Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers

The picture to the left of this text better in words sums up what I feel about this movie.  Look at that cartoon creature's expression of pure exhausted desperation - that's how watching "Eureka Seven:  Pretentious, Long Subtitle"* makes me feel.  Expect spoilers during this rant.

Like so many anime series before, my beloved "Eureka Seven" has made the jump to the big screen with a film adaptation of the series.  Of course, nothing about "Eureka Seven:  The Movie" actually has very much to do with the original series.  It isn't a sequel, prequel, or even just a summary of the original series, rather its a completely different story, just with the characters reshuffled into new roles in a slightly new plot.  Best comparison I can make is with "Escaflowne:  The Movie".  But unlike that movie, this film does not feature new animation:  instead they cut up the original series, threw in new voice acting, and edited together the frames so that it comes together to make new plot.  Not a coherent plot, or a plot that properly compliments the original series, or even a plot that still manages to keep the general themes and emotions of the original, but definitely a new one plot.  BONES, the studio definitely succeeded there.  But did they succeed anywhere else?

I'm not entirely sure what the point of "Eureka Seven:  The Movie" is.  What is it trying to do?  It isn't here to augment the original series, expand the story, or even try to retell it in an interesting way.  Instead it goes the way of "Rah-Xephon:  The Movie" and just makes everything far more complicated and confusing then it was the first time around.  Watching either that movie or this one is just exhausting because the storytellers have so much plot to explain in just a couple of hours that the story has to run at superspeed, never giving you much of a chance to really meet the characters or care about them.  The animation is all repackaged - only one fight scene is actually exciting.  Plus the plotline is just ridiculous.  Its impossible to summarize the plotline of this movie in a single sentence because its that confusing.  There is absolutely nothing this movie does that the original did not do better.  So what was the point of this movie at all?  A quick cash-in and nothing else.

I think the real first warning sign went off in my head when I saw the new form for the series's giant robot, the Nirvash.  At the beginning of the movie, before you even see it, the main characters complain that it takes too long to follow them.  "Come on, Nirvash!" says Eureka.  This intrigued me, because the Nirvash is a bio-robot that shouldn't be able to move on its own.  Then the Nirvash walks up... and its a Pokemon:   two feet tall, "adorably cute", and can talk (pictured above, actually).  Of course, this being a Japanese "cute" creature it can only say one thing:  "Mukyuu!!"  At first sight of this creature I burst into a hysterical fit of laughter that knocked me onto the floor in tears for at least five minutes.  I can't imagine anybody else reacted any other way during the theatrical release.  This new "Cutevash" is the living embodiment of the three letters:  WTF.  Yeah, the Cutevash turns into a normal robot so you can get traditional action scenes, but it still makes that stupid noise.  Then towards the movie's climax, the Nirvash back in Cutevash form fights a Poke version of its series rival robot, theEND.  We have two little creatures pounding at each other while constantly yelling "Mukyuu!!".  Its at this point that I cover my face in my hands and dare not look at the screen.   I know what they were doing here, trying to appeal to Japan's insatiable cuteness craving.  But this movie in general is darker than the original series, so this creature just distracts the general mood of the movie.  Plus I don't find this Cutevash to be adorable at all.  It freaks me out.  I have nightmares about it.

The original series, which I love, had fifty episodes to build up the romance between, its main couple Eureka** and Renton and have them grow as characters.  Here you have two hours.  A good movie would simplify the SciFi plot so as to focus on these two.  This is not a good movie, so they made things many times more complicated, meaning half the movie is exposition driven by an investigation sideplot.  There's no time to build character, so to solve this the filmmakers redesign the plot so that Renton and Eureka are childhood friends, thus cutting all that "getting to know you" stuff that was the backbone of the first half of the series.  Renton doesn't have the time to grow into a mature father-figure for Eureka's kids, so the kids aren't even in this movie, and all of Renton's maturing is left behind.  Instead all you have are two characters who run into each other, immediately fall in love like instantly, and are separated by cruel, ridiculous fate.

Its not like the original plotline wasn't already pretty silly at times and far too complicated.  Its not like by the end of watching the show you have a perfect understanding of everything that has happened.  The original show didn't even bother explaining the storyline until about halfway in - which was fine because the dynamic between Renton, Eureka, and the crew of their airship kept your interest.  But even that is nothing compared to the labyrinthine storyline "Eureka Seven:  The Movie" is going to throw on you.  There are evil aliens invading the Earth, superfast aging children trying to escape to Neverland, Eureka is a spy-robot that turns green when exposed to sunlight, and an evil mastermind is trying to bring about the end of the world.  One of those plotlines I just made up, try to guess which one!  For the very first half the movie, expect a constant barrage of terminology, none of which is properly explained.  If you've watched the show, you're at least familiar with the characters and their motivation, but if you haven't, I cannot imagine any reaction other than to be hopelessly lost throughout the entire movie.  I was hopelessly lost during this whole thing, what chance does a newbie to this world have?  So basically things happen, you might get an explanation for why they happen, you might not.  And don't expect the ending to make a lick of sense whatsoever***.

