Today marks post # 36, which leaves 14 more to go. Happy first day of November, everybody!! We're only 22 DAYS AWAY FROM THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF DOCTOR WHO!!! AAAGGGHHH!! THE MONTH HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!! I can hardly contain my excitement! The big day is circled in blue on my calendar. :3
Okay! I'm really excited to talk about this movie post! It's a movie from a fandom that hasn't been mentioned yet on this blog, but that will soon be put to rights. Today's movie post is Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos.
PLOT TWIST!! It's an anime! We're completely shifting gears now! :p
For those of you who aren't familiar with the epicness that is Fullmetal Alchemist, YOUMUSTSEEIT! I haven't seen much anime in my lifetime, as of yet, but this is the best one I've seen so far, and I've heard similar things from more hardcore anime fans. It's an INCREDIBLE story about two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric. They're both alchemists, an alchemist being a sort of mash-up between a scientist and a magician. That's the best way I can describe it. :3 The Elric brothers used their knowledge of alchemy to try to bring their dead mother back, a trick called human transmutation. But there's a rule in alchemy saying that you're NEVER supposed to do that. EVER. They failed in their attempt, to put it simply. They lost parts of their bodies in the process, and now they're on a quest to get them back. It sounds kinda morbid I know, but I promise, it's a GREAT, GREAT story! :p
So Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (as opposed to the original 2003 version of Fullmetal Alchemist which is nowhere near as good, in my opinion) is a TV show, but The Sacred Star of Milos is a movie which takes place near the end of the beginning part of the story. For Fullmetal Alchemist fans, it takes place right around the end of Part 1 and the beginning of Part 2, if memory serves.
The beginning of the movie starts with a little background on the Crichton family. Julia and her older brother Ashleigh are very close to each other. Ashleigh is an aspiring alchemist, and he dreams of the day when he can create a new world of his own with the knowledge of alchemy that he learns. Shortly after he tells his sister this, someone breaks into their home, killing both Ashleigh and their parents. Fast forward a few years later, Ed and Al are given the task of hunting someone down who has broken out of a prison in Amestris. They track him to a place called Table City, where they almost capture him, but fail to do so. There, they learn of another prisoner, who is, in fact, Julia. Through a series of events, they meet Julia, who lives in Table City, which is a canyon of sorts between Amestris and another land called Creta. There, the Elric brothers find out that a group called the Black Bats is trying to restore the ancient land of Milos with an object called the Sanguine Star. By restoring Milos, the people of Table City can move out of the dark, smelly canyon they live in and start a better way of life. Ed and Al soon discover that this "Star" is the thing they know as the Philosopher's Stone, and they immediately try to put an end to the Black Bats's plans.
All in all, the movie was pretty decent. Not as impressive as the show, in my opinion, but it adds depth to the overall story, and therefore worth seeing. The animation is also really different from the show's. I don't know if Japan does different animation for movies and TV shows, but you can tell the difference. It's not necessarily bad animation, but it took a little getting used to for me.
*SPOILER PARAGRAPH!* The biggest surprise for me was finding out who Ashleigh really was. The only surprise bigger than that was finding out that he was still alive, period! I was fully convinced that that guy who escaped from the prison at the beginning was Ashleigh, 'cause he said he was him, but NOOO! He wasn't! And then it got me thinking that Ashleigh really was dead, and that was quite a sad thought, because Julia really cared about him. BUT THEN, we find out that it was the really creepy guy with the mask that I bet EVERYONE assumed was a bad guy who was Ashleigh after all! I did NOT see that coming! That was NOT on my radar AT ALL!!
Okay, we need to take a moment here to discuss an important thing. Why, WHY does Fullmetal Alchemist insist on using wolf chimeras for almost everything? DO THEY HAVE ANY IDEA HOW STINKIN' TERRIFYING THEY ARE?? Give us bears! Give us snakes! Leopards! Spiders! ANYTHING, but wolves! Seriously, they're the stuff of nightmares, and it's a miracle I didn't have nightmares about them the night I watched the movie! Wolf chimeras*shudder* NOPE!
Another thing I gotta say about this movie. I REALLY didn't like how it kept justifying the use of the Sanguine Star/Philosopher's Stone. That was a recurring theme in this movie, the moral issue of using it. In the show, the story made it VERY, VERY clear that the Philosopher's Stone was a truly terrible thing and it should NOT be used, under ANY circumstances. NONE! Unless, of course, you're a bad guy and you have no morals. But in the movie, it begs the question of "Well, yeah, it's bad, but the good it can do outweighs the bad." Oh, it was terrible! I didn't like it! At all! It doesn't matter what the Stone can do, IT'S BAD. NOTHING justifies using it! NOTHING!
I gotta say this, too. The blood factor in this movie is DISTURBING! I was disturbed on SO many levels, I'm not even joking! And the show in itself is pretty gruesome, so for the movie to be more disturbing than anything there is in the show is saying something! Ish! *shudders again* That I did not like! But other than that (and the wolf chimeras), it's a great movie! :p
But WHY did Ashleigh leave Julia after they had JUST met again?? That was just stupid! You don't be separated for years and years and then just leave before 24 hours have even gone by! Some brother HE is! *sulk* :p
There is also a SAD, SAD lack of Roy Mustang in this movie! He's shown on the poster, but really, it's just depressing how little we see of that amazing, epic man. He should have had a bigger part. *le sigh*
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