Berserk Golden Age Arc I: Egg of the Supreme Ruler [Review]

[jackson_hurley]

Arrgg you guys make me want to watch the movie so bad so I can join the debate! But I'm still patient and will reserve any judgement until I get my copy of the movie (waiting for a subtitled one and am definitely against downloading it)

 

[SuperVegetto]

No shit, are you a math major or something? You're still pulling those numbers out of your ass though, so do us all a favor and don't attempt to defend them. Thanks in advance.

Yeah, right. Go on believing bro, as long as it helps you get through the day that's all that matters. Hell, even Saint Seiya's opening beats this, and it's a TV show from the eighties. I can tell that you've lost perspective on this and it's fine because that's also what being a fan means, but you have to realize that wooden CG scenes intertwingled with still images from the manga don't make this a contestant for the "best opening of all times". And just so you know, I do like that opening a lot. You just need to rein in the superlatives a little bit.

Well we're all entitled to our opinion. It doesn't matter how bad the visuals look ( not saying they're any bad )I still think the opening is the best, the song alone would make this the best opening even if the scene was nothing but black and names coming up, still it's much better with the scenes they put. But ok, I guess it's personal and kinda subjective

 

[Aazealh]

It doesn't matter how bad the visuals look

I can tell that not much matters.

the song alone would make this the best opening even if the scene was nothing but black and names coming up

Uh-huh.

But ok, I guess it's personal and kinda subjective

Kind of, yeah.

 

[JezzaX]

I think the opening for the film is one of it's few saving graces. Hirasawa mixed with Miura artwork is always appreciated and I really enjoyed it. It's certainly a massive step up from Penpals

 

[Walter]

I think the opening for the film is one of it's few saving graces. Hirasawa mixed with Miura artwork is always appreciated and I really enjoyed it. It's certainly a massive step up from Penpals

So, best opening ever, of all time?

 

[jackson_hurley]

you bet!

 

[ApostleBob]

So I got a chance over the Holiday weekend to watch the Blu Ray. I was really excited for it, as I genuinely liked the opening 10 minutes.

What the hell happened. The movie is a bit of a mess, though not without some aspects I enjoyed. Overall I'd say I prefer the 97 anime over this from a storytelling point of view, but the visuals were a treat, if a bit inconsistent.

The biggest problem I had were some of the cuts and the bizarre pacing the film had. Now I'm not hard nosed about an adaptation making cuts and streamlining to fit a story into a satisfying run time. Some of the choices worked fine and i barely missed them such as Guts not being able to visit Griffith while he was injured. I didn't miss the voice over at all. Or even the omission of Foss, since Julius really has all the motivation he needs (I know, I know.)

But to cut out Guts getting to know the Hawks is just bewildering. It's his first real family. That's the whole point of his character. He's a loner, unable to trust anyone, who finds out that he really needs other people. And he genuinely starts to care about them before they are violently ripped away. In the film he has barely any screen time with them, and we don't get to know what any of them are like, except maybe Corkus.

Much of this was originally accomplished in the Manga with his first night raid with them, and is a great intro for each of the hawk's specialties and contributes to the slow buildup of trust between he and Griffith. In the Film he just follows the Hawks like a schmuck, never really questioning the man who won him in a bet. I enjoyed the first 20 minutes or so of the film, but when they awkwardly transitioned to "I will have my own Kingdom" and then to a three year jump, I was just pissed and confused.

Guts has no motivation to be doing anything at this point. Even worse, I have no reason to really like or sympathize with Guts in this film. He's pretty much an asshole without any sympathetic backstory anymore. And when you lose the slow transition of him becoming one of the Hawks, he appears like some dumb jock who's great with a sword. The work between he and Griffith kind of works, but it loses a lot of depth.

