Forum - View topicAppleseed EXMachina what did you think
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Thanatos01s2
 Posts: 231 |
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Well I looked around and the thread on this topic was really old and a little well...flame warish.
Anyways I am planning on buying the collector's edition tomorrow, what are your guy's thoughts on it, is it good or bad? How does the new animation look and "feel"? |
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Murasakisuishou
 Posts: 1469 Location: NE Ohio |
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I got my copy on Tuesday (and watched it twice!
 ), and, while definitely not as good as the manga, it was a decent action movie, and much better than the first one. The plot is pretty simple, but this movie did a much better job of characterization and making things interesting than the last one did. Basically, it's all about the animation and the action, but it works.
In my opinion, the animation was great; there were a few shots that looked sort of weird (characters stay in the air too long after jumping, etc.), and everything seems to be oddly weightless, but the textures and characters look really smooth and realistic, and they move a lot better than in the first film. The backgrounds are stunning to look at, though, especially in the final fight scene. Besides my little nitpicks about changing the characters from how they were in the manga (I don't like the scary Briareos), my only complaint is that this movie is pretty much dubtitled. The dub itself is a bit shaky, and I don't like the cast, plus the fact that they added in all sorts of swearing. At least they could have left the sub alone; there're parts where even I could tell that the characters were saying something that wasn't what was in the subtitles, and I don't know all that much Japanese. |
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Thanatos01s2
Posts: 231 |
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That's great I am glad to hear that. I also absolutely HATE it when the voice acting is poor or changed. Having a good Dub is crucial for any anime to succeed. There have been numerous anime that I disliked solely based on the voice actors. Why has the industry not realized that yet....
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Murasakisuishou
Posts: 1469 Location: NE Ohio |
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The dub was actually sort of lopsided in acting quality; I thought Luci Christian was awesome as Deunan, and Chris Patton was a great Yoshi, however, everyone else just sounded horrible for their role. All of the women (with the exception of Deunan) had this horrible nasal valley girl inflection on their voices, which made it rather hard to take the Prime Minister's speeches seriously. It also bothered me that Tereus and Briareos sounded completely different; if they're the same person (basically), shouldn't they have vaguely similar voices?
I was also sort of disappointed by the amount of swearing that was added in the dub just to make everyone seem 'tougher'. |
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Mykelti
Posts: 64 Location: New Jersey |
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I say, "Best Buy: GIMME ME MY APPLESEED VISUAL GUIDE, DAGNABBIT!!"
*orderer there solely on tease of "freebie"* It's certainly better, though being a Michael Bay-bastardized version of the deep macrocosm of socio-political study that is AppleSeed. (from what little I know of the source manga...) |
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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The plot was fairly formulaic and easy to stay ahead of, (did anyone NOT get the whole spoiler["bluetooth"] thing well before the characters?), but I thought it was probably the best animated #D movie I've seen, much better than the previous one or Final Fantasy, probably better even than Pixar stuff, because they just really captured how to render people that look good, without a trace of Uncanny Valley to them.
The action was spectacular (although I thought the first scenes were the best), and the effects were beautiful. I very much enjoyed it and would recomend it to any action fan who isn't vehemently opposed to animation. |
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Dargonxtc
 Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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I thought is was pretty good. The animation is much better, with the exception of the faces. Though I suppose I am probably the only one that actually liked the cell-shadding of the last one, as I thought it disseminates the human element much better. It also made the movie look more like a cartoon than a video game, which I prefer. However with that said, anything that is mechanical or action oriented(which is a lot) in Ex Machina is leaps and bounds above the first one. I much like and prefer the new Briareos look over the last one though. He had a much more bio-mechanical look, which made him appear at least a little bit soft in places, instead of just a big chunk of metal. The gunplay involved was also much better, which is no surprise considering that Woo was involved.
