April Fools!

Not that I think anyone thought my post yesterday was serious. I watched the film last year and had this post sitting for MONTHS waiting for next year.

Anyway, being me I just wanted to share my true opinion on Sailor Moon The Movie. Starting with the things I did seriously was the cats. Not because they’re cats, but poor things had a crescent stuck on their foreheads. Was it like a crescent-shaped sticker or something? I really question that. Poor kitties.

That aside, while I understand that someone would like to make their own live-action version of the early Sailor Moon and I by all means approve of such a thing, I would had liked to see something that was more original. While I love the original work and the classic anime, and am not very happy about the live-action tokusatsu show Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, I would had preferred the originality that went way out of the original story in that than the somewhat half-assed work in this film. Sure, it’s easier to just mash things together and hope for the best, but it would had been more interesting if they had made a more original adaptation. They clearly did some changes, but it would had been more fun to see more and definitely see originality.

It also felt like some of the actors might not have been all that happy being in it, or their roles and I think creating a custom story line would not only had worked better, but also been able to adapt to what those involved would had liked. Of course, maybe they all wanted to do that specific story line, but squashing in all of that into a film was… a bit too much.

I’d also like to point out that while I applaud them for giving CGI a try, I think they could had put more work into costumes and make up and you know… dropped the CGI. Worked hard to make sure the actors looked their very best and made the film as good as they possibly could. I wouldn’t have mind a Luna and Artemis in human form instead of cat and the awful addition of the cats wouldn’t even had been necessary. And they put so much work into transformations sequence I would had been much happier to skip. It’s a fanmade film and I didn’t expect high quality, but I feel that those who made it put the bar too high and tried to replicate the anime too much. They could have used simpler tools and gotten a higher quality film.

That being said, I still think it’s great people want to make amateur films based on something they like, but I don’t want them to forget that one can do so much with even the easiest tools. Try to portray your character as you interpret it, find ways to make it fun for everyone involved and don’t rely on computer graphics to, say, save a wig failure. You might be amateurs and are making something based on something you love, but then I want to see that passion put into it in every step. From creating your manuscript, to the storyline, from make up and wardrobe, to special effects (which doesn’t equal computer graphics!).