...
- we have a character that was named off screen (Gills) but never appeared in the series.
- We have some random Nobunaga Yummy transforming into Birth.
- We have a random Yummy with a Memory Gaiamemory. (I can buy the GaiaMemory part. At the end of W, we still have the gang fighting off residual Dopants. But why does the Yummy have it?)
- Not to mention the three random black Medals. Wait, aren't there supposed to be 10 of each coloured Medal anyway?
- Not forgetting, why does Eiji have the OOO Medal Holder and picks his own combos?
- Why is Ankh's role so downplayed? It felt like it wouldn't have made much of a difference if he wasn't even in the movie.
- And is that Gotou as Birth?! I mean, I don't recall any reference that Gotou became Birth in the series before Date did. That would just throw Episode 38 of the series off.
- And where the hell did Ankh get the other Red Medals from?!

/brain explodes. Stupid continuity issues.

Placing continuity issues aside and treating the OOO half of the movie as a standalone thing... I think the crossover part would have made more sense if Core was somehow related to Gills, as what Phoenix pointed out. Rather, why use the Purple/dinosaur Greeed and Yummies? I guess they just wanted to save some money by reusing the suits. Again, if we treat the OOO half as a standalone, it's perfectly fine. But... at least show the random talking Greeed?

I think I'd buy the story more if they focused on a movie exclusive black Greeed and/or Nobunaga. The Gills thing is just "Huh?" Maybe it's cause of what has happened in the TV series.

Argh, headache from watching the movie. Stupid continuity problems. ONORE, DECADE!!!

Maybe they should just stop the Great War crossovers. So far, it has resulted in one good movie, and one movie that's not as good, and one movie that's totally random.

We had three Taisens? I thought there were only 2, namely the "W x Decade" and "OOO x W"?

[takenoko]

No, I meant each movie has three sub movies which are good, not so good, and totally random

I don't think the black Cores are real. They look like they're just darker Cell Medals

[zeta_gundam]

I don't think the black Cores are real. They look like they're just darker Cell Medals

They had the gold rim of Cores though. So they are artificial Cores maybe? Stupid movie, they don't even bother explaining its origins. =/

And even if they are Cells, all the Cell Medals we see so far are based off the Cores. I don't recall seeing any Cells that don't have a matching Core insignia.

[Go-On Macaroni]

and the following scene when Kazari refers to a Greeed named Gills. And that's it. Gills doesn't get mention or even involved with the movie after that.

It was actually Gamel who name dropped Gill ("Giru no yummy"), the other three were just going "Watch us try to be cryptic!" :V

[Arigomi]

I'm guessing Soukichi let the Bat Dopant die because he's hard-boiled, doing the unpleasant things that must be done. We know that Shoutarou would never do the same since he's half-boiled.

I knew Melissa was played by Akiko's actress immediately but my memory of continuity was faulty. I completely forgot that Akiko's parents had split up and mistakenly assumed that Melissa was Akiko's future mother.

The OOO section has a lot of interesting scenes though they don't make much sense when you stitch them together into a plot. I cringed when Eiji was giving away money and justifying it with his brand of absurd logic. The auction scene was pretty funny. Everytime Eiji's underwear fetish is mentioned, he gains a few more points on the creepiness meter.

I found it strange that while W's premise could've led to a lot of awkward yaoi moments, it didn't. On the other hand, OOO seems to be teeming with awkward yaoi moments.

[takenoko]

GIRU? So it's Gill, not Gills? If so, I have a lot of things to change in this post.

I totally agree with the assessment about Soukichi's reasoning for letting Bat die.

I just thought it was weird/gross that Akiko's actress played Melissa. Maybe Soukichi needs to speak with Dr. Freud about that

>I cringed when Eiji was giving away money and justifying it with his brand of absurd logic.

I loved that though. It's a good mix of Eiji's naivete and pure hearted reasoning. And that ability to say lines that make people fall to the side makes him very Kamen Riderish.

[Go-On Macaroni]

GIRU? So it's Gill, not Gills? If so, I have a lot of things to change in this post.

