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Since it's new Ultraman season again...
Okay, since I've skipped a year and a month on the blog, I'm dumping everything I wrote about Ultraman Trigger in the same entry. Because I'm not up to annoying people with multiple posts, especially since I don't even know anyone read me anymore (or even remembers who I am).
I watched the Ultraman Trigger movie (appropriately named 'Episode Z') on the day it premiered (the livestream version with the actors commenting (incidentally, I didn't even pay attention to the livechat comments - my seven dollars were so wasted ^^;; - because I just couldn't; I was lucky I could finish the movie and the aftershow event at all on my ancient android phone).
Ah, but you're more interested in what I thought about that movie, right? Or maybe you don't. Either way, I'm not really commenting on the movie at this time, having seen it only once in its entirety. I'll need to rewatch it (hopefully, my five dollar rental still works).
So, this is only mainly about the aftershow event. Specifically, the 'question and answer' session. I can't even remember much now, so, like I usually disclaim about my episode summaries, if I forget something, I usually make some of it up to compensate for my lack of knowledge. Oh, and spoilers. Usually out of context (and even references Ultraman Tiga at one point), but still spoilers, so a fair warning if you want to know nothing about the movie (personally, though, I think you can probably guess what happens in the movie if you watched the trailer, so).
First, the actors are asked about their favorite scenes. I think Haruki gets to answer first. He likes the scene Haruki first appears, because Haruki there acts so Haruki-like (or something like that) and I totally agree. (Then again, I adore Haruki. This is totally not a reminder to watch Ultraman Z if for some reason you read this and still haven't seen it.)
Next up is probably Yuna. She likes the scene in the haunted house (she and Akito are hunting for stuff to help Trigger). Yuna's actor had never been to a haunted house before so she was scared but her character had to make it seem like it didn't bother her at all. Whereas Akito was screaming his head off like a little kid but his actor wasn't bothered at all and even did things to make Yuna's actor even more scared. ^^;;
Then it is Akito's turn. He likes(?) the scene where everyone from GUTS select runs up to protect Trigger, Akito saying that Trigger is their comrade. According to Akito's actor, he had to do that scene like five times, with more increased energy for each take. I like that scene, too, even though the TV series had a similar scene already. Partly because now everyone knows who Trigger is.
Last but not least, Kengo's actor likes the scene where he and Akito break through the barrier together (in a scene that makes me and everyone think of Daigo breaking through the barrier to get to his sparklence in the Evil Tiga episode of Ultraman Tiga) to get to his GUTS sparklence. I like the change from Tiga, where Daigo has to do it alone because (he thinks) no one knows about him.
The next section is about the questions from viewers/fans. I'm sure there are lots of questions but only four were selected (one for each actor). Ah, let's go through them quickly.
Haruki is first again. The question is about him being possessed by Celebro. I think they asked him about how to prepare to act in those scenes. He said something about letting go and not think at all (which was something very very Haruki-like). Also, he pretended/pictured that all the film crew and fellow actors like having/growing horns or something. (This reminds me of what was often told about how to get over being scared of public speaking, by imagining the audience in their underwears or naked.)
Umm, who is the second? Let's go with Akito, even if that wasn't correct. They asked about his favorite scene to act in (isn't that the same question as in the previous section????). Well, so he said in addition to that scene he had to redo five times, he also likes the breaking through the barrier scene that Kengo's actor likes. I think Sean (the MC) commented that it looked like Akito crashed into Kengo in that scene, but Sean then whispered that they had an absorbing(?) pad in between the two actors, so it's okay then?
Third, Yuna is asked about Yuzare's relationship with Sabil. She said they were friends/comrades in the same organization who fought together to protect earth from the dark giants and she acted with that thought/feeling in the back of her mind. I personally am not sure if they were really just friends. After all, Yuna (and maybe Yuzare) seems mostly oblivious to anyone interested in her romantically (maybe except Dargone, but only because he went and directly spelled it out). So, yeah, she thinks of everyone as a friend, and the poor male (and maybe female) who crushed on her usually couldn't say anything differently. To be fair, I don't know enough (nor seen enough) about Sabil to say one way or another - maybe he really saw Yuzare simply as a beloved leader who tragically had to sacrifice herself to bring the end to the dark giants.
