Origin is poo


First of all let me start by eliminating any pre-conceptions that you might have about me as a critic. I love anime. I think it is a great art form when it is in the hands of those capable. Such as Hayao Miyazaki, or Satoshi Kon.

This on the other hand was not a master work, nor was it an acceptable one.
Quite the contrary, this anime is in dire need of being thrown out of every store that sells it.

Plot. Again let me stress that i do enjoy anime. The plot is basically a really dummed down version of Princess Mononoke. The Forrest is pissed at the humans for living in a world where industry takes presidence over it. Over the course of the movie several people become trees...i'm not kidding here. Guns appear out of volcanoes. And finally characters jump from one location to the other seemlessly, eliminating any feeling of pacing.

Music. This is the only aspect of the movie that stopped me from switching the whole trashy specticle off, or kicking a hole through the screen.

Animation. The film looks like it was drawn by 5 year olds. locations are jumbled up like a horribly blender recipe, occasionally there was some ok use of CGI, HOWEVER. this is not enough to save the audience from this diarrhoea mess

Voice Acting. I cringed a little is the understatement of the century! The acting for the female character and the tree sprites were so weak it made me want to punch them in the face.

Overview: Generally a good laugh if you are pissing around And smoking lots of dope. However if you want some good animated works, stick to disney or Ghibli.

While 'Spirits of the Past' is an appropriate name a more apt subtitle for Origin would be 'The Deepest Bowels Of The Japanese Rectum'
Put simply dont waste 90 minutes of your life on this crap unless you are stoned!

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I agree that the plot was weak but i thought it was still a good movie. The animation was very well done and I agree with you the music was superb.

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I've never been stoned in my life and don't intend to, but I found this film very enjoyable and good in all aspects. However, you opinions are respected.

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While I respect your right to have your opinion, I must say that writing such a horribly degrading message on a board such as this does nothing more than prove your ignorance and narrow-minded perspective. Your first mistake was to compare two or more different anime artists. To compare any two things requires you to find fault with one of them, which is unfair to what is being 'graded.' Anime, like art in general, takes many forms, and there is nothing wrong with this movie's "5 year old" artist. I felt the amination was done in a way that created a surreal feel, which made the viewer realize that Earth had changed that drastically. The fact that you compared the movie's plot to that of Princess Mononoke is roughly equivalent to saying that Star Wars and Star Trek are the same thing. Just because both movies involve a living Forest means nothing in the ways of correlation. And if people becoming trees or guns popping out of volcanoes is a surprise to you, you obviously know nothing of anime. Your comment about the voice acting is also skewed because you obviously watched this movie while already being in an antagonistic and cynically asinine mood. Just because you don't understand the art of the artist doesn't give you the right to criticize that fiercely. Your final comment does nothing but tell all who read your message that this is nothing more than the ramblings of an individual whose life's meaning is nothing more than to tear down others. This movie was not created for a laugh from stoners. Your mentioning of smoking dope only makes me wonder if you are projecting your own faulty vices into others. Your only slight saving grace is that you recognized the beauty of the music. Otherwise, quit comparing anime artists and styles. If you find that you cannot, at least make mention of Kosuke Fujishima, and if you don't know who he is, never criticize anime again. In conclusion, the next time you write a message, take the time to spell correctly and form properly structured sentences that convey sentient ideas. Otherwise, quite frankly, you sound like a retarded babboon. Have a good day.

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Oh, there's a limit to the range of opinion, at least in some areas. The big problem is the dude missed the point of the plot entirely. The whole scenario was unnatural, so the environmental connection that would make it comparable to Princess Mononoke and other such works is very shallow and might add a genre-like appeal but that's as far as it goes. At the very least, he could have mentioned Nausicaa instead as that was much more similar. At any rate, the lack of attention to detail and/or the intellect capable of missing the point invalidates the critique from the get-go. On all other fronts, the critiques were far too extreme. Think of a restaurant and while some may like it more than others, one person who thinks the place is serving raw sewage is just crazy and their input isn't useful to others. Quite simply, the film was too short and certain details that begged exploration weren't explored. This takes the film down a few notches, but it doesn't turn a good idea into a disaster.

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This movie took so many elements from both Nausicaa and Laputa.

