V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

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Rating

☆☆☆☆☆
5
16%
☆☆☆☆
5
16%
☆☆☆
4
13%
☆☆
8
26%
9
29%
 
Total votes: 31
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by takenoko »

Is that what the ghosts in Ghost were? Weird.

Don't really feel like Amazons has anything to do with Ghost, so I'm not totally sure why you brought it up.
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by ViRGE »

All things considered, this movie could have been worse. Of course, it could also have been better; or at the very least decent. But hey, at least this means we (and by we, I mostly mean Luna) get to put Ghost behind us, as unlike Drive and Gaim, there isn't a second movie! :D

I actually liked the opening of the movie. It's genuinely interesting to see how things are a couple of years down the line. Akari's still hard at work, Onari made a lousy monk anyhow, and Takeru needs to train hard to replace his perfect father. Also, kudos to Toei for being able to get everyone back, from Takeru to the side characters to all of the Ganma. They even got Saionji! It's a full-blown reunion.

But that's about where things stop being enjoyable. And actually, I'm totally confused on why most of those Ganma were around. Weren't igor, Javiert, etc all supposed to be dead?

The situation in the Ganma world was also weird. So Alain's people are dropping like flies, even with the patch? And yet they still stay there? They don't at least overthrow Alain and hang him in retribution?

Otherwise everything else is pretty much rubbish, as others have noted. Anything involving the clones is headache-inducing, the villainy wasn't very well done, and we spent entirely too much time watching Makoto mope around. In fact I'll say this upfront: this should have been an Alain movie. Even with Hero Alain behind us, he's still far more interesting than Makoto.

And superfluous rider forms are superfluous. Also, they're especially ugly in Necrom's case.:(

Oniichan count: Judging from the rapid twitching of my eye, entirely too much
takenoko wrote:We know the bad guy is bad because he kills Takaiwa Seiji at the beginning. But then, he doesn't do anything until the last ten minutes. So there's no real conflict except for when Makoto has angst break downs and he gets in a really strained friendship fight with Alain. And Alain loses... even with the power of friendship upgrade? As long as we're being cliched as-fuck why not have Makoto literally stab Alain in the back.
Why is Alain even alive? I don't want him dead, but he was left alone, in the rain, with a giant stab wound. There are never any consequences for that!
takenoko wrote:What is egg man's plan anyway? He modifies the people that follow him, and plan to kill the ones who don't. But then plan to kill the ones that did follow him anyway? Or was that just because he was missing an arm?
He seems to be the standard dictator, with an extra dash of modifying humans, something of a KR trope. Though the movie doesn't do a great job of explaining why his modifications were bad; it seems like he did a pretty good job of helping his followers live beneath the red sky, with no adverse effects.
takenoko wrote:I like how they kill off Takaiwa Seiji early on.
I can't decide if it's ballsy or heresy to kill off Seiji like that. One of his few acting roles outside of a suit, and he's just instantly clobbered. It feels especially mean.
Phoenix512 wrote:Chloe has the hands of an old woman for being so young.
Er, do we ever even see her hands clearly? I don't recall, especially since she was wearing those oversized bracers.
Phoenix512 wrote:
takenoko wrote:Did the director have the hots for Aya Marsh, so they gave Makoto another little sister? Chloe didn't really do anything!
Speaking of her, she didn't really much to do just like Takuru since for some reason, he didn't fight once as Ghost.
Everything involving Takeru/Ghost was one giant tease. They keep pretending like he's going to transform, but of course since he's basically a god, that would quickly resolve the plot. I can only imagine Chloe was thrown in to give Takeru something to do other than fight; a kindred spirit of shorts. However the scenes were so short that nothing like that really happens...

Meanwhile I first thought Takenoko's take was being a bit too cynical. But then I realized they put a 16 year old girl in black clothing, a choker, and chains for the entire movie. And now I'm worried Takenoko is right. :?
OOOKaiser wrote:
Phoenix512 wrote:Also when was this filmed? It seems like they got Takuru's hair color corrected from the Heisei Generations movie because his hair was way too bleached. Also Akari has longer hair in Specter but still short in Generations.
I think this is after generations considering Makoto and Alain never used their final forms in the crossover movie. I think they just gave Akari hair extensions to make it seem like time had passed.
Agreed. This is meant to take place a couple of years after the series, judging from the long hair everywhere (on which note, either they put extensions on Aria's actress as well, or man, does she have long hair :o )
Kurokage X wrote:Takuro Fukuda I'm putting you on my list on writers I don't recommend or would want to acknowledge as a Kamen Rider writer, stick with Ultraman. You make Toshiki Inoue look like a better writer in comparison and some of his stuff doesn't do well
Fukuda Takurou should not be allowed on television. At least, not writing for Toei. He gets to write what amounts to the epilogue movie, where he's free to do anything he wants, and he still screws it up. :|
Lunagel wrote:Fuck this movie.