The film goes on in this weird, truncated, fade in, fade out almost montage until the stair case scene where it finally slows down. The Zodd scene is completely out of the blue and seems like a check mark on a list. It hits all the beats but it has no feeling. And it's more than a little weird that there's no other supernatural elements before or after. What little of it there is, is pretty cool: Zodd's never looked better in beast form. But unlike the anime I don't feel scared for Guts. He just kinda tumbles out of the way, over and over.

From the stairwell scene to the end the pacing feels a bit more appropriate, but the climax is pretty small considering everything else in the film. It really feels like a "best of Berserk" rather than an actual story. Which sucks because I wanted to like it. Instead it's just mediocre.

I know it's naive to expect that these films are going to have three hour run times. Very few films have that privilege. But the cuts in the film just felt haphazard, especially when this film is laying the FOUNDATION for the entire series. I expected some big cuts, but this 70 minute treatment is just insulting considering what they did with it. 120 minutes wouldn't have been too much to ask and would have allowed a little breathing room and character development.

From a technical standpoint, I loved most of the animation. Beautiful crowd shots and backgrounds. The battles were all excellent even when they played out differently from the Manga. There are a few stupid embellishments which involve Griffith Jumping like Super Mario at times, but they are kept to a minimum, with most of the action playing out fairly realistically. The swordplay is excellent, and I didn't mind the voice work. The opening works, and the close would have worked if they hadn't screwed up the middle so bad.

I'm still curious to see how they handle the next two, but after this chop job I'm almost sure I'll prefer the 97 anime. I suppose seeing the Eclipse with this animation will be worthwhile. Wyald has me excited as does the 100 man fight. But without good character work... eh. It's too bad, with different handling this really could have been superior than the old one. The Manga will always trump them both though.

 

[JezzaX]

So, best opening ever, of all time?

I wouldn't go that far.

 

[Lukis]

mhm so I finally got my disc yesterday...
So I will keep my review short.
Well the biggest flaw of movie-it's running time,it was just too damn short,that's why it was raped from manga so much and lot's of scenes were cut,and that's why movie felt really awkward.If movie would have runned for 100min they naturally could have included more which would had made it more faithful to manga.Now about CGI,well I could watch movie and dont be bothered by it too much,but I hated how there were scenes were i would look at hand drawn guts,then cg guts,then again at hand drawn guts,yeah it was that obvious,though I think that scene with Julius and Adonis killing and escaping looked really good even with CG.About music,well I have OST and yeah it's not Hirasawa,I still enjoyed Sagisu's work,i think 4c studios music montage sucked,especially with blood and guts after killing adonis when he escaped,when first vocals ended,they could have left next part with vocals to continue and it would have ended beutifully before guts jumped,but they had to lamely edit that,booo...but otherwise it was good,seemed like for some blockbuster,but yeah,i still wonder how berserk would be with Key's music ..mhm voice actors,I only disliked cascas va a bit,she sounded a bit too old,thats all.
Well in conclusion,those poor 70min passed pretty quickly,and if only movie would have been longer,it maybe could have been better,but i'm still believing next ones will be better and wont dissapoint me. As berserk fan i would give 5/10 ,as movie(and i didnt know anything about berserk) 6.5/10

 

[Death May Die]

mhm so I finally got my disc yesterday...
So I will keep my review short.
Well the biggest flaw of movie-it's running time,it was just too damn short,that's why it was raped from manga so much and lot's of scenes were cut,and that's why movie felt really awkward.If movie would have runned for 100min they naturally could have included more which would had made it more faithful to manga.

Yeah! What the hell were they thinking? "Humm the it took the original anime 6 disc, and 25 episodes to reach volume 13...yeah we should obviously stuff all of that and more in 3 short movies." Quantity over quality? Or quality over quantity. Its a fucking mess when you don't have much of either.

 

[Rhombaad]

If movie would have runned for 100min they naturally could have included more which would had made it more faithful to manga.

I don't know about that. The scenes from the manga they left in weren't very faithful. I doubt additional running time would have helped this adaptation much at all.

