Forum - View topicREVIEW: Appleseed DVD
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Jadress
 Posts: 807 Location: Seattle. It purdy and nerdy! |
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Wow, I'm glad someone else felt this way about Appleseed.. way overrated. When mentioning the unbelievable character bonds, I'm surprised you didn't mention Hitomi.. a completely worthless character that suddenly everybody cares about. Hehe, I guess I'd just pick that out because she probably bothered me the most out of the whole movie. I also though the mix of the cell-shading with the ultra-realistic backgrounds was a little jarring at times.. yeah, I didn't like this movie..
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Cloe
Moderator
 Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Huh? My DVD had a second disc devoted entirely to extras, including a "making of" featurette... or is that only on a certain edition? (I have no idea which version I got at Suncoast; I just grabbed the first one I saw). Great review. I especially agree with the comments about the animation technique. 3D animation always looks better animated by hand, in my opinion, rather than motion-captured. I would argue that the hand-animated gestures of the characters in The Incredibles have a lot less movement but much more subtlety than the constantly moving motion-captured gestures of the characters of Appleseed. I didn't mind this being a silly, fun action movie, though. I had a great time watching it. Granted, I first watched it with a bunch of other animators, so we were all having a field day talking about the artwork and pausing the thing frame-by-frame throughout the entire viewing. 
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Patachu
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 1325 Location: San Diego |
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That's one of the special editions then. There's a basic one with just one DVD (which was covered in the review), and then a special ed with the 2nd disc you mentioned, and I think there's also a special-special edition with an action figure or something. |
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Dachande
 Posts: 89 Location: Savannah, Ga |
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Is it just me or is it stupid to complain about an anime DVD not have certain extras on one version when said extras are on another version?
I don't know just seemed like a stupid thing to complain about. |
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DeaD_PooL
Posts: 26 |
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i think its unfair to rate it down for "lack of special features" when the special edition is swamped with extra stuff...
seems like they reviewed the normal version simply so they could rate it down even more. |
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Shiki MSHTS
 Posts: 738 Location: NoVA |
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Not everyone jumps for the special edition of something. Not to mention eventually, special editions go out of stock, and the only thing left is the normal version. The review IS for the normal version. So to rate it as such is perfectly fair. I don't quite see anyone going "Hmmm... I'm gonna buy the normal version SOLEY because it has less special features and I'll be able to give it a worse grade JUST because of that." Not to mention the main beef with the movie IS lack of innovation and emotion, not the features. Special features will not skyrocket the rating to straight A's. |
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dmanjdb
Posts: 113 |
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I have to disagree. Your average otaku like special editions, and extras. Also special editions are part of the DVD culture. So in a way it does change the review. Also Anime on DVD's early review of Appleseed make note that is normal version that they were going to review (before upgrading to the special edition). In that part ANN was irresponsible. In general I found that the review for Appleseed to be unforgiving and irresponsible. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18187 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I'm curious about one thing in the review. If the subtitle dialogue was as trite and hammy as the English script, and the English voices matched well and were mostly respectable efforts, then why is the dub rated so much lower than the sub?
Granted, Carlos, you're clearly a sub-favoring person, so naturally you're going to rate the dub lower, but shouldn't a full letter grade difference be justified better? Or am I just missing something? 
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jmays
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 1390 Location: St. Louis, MO |
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He never said they dub performances were "mostly respectable."
Just because the voices sound similar and the actors make "an effort" doesn't mean it's a great dub. Carlo could have driven home that the Englsh performances were weaker than the Japanese ones, but since this is an anime review and not a dub review, I think he did plenty enough. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18187 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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So an anime's dub has to be a "great dub" just to be the equal of the subtitles? "Makes an effort" and "voices match well" only counts for a full letter grade worse? If the dub is so far off that it's bringing down the overall grade that much, I'd have to think it was just plain awful, which seems inconsistent with what Carlos said. Enh. Guess it's just a matter of viewpoint. Carlos clearly assumes a much lower baseline for dub grading than I do. I did think the review was otherwise quite good. And to reply to the last comment, isn't a critical part of any respectable anime review for an American release a full examination of the dub (if present)? The only reason I brought up the point this time is becuase Carlos is usually much more consistent about having his grades reflect his review comments. |
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darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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With agree with what Key had said on what he said about the dub.
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thecactusman17
Posts: 167 |
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We may like special editions, but most of us are also dirt poor (at least, most of us who have already or are planning to move out of our parent's homes). So special editions? Fuggeddaboudit. As for the review, that was absolutely spot on: a perfectly average film so overhyped that it just looks bad compared to any moderately hopeful review. Especially for the English dub, which was so corny sounding I seriously (for the first time ever) considered walking out of the theater and asking for a refund. And I am a fan who enjoys listening to accurate, well-voiced dubs. This one really just wasn't well-voiced, and the poor original script didn't help matters at all. |
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AlDim
Posts: 16 |
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This review is quite similar to my opinion, except that I'd give Appleseed a C at the very most. I don't see how a movie that has nothing more than semi-decent visuals can deserve a B.
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Glory Questor
 Posts: 456 |
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I was surprised you didn't mention the more "similar" aspects to Shirow's other works, such as the "Roto-Copter" (which makes many appearances in both GITS movies and Stand Alone Complex) and the "Landmate" suits (a duplicate of which appears in Stand Alone Complex, episode 21 ("Eraser") as "Marine Armor").
Also, I thought many of the mo-cap scenes were good. Sure, it's still not a "perfect" process, but it's still a technology that's in its "toddlerhood", after all. Mainframe Entertainment and Squaresoft started it all, but everyone else is still doing their best to perfect the technology (with Weta Digital still being the most impressive of all the companies, through use of the Massive program and the great work they did with mo-capping Andy Serkis on-set for Gollum). |
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noriko-takaya
 Posts: 80 Location: Edgewater, Maryland |
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You know, for all of its faults, I liked this movie. I found it to be a rather enjoyable waste of 90 minutes taking the plane home returning from vacation.
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