Last, Kengo is asked which dark version of Trigger he prefers: Trigger Dark or Evil Trigger? I almost groaned at this question. Seriously. I'm not Kengo (nor his actor) and I can answer it correctly. (Because it's a sort of PC question. He has to answer that way, so now I'm worried that it might not even be his true opinion.) Such a waste of question. But then again, I don't know what I would rather ask him either, so I might have to give the questioner points for asking it at all. And I'll be optimistic and hope the version he chose was really how he felt.
And then they are saying goodbye. I really really have no memory for more elaborate goodbyes, so have a one-sentence summary of their goodbyes and thanks. Haruki is happy and thankful that this live event thing helps improving his English a lot. Everyone's excited energy in the event is making Akito feel excited too, so he's thanking them for that. Yuna is thanking everyone for sending her (and other actors) love. And Kengo mentions having watched the movie many times, but the movie felt the best this time, with everyone watching along, so he thanked everyone for making the event such a great time.
That's it for the aftershow event. Obviously I was joking about wasting my seven dollars because I got my money's worth and then some. I would love to see more live events like this (I missed last year events and still want to watch them, even if I have to pay).
(Speaking of event, I'll have to regrettably pass on the Ultraman Connection event later in the morning (or tonight, depends on where you are; it's 10 July evening in the US - at 9 PM EST). Hopefully, someone will type up a recap.)
----
Okay, now I've seen the movie again (courtesy of Ultraman Connection - thank you for subtitles in ten languages, two of which I can actually understand). It's fine. No, more than fine. One of my favorite new gen movies (at this point, probably only Ultraman X movie (and sometimes Ultraman Geed movie) is more enjoyable for me). I really don't know what to talk about it, though, so let's just do whatever comes to mind.
1) I know I probably shouldn't see this movie without watching the series first, but even without that comparison, Trigger Dark really did nothing memorable in this movie. I'm...disappointed is too strong a word. More like they wasted his character. It's like he had no point to be in this movie other than being someone for the bad guys to gang up on.
2) Haruki is Ultraman Z in this movie. They gave Z like a few lines but he, like the Ultra above, did nothing memorable. I kind of hoped that Z would be the one who breaks Haruki out of Celebro's control because if Z were encouraging Haruki to remember his own important people, we might see glimpses of Yoko, Yuka, Bako-san, or even Hebikura (barring that, I'll take Z mentioning their names, really). But Z did nothing that mattered. Why didn't he separate them? Why did Haruki and Z stay fused? I thought if they weren't one heart, they couldn't maintain being Ultraman? Or maybe, after what happened in their own TV series, they couldn't separate anymore?
3) Umm, when did Haruki get the Z-Riser back? And when did he return the GUTS Sparklence to Akito? Maybe they did the exchange off-screen, but it was still weird to never mention it at all.
4) I should know it. They made Tokioka so likeable, it was so much a red flag. But they succeeded. I liked the guy (and not only because he was Channaka) and even naively thought we should get him as a captain for the next series. Then he kept referring to Kengo as an incarnation of light and I was so deflated.
That said, I still think Tokioka's words and care for the team are mostly genuine in the first half of the movie. Naive, perhaps, but I admire people who are willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good (well, at least their version of "greater good"), be they heroes or villains or someone inbetween.
5) I've always like how GUTS-Select work as a team, and this movie makes me like them even more. While it might be nice if we ever see some glimpses, I'm not obsessed about knowing Himari's or Tesshin's backstory. I judge people by how they act, not by the friends they know or the events from their private/past lives. Seriously, this started to annoy me. Trigger is about humanity as a whole, not one individual. Admittedly, the series might not make that point well, but it is there.
6) Haruki is amazing every time he is on screen. I increasingly want an Ultraman Z movie (well, I can dream, can't I?) Barring that, I hope he returns for later series/movies.
7) Individual cheering up speeches. ;) Again, I love GUTS-Select. Akito gets the longest lines, of course, but still, I didn't even expect that everyone had words for Kengo. Then again, they knew he's Trigger now, so I shouldn't be surprised.
