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REVIEW: Fullmetal Alchemist




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Parsifal24





PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 11:52 am Reply with quote
It's Lust, Envy, and Gluttony that appear in the film Greed never shows up as far as I can tell. Overall I enjoyed the movie and while some of my faveroute characters (the Armstrong siblings and Izumi Curtis among others). As far as telling an broad over view have to single out Yo Oizumi as Shou Tucker for particular praise as his performance.

Combined with the cinematography and Direction made me at least feel a little sympathy for Tucker before he crosses the moral event horizon.


Last edited by Parsifal24 on Wed Feb 21, 2018 11:59 am; edited 1 time in total
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JacobC
ANN Contributor


Joined: 15 Jan 2008
Posts: 3728
Location: SoCal
PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 11:54 am Reply with quote
Parsifal24 wrote:
It's Lust, Envy, and Gluttony that appear in the film Greed never shows up as far as I can tell.


Fix'd.
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Animeking1108



Joined: 26 Apr 2011
Posts: 1244
PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 12:39 pm Reply with quote
Parsifal24 wrote:
Combined with the cinematography and Direction made me at least feel a little sympathy for Tucker before he crosses the moral event horizon.


I hope it was executed well. I don't want it to be like the 2006 "Death Note" movie where Light's personality does a complete 180 after finding the Death Note. The 2003 series executed a sympathetic version of Tucker by still painting him as an asshole, but still showing signs of regret for what he did.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4064
PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 1:22 pm Reply with quote
I feel like I should say something about what I saw but I don't know where to start.

Hmm. Any idea why they didn't do a force perspective shoot in order to get Ed the lack of height he so desperately needs? I can start from there and work my way down.

How is it that Mustang and Riza make the uniform work in the anime/manga but in live action all the characters are overwhelmed by them? It reminded me of kids doing dress up minus the hat kids would add to it.

Nina made me laugh. "Oh no, it's tragic!" In same medium 2D animation, it's tragic. In CG/live action melding, she comes off a little fuzzy. Cue rimshot...

Gluttony should have blank eyes, not Evil Dead eyes. Regardless of how little sense it makes, the homunculi have to pass for human.

I understand the motivations and standards of the Elric brothers as originally portrayed but in this work? I think the series took several different perspectives the two had at differing points of the series and tried to make their own Truth "True ending" without it meaning anything. They learned the value of a life... not just life... at the end of the Journey, not the beginning.
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G S Palmer



Joined: 02 Oct 2015
Posts: 246
PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 3:53 pm Reply with quote
No Armstrong? Blasphemy! Does this mean General Armstrong won't appear either?

The decision not to have an English dub, while not one that effects me personally, seems like an odd choice considering how Netflix seems to dub all of their anime, even the less widely marketable ones.
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russ869



Joined: 22 Dec 2006
Posts: 421
PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 4:47 pm Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:
Hmm. Any idea why they didn't do a force perspective shoot in order to get Ed the lack of height he so desperately needs?

Yeah, this is a great question. And it results in Alphonse being made way larger than he's supposed to be so he still looks tall in proportion to the "not short enough" Edward.
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xchampion



Joined: 21 Jan 2009
Posts: 370
Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho
PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 4:48 pm Reply with quote
G S Palmer wrote:
The decision not to have an English dub, while not one that effects me personally, seems like an odd choice considering how Netflix seems to dub all of their anime, even the less widely marketable ones.


They even have a English dub of the Erased Live-Action TV show. It does seem odd they didn't do that here too. I overall agree with the assessment of the movie as a whole. I thought the CGI was really good for Japanese standards. I'd say it's obviously better than the Attack on Titan movies. It's about right on par with the Tokyo Ghoul movie. While other movies like the Rouroni Kenshin Trilogy are better.
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penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Posts: 8452
Location: Penguinopolis
PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 4:55 pm Reply with quote
Dubbing for animation is more natural than dubbing for live-action, which usually comes off sounding cheap and looking silly.

Anyway, this movie was... a thing. That's pretty much all I can say about it, "It sure is a Fullmetal Alchemist movie." Okay, I could say a few more things about it, but they all sort of add up to that conclusion. The CG effects and the acting were all over the place, the story condensing was mostly sensible, but as a previous poster said, it feels like they were trying to wrap up the main theme before the story was clearly over, probably fearing they wouldn't get a sequel, even though everything points to one.

