The Sky Crawlers


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Barbobot

-the Pirate King
Retired
So I just watched Mamoru Oshii's latest film The Sky Crawlers.

Plot Synopsis: "Kannami Yuichi is a "Kildren", a fighter pilot recently sent to Urisu Base to replace a previous one who had died in battle. Like the numerous genetically-engineered pilots before him, he does not age, only to live his life fighting and eventually dying in battle. Rostock and Lautern, 2 different companies have been engaged in a brutal war that has no beginning or end, rather the battles they create serve to "entertain" the peacetime people. Yuichi befriends the base commander, Kusanagi Suito, a woman who endures a long dark past. As their relationship grows, Yuichi learns the bittersweet moments of life, and the inescapable fate he has been placed in." (ANN)

So what do people think of this movie?

I came away from this feeling rather bored. Not much happens as the movie is mainly the plain life of our characters who are Kildren, pilots who remain as children and live only to fight in battles. Maybe this is just a movie I don't get. Maybe it's a movie that I need to see multiple times to penetrate it's layers. I'm not sure and who knows when/if I'll get myself to rewatch this movie. Most of the interesting moments in the story didn't actually occur till the last quarter of the movie. Just to inform people who may try watching this movie later, it is by all means NOT a war-action movie. It's a slow calm character story that forces you to think to really understand it, and as I said earlier may take multiple viewings.

On another note, I realize this isn't suppose to be an action/war story, but these people should really get together to make one as the aerial dog fights were absolutely stunning in every way possible.
 
I really enjoyed this. As you said, the dogfights were absolutely stunning, and I thought that the whole kildren which never age thing was quite interesting.

Especially given how psychotic the characters can be and how much they just want to die but cannot. Also, I really loved the idea of how, even though there is no longer war on the planet, there is still a need for humans to see destruction, so these "businesses" have aerial dogfights against each other, almost as if it were a sport.

I didn't realize until rewatching it that the very beginning of the movie is actually the very ending to the story, with the main character getting shot down by "The Teacher" when he tries to go and advance his skills and not just maintain the same life he's had for who knows how long.

I think the only thing I didn't particularly care for was the whole reincarnation thing. I suppose it's possible that the dead guy's memories or whatever were implanted into the main character, but it's still rather dumb and I didn't feel it contributed much to the plot.

I hear it followed the book extremely well until the very end, when it did diverge at a crucial point.
 
I'll have to say I more or less liked it, but I feel like I missed a lot of the meaning, and will need to rewatch. The ending, though, is pretty friggin' depressing, but hell, I AM glad Oshii did not give it a "happy end".

I showed it to my friends, who are not big anime fans, and they walked away rather disappointed.

I will reserve any further judgement on the movie until I rewatch it again. I feel like it's one of those movies that you need to let ferment a bit after the initial viewing that makes you go "Hmm..."
 
It was good......most of the time your actually confused about the whole Jinro death thing and this whole "repeat cycle" blah blah.

The animation to this movie was awe-inspiring, the soundtrack was heart-warming but the story was too complicated and was more difficult to understand because of the slow development of the plot. As soon as you figured out whats going on, you start to appreciate the movie more.
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My score of the movie out of 10 kept on changing as I watched the movie it would go something like this: 9...8...7....9....7......8.
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At the end of the movie I gave it 8/10.
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If you watch till the end of credits, there's more animation, which reveals the replacement for Yuuichi, whilst never showing a close-up of his face but you figure out that the it isn't Yuuichi because there's a different name on the helmet. The ending is supposed to make it end at least on a happy note with Suito not being as cold and messed up as before. This all reveals that Yuuichi died and it some way or another saved Suito from dying or killing herself........she has changed....in a way.
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The movie is complex and is definitely more suited for the "thinking audience".
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Just watched it a couple of days ago and....I don't know how to explain it but I really did like the movie,there was a lot of unexplained background (like what is really happening,who is who?)and I really liked it because it force the viewer to think and try to understand on their own.About the end, it wasn't that sad because in reality Yuuichi didn't die,yes he reincarnated as the last pilot who was shown after the ending trailer(when he was getting off the plane and lit a smoke,he broke the match the same way that Yuuichi and Jinro did..).Damn now I want to read the novel so bad but there isn't any translation...
 
If anyone's interested, there's an excellent review for the movie over at AnimeNewsNetwork; it offers some great insight into the movie and the director's intents.
 
the ending was disappointing for me because...the same situation will again happen..the new kildren will fall inlove with her and dies for her..XD
 
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