It was actually kind of shameless. I kept thinking, "maybe they are paying homage". But then there was just too many similarities. I enjoyed the film regardless, but still. Why not try to be just a little bit original?

"IMDB... where 14 year old's can pretend to be jaded 40 year old movie critics"

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[deleted]

You need to reply to the correct post, or they won't see it.

"IMDB... where 14 year old's can pretend to be jaded 40 year old movie critics"

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Excuse me?

"Am you Bizarro's mommy?"

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I said:
"This movie took so many elements from both Nausicaa and Laputa.

It was actually kind of shameless. I kept thinking, "maybe they are paying homage". But then there was just too many similarities. I enjoyed the film regardless, but still. Why not try to be just a little bit original?"

Then you replied with:
"The bad guys won. The plants were invaders and the people of Neutral City were complicit. How was it wrong to want to get rid of the evil plants?"

How does your reply have anything to do with my post? It doesn't. You need to hit reply under the post you are meaning to reply to, or the person that wrote it will not be notified of your message.

Is it really that hard to understand this?

"IMDB... where 14 year old's can pretend to be jaded 40 year old movie critics"

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Oh. Sorry.

"Am you Bizarro's mommy?"

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Wow, where to begin.

First off, there exists a key on your keyboard titled the Enter key. This key allows you to separate sentences and paragraphs from one another, and not end up with a huge block of text that most people will skim over or avoid entirely.

You apparently must not have known of the use of this key before reading this post. I find this fact quite ironic, as you attack the original poster on his sentence structure, and you yourself lack the ability to divide up your post into coherent sections.

Second, you obviously must be quite a proponent of this film, as you not only try to rebuff the original poster's opinions, but you then go on to attack the credibility of the poster him/herself. This in and of itself does nothing more than to discredit your own abilities as a critic.


To sum up this post succinctly, you need to learn how to properly format your posts before attacking others for the same transgression, and learn how to properly critique a film, instead of attacking the critic that doesn't share the same opinion as you.

And really? "You sound like a 'retarded baboon'?"

Unreal.


P.S. - I have heard of Kosuke Fujishima, and "You're Under Arrest" is the only work he's created that is worth the paper it is printed on.

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no, the OP is correct -- the movie sucked. it wasn't quite D-War bad but it was pretty bad. the movie was nice to look at for the most part if you can ignore the bland character designs. the dialog was pointless and none of the characters showed a hint of reasoning in their decision making. i just really hated this movie. the music was good, though. it's a shame the music was wasted on this film.

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I don't understand your extreme opinion of this film. You must not have seen much anime at all if you think the animation and dubbing was anywhere close to bad. I personally enjoyed it greatly, and I'm looking forward to rewatching it stoned sometime.

And honestly people, this movie's plot is nothing like Nausicaa nor Princess Mononoke. It's a environmentally themed fantasy anime, and the similarities end there. It's not like Kimba the White Lion and The Lion King or anything.

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agreed, i hated the story so much i wish the stupid forest got burned down

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I didn't like the characters at all, especially Agito and this idiot of Minka (that scene where she snatches the collar from Toola... hmphhhargh!!). The character design strongly reminded me of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, that was really unsuitable for an animation film, just like their hyper trendy and hyper ridiculous clothing. You feel nothing for most of the characters, no sympathy, no fascination, not even hate for the villains. Only Toola was a bit nicer but she was too passive.

Anyway, even though the characters were disastrous, I quite liked the rest of the film. It was a solid sci-fi story and universe, I loved the secret base at the end and some of the fight scenes were borderline epic. With a bit of rewrite here and there, better dialogues (so they wouldn't say "Toola!" a million times) and revamped characters, they could have made something of it. I can imagine them turning it into an awesome live version, they would just need 10 times the budget of Titanic.

Oh yeah, the English dubbing didn't help at all, I wish I had seen the original version with subs...

__________________________
Last watched: http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=7838626

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I really need to agree with the OP...


I love anime, often I dont care about unnatural things happening. Huge mecha, travelling in space, supernatural powers, alchemy, etc etc etc- I can take it all! as long as their is justification of it in the plot. Here however there was none. Funnily enough, Tula does not seem to come from a society with developed science. In the flashback we can see the world looking quite normal, and then we find out that they knew how to move volcanoes!