I was expecting the storyline to be radically different, but not at this level.  Its like every plotline that I enjoyed has been removed to make way for something more confusing and silly.  Some characters are turned into Jedi spirits who impart advice to the living, some characters are made evil, some just sit around the background, and some characters aren't invited to this reunion at all - including the big bad of the original series.  Did the big bad's invitation get lost in the mail?  There were lots of great character arcs in "Eureka Seven", there are none here.  I know this movie is different, so characters have to act differently.  But couldn't you at least keep the traits that made them memorable?

Instead you have about two hours of exposition that never stops.  That certainly saves a lot on budget, because endless scenes of dialogue are a lot easier to work into the Frankenstein reused animation process that BONES based their entire movie around.  Maybe the plot is intentionally incomprehensible:  if the audience is scratching their heads about what the terminology is referring to, they won't notice that this one scene is clearly entirely reused animation just with Dewey's face changed to be a different character.  If you don't have the budget to be visually brilliant and don't have any good ideas, just make things as confusing as possible.  Then nobody will notice all the corners you're cutting, right?

The saddest part of it is that "Eureka Seven" was a show that was very much notable for its animation quality - rarely if ever reusing old footage to save money.  Since the animation is just the same shots, that quality has not gone down, but it has certainly not gone up either.  Annoyingly this means that most characters from the original TV show get weird distracting cameos through the movie.  Hey look, Renton's big sister is working for the government**** as a researcher.  How does that apply to her character at all?  It doesn't, actually.  There was a shot in the series where she was talking to her boyfriend in front of a computer, so BONES reused that and made her an anonymous researcher character.  Two nobody enemy robots are ones used by Charles and Ray, very important characters in the series for Renton's growth.  Do either of these characters appear in the movie?  Nope.  Its just that BONES had the footage of these robots fighting, so they threw it in without a thought.  I could go on for hours about the dozens of times this is done and how distracting it is to the plot.  All you need to know is that if you watched the series, you don't need to see this movie - because you've seen almost everything before.

So really, there's no reason for this movie to exist, and thus no reason for you to see it.  Go to youtube and watch the fight between the Nirvash and the Devilfish giant robot.  That's the only half-way decent part of the entire film.  Okay, that's a little harsh:  there were some tender moments here and there like when Renton and Eureka decide to stop the plot for five minutes and go out on a date.  But only for about thirty seconds did I think this movie could possibly have been decent despite its flaws, the movie crushed that hope very quickly after that.  The rest is a load of crap that doesn't keep any of the charms of the original, mangles the characters of the series, is just too damn confusing, and even doesn't keep any of favorite music queues from the original series.  If you want the "Eureka Seven" experience, don't accept this cheap substitute.  Watch and remember the series, forget this movie.  I've already given it too much by even lowering myself to critiquing it.

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* The Japanese subtitle for this movie is the slightly less silly "Pocket Full of Rainbows".  At least that title refers to a mediocre Elvis song from the movie "G.I. Blues".  I can at least respect an Elvis reference.

** In my original review I guessed that Eureka's last name was "Seven" thus explaining the title.  If this movie is to be believed, it turns out I was actually right.  "Eureka" actually refers to a experiment done by some cult scientists called "Evil Instrumentality Project Eureka Seven", or something like it.  Eureka was the seventh alien spy-robot sent to study humanity to find weaknesses... or something.  Nothing about this has anything to do with the original plot though.  But despite that, I'm still awarding myself full points for being right!  ...However this turn of events may mean that a certain SNES video game protagonist's full name might in fact be "Chrono Trigger".

*** The ending of the original series didn't make much sense either, but this movie takes it to eleven.  We're not in "End of Evangelion" territory, but close.  But the original series was fine with its ending:  Renton overcomes the entire universe with the Power of Love to save Eureka.  Its silly, its impossible, its very confusing, but it works.  Here you have no idea what's going on for at least ten minutes as more of the endless exposition is worded.  Then Renton comes back to life after nearly dying, his giant Cutevash leaves or maybe it dies, and Eureka is turned into a naked idiot who can no longer talk.  Naturally I was very pissed off to see Eureka's character completely destroyed, when the point of this is to show that Eureka's affection for Renton surpasses memory... or something.  I get the disturbing feeling that a naked child-woman who cannot possibly stop a man's advances may be the Japanese ideal for the perfect woman.

**** Its never explicitly stated, but the names of certain organizations seem to apply that a still-Communist People's Republic of China has conquered the Earth following the alien invasion.  Is this some kind of political commentary, and if so, what does it mean?  No idea.