On April 7th, 2013, this image right above is what most of us remember as the first thing that we all saw for Attack on Titan for those who didn’t start with the mangas back in September 9th, 2009. What also caught most of people’s attention as one of the other first things that people saw on this show was the intro too.
I remember hearing about this show from one of my friends on Facebook one day on 2013, him saying that anime in quality in both story telling and ideas were at a all time low at that point. I couldn’t agree with him more. But he then immediately recommended everyone to start watching this series right off the bat, just by playing that intro. I started watching the series right after episode 7, Small Blade: The Battle for Trost, Part 3 came out.
I became so in love with this show through how powerful the music was, how amazing the direction was, how glorious the animation looked, and even intriguing the story was. Even before season 2 came out, there was already mystery floating around the show that made me want to explore the show more. The world felt so natural that I wanted to know how everything is laid out and worked, whether if it was in front of me or in the background. The music is so incredible that I’m listening to it right now while writing all of this! This world and story that Hajime Isayama is so amazing that it’s almost breathable and makes you want to be in it, be any of these characters, and wish it was part of our world as well. I mean, how many men do you know who has seen this series has said that they wish to be Levi? As for the women, how many wished they were Mikasa for once in their life? Eren Yeager was fine as a main character, but I wished he didn’t start off as a whinny brat! At least he got better after a while into the story.
I know that the show isn’t over yet, but the mangas are, but I feel as if this is the best time for me to write up my Final Thoughts right here. I won’t be trying to write out each season and story arc into any detail, because Gigguk made a 23 minute video from seasons 1-3, and Totally Not Mark just made a 3 hour long video explaining the absolute greatness of Attack on Titan while writing this. I suggest you watch those instead. Great content, great videos, great Youtubers, enough said, I agree with them both! I will say that this will have spoilers along the whole review, just to let you know that you have been warned, especially that I will be covering my thoughts on the final chapters as well.
I have not seen a series that have caught the attention of so many people in this way in my life since Akira and Ghost in the Shell. You could say that Dragon Ball Z also had a huge impact, and it did. But let’s not beat around the bush here. We all knew that at the time when it first came out in the west, it was still looked at as a children’s cartoon show than something groundbreaking to a lot of adults and non-anime fans. Attack on Titan, on the other hand, caught my dad’s attention to the point that he started watching it when it first came out, and he didn’t watch anime that came out AFTER Akira and Ghost in the Shell! Even Gigguk explained that someone at his old job was talking about Attack on Titan in the middle of a conversation about Game of Thrones because he thought it was similar in style. But if I was able to see someone like my dad watch this show, then that’s when I knew that I was watching something special and groundbreaking that, to my opinion, is better than Dragon Ball Z. And now that I have read the final chapters, I can safely confirm that in good conscience.
This series’ biggest strength obviously lies with the action sequences, whether it was Levi or Mikasa slicing up the titans in their unique ways, seeing Eren fight in his titan form, or seeing Zeke throwing rocks at his own enemies. The story started off okay, but when the mysteries started to kick in, it kept on getting me more hooked in than ever before. When it was found out that people can turn into titans, it started to raise more questions and more elbow room for creativity. When it was revealed that both Reiner and Bertholdt were the colossal and armored titans, it made me want to know them more, since they were always put on the side before that point. Even seeing Zeke in his beast titan form and speaking made me want to find out more. And then they finally went in the basement. Revealing what the outside world was really like. I won’t doubt for one second that we all had our own theories as to what was out there beyond the walls. But man, we were all way off. It was like landing on a zero in roulette, where everyone loses. And from there, Isayama left us one last mystery to be solved. The origin story of the titan power.
Right at season 4, everything was finally laid out. The world, the powers, the characters, and all there was left was ending it in one wrapped up, apocalyptic bow. As we finally see Eren use his powers to destroy nearly all of the world in an epic finale that I have never seen it been done before in my entire life of watching movies and TV shows, as well as reading stories. Just seeing the final battle take place on the back of Eren’s huge spinal cord, with colossal wall titans on the left and the right, as they all flatten the earth. And then seeing how Eren planned all of this for Armin, Mikasa, and the rest of the Scouts to be the heroes of all of humanity was just brilliant. Sure, Code Geass did something similar, but this Isayama obviously did it better.
I don’t think I will ever see or read a series that does something like this or better for a long time. I know that my favorite anime of all time is Baki, but I think this might take it for me. I’m not sure yet, I still have to think about that. But Attack on Titan will forever be a story that many generations will continue to talk about from years on from now. Even people, like myself, will even show it to people who have either never seen this show or never seen anime at all. This will, not only be known as a legacy within Hajime Isayama’s career, but also be a legacy within anime, within the past, present, and the future.
This, my fellow readers, is the legacy of Attack on Titan.