 

[nomad]

Finally being able to see this abomination, and a nice forehead slap was the result. I try giving it credit, but this one was almost impossible to do. The one thing I will quote Aaz in the Podcast would be that this movie just doesn't make sense. There's absolutely nothing for a viewer to grasp on in any form of story telling. It almost made me feel as if I was watching a "previously on Berserk" re-cap from Kenpuu Denki's adaptation. It was nice to at least think that Berserk would get a second chance to be animated with hopes of a decent representation, but no dice I guess. Yes there were some interesting things with the animation and all, but there were even moments in which I even questioned why oh why did they have to do that. I speak of the Zodd and Guts 19 second battle. They just HAD to make that camera pan to the right.... Ya know... It's CG!

But my biggest beef, is the OST. I gave it proper audience when released. I had very strong reasons to doubt it, but I wanted to see the end product result to be sure. About 80% of this soundtrack felt completely out of place. If there was a scene where I felt that the music gave anything to the scene, I would say the Zodd and scene. I also was under the impression that this film had not theme, but I guess there was one. It was just a weak one =(.

 

[Johnstantine]

The wonderful thing about this movie is that I accomplished so much work, writing, art, and cleaning that I didn't even realize it was on until it went back to the blu ray menu.

 

[Dar_Klink]

It was nice seeing the Falcons during the beautiful hand-drawn scenes. The end.

 

[Bekul]

The worst thing this movie has done is made me /not care/ about a Berserk movie. That's... actually a very serious condemnation, coming from me.

 

[GilLia]

I finally watched the movie - downloaded, but don't regret not buying it at all, because all I can say is that THIS MOVIE SUCKED.
I really didn't expect writing these after watching it, because I have been optimist about the movie all the time, but now the only feeling I have for this adaptation is hate. Yes, with bold font and red glow. I really hate it.

What I hated the most?
The changes. I just don't get them. They ruined so many scenes by putting them in another place, like the conversation between Guts and Caska, placed next to a Stonehenge-like thing instead of that room. I just don't understand why changes like this were necessary, did they do any good for this movie? I don't think so. Then why?
Seriously, if they have something called a "Creative Team" or I dunno, fire them. There are things you don't have to rewrite, and Berserk is one of these. Sometimes the movie felt like a lame fan-fiction.
Also, the CG. I think the worst about it is that it wasn't always that bad - it was very uneven, and made the whole movie a mess in visuals. Sometimes I liked the way they used it, eg. I think the Bazuso battle was pretty well done (except that eyeball, oh god, that looked like a fucked-up lollipop), but then, when Caska, Carcus and Griffith were talking, they had these "CG-like" head movements, and then when it was a close-up and they switched to hand-drawn faces, they were standing there staticly, like a normal anime character. The same, when hand drawn characters are walking in the front, while CG horses are moving in the background. There were parts, when they merged hand-drawn and CG well, like when Griffith is standing on the top of a fort, but damn, the whole movie should've been like that. But sometimes the CG sucked so much I was swearing out loud.
Zodd. Again, god, that CG... His fur, and those awkward movements... Also, Charlotte, they CG-d her too much.
Sometimes the whole thing felt like a joke. A very bad and expensive joke.
And a very small thing that probably only bothered me: their mouths -> °A° I really liked the character designs at first, but sometimes their faces looked like a disappointed Guinea-pig's...

Things that I liked! Because there were some
I actually liked the way they showed the flashbacks about Guts' childhood. It was a cool dramatic interpretation of it. Sad thing it was only understandable for those who already knew what's in it, but for those who are new to Berserk it was probably a complete mess.
And the atmosphere of some scenes. I felt like sometimes they caught it really well. Sometimes I wasn't just watching, but fighting on the battlefield with them, or drinking in the pub.
(but maybe it's only because I have good imagination, and not because the movie was good )

I voted the 4th option: "Meh. I'll only keep watching cuz it's Berserk, but I'm not happy with it at all." But as you can see, I striked Berserk, because it didn't even feel like Berserk for me. It completely lacked all those feelings I had while watching the old anime or reading the manga.
So let me correct myself: "I'll only keep watching cuz it's Berserk cuz Silat is confirmed to be in it, but I'm not happy with it at all." - because the Guts vs. Silat battle choreography will look pretty awesome with this CG I think.