Oh, and the two-time party welcoming back Kengo? When was the last time we see something like that? Ultraman Ginga S movie?
Even Captain Tatsumi gets into the spirit of the party. I just love that a lot. And then I remembered that Tokioka was in the first party and I felt sad. I just hope he found peace and contentment and realized that his time was long gone. (They never explained about that, so materials for some enterprising fanfic writers, perhaps?)
8) How did Celebro escape? It had to jump hosts, probably, since I don't think it can survive long outside of one. All right, I just wonder why it was kept alive. Unless it couldn't be killed? Or maybe if they killed it, it disintegrated or its cells/tissues useless for studying. Still, I would just kill it. Why do you even need to study it, Yuka?
Then again, I didn't really mind. Celebro's deal with Sabil's cult is something Celebro would do, so why invented another new villain when Celebro would do just fine? And we got the scene of Himari bagging it in the end. It's almost worth it just for that. Oh, and for sequences of Haruki being possessed, of course. (Now he and Yoko can compare notes on which of them was more creepy as Celebro...)
9) I mentioned them before when I talked about the aftershow event, but some of my favorites are haunted house scene and breaking barrier scene. Haunted house because who would have thought Akito would have that kind of weakness? He was a cool guy. ;) Though he becomes increasingly less cool the more he is around Kengo.
And that's why I appreciate their dual barrier breaking, too. That's when I decided that Akito is better kept as a normal person who won't ever be Ultraman. (Okay, after hoping for half a second that maybe Kengo will let Akito transform with him this one time. ^^;;) And it just feels satisfying that Kengo at last realizes/understands that he is a human who can wield Ultraman power. And as a human, he needs help from others. Took him long enough.
I'm sure I forget millions other things, but this is it for now. Lovely lovely movie which breaks no new ground, but yet it just comes together very well. Probably better than the TV series, which I love. A fitting conclusion.
ETA: 10 July 2022
You know, Ultraman Decker's premiere breaks no new ground either, but I love it just the same. And now I'm just reminded that the director for Episode Z is also the main director for Decker. It's obvious now that he (and/or people in charge/TPTB) is probably trying to fix the "mess Trigger TV series left behind"* by playing it very safe. It is easier to go with what have always worked in this franchise (i.e. establishes the characters quickly, shows us why the main character is chosen to be Ultraman, establishes the stakes, shows us why we should care if this world is in danger). Like, why bother fixing what isn't broken?
*I don't agree -- I'm just not quite quoting other people. Honestly, I really do like that Trigger was willing to do something different, or dare I even say, fresh? The result is endearing to me.
But upon some consideration, I believe Trigger (both the series and the character) is an acquired taste. It really depends if you can take a series that doesn't even make a token effort to pretend that it reflects real life. And that fully applies to its main character, too. (I just knew some people would have a problem with "smile, smile". I don't. But I think Kengo is cute in everything he does so I'm obviously not unbiased.) With unrealistic (well...I probably should say obviously fabricated) settings, characters and dialogs, the series just feels more like anime than life action.
And I got the impression that all that exaggeration was by design. They** had to know how, well, not true to real life all those were. I mean, especially contrast with Ultraman Z, a series right before Trigger. Tsuburaya obviously knew what reflected real life then; it was unlikely they would forget a year later.
(**The people who made the series. The characters fully believe that their experiences are real. Other series have their fair shares of staged, unrealistic dialogs, but Trigger took all those...if not to space...way higher than other series. And the series treated everything seriously. Which might be one of its problem; audience had no real idea that it was aware of how unrealistic it was.
Hmm. But thinking more, I'd say episode 18 worked well because the characters were allowed to be silly, in contrast to the rest of the time. So being self-aware wasn't good, after all.)
So that's my roundabout way of saying that they did an experiment with Trigger, which unfortunately failed with some audience. Like I said, I love the series. Episode Z did a great job of trying to ground Trigger, bringing it down from the height of unbelievability to...if not the ground...somewhere more relatable.