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In this day and age of then film industry being bombarded with super hero or comic book movies (still not sure what to classify these), they have become an unavoidable genre. No longer are we in the pre-2000s, when we got to go through an entire year without these movies. No longer are we able to see 30 or 40 movies that were created by a film maker who showed and expressed his own creativity on something new that is not based on anything. No longer are we able to see a year without a franchise that gathers a bunch of people who will throw their money in to make more of these frickin’ movies like a massive sausage link. No longer are we able to see a bunch of nerds go out and watch a new movie that wasn’t based off of anything that they have seen or read before. No longer are we allowing a bunch of talented film makers to get away from this massive insanity to make people like Martin Scorsese say that they’re theme parks, not movies and say that it’s the reason for why there are fewer independent theaters than ever before.
Or, if you would like, go check out Ridley Scott’s take on comic book movies, right down below:
As for me, I started off watching these movies like everyone else did with…….Superman. No, not Iron Man yet, but I’ll get there. I remember getting the Christopher Reeves Superman movie as a Christmas present back in what I believe was in 2001, and I enjoyed it! I was already watching both Batman: The animated Series with my favorite Batman of all time, Kevin Conroy, and I was also watching Superman: The Animated Series as well. And yes, General Zod is the best!
I saw Spider-man in the theaters when it first came out in my junior high years, and yes, I liked it, but I love the second one more. The third one is one of those movies where people talk to me about it like I have to hate it and NOT think it was okay. I will get to more of that in a second. I also love Batman Begins when it first came out too, seeing how comic book movies can be and should be! I was a huge fan of the X-men movies too, with 3 being the movie that I would love to use to troll on all the haters, even though I think it’s just okay for me as time went on, but I can always use X-men Origins: Wolverine as my way of saying that it is the worst one! And then, eventually, I saw Iron Man, but not in the theaters. This goes for all of the Marvel movies up until The Avengers came out. It was mostly due to a lack of travel, timing, and money that I couldn’t see them at the time that I wanted to. I loved The Avengers at the time when it came out, and I still do.
Now, even though I still think that Guardians of the Galaxy is my favorite of the MCU, I will admit that my interest for these movies did start to lose me, seeing that I was slowly, but surely, getting tired of them. Now, I didn’t forget to mention the DC movies, since I’m going to watch one of them. When I first saw Man of Steel in the theaters, I will admit that I didn’t see any reviews of the film, only because I wanted to make up my own mind on what I was going to see. I did like it at the time, but as time went on, it felt like emotion from the film was the biggest issue, and the colors and life was lacking hugely. I still don’t hate it though, but I will get to that in a second as well. Batman v. Superman is a totally different story for me. I will still say to this day that it was both half terrible and half okay. If it was only a Batman story, then I think you would of had a much better and more concentrated film than what we got. Or better yet, it should of been an adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns rather than what we ended up with, since I believe that Zack Snyder (who I still think he has some potential to redeem himself as a film maker) cared more about Batman than Superman as a character. I did like Suicide Squad better, and yes, I can see what people hated in it, but as a whole, I can’t see enough to hate it like others did. Justice League was another film that I did like a lot more than others did, and I can see that Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon were trying their hardest to make this into a good movie. I can’t say what I thought about the Zack Snyder cut, because I haven’t seen it yet. Shazaam was another great one, Aquaman I liked too, but I never saw Birds of Prey, because, well, I just haven’t see it yet.
If you want my overall summary of this genre of movies that will never die away, I am now in a position to not care anymore. I stopped caring for the MCU after I saw Avengers: Endgame, I don’t care enough to get mad at the DCEU because they do nothing for me, and I just want to move on to watch something else for a change. But when I heard that Wonder Woman 1984, a movie that I was looking forward to watching because I loved the first movie so much, get such a negative response, I felt obligated to watch it. And now that I found a copy for me to rent, I will finally get to see what I think about it for once and get to see and settle the score on whether or not if it was THAT BAD or not.
AFTER
Have you ever seen a movie and then see the audience reaction to be so negative on a movie that you just can’t figure out why? Wonder Woman 84 just so happens to be that way. With Man of Steel and the other DC films right after it, I was able to see why so many people were dismissive about them. But this? REALLY?! I don’t get it, and I don’t think I ever will. But more on that later.
Wonder Woman 84, or WW84 as most people are calling it, as well as the ads, takes place in the mid-80s setting of Washington DC. Dang! I know that Wonder Woman is a successful woman, but living in DC, for those of you living outside of the US, is an incredibly expensive city to live in. I would of lived in either Virginia or Maryland where I don’t need to worry about paying for housing. Anyway, she still tries to keep Wonder Woman as a secret from the rest of the world, because they need to keep with the continuity of the previous films where the whole world didn’t know about her existence I guess. Whatever. We first see her fight off a jewelry heist in the Pentagon Mall, destroying cameras to hide herself from the public and make her as a mystery.
Whenever I see people post images for their thumbnails for this movie, this image would always show, to let us know it’s dumb or something.
From here, I can see some of the fan’s problems right away, but there are some things that I would like to address:
1. Yes, I can understand why someone would find this whole thing to be stupid, but I feel like this was suppose to be that way, or otherwise why would they ever write this part in in the first place? I guess it’s meant to be 80s cheese, and the quality of this movie almost has this grainy 80s look to it as well.