I would give it 2.5/10 ... that 0.5 is only for the artists who took some effort to it and made it look pretty good. And all the 2 is for Miura for the awesome story. The -7.5 goes for the CG artists and for those who wrote the script. I will never forgive them.

BTW, I wanted to introduce my friends to Berserk with this. But I won't. I shou- no, mustn't. It would be like if I forced them to loose their virginity by rape. Sex is Berserk. And rape is this movie.

 

[hellrasinbrasin]

I'm very curious in seeing what the follow up review at Animenewsnetwork will look like once the film is released in the Fall since we've all read their BS review of the film that was published Feb.

 

[Truder]

BTW, I wanted to introduce my friends to Berserk with this. But I won't. I shou- no, mustn't. It would be like if I forced them to loose their virginity by rape. Sex is Berserk. And rape is this movie.

Actually, id like to know your friend’s unbiased opinion on this movie. Im going to show these movies to some friends that know nothing of berserk and i will see whether they like them or not. I wont hype or complain at all so that they can make their own honest opinions and then ill ask them whether this trilogy makes them to want to continue with the manga. so please show your friend this movie and ask for his or her own honest thoughts on the movie.

 

[krec99]

Saw this last night, not going to pick it apart. I didn't like it, it felt rushed, made no sense in certain parts of the story. If you're new to Berserk forget it you're wasting your time.

 

[Drakull]

Saw it

I enjoyed the movie but some drawing are not as good as the others, I don't understand why.

I'm waiting for sub now

 

[SKplag]

What I hated the most?
The changes. I just don't get them. They ruined so many scenes by putting them in another place, like the conversation between Guts and Casca, placed next to a Stonehenge-like thing instead of that room. I just don't understand why changes like this were necessary, did they do any good for this movie? I don't think so. Then why?

I recently read in an interview with the director that Miura requested quite some changes. He didn't give that many examples, but he mentioned design changes like clothes, dresses (feathers maybe? lol) and the previously much discussed assassination attempt. I don't think he was involved in even half of the modifications but maybe Miura pushed exactly the Stonehenge idea. Just saying... you can never know XD

 

[DirectDK]

Wow, there is some vehement hate for this movie around here. Yet the poll shows otherwise. Are the people that liked the movie too shy to speak up? C'mon now, join in on the coversation!

To all those that have said that the story doesn't make sense, don't you think you're prejudging that aspect just a bit, since you have only seen it raw (and I assume the majority of you aren't native japanese speakers)? I just feel like when you watch this movie, while reading subtitles and understanding the direction that studio 4c was geared towards in each scene, it will change your perspective. I mean, it might not change your perspective enough to matter, but honestly... you can't judge the story of a movie if you don't understand the language that the movie is in. Yeah I understand, we all know the story of the manga, but even if we were to pick up a japanese copy of the manga right now and read a past volume in a language we don't understand, it's not gonna hit us in the same way, by any means.

Also, to those that haven't listened to podcast 14, I talk about how when I had a screening of the movie, I had a subbed copy, and I had 7 people over watching. It was a good mix of people too. 5 men, 2 women. 2 have seen and read all of Berserk, 2 have watched the 97 anime, and the other 3 had never heard of Berserk until that day.

Of the 2 that have seen and read, one hated it (Incantation) although he still found some enjoyment in certain scenes, and the other guy thought it was good.

Of the 2 that had seen the '97 anime, they are both casual fans. One is a native Japanese speaker and watches a ton of anime, and he thought it was great, and really liked the voice acting (which matters since he can also understand them as well, as opposed most of us who just judge voice acting sonically). The other guy enjoyed the movie more than the '97 anime so far, and can't wait to see the next 2.