I was just saying what I heard the audio say. ^^;

[takenoko]

Yeah, I see it written as Gill. Guess I'll stealth fix all that.

[PHurricane]

No need to mince words - I thought the OOO movie was terrible. I don't have a problem with alternate universes - in fact, I love the concept. And it's certainly not unusual for Kamen Rider to create an alternate universe for its movies. However, you have to make it clear whether the movie is supposed to be an alternate universe or not. When this was being advertised, it was not advertised as an alternate OOO universe - it was advertised as giving audiences the first user of Birth, the first glimpse of a yet-unseen Greeed, the first appearance of Tajador, etc. That's all meaningless when it turns out that none of it fits into the television series. I'm not going to go through the list of inconsistencies again, but they are so glaring it ruins the entire experience.

A more personal problem is that I'm not that keen on OOO's story to begin with. It was only the battle of wits between Ankh and Kazari that kept me interested for the majority of the series, and later the growth that Gotou was showing until he finally took up the mantle of Birth. Otherwise, I'm bored with OOO - both the story and the characters. So, the fact that neither Ankh nor Kazari have much of a role in that portion of the movie was a big strike against it. The fact that the characters, whose personalities I was already disappointed with, seem to have personality transplants in the movie or have their personalities exaggerated to such an extent that they become caricatures of themselves...it's insulting.

I couldn't even ignore all that and just try to appreciate the battle choreography. The overlapping ballet performance was really distracting to me.

W fared a little better. However, the majority of the present day scenes were marred by my irritation with Akiko - the same irritation that most people had in Accel's V-cinema. I can't make any excuse for her behavior in this movie. Upset that her wedding is ruined because of a not-Dopant attack? That's reasonable. Shrieking like a lunatic because your husband-to-be and two closest friends are Kamen Riders, after they've been Kamen Riders for two years or more (using the television timeline)? So not reasonable. Jumping onto a monster because you want to see the events that caused your dead father to become a Kamen Rider? Well, by Kamen Rider logic, that's potentially reasonable. But then blaming Kamen Riders for evil attacking? Good grief, Akiko, did you forget everything that happened during your television series?!

There were lots of details in the W movie that I really enjoyed. Matsu making the correlation board, which was such a staple in updating viewers about the case in progress on the series, was a great easter egg. Having Bat and Spider be the "first" two Dopants was a nice nod to Kamen Rider history. Getting to see Shroud building the garage? Also neat, as well as providing more confirmation about why she and her creations could access the garage during the series. The turning blades revealing the human sides of Matsu and Soukichi, then showing them as the Dopant and Kamen Rider that they were? Lovely visuals. Soukichi literally counting up his sins? Now that was hard-boiled.

Shoutarou and Marina being at the show was neat, but made no sense to me. This is a sleazy looking cabaret style show with these mob-like figures attending, and Shoutarou and Marina are in the middle of it? We never got much of an explanation on either of their childhoods, so I suppose there's a good reason for that, but it struck me as very strange.

Before I forget, Akiko's actress has a very pretty voice. She did a fantastic job with the double-role.

As for the crossover, my favorite part...the logo that got split in half with the W colors and in three sections with the OOO colors. The character deterioration from the OOO movie afflicts the W characters, which really irritated me. I find nothing appealing in a completely CG giant opponent like Core. (At least, I think that's his name.) And the ending with Eiji ending up on the other side of the planet was bizarre.

So, so disappointing. Painfully so.

[NeoStorm]

You don't need to quote the whole damn thing for a one liner -take

I'll be honest, I couldn't have put it any other way.

[Nnnkingston]

I personally didn't find any of the segments of the movie to be interesting. The Skull portion was definitely the best part, but I was never fond of Skull because I found him to be a boring character. OOOs segment just made no sense and felt like a drunken rambling of multiple writers. The Core segment I thought was fun, but with no explanation it was pointless.

[Go-On Macaroni]

OOOs segment just made no sense and felt like a drunken rambling of multiple writers.

It was actually just one writer, Toshiki Inoue. ^^; (Yasuko Koyabashi was listed for Script Supervision, though)