I have yet to see the Attack on titan live action movie, but I will soon.
I want to hear YOUR opinions on the movie first!
So plzplzplzplzplz no spoilers.
My thoughts so far…: From the trailer it self it did not surprise me one bit.
It looked kinda cool but, no hype.
OFF TOPIC: But that new AOT ps4 game looks dynamite.
When i saw one of the “movie posters” as in for the characters I saw there was no Levi.
But as I made more research over it, another character is kinda like Levi, short HUHEUE
And one of the strongest on the team
So Levi is there, but he just has a different name
Contains spoilers for the adapted/not adapted aspects of series 1 of the anime. FORESHADOWING
The film opens quickly giving mention of an unnamed city surrounded by three walls to prevent titans from getting into the city. Its a simple premise that should allow us to skip straight to the action, especially with a cryptic message from the narrator that the walls might fail at anytime… even today.
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Yet its time for character development as we discover that Armin is worried about Eren after he is fired again, bumping into a mysterious man who will likely become important at some stage. We also discover Armin sucks at his job as one of the things he made for a kid has broken – which he promises to repair. Armin goes to Mikasa and the two go running up a flower covered hill to find Eren. Eren being introduced as someone who essentially doesn’t care about anything, the life within the walls as he is messing around an unexploded bomb that will probably become important at some stage.
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Armin shows off the device he made explaining it runs on batteries and makes loud noises. After telling everyone he wants to go to the city or outside the walls, Eren kicks the bomb revealing a picture of a woman at the beach. The trio reminisce over how they haven’t seen an ocean and didn’t believe it was real.
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The trio sneak to the wall, with Eren berating those ‘protecting the wall, rather than people’ which really doesn’t make too much sense in this version – without a scene of Armin being beaten-up earlier, like in the anime.
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They investigate the wall, which reveals the inclusion of a broken helicopter on the side, raising a few questions of when Attack On Titan is meant to take place, given the anime seemed to imply it was set on an alternative Earth starting in the Year 845. As such I’m giving it a pass for now, but they need to establish ground rules for a place that has bombs, batteries, cannons and now helicopters.
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Eren is about to climb the wall, however Armin convinces him that a bomb made it uninhabitable for anything other than Titans. Eren disagrees believing Titans to be extinct as nobody has seen one in over 100 years. They are almost arrested until Eren starts attacking the guards, resulting in the situation escalating until they are saved by Old Man Souda. Old Man Souda precedes to tell how he tried to impress Eren’s mum by bringing her to the wall – however Eren’s dad instead succeeded.
. “Even paradise can become a prison if you take notice of the wall”
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Old Man Souda explains they are going to start a scout regiment to go outside the wall and asks Eren to join him, however the ground begins to shake. Its the 12 minute mark, time for our first titan – and boy does he impress. The practical effects are one of the aspects that attracted me to the film series to begin with and they look great here. Not so great is the sound effects as the colossal titan don’t feel as strong as they should.Chunks of the wall come raining down destroying parts of the city as the wall is breached and the Titans attack – the smaller titans having a creepier laugh that honestly is rather nightmarish.
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Things get dark incredibly fast as someone commits suicide to prevent the titans getting him. A point-of-view shot as we see a Titan devouring someone, an arm being fought over by much smaller titans and a person split into pieces. Blood raining down on a bunch of terrified people trying to escape., blood seeping under doors as people are devoured inside. Armin’s dad stated as one of the casualties, Mikasa possibly being killed. If you came for blood and gore, this film gives it in spades.
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I think this is one of the biggest departures from the anime, rather than Eren’s mother being killed in a horrible way it is instead the deaths of everyone else and the potential death of Mikasa that drives Eren to kill all the titans. While they attempted to go to his house at one stage, it seems that plotline was abandoned.
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Two years later, Eren is part of the squad with Omin-Directional movement gear, introduced by Hans with a large helping of comedy relief as she accidentally fires the gear. She reveals they are going to be part of the team led by Captain Shikishama. Its revealed that Armin also survived the assault and is part of the group.