Of the 3 that haven't heard of Berserk at all, 2 of the 3 were genuinely interested and really wanted to know more and watch the next movie. They had some questions when the movie ended, but nothing like they didn't understand what happened in those 70+ minutes. More like questions of curiosity. And I explicitly asked them afterwards... "did the movie feel rushed?" and both of them said they didn't think it felt rushed at all. At all. Hard for US to believe, but you have to understand... we have so many expectations and such a biased outlook on Berserk. For newbies, it's a totally different ballgame.

My point is... those that are stoning the movie and already saying that any stranger to Berserk will think this movie is garbage, I believe you need to rethink that. Obviously, the hardest critics of this movie are us... the diehard Berserk fans. But do you think, people that have never seen the anime or read the manga will care that Guts & Casca's scene is at Stonehenge? No, they won't give a shit. After the movie ended, I told the 3 newbies that in the assassination scene, in the manga, Guts uses his big sword, and they were all like "that's dumb, that would give himself away easily." I then told him that that's a part of Guts' character, and to them, it didn't matter. And that is the point. To them it doesn't matter. Because everyone is going to enjoy Berserk for their own reasons. And these movies are adaptations. At the end of the day, we got our beloved manga. Right? So why is it that these movies need to be a perfect 1:1 in every way for them to be enjoyable as a whole? We all know they were going to have to make changes and cuts. There is no use stoning Studio 4c. Miura believed in them, and Studio 4c are making their own form of Berserk. As hard as it is, we just need to see it as separate entities. I can say with 100% certainty, that if I had never seen or read Berserk until seeing this movie, I would be stoked. Because even with all the shortcomings of the movie, the story is still intriguing, and the characters are still awesome and unique. That's ENOUGH to pull people in. Then when people finally do read the manga, game over... their life is officially blessed with the greatness of Berserk.

 

[SuperVegetto]

Wow, there is some vehement hate for this movie around here. Yet the poll shows otherwise. Are the people that liked the movie too shy to speak up? C'mon now, join in on the coversation!

To all those that have said that the story doesn't make sense, don't you think you're prejudging that aspect just a bit, since you have only seen it raw (and I assume the majority of you aren't native japanese speakers)? I just feel like when you watch this movie, while reading subtitles and understanding the direction that studio 4c was geared towards in each scene, it will change your perspective. I mean, it might not change your perspective enough to matter, but honestly... you can't judge the story of a movie if you don't understand the language that the movie is in. Yeah I understand, we all know the story of the manga, but even if we were to pick up a japanese copy of the manga right now and read a past volume in a language we don't understand, it's not gonna hit us in the same way, by any means.

Also, to those that haven't listened to podcast 14, I talk about how when I had a screening of the movie, I had a subbed copy, and I had 7 people over watching. It was a good mix of people too. 5 men, 2 women. 2 have seen and read all of Berserk, 2 have watched the 97 anime, and the other 3 had never heard of Berserk until that day.

Of the 2 that have seen and read, one hated it (Incantation) although he still found some enjoyment in certain scenes, and the other guy thought it was good.

Of the 2 that had seen the '97 anime, they are both casual fans. One is a native Japanese speaker and watches a ton of anime, and he thought it was great, and really liked the voice acting (which matters since he can also understand them as well, as opposed most of us who just judge voice acting sonically). The other guy enjoyed the movie more than the '97 anime so far, and can't wait to see the next 2.

Of the 3 that haven't heard of Berserk at all, 2 of the 3 were genuinely interested and really wanted to know more and watch the next movie. They had some questions when the movie ended, but nothing like they didn't understand what happened in those 70+ minutes. More like questions of curiosity. And I explicitly asked them afterwards... "did the movie feel rushed?" and both of them said they didn't think it felt rushed at all. At all. Hard for US to believe, but you have to understand... we have so many expectations and such a biased outlook on Berserk. For newbies, it's a totally different ballgame.