Let's hope Decker continues to make no missteps, even if it has to sacrifice some originality. I've had enough of people complaining about Trigger. That series already ended half a year ago; let's just go forward and cheer for Decker.
I watched the Ultraman Trigger movie (appropriately named 'Episode Z') on the day it premiered (the livestream version with the actors commenting (incidentally, I didn't even pay attention to the livechat comments - my seven dollars were so wasted ^^;; - because I just couldn't; I was lucky I could finish the movie and the aftershow event at all on my ancient android phone).
Ah, but you're more interested in what I thought about that movie, right? Or maybe you don't. Either way, I'm not really commenting on the movie at this time, having seen it only once in its entirety. I'll need to rewatch it (hopefully, my five dollar rental still works).
So, this is only mainly about the aftershow event. Specifically, the 'question and answer' session. I can't even remember much now, so, like I usually disclaim about my episode summaries, if I forget something, I usually make some of it up to compensate for my lack of knowledge. Oh, and spoilers. Usually out of context (and even references Ultraman Tiga at one point), but still spoilers, so a fair warning if you want to know nothing about the movie (personally, though, I think you can probably guess what happens in the movie if you watched the trailer, so).
First, the actors are asked about their favorite scenes. I think Haruki gets to answer first. He likes the scene Haruki first appears, because Haruki there acts so Haruki-like (or something like that) and I totally agree. (Then again, I adore Haruki. This is totally not a reminder to watch Ultraman Z if for some reason you read this and still haven't seen it.)
Next up is probably Yuna. She likes the scene in the haunted house (she and Akito are hunting for stuff to help Trigger). Yuna's actor had never been to a haunted house before so she was scared but her character had to make it seem like it didn't bother her at all. Whereas Akito was screaming his head off like a little kid but his actor wasn't bothered at all and even did things to make Yuna's actor even more scared. ^^;;
Then it is Akito's turn. He likes(?) the scene where everyone from GUTS select runs up to protect Trigger, Akito saying that Trigger is their comrade. According to Akito's actor, he had to do that scene like five times, with more increased energy for each take. I like that scene, too, even though the TV series had a similar scene already. Partly because now everyone knows who Trigger is.
Last but not least, Kengo's actor likes the scene where he and Akito break through the barrier together (in a scene that makes me and everyone think of Daigo breaking through the barrier to get to his sparklence in the Evil Tiga episode of Ultraman Tiga) to get to his GUTS sparklence. I like the change from Tiga, where Daigo has to do it alone because (he thinks) no one knows about him.
The next section is about the questions from viewers/fans. I'm sure there are lots of questions but only four were selected (one for each actor). Ah, let's go through them quickly.
Haruki is first again. The question is about him being possessed by Celebro. I think they asked him about how to prepare to act in those scenes. He said something about letting go and not think at all (which was something very very Haruki-like). Also, he pretended/pictured that all the film crew and fellow actors like having/growing horns or something. (This reminds me of what was often told about how to get over being scared of public speaking, by imagining the audience in their underwears or naked.)
Umm, who is the second? Let's go with Akito, even if that wasn't correct. They asked about his favorite scene to act in (isn't that the same question as in the previous section????). Well, so he said in addition to that scene he had to redo five times, he also likes the breaking through the barrier scene that Kengo's actor likes. I think Sean (the MC) commented that it looked like Akito crashed into Kengo in that scene, but Sean then whispered that they had an absorbing(?) pad in between the two actors, so it's okay then?
Third, Yuna is asked about Yuzare's relationship with Sabil. She said they were friends/comrades in the same organization who fought together to protect earth from the dark giants and she acted with that thought/feeling in the back of her mind. I personally am not sure if they were really just friends. After all, Yuna (and maybe Yuzare) seems mostly oblivious to anyone interested in her romantically (maybe except Dargone, but only because he went and directly spelled it out). So, yeah, she thinks of everyone as a friend, and the poor male (and maybe female) who crushed on her usually couldn't say anything differently. To be fair, I don't know enough (nor seen enough) about Sabil to say one way or another - maybe he really saw Yuzare simply as a beloved leader who tragically had to sacrifice herself to bring the end to the dark giants.