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Old Man Souda is also revealed to have survived and explains he joined solely so that he could die and meet his wife and child, which while touching seems a little silly – after all, he spent two years presumably training so that he could join. This also introduces us to our adaption of the Potato girl from the anime, called Sasha… though like the surrounding actors you’ll probably be left with a ‘WTF’ reaction to her line.
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I suppose the main issue I find as we reach the 30 minute mark is just how unspecified the characters really are compared to their appearance in the anime. We are introduced to the farm girl Sasha Blouse, Jean Kirstein, Sannagi; a farmer with siblings waiting for him, the couple; Fukushi and Lil and the single mother, Hiana. Its difficult to really tell who is meant to be who unless they re-enact scenes from the anime. The couple in the romance, the guy who picked a fight with Eren, the potato girl, the crazy science girl. They have traits, but are not really developed more than that. However the reclaiming of the farmlands begins as we see they now have armoured vehicles also.
. “Abandon all hope, you who enter here”
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Despite being told not to talk, we do get a little set-up for future events as they talk about the female squad leader under Shikishama.The night scene honestly is fairly tense, we get some nice build-up as Eren and Hiana head off in search of a child that Hiana heard. They soon discover the child is actually a baby titan. Things soon go bad forcing the squad to flee, only to be saved by Shikishama and Mikasa.
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After a fight with Jean, Eren and Shikishima talk, with Eren explaining his parents died when he was young. A drastic change from the anime. Shikishima explains he taught Mikasa how to fight titans, Eren enquires as to whether he could be taught however Shikishima dismisses him as just cattle, how he views the rest of humanity.
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We get a little more development on when Attack On Titan is mean to be set as they discuss a time when people used to fly in the air with machines, however that is dismissed by the general who implies it only led to environmental destruction, wasted resources, useless competition and war. That’s right, Attack On Titan is essentially telling us machine progress is bad, while using machines to fight titans and having massive metallic walls. Though it does establish that flying is forbidden, which raises questions that will hopefully be answered later on.
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Eren confronts Mikasa who reveals she and the baby were eaten by the titan, revealing a wound on her body. Shikishima interrupts by throwing an apple at Eren, before showing that he and Mikasa are a couple. Eren breaks down yet is interrupted by Hiana who comforts him and questions him about everything. Hiana, after observing the lovey dovey couple, explains to Eren that they need permission to get married and that she had to volunteer in order to get child support for her daughter.
. “Will you be father to my daughter”
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She attempts to seduce him however they are interrupted by a titan who devours her whole. This reveals that there are a bunch of titans surrounding the place. We see a lot of ODMG fight scenes and even a Wilhelm scream. The lovey dovey couple soon being broken up as the boyfriend is crushed off-screen under some rubble, the girlfriend vowing vengeance reminding Eren of himself from the anime (Given he never did the same in this movie)
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A theif steals a van containing the explosives they plan on using to block the wall, which soon catches on fire. The girlfriend fights the thief managing to presumably knock him out the vehicle before driving it into titans. The sacrifice is in vain however as the titans are not killed by the explosion. Eren looking on from the rooftop horrified.
. “Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one”
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Eren confronts Jean, who is having a breakdown on the rooftop before remembering Shikishima’s cattle speech which convinces him to attack the titans. Eren seems to be doing well, takes down a titan however is then distracted, losing his leg. A group manage to distract the titans from eating Jean, while Potato girl uses her bow & arrow to blind the titans.
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Armin stops for a second enquiring where Eren is and he’s grabbed by a titan. Everyone pitches in to try and take down the titan before it can eat Armin, however nothing is working. Eren continues heroically crawling towards the titan. Armin is about to be swallowed, inside the Titan’s mouth however Eren manages to throw him to safety.
