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REVIEW: Origin: Spirits of the Past BD+DVD




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GoldCrusader



Joined: 25 Apr 2017
Posts: 1021
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 9:49 am Reply with quote
One of my few biggest disappointement in anime. Such gorgeous visuals and ian interesting theme ruined by one of the worst plot progression ever.
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mgosdin



Joined: 17 Jul 2011
Posts: 1302
Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 10:13 am Reply with quote
When our local MovieStop closed I got copies of all the Origin Anime on DVD for next to nothing, couldn't resist the visuals but it's not one that I will re-watch for the story.

Mark Gosidn
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 25 Oct 2003
Posts: 7578
Location: Wales
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:07 am Reply with quote
There are two main things I remember from this film: how great the design of that necklace thing was and how idiotic the idea of a walking volcano is.
Oh and third, how awesome the view of the devastated earth through the molten core of the shattered moon is at the start, before your brain kicks in and points out that the moon doesn't have a molten core.
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pachy_boy



Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 1323
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 5:06 pm Reply with quote
While there were definitely little things that didn't always make sense (I still don't get who/what the two forest girls were supposed to be), the only part about this movie that I thought was truly stupid was the walking volcano (seriously, how's that supposed to work?)--but even after all this time, that really is my only real complaint against it. To this day I continue to appreciate this movie more than most. No matter how much everyone else belittles it, every time I watch it I keep getting drawn all over again into the story's world, enjoying the movie's ride along with the characters, and the Kokia song continues serving as the perfect cap-off to the experience (while being one of the best ending theme songs, period). As a Gonzo popcorn movie that took some influence from Ghibli, maybe it's not "great" but it's by no means terrible either.

Last edited by pachy_boy on Thu Aug 24, 2017 5:23 pm; edited 1 time in total
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One-Eye



Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Posts: 2260
PostPosted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 5:22 pm Reply with quote
I want to say that I had caught part of this on TV (?) at some point and time and it interested me enough that at a later date I remembered it and picked up the previous Blu-ray. When I finally got to see the whole thing on disc I was pretty disappointed that I ended up selling off the BD. Its a shame, because I thought there was potential but I found the story to be too much of a letdown.

I recall thinking that the art and design was actually pretty good and Toola's multipurpose collar/artifact was very interesting. IIRC some of the CG didn't always blend in well, but I think it wasn't anything especially egregious. I remember thinking that the dub was decent, so those were all good things and the action also wasn't too bad.

However, I thought the filmmakers missed the boat when it came to the story particularly in regards to world-building. I didn't care about the people in Neutral City because there wasn't very much about them and there wasn't too much about the people from the other city except that they were a bunch of spoiler[anti-environment militarists]. I think there was a chance at having two different sides with two different perspectives that had reasonable points, but I guess that would have been asking for a little more depth than the creators were willing to commit to. Instead they went for simple "man baad, nature gooood." I think there was a theme there of letting go of the past especially in regards to Toola, but I'm not convinced it was handled as deftly as it could have been. The druids were another missed opportunity and then the ridiculousness of the whole volcanospoiler[/mini Deathstar] thing kinda of pushed it over the top for me.

Yet this is like what the 3rd BD release from Funimation and the movie has had several DVD releases as well? It must be an evergreen title for them if it continues to sell. I wouldn't have been as kind as Rebecca was with her grade, but if its taken purely as an action flick, especially with its visuals then I could see it being sufficiently entertaining for some people.
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 5113
Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 1:32 pm Reply with quote
pachy_boy wrote:
As a Gonzo popcorn movie that took some influence from Ghibli, maybe it's not "great" but it's by no means terrible either.

"Gonzo trying to do Ghibli" explains a lot about this movie. I haven't seen it, but all the impressions I've gotten about it from fan reactions and ads made it seem like it wasn't very good. This review actually gave me a better impression of it--according to the review, it's not as boring as I thought, and it's very pretty with a nice soundtrack. It's streaming somewhere, right? Maybe I'll check it out!
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MadHi



Joined: 10 Mar 2014
Posts: 188
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 2:36 pm Reply with quote
This was a feast for the eyes. Probably the most beautiful anime film ever made, even the CGI, while obviously being CGI, still blended seamlessly with the environment. Had a great score somewhere towards the end.