2. Many people would say that this movie shouldn’t be this dumb, but I allow it because it’s trying to have fun and family friendly for the most part. The problem with Shazaam, and one of the FEW problems with Shazaam that I can understand, is that it had too many dark moments in it that gave the movie too much bad publicity. I wasn’t bothered by it because I grew up watching a lot of 90s music videos on MTV, you know, the era where the M still stood for music, and when music was becoming so violent, according to videogamedunkey. This movie, on the other hand, tries it’s best to be as family friendly as it can, but only with the 80s standards of family friendly, where the adults were allowed to use cuss words from time to time.
This movie is about a crystal that was being brought back to the Smithsonian. This crystal is suppose to be the most cursed thing to all of mankind. The one thing that everyone flees away from terror. It has been known to create huge outrage, cataclysmic fear and horror that makes people scream for their lives. Yes, I dare say it. The one thing that must never be named or mentioned. I am, of course, talking about the dreaded, awful, terrifying, pure evil thing in the world that must be vanquished.
IT.
IS.
CALLED.
THE.
MCGUFFIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This crystal gets absorbed into Pedro Pascal in the first half hour of the movie. Yeah, it was technically short lived.
Anyway, Gal Gadot still does a good job for this role. I don’t know what or why people were going on about with her character. She hasn’t changed all that much, well, for me at least. Kristin Wiig (which I am surprised that her last name is spelled with an extra ‘i’) was fine. Not great, and even her last fight in the end wasn’t all that special either. However, I at least see where her character was coming from. A woman who was treated with virtually no respect makes a wish with a crystal to be like Diana Prince ends up being super strong, super popular, and pretty as well. Or at least what the movie can make Kristin Wiig look, since I always thought she look okay. If you didn’t like her in this movie, then we can at least all agree that she was still better in this than in the disaster that was Ghostbusters 2016.
As you saw from the trailers, Chris Pine is back as Steve Trevor. This was all made possible due to Diana Prince wishing him to come back, but in a different body. The chemistry in this movie still works like in the first movie, but it does feel like it’s lacking in some places.
Pedro Pascal as Maxwell Lord, to my opinion, was pretty good. A single parent running a failing oil company out of pure frustration, makes a wish out of a magic crystal to be all powerful enough to become the magic wishing stone, where all people need to do is touch him and grant someone’s wish. But this power turns out to be like a monkey’s paw, where it makes everything go out of control. Going from his declining health, to wanting to take over the world to make everyone want to wish for something that makes a huge riot all over DC and make a bunch of nuclear missiles go off.
The interesting thing about Maxwell Lord is that he doesn’t have any super powers other than granting people wishes. He rather off uses people all around him to do his bidding to get away with crime and murder. It’s kind of a childish idea for an ability, as well as a childish plot that was also made fun of in a Simpsons episode with the monkey’s paw. But here, it was mostly used in some smart ways to illustrate on what would happen if people tried to get things that they want the cheap way and not understanding the dire consequences. I almost forgot to mention the flashback in the beginning of the film where young Diana Prince was playing through an olympic-like race, and cheated, therefore making her disqualified to win. Basically, it was to teach her a lesson that she can’t get anywhere good if she tries to take the shortcuts in life all the time. At first, I didn’t like this part at all, because I thought this flashback was pointless and didn’t serve a purpose for the plot of the movie. But now that I remembered and put more thought into it, it made sense.
Overall, this isn’t a bad movie. In some ways, it does things that are better than the first movie. For starters, it visually looks better. Thanks to this movie being set during the daytime, you get to see all of DC pop out, thanks to probably burying the past movies with the dark tinted teal. The effects in this movie turned out to be better than what I was expecting. For the longest time I was seeing these movies with crappy CGI that I just accepted that these movies were all going to have it. In this movie, I didn’t have a problem with it. The script, however, feels a little too safe at most parts, but I kind of like it. I can’t even explain why. Maybe it was because it wasn’t like Batman v. Superman‘s script where it had way to much on their plate to handle. But like I said, they used a concept that was kind of childish, but wasn’t afraid to expand the dangers of why you can’t just wish for something to be yours. It could be smarter, but I’m okay with what I was given. The action scenes aren’t as good as the first movie, but I think the car chase sequence in Egypt was good.
Do I recommend it? I know a lot of people don’t recommend it, but I will. To me, I don’t really care that much about the hate it got anymore, besides the fact that I have to live in a world where that exists. I at least thought it was good. It’s not the smartest movie out there, but it has a good lesson for kids to take out of it, and I feel like the parents can enjoy it too. What I mean by that is that it’s not as juvenile, boring, and tonally unbalanced as The Phantom Menace, but rather easy to follow and doesn’t treat everyone like a bunch of mindless children. I’d say just give it a watch. You might like it without having to take your brain off. I sure didn’t. If I did, then I probably wouldn’t have been able to write all of this.
Anyway, that’s all I have to offer ya! I’m going to play some games off of Xbox Game Pass to take a load off.
Some Review Site 