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Eren is eaten, one of his arms being lost in the process. Inside the titan he discovers the slowly dissolving body of Hiana – causing him to scream. Seeing the arm of Eren, Mikasa decides to carve a path through the titans for the others, however runs out of gas and falls to the ground. She is about to be killed by the same titan that killed Eren, however that titan soon begins to experience pain before exploding as a new titan appears from within.
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The new titan begins brutally attacking the rest of the titans. Only main critique about this up until the ending is the speed the other titans move, throughout the film they are shown as fairly slow with a hint of cunning. In this scene they are moving noticeable quicker at a more human pace. The film ending with Shikishima eating an apple while Eren, who has been saved from his titan form, lays weakened on the ground with his limbs regrown.
. Final Thoughts
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Attack On Titan was a dark film, from its gore to its implications. The idea that a baby was killed off-screen may sit perfectly well with you, until you realise we saw a baby titan. The pieces begin to fall into place the longer the film goes on, with elements that will obviously need to be resolved in the second half.
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Elements as such are introduced without much follow-up. The mysterious hooded figure at the start could be the thief later on in the film, but its not really developed. The unexploded bomb that just happens to be near the city is ‘totally not going to be used to seal the wall’ Its aspects such as this which make the film feel dragged out intentionally.
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Other aspects are cut with very little reasons and could have been left in for better effect. While i don’t mind removing the death of Eren’s mother and replacing it with Mikasa, if they wanted to do that then Mikasa needed to stay dead. Eren never goes full on ‘kill titans’ mode until the end. He never seems to really be as vengeful as he should be, which is a disservice to both his character and Mikasa’s.
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I guess what i take away from Part 1 is that while it was an interesting film to watch and had some really good moments (The first attack, the ending attack) everything else felt a little too padded out. Characters go off alone or do something silly to attract titans and Armin is barely given focus to make his character interesting or worthy of this epic sacrifice at the end of the film.
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Other characters appear to be completely removed, so definitely don’t expect the same ending for the movies as the anime or manga. These are two films that seem to only be attempting to cover a large portion of the story, yet at the moment they’ve trimmed or re-organised some of the most important parts.
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In essence this film covers most of episode 1-8 of the anime, removing aspects such as the ‘second attack of the colossal titan’ for presumably the second film. In essence, what it boils down to is that they adapted the attack from episode 1, covered the food shortage from episode 2 then skipped almost all the character development other than an argument with Jean and went straight to episode 7 & 8.
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The result is a hollow film, where the characters are not developed and the film feels oddly paced. Hopefully this review helps, though i know its been long-winded. Its just difficult to describe this film even after watching it and skimming through it again.
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For those not wanting a run-down of the film, here are my main thoughts on Attack On Titan - The Movie - 1.
The acting is not too good to be honest a few scenes felt corny and it was difficult to tell whether certain scenes were supposed to be taken seriously or not
Comedy seems to be introduced randomly after the immense death and destruction and it feels rather out-of-place
The CGI is alright, though the practical effects are better. They have a nice blend where its a mix of both though.
Some practical effects come off as cheap
Certain scenes from the trailer for Part 1 don’t appear in Part 1
Doesn’t particularly follow the plot of the anime or manga, certain scenes seem similar yet have a different meaning here
Only main characters to get focus are Eren and Mikasa, no backstory is given
Pacing suffers occasionally
Opening attack introduces levels of gore and fear that are never really replicated throughout the rest of the film
Certain aspects of ending reminded me of the ending to the Death Note film
Will i watch the next one? Yes. The thing is though i feel that they’ve messed-up a lot of what they needed to introduce. So its going to be interesting seeing how it all plays out now.
I have yet to see it for myself, however I see alarge number of people complaining about bad pacing, or seemingly off characters or names. This is because it is a japanese film, based on a japanese story, and dubbed into English the best it can be. Thus, some names will be different, and the pacing will seem quite off for us. On the other hand, it could have genuine pacing issues, but what I see most people complaining about is likely all in the translation.
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i hate the cgi and it looks fake as hell. it is terrible compared to the anime and manga. it makes my ashamed that this is an AOT officially licensed movie .