But the story was a real cliche-fest wrapped in tropes. This would have worked better as a Tales of game because they have great gameplay to make up for flat plots.
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Zendervai



Joined: 06 Apr 2012
Posts: 197
PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 4:04 pm Reply with quote
The other "Gonzo trying to do Ghibi" movie, Brave Story, is a lot better than this one. Unfortunately, that's the one that doesn't appear to have gotten a release worth anything in North America. And even then, it's not great, it's just based off really good source material (the Brave Story novel) and fumbles enough that it ends up being "pretty good, I had fun" level quality.
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 10:35 pm Reply with quote
zendervai wrote:
The other "Gonzo trying to do Ghibi" movie, Brave Story, is a lot better than this one. Unfortunately, that's the one that doesn't appear to have gotten a release worth anything in North America. And even then, it's not great, it's just based off really good source material (the Brave Story novel) and fumbles enough that it ends up being "pretty good, I had fun" level quality.


You could always hunt down Brave Story's Japanese DVD release, though I think that might be impossible since I haven't seen any copies anywhere since I purchased the last one Amazon had many years ago. The official novel is still available in English, though it does fumble a bit with the translation in places. One last bit of Brave Story publication is the manga series, though it was never fully localized due to Tokyopop dying out back then; it's also a bit more wild in its execution of the original plot (and I believe it added one new female friend of Wataru's from his world, who just seemed to get in the way more than anything).

Wow, seems Brave Story never got a proper release in any form, did it?
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pachy_boy



Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 1323
PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 6:25 am Reply with quote
belvadeer wrote:
Wow, seems Brave Story never got a proper release in any form, did it?

For all those that don't know, Brave Story did in fact get a DVD release in the UK, even including an English dub. You'd have to have a region-free player like I do, but it exists and it's still available on Amazon UK.
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Just Passing Through



Joined: 04 Apr 2011
Posts: 276
PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 6:28 am Reply with quote
belvadeer wrote:


Wow, seems Brave Story never got a proper release in any form, did it?


It got a UK DVD release from Optimum Entertainment (now Studiocanal), and there are a few discs floating around.

DD 5.1 Japanese, and DD 2.0 English and Japanese.

Unfortunately the surround track is matrixed incorrectly, with the central and front right channels swapped. It's a shame, as there's a whopping great extra feature about getting the film's audio mixed at Skywalker Sound.

But if you can play PAL discs and don't mind watching in stereo, you can still find a few discs to buy.
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 25 Oct 2003
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Location: Wales
PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 10:31 am Reply with quote
MadHi wrote:
This was a feast for the eyes. Probably the most beautiful anime film ever made, even the CGI, while obviously being CGI, still blended seamlessly with the environment. Had a great score somewhere towards the end.

I do remember there being some bad CG, and it only stands out because they idiotically used is as a postcard in the version I had (IIRC I hadn't even noticed in the show itself before having it highlighted like that).

pachy_boy wrote:
belvadeer wrote:
Wow, seems Brave Story never got a proper release in any form, did it?

For all those that don't know, Brave Story did in fact get a DVD release in the UK, even including an English dub. You'd have to have a region-free player like I do, but it exists and it's still available on Amazon UK.

I still have no idea how that dub happened or who worked on it, and while I recognise a number of the voices I've never seen confirmation of them.
The original Japanese DVDs also had subtitles (can't remember if the BDs did, but since I couldn't play them at the time I got the shiny fold-out DVD set). Looking at CDJapan it appears that none of the BDs ever had English subs, and only some of the DVD releases. It also appears that only the most recent re-issue of the BD is still in print (or at least readily available).
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Joe Carpenter



Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 9:41 pm Reply with quote
Whatever happened to Gonzo anyway? I remember they were big in the 00s but I can't think of anything they've done recently save for the Last Exile sequel, which was already like 5 years ago.
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Zendervai



Joined: 06 Apr 2012
Posts: 197
PostPosted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 9:45 am Reply with quote
Joe Carpenter wrote:
Whatever happened to Gonzo anyway? I remember they were big in the 00s but I can't think of anything they've done recently save for the Last Exile sequel, which was already like 5 years ago.


They pretty much collapsed, but they've been back to active in the past few years again. Mostly adaptations of things. This season, they've got 18if.
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Joe Carpenter



Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 8:11 pm Reply with quote
zendervai wrote:
Joe Carpenter wrote:
Whatever happened to Gonzo anyway? I remember they were big in the 00s but I can't think of anything they've done recently save for the Last Exile sequel, which was already like 5 years ago.


They pretty much collapsed, but they've been back to active in the past few years again. Mostly adaptations of things. This season, they've got 18if.


Yeah, looking at their Wikipedia page the number of series they've made has dropped off significantly but they are still around.
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