This was a major disaster of a remake:
When I was a child, this story moved and shocked me deeply. I had high hopes for MAPPA's theatrical version, but to my dismay, not even 20 minutes in, I was already thinking, "What am I watching?" and "Did I open the wrong movie?" I barely lasted an hour before giving up. Throughout the viewing, I couldn't connect with the characters' emotions at all. The story, which should have resonated deeply with the audience, felt completely hollow. The scene transitions were jarring, and even the use of music felt off and disconnected from the narrative-as if they just wanted to rush through the story.
This was originally a story rich with a strong sense of its era. I still remember how heartbreaking it was to see André die when I watched it as a kid. Oscar was such a stunningly cool woman. But the 2025 theatrical version had none of that! It tried to compress a story that originally took many episodes to tell into just two hours. Naturally, the screenplay should've carefully chosen which parts to keep or cut, and there was no way the original pacing could be copied wholesale. After about an hour, I just felt the pacing was all over the place, and I had no idea what the storytelling was trying to convey. Many scenes were delivered in such awkward ways that I found myself constantly thinking, "Uhh... what?"-completely speechless.
Three stars: one for Hiroyuki Sawano's music, one for the voice actors who clearly understood their roles, and one for the beautiful visuals. That's it. Regardless of the medium-anime, novel, manga, live-action TV, or film-the story and writing are absolutely critical. But in this film, I saw no evidence of thoughtful screenwriting or post-production effort.
Take NieR, for example-originally a game adapted into an anime. You could tell the writers put in real effort to weave the entire story together. Even though they changed the order of events or tweaked some scenes, they still managed to faithfully recreate the narrative and evoke genuine emotion in the audience. That's something the 2025 Rose of Versailles movie completely failed to do.
This was originally a story rich with a strong sense of its era. I still remember how heartbreaking it was to see André die when I watched it as a kid. Oscar was such a stunningly cool woman. But the 2025 theatrical version had none of that! It tried to compress a story that originally took many episodes to tell into just two hours. Naturally, the screenplay should've carefully chosen which parts to keep or cut, and there was no way the original pacing could be copied wholesale. After about an hour, I just felt the pacing was all over the place, and I had no idea what the storytelling was trying to convey. Many scenes were delivered in such awkward ways that I found myself constantly thinking, "Uhh... what?"-completely speechless.
Three stars: one for Hiroyuki Sawano's music, one for the voice actors who clearly understood their roles, and one for the beautiful visuals. That's it. Regardless of the medium-anime, novel, manga, live-action TV, or film-the story and writing are absolutely critical. But in this film, I saw no evidence of thoughtful screenwriting or post-production effort.
Take NieR, for example-originally a game adapted into an anime. You could tell the writers put in real effort to weave the entire story together. Even though they changed the order of events or tweaked some scenes, they still managed to faithfully recreate the narrative and evoke genuine emotion in the audience. That's something the 2025 Rose of Versailles movie completely failed to do.
- rinakawauchi
- May 3, 2025