Movie Wars Core: Nobunaga's Ambition

[akinoame]

So I watched the OOO portion of Core for the first time, and while I'm going to do a full review down the line, I feel like I need to say this:

Toshiki Inoue needs 30-50 episodes in order to tell any story. Nobunaga's Ambition isn't offensively bad. It just has no room to tell the story Inoue wanted to tell. Inoue's half-and-half with movies; EPISODE FINAL is weighed down by being two completely different movies smushed together, with neither side given enough time to develop fully; Project G4 is much the same way and cannot keep its focus on the fucking title Rider. But at least Inoue worked on both Ryuki and Agito--Agito was his baby, and he'd done enough episodes of Ryuki to get a handle on at least some of the characters (though I don't think he ever got the hang of Ren and Kitaoka). OOO was entirely new to him, and it's clear he was working off of the barest bones of information he'd been given and a handful of Kuuga references that Eiji was partially made of anyway.

It's a dumb movie. It's stupid. But honestly, given the choice between this and Kamen Rider Taisen? Or even Skull: Message for W? This is kinda better.

Comments

[gourdcaptain]

Okay, I'm kind of curious - what's wrong with Skull: Message for W to make it match this? It's kind of dumb, but it's not Eiji being completely out of character.

Also, watched another Inoue Rider movie recently in my watching of Kamen Rider Blade (once I gave up on NDA subs and started on TV-N): Blade: Missing Ace is pain. Pure pain. I am a fan of Blade admittedly (currently 43 episodes in.)

[akinoame]

It utterly derails Akiko's character development for the sake of the drama of "Oh, her wedding day is ruined because her husband is a Rider!" Seriously. It's been at least a fucking YEAR since Begins Night and her learning the truth about her father's death. If there is any point for her to be upset about Riders, it's somewhere between Shotaro telling her the truth, Terui arriving and being an utter dick, Philip getting killed, and all the rest.

Second, it forces an unnecessary parallel between Sokichi Narumi and Shotaro. The entire point of their relationship was that the Boss was an impossible goal for Shotaro, that he could never be that kind of man. The Boss was supposed to be perfect, supposed to be the ideal hardboiled detective. He always made the right decision, always knew exactly what to do. Now, yes, you can argue that this makes a character uninteresting or annoying. But this is the way Shotaro sees him and would always see him. Shotaro believed himself to be in the Boss's shadow and that he'd never become the same kind of man he was. Eventually, he came to realize that he had to become his own kind of man, and that being half-boiled wasn't a weakness--his mistakes helped him grow, his mercy was a strength, and it didn't make him any less of a man. That in depending on a partner, when the Boss didn't need anyone--certainly didn't need Shotaro, the fuck-up apprentice who went and got him KILLED, at least the way Shotaro told himself for at least a year--Shotaro was more "complete." But all of these strengths of Shotaro's are suddenly given to the Boss as weaknesses, and it kills the sense of Shotaro's entire growth. If he's repeating his idol's past but doing it right, is this really him leaving his shadow? If they wanted to make the Boss more human, fine. But don't take some of Shotaro's best traits and make them his flaws; come up with something different to make him more distant. Someone Shotaro shouldn't be like because he's got to grow as his own person and his own Rider.

[gourdcaptain]

Oh yeah, I forgot how bad the framing device was. Also yeah, I see the characterization problems now. Before it was just lumped in as "It's Movie War Core, none of it makes any sense."

[akinoame]

The framing device is a massive disgrace to Akiko, who stood by Shotaro, Philip, and Terui through EVERYTHING, even through Philip's death. She forgave Shotaro when he hadn't even begun to forgive himself for her father's death. She helped Terui break out of his quest for vengeance and helped him find a will to live. She wasn't even taking Shroud's shit about possibly sacrificing him because he couldn't master Trial form! I'm fine with Akiko being forceful. But this is the worst possible thing to go with. You want her upset that her dad can't be there for her wedding? Fine. Hell, I'd even allow for her being held hostage mid-ceremony just to draw out the Riders; it's not like Terui's own movie didn't put that to good use. I even bought the reason behind her threatening to divorce him because Riders in general tend to flunk "Communication Skills 101." But this was ridiculous.

And the flashback itself just infuriates me because the entire series, we've had to watch Shotaro accept that he will never live up to the Boss's example and that the personality traits that always separated him from his hero are what make him unique and a good man and a good Rider. Now all of a sudden, these very things are what the Boss must overcome, things that are holding him back. It's like saying Shotaro still isn't good enough, and it's disgraceful.