My point is... those that are stoning the movie and already saying that any stranger to Berserk will think this movie is garbage, I believe you need to rethink that. Obviously, the hardest critics of this movie are us... the diehard Berserk fans. But do you think, people that have never seen the anime or read the manga will care that Guts & Casca's scene is at Stonehenge? No, they won't give a shit. After the movie ended, I told the 3 newbies that in the assassination scene, in the manga, Guts uses his big sword, and they were all like "that's dumb, that would give himself away easily." I then told him that that's a part of Guts' character, and to them, it didn't matter. And that is the point. To them it doesn't matter. Because everyone is going to enjoy Berserk for their own reasons. And these movies are adaptations. At the end of the day, we got our beloved manga. Right? So why is it that these movies need to be a perfect 1:1 in every way for them to be enjoyable as a whole? We all know they were going to have to make changes and cuts. There is no use stoning Studio 4c. Miura believed in them, and Studio 4c are making their own form of Berserk. As hard as it is, we just need to see it as separate entities. I can say with 100% certainty, that if I had never seen or read Berserk until seeing this movie, I would be stoked. Because even with all the shortcomings of the movie, the story is still intriguing, and the characters are still awesome and unique. That's ENOUGH to pull people in. Then when people finally do read the manga, game over... their life is officially blessed with the greatness of Berserk.

I understood at least 80% of what was said ( or so I think ), It still disappointed me a lot. It was a bad adaption, good movie nevertheless, but good is not even 10% of what Berserk is. It's not that it doesn't make sense, it's that there's much much more in the original story ( and some of the things being different )

EDIT: Just read the whole post and you made a very good point

 

[Oburi]

I liked it. I'm at work right now but ill post my thoughts later tonight. I didn't hate it though and believe me I had zero expectations for this movie. I don't think I even made 5 posts about it in the last 2 years because I really just didn't care too much. But I watched it last night and yea I didn't think it was that bad.

 

[Truder]

I'm with you all the way DirectDk. I know it's easier for us Berserk fans to see glaring faults in the movies since we love the manga so much, but the movie really isn't all that bad..

I also feel that a couple people's opinion might have been swayed by the admins disgust for the movie. After I heard Walter, Griffith and Aaz's review of the movie I was really bummed out and they really made hate the movie before I even saw it. To enjoy the movie I had to forget I ever heard their reviews.

I formed my own opinion and I really dont think the movie is all that bad, and I think that people are overreacting to this movie a bit.

The only thing I truly didn't like about this movie is the pace it goes at (which caused a loss in character development). but other than that the movie was enjoyable. the CG animation was fluent most of the time and the 2D animation was mostly good. still.. this movie is far from the quality of the manga, but if the shitty '97 anime could get a large amount of fans for Berserk, then I am certain this movie will get even more fans for Berserk and they will all say: "oh wow! the movie trilogy is terrible compared to the manga!" just like most of us said "oh wow! the anime is terrible compared to the manga!"

I know that Ill introduce a dozen friends to Berserk with this trilogy and they wont mind the break neck pace these movies go at because they won't know what they're missing.

My vote went into "Enjoyable, but disappointing in certain aspects." like the majority did.

Don't be afraid to write favorable opinions of the movie on here. Aazealh wont bite. (i don't think)

I know I had a big goofy grin when I saw that they changed Zodd's sluggish flight through the roof of the castle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJvuLi3kC4M

into him jetting out of the place more like in the manga. (Don't have footage of it but it's much much better than in the CM) they also fixed his horns! (mostly)

and I thought they had removed this guy entirely from the movie after seeing the 10 minute preview awhile ago:

and was surprised that he was in fact in the movie. (although he doesn't really do anything other than pay Guts)

I will be buying these movies on Blueray when they come to the U.S.