I think it really would have worked better if they had a few more moments for the characters to grow and to establish their roles. Riza Hawkeye's presence was paper-thin, even compared to the first television anime. But the scene of Ed and Winry on the train, the bit where Al doubts his existence (largely from the manga's version), and the part with Roy and Hughes speaking in private were valuable.

It was so weird that they included one of the bits from the end of the manga/Brotherhood so soon. But I get why.

It was overall just... a thing. It exists and has some kind of dimension. I'm pretty neutral on it. I think I'd rather go back and read the manga again or watch the anime.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 6:20 pm Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:
How is it that Mustang and Riza make the uniform work in the anime/manga but in live action all the characters are overwhelmed by them? It reminded me of kids doing dress up minus the hat kids would add to it.

Not to defend the movie (that I haven't seen and am not very interested in seeing) but I think that's because frankly, the uniform design is kind of terrible. It works in the anime/manga because that's not real and the design works with Arakawa's somewhat blocky art style, but I've never seen a real person pull it off well - and as someone who was a fan of the '03 anime I've seen a lot of people trying. It never worked, even the best cosplay I've seen mostly amounted to "looks sorta decent/not terrible". From what I've seen the movie does what it can, toning down the color, trying to make the fit somewhat slimmer, etc., but it was never going to work.
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pachy_boy



Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 1323
PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 6:49 pm Reply with quote
The only major criticisms I have against it is that Sori promised the movie would be a self-contained story, and yet it clearly set itself up for a sequel, although as of now there's no knowing if that'll happen. And although it was cool to see Winry hang out with Ed and Al more on their adventures, her not doing much other than be there was kind of distracting. I also was disappointed there was no English dub for this (and yet they provided one for Erased?), because that's what helps get my family to watch some titles with me.

Other than that, this adaptation was by no means perfect, but it still very much felt like Fullmetal Alchemist and I had genuine fun watching it. All the changes made I thought were interesting creative choices, such as Tucker's expanded role and the early arrival of the undead army. If they ever do the sequel, I'd be curious to see how the Ishvalans would be represented, granted all the actors they have working on this movie are of the same race. Time will tell, but I wouldn't mind owning a licensed blu-ray release of this for my library!
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teferi



Joined: 16 May 2006
Posts: 400
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 1:21 am Reply with quote
G S Palmer wrote:
No Armstrong? Blasphemy! Does this mean General Armstrong won't appear either?

The decision not to have an English dub, while not one that effects me personally, seems like an odd choice considering how Netflix seems to dub all of their anime, even the less widely marketable ones.


I mean they did whatever they wanted with the plot so it doesn't seem like it would be out of the question to just shoehorn Armstrong into a sequel for the fans. That's about all the movie was good for anyways. They could've done some completely plotless action sequences and it would've been just as watchable.
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mrsatan



Joined: 06 Jul 2005
Posts: 906
Location: Olympia, WA, USA
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:59 pm Reply with quote
So yeah, elephant in the room time.

I boycotted Justin Chatwin as Son Goku and Scarlet Johannson as Motoko Kusanagi.
For the same reason, I ain't seein' Japanese people in whiteface.

Casting is NOT colorblind. I can only suspend my disbelief so much. Find actors that look like the characters or don't even bother.
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ultimatehaki



Joined: 27 Oct 2012
Posts: 1090
PostPosted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 11:03 pm Reply with quote
Mother's basement broke it down pretty well why this movie was a hot mess.
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MajinAkuma



Joined: 15 Aug 2014
Posts: 1199
PostPosted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 10:43 am Reply with quote
ultimatehaki wrote:
Mother's basement broke it down pretty well why this movie was a hot mess.

Zeon as well. He found it worst than Dragon Ball Evolution, since DBE had actually a story that you could follow.
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4771
PostPosted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 11:00 am Reply with quote
mrsatan wrote:
So yeah, elephant in the room time.

I boycotted Justin Chatwin as Son Goku and Scarlet Johannson as Motoko Kusanagi.
For the same reason, I ain't seein' Japanese people in whiteface.

Casting is NOT colorblind. I can only suspend my disbelief so much. Find actors that look like the characters or don't even bother.
If you think this movie has the budget to afford to hire niche European actors nobody in Japan knows anything about to satisfy some hardcore American fanboys that were never going to watch this movie to begin with, you need to rethink your level of realistic expectations.
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