I feel like I've wasted like 5 hours of my life on translating and editing this stupid movie and I can only hope you all suffer as much as I did because misery loves to make other people miserable.
A genuine thank you for translating this, Luna.:) Go have yourself a drink or four; you've certainly earned it.
Last edited by ViRGE on Thu Jun 22, 2017 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by Phoenix512 »

ViRGE wrote:The situation in the Ganma world was also weird. So Alain's people are dropping like flies, even with the patch? And yet they still stay there? They don't at least overthrow Alain and hang him in retribution?
I imagine the patch is meant to be something that would work if the person isn't staying in the Gamna world for long periods of time. It's probably a stop-gap until they fixed the Ganma world.
ViRGE wrote:
Phoenix512 wrote:Chloe has the hands of an old woman for being so young.
Er, do we ever even see her hands clearly? I don't recall, especially since she was wearing those oversized bracers.
Go to 21:39. You see her hand very clearly and can't tell me those hands aren't old.
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by Go-On Macaroni »

takenoko wrote:Don't really feel like Amazons has anything to do with Ghost, so I'm not totally sure why you brought it up.
He was theorizing that Toei pushed money from Ghost to help Amazonz hurting Ghost in the long run. It's possible since they're not above that...
Virge wrote:Weren't igor, Javiert, etc all supposed to be dead?
Igor came back to life in the last TV episode.
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by takenoko »

I don't think throwing money at a thing makes for better stories? You can have more effects or whatever, but you've still got a writer either way. Sounds like a baseless conspiracy theory to me.
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by fenrir »

indeed AMAZONS is a WAYYYYYYYYYYYY better series than Ghost.
but i do think Ghost main problem is actually their script, which seems like incoherent & blurry about everything after Kanon back alive.
this movie didnt help anything to make the story more interesting.
but hey at least Takeru alive right now, maybe he really keep his promise to Emu to treasure his life.

Sin Specter is good & somehow i like friendship Necrom. but appart from that i guess thats what i like from this movie.
ah ending song is quite ok too i guess
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by ViRGE »

Phoenix512 wrote:
ViRGE wrote:Er, do we ever even see her hands clearly? I don't recall, especially since she was wearing those oversized bracers.
Go to 21:39. You see her hand very clearly and can't tell me those hands aren't old.
Ah, so we do. Though no, I don't feel like those hands look old. I could go with bony, but that's not all that unusual.
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by Ashki »

I'm not really sure what I just watched... A few times I felt they might actually make something of this cast (I really wonder how many of them begged their agents to have their contracts ended after the head writer decided to leave the scriptriting to a group of chimpanzees), and then it would just plain get weird. And why was Igor dressed like a midwest farmer visiting Hawai'i?

I give it 4 stars because Chloe reminds me of Escape. Otherwise, it gets 2 (because it didn't drag out an entire season).
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by magnetabugman »

Ghost is hands down the worst rider series I've seen so far. I loved the forms of all three riders. I loved the music... This could have been executed so much better. I was one of the ones that complained about wizard when it was out, but all I can say is haruto forgive me you weren't that bad.
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by fenrir »

why v2?
otw: Ex-Aid , Hurricane (ep3), Amazons S2, Kyuuranger

finished:
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by Phoenix512 »

To fix all the "Sin Dai Kaigan" effects.
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by dryedmangoez »

Wait. Makoto and Kanon were kids though? They were childhood friends with Takeru and AkarI. They got sucked into the Ganma world as kids and grew up there. But the pod people were full grown adult Makoto and Kanon. And that Chloe person was "born" grown up too.

I don't get it.

I don't know. To me this felt like one big retcon, standalone, vanity project-type of deal.
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by njb »

dryedmangoez wrote:Wait. Makoto and Kanon were kids though? They were childhood friends with Takeru and AkarI. They got sucked into the Ganma world as kids and grew up there. But the pod people were full grown adult Makoto and Kanon. And that Chloe person was "born" grown up too.