I agree that the dub fell a little flat in places. However the two that stand out in a good sense were Christian and Haag. To bad Hitomi didn't have a bigger role. Overall though you could see in several places were a little more studio time would have helped this movie out tremendously. The story itself though was the biggest factor for me. It was like, all of a sudden there were bad guys, and they have to fight them. They give almost no background on why these things are happening, nor why the people involved are doing the things they are doing. And when you do it is almost like "who cares". Although you do eventually find out the reasons why, it was handled so much like an afterthought, that you never really fully understand the key players motivations. I think huge emotional impact was lost through this method. This is not true in the first Appleseed, as everyone can clearly understand peoples willing disdain for the bioroids. And I am not of the mind that an action flick can't have an engaging plot, or that the plot is used simply more than cutscenes between action scenes. The better ones will always find the proper balance, and this is the biggest fault I can find with Ex Machina. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the show, because I did. It is, what it is though. A first rate action film with no drama what so ever. But great action it is. Because of this I would rate it just one tick under the first Appleseed, due to ho-hum nothing new being offered to the table, no emotional elements and the ones that were there were awkward and uninspiring(Briareos, Tereus, Deunan triangle). Even so, it is still very good, and yes even enjoyiable, so it would still be a show I recommend. |
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Thanatos01s2
Posts: 231 |
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WOW...I just watched this movie last night and it was incredible. I cannot believe how well the CG was done. There was seriously times were I thought I was watching a live-action movie, something about this movie made it different than the type of realism in FF7:AC. This anime had a pretty good story but I was just in awe at the action and graphics.
I bought the Collectors edition, and the extra disc...well I thought it was useless...but then again I only bought the collectors edition because it is the incdredibly nice steel case that matches the 1st Appleseeds case. I think I am going to watch the movie again tonight! Oh and Ohoni, I know what you mean, it was so obvious I knew it when the human rioters first started attacking, plus spoiler[aegis (or whatever his name was) was wearing it when he lost it.] |
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sanosuke32
Posts: 454 |
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There was only about 2 swear words in the whole thing I thought 
Anyways, I thought it was really well done, way better than the first one. I thought all the voice acting was done really well including Briareos and Tereus. Didn't bother me at all they didn't have a similar voice, because it gets kinda boring to hear the same voice all the time. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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The animation looks and feels exactly like the 2004 movie. It felt like the same type of odd plot at a fast pace to make up for up. But yeah, good visually quality and what not. If the Blu-Ray is only slightly more expensive (I don't know the prices) and you have a blu-ray player, I'd say get it.
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Veoryn87
 Posts: 808 |
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Well I did think it was better than the first movie both in story and visuals. It wasn't anything spectacular, but an entertaining movie nonetheless. I was glad they changed the dub cast. I didn't really like the first one, especially Hitomi's voice. Hilary Haag in this movie is an automatic good to me though.
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Hon'ya-chan
 Posts: 973 |
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Liked the movie. Although, I kinda figured out that those spoiler[Connexus devices] were part of the plot point during the spoiler[first "attack" on Olympus.]
But one thing is for sure: At least Athena didn't look like a disgusting MILF this time around.
It was Aeacus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeacus |
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Luffy9000
 Posts: 41 |
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I liked it, watched it this morning, but the plot was so easy to gifure out, my 11 year old brother said it after seeing the doctor.
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Thanatos01s2
Posts: 231 |
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double post
Last edited by Thanatos01s2 on Mon Mar 17, 2008 7:52 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Thanatos01s2
Posts: 231 |
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Thanks. I really don't agree with you, walw6pK4Alo, I felt that the way the animation "felt" was completely different than the 1st appleseed. I do however agree with the majority that the story was so simple, but for an anime like this I can make an exception because it was very entertaining. Personally my favorite anime is G.I.T.S, this was definately bot as deep as G.I.T.S. but that is okay with me, sometimes I just like to watch straight up action shootem up's. I personally would still recommend this anime to anybody, it is well worth watching. |
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