aractos-890-607133

--The direction and writing took ques from comic book conventions and took jabs at them, which was well done and amusing. Miles and the rest of the cast are affable peeps with just enough character to make the movie a fun watch. Despite running the risk of having too many characters in one movie, they do a decent job of introducing the important ones. That said, the stuff they touch on could have prolly been better served by a show. This would give the story room to unfold and do character development properly instead of one and done scenes which were about 10 seconds each. The short format and pacing of the movie also meant some plot contrivances pop up and overall the script was pretty thin.

--The soundtrack mixed modern hip-hop with classic movie style music. The intention was likely to capture the cultural feel of youth today, which will make the soundtrack pretty short-lived. Although it adds good flair to the movie at times, I personally did not enjoy this choice. Overall, the soundtrack is serviceable and competently done.

--There were some shots which felt like I had a copy of the movie which was intended for viewing with 3D glasses. (this was not the case) This was very distracting, but ultimately didn't hurt the movie too much.

--This movie is kid friendly and can be a good family watch. Hope you'll also have fun with this one if you give it a go. Cheers.

****Animation tech rant which you can skip:

--The animation included a stutter which imitated the limitations of doing 2D animation at 24 frames per second, aka traditional animation. I believe this choice is superior to the unnervingly smooth quality of most 3D animation done on film so far. I've seen other animated movies which tried to incorporate that stutter, but mostly failing to do so. It felt obvious that standard 3D animation was done, and then someone ran a script over it which introduced the stuttering. To be fair, this movie must have been done the same way. But whoever programmed the script which introduced the stutter did a much better job. Instead of being an obvious imitation of the 2D animation stutter, it felt almost organic. Still doesn't feel it's quite where it should be, but it's pretty good.

--Speaking of animation tech, I love the combo of physics-based animation. I'm certain it was done here as well, and it worked very well. It's allowing animators to risk doing much more complex scenes, without the time constraints of animating them bloating to such insane proportions that it shuts down production of the movie.

--2D animation has had some incredible artistic work done in its realm, and it's about time 3D animation showed up. While this movie is decidedly not art, the animation done in it is a huge step in the right direction and I look forward to seeing where this animation road takes us.

--The introductory chapter of The Last Duel felt long and boorish, with some gratuitous violence. I wanted to like this movie, I wanted a title with an interesting cast and director to work. There haven't been enough traditional movies lately I feel, they've been drowned out by colourful pop pieces. The first chapter did not bode well at all. But then the movie really starts.

--The second chapter significantly shifts the tone of the movie and it becomes clear that we are actually experiencing its story through multiple, unreliable narrators, and the violent, crude and boorish first chapter was an illustration of its narrator rather than flawed directing. The movie recalls the same events through three different viewpoints, all of which tell us something about their narrator, reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon from 1950. It is hard to tell just how much detail went into creating such distinct experiences for its three chapters, and how much was circumstances retroactively appearing as genius design, but the end result is excellent.

--Without spoiling too much, I hope the audience of this movie will be patient with it and attentive. There are many nice details and divergences in the stories told that need to be noticed for the full experience. When I saw news articles which implied Ridley Scott blamed the short attention spans of today's audiences for this movie's poor box office performance, I laughed and thought he might be turning into an old grumpy man who is stuck in his ways, something that to an extent we all have to look forward to. But Mr Scott was onto something. This movie may be a bit too slow for today's audiences. It may also stand the test of time though. The actors performances, the beautiful direction and ultimately compelling story are well worth watching it.

--I've recently re-watched the original Macross series. Well... more accurately, I've watched it for the first time. As a kid, I really liked Robotech, an adaptation of the show for the US and international distribution. The producers of Harmony Gold had the show edited and some of the dialogue re-written to connect three unrelated shows into one with three seasons, as the minimum number of episodes a show can have to be aired on their TV stations at the time was 60 something.

--They also had a new soundtrack recorded, which was honestly much better and varied than the original Japanese version and likely in part influenced by Star Wars. Both versions feature pop idol songs which were very watered down and overused, although the melodies are slightly more complex in the US version, but overshadowed by the otherwise fairly good Robotech soundtrack. Also, an interesting thing occurred with the script in the rewrites... They kinda improved it by cutting some of the melodrama from the original show, and they added a narrator which allowed discussion of the inner feelings of characters, making them more fleshed out. Also, I'm not sure if it was less misogynistic than the original Japanese script, or perhaps the bad writing simply flew by my attention as a kid, and I was too fascinated with the sf elements and the characters actually changing dramatically throughout the course of the show. The Japanese version however has some intense levels of misogyny displayed mostly by the two main female characters, which soured the experience quite a bit for me.

--After re-watching it, I got disillusioned with my idea of what the show was as a kid. I love the pacifist threads in it, but it is ultimately definitely trying to show a pro-military story and the pacifism is a caricature contrasted by the glorification of the fates of soldiers. When I watched Gundam, I could instantly see how it influenced Robotech, as many elements were directly lifted from there, some of them being explored a bit more, with a relatively serious tone. The mature themes of the show are sadly just a backdrop for the dreaded love triangle. One which is played out so much, to absurdity, until the episodes revolve only around it, and there is no story and it's just nauseating melodrama and rather shallow writing.

--The show required too much work for the original studio to complete, so a lot of the work was outsourced, creating a ton of animation discrepancies, as well as some downright ridiculous drops in quality, all the way down into the territory of "so bad it's good." And although the bad parts are hilariously bad, this really butchers the premise and the elements of the show which were actually good and showed potential if they were written with the pen of a more skilled writer and with a consistent tone.

Realistically a 2/10, although I'll probably always have a soft spot for this one.