The forest seems to have a huge power as well. I can allow a teenage boy to stop a huge bomb and throw it away as if it was a toy. Right. Sure. So how come the forest (or as a matter of fact, the other enhanced humans) couldnt stop the soldiers before?


The worst part of it, and the reason why the film lost ALL the impact, is that in the end the whole thing happened so easily and effortlessly. There was no sacrifice from anyone. I think, if you compare it to Mononoke, where people payed a huge price for the destruction, and Nausicaa, it was the sadness at the end that something was lost in order to be gained that was the message. Here the main characters receive and receive, but dont gt anything back.


And all of the characters are so boringly stereotypical! Not even mentioning the dialogues. I really felt like hitting thefast forward button every 5 minutes.

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I completely agree with everything Unicorn Blade said.

I am very disappointed that I was conned into wasting my time on this film.

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It was very pretty as far as art's concerned, so if you want to have a problem with it, here's a problem; the good guys lost.

I hate how this movie tries to frame the moon-tree as the good guy in this scenario when it's literally Space Hitler. Volcano mecha-fortresses should be the last of your gripes when something is so pretentiously pro-environmentalism.

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It didn't frame the forest as the good guy. The choice was between obliterating life to sate one man's sense of guilt, or living with the mistake that happened a long time ago. Defeating the forest wasn't on the table unless it was a murder-suicide.

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First off I'm not at all an anime buff. But being in my twenties, I'm of the age set where the medium doesn't matter to me, a good story is a good story.

This one was promising. The music was transcendent, the premise strong, and I disagree with the OP on the visuals. The visuals were actually quite breathtaking...

The film started off really nice. But went downhill really fast.

Dear god almighty, the dialogue was cringingly melodramatic. (I mean... AKITOOOO!! TUUUULLAAAA! AKITOOO! ffs, stop shouting at each other) There was zero character development, gaping plot holes, and the characters themselves were little more than caricatures - the wise old father, the swooning maiden, the rebel hero, heck... even the 'forest' fails with the mysterious part. It just comes off as a ridiculous mix of fairies and Lord of the Rings Teleri elves. I thought the dragon-like form of the plant at first was just there for effect, then found out that hey, that were actually their designs... uuughhh. The location of the machine city, neutral city, and the forest was also waaaaay too convenient. Everything makes a mockery of plausibility - an intrinsic value of any story.

Akito fell in love with Tula for apparently no reason. Tula came to call Neutral City home for apparently no reason. This just happened in a matter of days.

I didn't feel attachment to any of them. In fact, I was surprised to find out that I didn't care who 'won'. I wanted that doomsday device to go off and kill everyone LOL.

I would call myself an environmentalist, but dear lord, if this is how some people see environmentalism as, I'm not surprised people tend to view 'tree-huggers' as nutcases. Environmentalism is NOT equivalent to plants plants plants. The forest in this film is a form of biological pollution. It's NOT good for the ecosystem, as apparent in the serious lack of anything other than humans and the plants.

I guess I was expecting something more... profound. I was spoiled by Mononoke, Nausicaa, etc. *sigh* Seriously though, anime-makers and regular film-makers, please please don't treat your audiences like they're idiots.

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I pretty much agree "Oblivion14" and the OP... I love animé and grew up with it, but I'm not one to think that just because it's animé and I love it I will love ALL and ANY of them because some of them can be quite horrific.

This one wasn't bad, wasn't awful. The animation was Oookay. I didn't like how the CGI robots or other mechanical objects looked almost realistic and then the people and forest and other little things looked so caricatured - it has never worked and this one is no exception. They should have stuck to 3D flash graphics to make it more consistent and clean à la Futurama (of course the drawing style is different).

Character development... I mean of course it was super weak. Akito is clearly and simply obsessed with Tulah and Minka is in love with Akito and Akito's brother WILL marry Tulah because he said so and Tulah will follow some random guy with white hair who says he knows her daddy and make the world "normal". One thing I know is that sometimes in such animé the focus on character development is at the bottom of all concerns - presenting the animation is more important, and at least it stays true to animé there is NO real bad guy.

The music was beautiful though... and I did enjoy the movie to a certain extend. The beginning was promising, beginning slow and random, the ending rushed and a little thoughtless.

(•_•)

can't outrun your own shadow

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