Last, Kengo is asked which dark version of Trigger he prefers: Trigger Dark or Evil Trigger? I almost groaned at this question. Seriously. I'm not Kengo (nor his actor) and I can answer it correctly. (Because it's a sort of PC question. He has to answer that way, so now I'm worried that it might not even be his true opinion.) Such a waste of question. But then again, I don't know what I would rather ask him either, so I might have to give the questioner points for asking it at all. And I'll be optimistic and hope the version he chose was really how he felt.
And then they are saying goodbye. I really really have no memory for more elaborate goodbyes, so have a one-sentence summary of their goodbyes and thanks. Haruki is happy and thankful that this live event thing helps improving his English a lot. Everyone's excited energy in the event is making Akito feel excited too, so he's thanking them for that. Yuna is thanking everyone for sending her (and other actors) love. And Kengo mentions having watched the movie many times, but the movie felt the best this time, with everyone watching along, so he thanked everyone for making the event such a great time.
That's it for the aftershow event. Obviously I was joking about wasting my seven dollars because I got my money's worth and then some. I would love to see more live events like this (I missed last year events and still want to watch them, even if I have to pay).
(Speaking of event, I'll have to regrettably pass on the Ultraman Connection event later in the morning (or tonight, depends on where you are; it's 10 July evening in the US - at 9 PM EST). Hopefully, someone will type up a recap.)
----
Okay, now I've seen the movie again (courtesy of Ultraman Connection - thank you for subtitles in ten languages, two of which I can actually understand). It's fine. No, more than fine. One of my favorite new gen movies (at this point, probably only Ultraman X movie (and sometimes Ultraman Geed movie) is more enjoyable for me). I really don't know what to talk about it, though, so let's just do whatever comes to mind.
1) I know I probably shouldn't see this movie without watching the series first, but even without that comparison, Trigger Dark really did nothing memorable in this movie. I'm...disappointed is too strong a word. More like they wasted his character. It's like he had no point to be in this movie other than being someone for the bad guys to gang up on.
2) Haruki is Ultraman Z in this movie. They gave Z like a few lines but he, like the Ultra above, did nothing memorable. I kind of hoped that Z would be the one who breaks Haruki out of Celebro's control because if Z were encouraging Haruki to remember his own important people, we might see glimpses of Yoko, Yuka, Bako-san, or even Hebikura (barring that, I'll take Z mentioning their names, really). But Z did nothing that mattered. Why didn't he separate them? Why did Haruki and Z stay fused? I thought if they weren't one heart, they couldn't maintain being Ultraman? Or maybe, after what happened in their own TV series, they couldn't separate anymore?
3) Umm, when did Haruki get the Z-Riser back? And when did he return the GUTS Sparklence to Akito? Maybe they did the exchange off-screen, but it was still weird to never mention it at all.
4) I should know it. They made Tokioka so likeable, it was so much a red flag. But they succeeded. I liked the guy (and not only because he was Channaka) and even naively thought we should get him as a captain for the next series. Then he kept referring to Kengo as an incarnation of light and I was so deflated.
That said, I still think Tokioka's words and care for the team are mostly genuine in the first half of the movie. Naive, perhaps, but I admire people who are willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good (well, at least their version of "greater good"), be they heroes or villains or someone inbetween.
5) I've always like how GUTS-Select work as a team, and this movie makes me like them even more. While it might be nice if we ever see some glimpses, I'm not obsessed about knowing Himari's or Tesshin's backstory. I judge people by how they act, not by the friends they know or the events from their private/past lives. Seriously, this started to annoy me. Trigger is about humanity as a whole, not one individual. Admittedly, the series might not make that point well, but it is there.
6) Haruki is amazing every time he is on screen. I increasingly want an Ultraman Z movie (well, I can dream, can't I?) Barring that, I hope he returns for later series/movies.
7) Individual cheering up speeches. ;) Again, I love GUTS-Select. Akito gets the longest lines, of course, but still, I didn't even expect that everyone had words for Kengo. Then again, they knew he's Trigger now, so I shouldn't be surprised.
