I watched all the one piece movies in the past before I picked up this movie and the arabasta one. Both are recaps mostly, but this movie is considerably better. I thought this movie did a even better job at telling chopper's story than the tv series. I rewatched one piece plenty of times, but every time, I couldn't really get into this story arc that much. Don't get me wrong, I love Chopper and how Luffy invited him to be his nakama. The background story about chopper is also very touching. But this is probably the only main arc where luffy is the onlyone fighting against the bad guys, and actually, those bad guys are so weak that I wouldn't consider it a real fight.
Of course, one piece isn't about fighting, but in the tv series, the arc took too many episodes and the other characters played too little role. This movie, however, I felt was really well paced and told the whole story in the right amount of time. Plus, you get to see franky and robin there too, so that's refreshing.
Out of all the older one piece movies, I feel this one is probably the most well planned and worth watching. Even as a retold story, I find it interesting. So I recommend the fans out there who haven't watched this to give it a try.
I'm about to watch the new one about nami too, so hopefully it can be much better than the arabasta movie and as good as this.