I don't get it.

I don't know. To me this felt like one big retcon, standalone, vanity project-type of deal.
This. This confused me too.

Also, I remember Makoto and Kanon (especially Kanon) were affected by the red sky when it spread over to the "other world" (as in, not the Ganma world). And yet, they're not supposed to be affected by the red sky since they were evolved humans, according to Danton???

Exactly what did Danton do to the Ganma-folk who went to his side?

This movie gave me more questions than answers :?
takenoko wrote:Don't really feel like Amazons has anything to do with Ghost, so I'm not totally sure why you brought it up.
Many people in other forums accuse Amazons of depleting Ghost's budget. I don't believe this though since Ex-Aid's plot didn't go downhill, and Amazons S2 is about to end.
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by Mxylv »

I think I can say that this V-Cinema had no respect whatsoever for its original series. On the bright side, neither did we.

The good:

I know I'm in the minority, but there were some parts here I actually enjoyed. I’d predicted liking it bit more than the main show because of the lack of focus on Ghost’s Takeru/Akari/Onari team, so I guess it’s unsurprising that I felt more involved when none of those characters were onscreen (sadly, Akari seems to have been played down to comic relief here).

I found the main story pretty interesting. I doubt Makoto and Kanon being artificial was the original idea, but Ghost really needed a serious twist (in other words, I can’t think of a way to salvage the original show’s universe without a near reboot-level change), so I guess it succeeded on that front. As a plus, Makoto didn’t get over his lack of humanity within a few minutes, instead taking a fairly believable amount of time to recover. I also liked the premise of Danton overcompensating in reaction to one evil with a different, possibly greater evil that extends too far in the opposite direction; I think that angle works quite well as a political parable. That said, I preferred it when Danton was less of a straight villain willing to kill innocents and more of a flawed person who just went too far in opposing Adonis’ legitimate problems. And speaking of legitimate problems, on to the movie’s.

The bad:

First of all, Alain getting a friendship powerup was really unexplained and kind of forced, and we don’t see him between his nearly getting killed and his ending speech with just some minor scars. Then one shot from a gun won’t take out towers upon towers of proto-Makotos, and the movie loses some points for the non-resolution of Makoto and Kanon’s humanity at the end, which really takes Descartes’ original statement out of context. I didn’t think there was nearly as much payoff compared to the promise for the movie.

The ugly:

So at the end we learn about… the power of sin? I’m really not sure what the writers are trying to tell us here. The only possible explanation I can think of is that they’re trying to establish Makoto near the end as a somewhat Messianic figure who takes the sins of others upon himself to save them, but if so, that analogy breaks apart reeeally quickly. By the point where they're naming attacks after each sin, I’m thinking the entire final form may have needed a lot of further explanation and/or total reevaluation.


Overall:

Ultimately, I think Toei realized how bad Ghost's series was and made a dark and edgy half-sequel half-reboot to try and salvage Ghost’s universe. As it is, it manages to be dark and gritty by relying on the psychological drama that forms legitimate darkness (as opposed to a bottom-of-the-barrel violence/fanservice/misogyny overindulgence resembling the Brave special's idea of darkness from earlier this year). Maybe I’m biased because I tended to like most of Ghost’s episodes in the Ganma world more than those on Earth (and because Specter was my favorite rider from that show), but I liked this a lot better than the likes of Ghost’s summer movie. It had some ingredients, but unlike Ghost’s movie, it decided to do something with those ingredients.
takenoko wrote:Is that what the ghosts in Ghost were? Weird.
One of the worse parts of the show overall was that putting almost any plot into words made it sound really cool (killing the "ghosts" makes them come back as humans instead of the other way around, for instance), but watching the show itself makes that plot feel like a mess. I liked the premise, but it's somewhat frustrating how cool the show just wasn't.
Last edited by Mxylv on Wed Jun 28, 2017 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: V-Cinema Ghost RE:BIRTH Kamen Rider Specter Released

Post by takenoko »

>So at the end we learn about… the power of sin?

All I can say is, gotta love how Japan incorporates random facets of other cultures that it seems cool and twists it to their purposes. There's such a joy and innocence to the appropriation that I can never stay mad at them when they do it.
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