Oh, and the two-time party welcoming back Kengo? When was the last time we see something like that? Ultraman Ginga S movie?
Even Captain Tatsumi gets into the spirit of the party. I just love that a lot. And then I remembered that Tokioka was in the first party and I felt sad. I just hope he found peace and contentment and realized that his time was long gone. (They never explained about that, so materials for some enterprising fanfic writers, perhaps?)
8) How did Celebro escape? It had to jump hosts, probably, since I don't think it can survive long outside of one. All right, I just wonder why it was kept alive. Unless it couldn't be killed? Or maybe if they killed it, it disintegrated or its cells/tissues useless for studying. Still, I would just kill it. Why do you even need to study it, Yuka?
Then again, I didn't really mind. Celebro's deal with Sabil's cult is something Celebro would do, so why invented another new villain when Celebro would do just fine? And we got the scene of Himari bagging it in the end. It's almost worth it just for that. Oh, and for sequences of Haruki being possessed, of course. (Now he and Yoko can compare notes on which of them was more creepy as Celebro...)
9) I mentioned them before when I talked about the aftershow event, but some of my favorites are haunted house scene and breaking barrier scene. Haunted house because who would have thought Akito would have that kind of weakness? He was a cool guy. ;) Though he becomes increasingly less cool the more he is around Kengo.
And that's why I appreciate their dual barrier breaking, too. That's when I decided that Akito is better kept as a normal person who won't ever be Ultraman. (Okay, after hoping for half a second that maybe Kengo will let Akito transform with him this one time. ^^;;) And it just feels satisfying that Kengo at last realizes/understands that he is a human who can wield Ultraman power. And as a human, he needs help from others. Took him long enough.
I'm sure I forget millions other things, but this is it for now. Lovely lovely movie which breaks no new ground, but yet it just comes together very well. Probably better than the TV series, which I love. A fitting conclusion.
ETA: 10 July 2022
You know, Ultraman Decker's premiere breaks no new ground either, but I love it just the same. And now I'm just reminded that the director for Episode Z is also the main director for Decker. It's obvious now that he (and/or people in charge/TPTB) is probably trying to fix the "mess Trigger TV series left behind"* by playing it very safe. It is easier to go with what have always worked in this franchise (i.e. establishes the characters quickly, shows us why the main character is chosen to be Ultraman, establishes the stakes, shows us why we should care if this world is in danger). Like, why bother fixing what isn't broken?
*I don't agree -- I'm just not quite quoting other people. Honestly, I really do like that Trigger was willing to do something different, or dare I even say, fresh? The result is endearing to me.
But upon some consideration, I believe Trigger (both the series and the character) is an acquired taste. It really depends if you can take a series that doesn't even make a token effort to pretend that it reflects real life. And that fully applies to its main character, too. (I just knew some people would have a problem with "smile, smile". I don't. But I think Kengo is cute in everything he does so I'm obviously not unbiased.) With unrealistic (well...I probably should say obviously fabricated) settings, characters and dialogs, the series just feels more like anime than life action.
And I got the impression that all that exaggeration was by design. They** had to know how, well, not true to real life all those were. I mean, especially contrast with Ultraman Z, a series right before Trigger. Tsuburaya obviously knew what reflected real life then; it was unlikely they would forget a year later.
(**The people who made the series. The characters fully believe that their experiences are real. Other series have their fair shares of staged, unrealistic dialogs, but Trigger took all those...if not to space...way higher than other series. And the series treated everything seriously. Which might be one of its problem; audience had no real idea that it was aware of how unrealistic it was.
Hmm. But thinking more, I'd say episode 18 worked well because the characters were allowed to be silly, in contrast to the rest of the time. So being self-aware wasn't good, after all.)
So that's my roundabout way of saying that they did an experiment with Trigger, which unfortunately failed with some audience. Like I said, I love the series. Episode Z did a great job of trying to ground Trigger, bringing it down from the height of unbelievability to...if not the ground...somewhere more relatable.
Let's hope Decker continues to make no missteps, even if it has to sacrifice some originality. I've had enough of people complaining about Trigger. That series already ended half a year ago; let's just go forward and cheer for Decker.