Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale
As being a big fan of the first two seasons, I was extremely excited to watch this and it did not disappoint. I believe the film played on some strengths from the previous seasons of the anime and brought in a couple of new original ideas to make its own unique story. I thought it was really interesting how it grounded our character Kirito in the real world compared to the ultimate Kirito we had seen throughout the seasons, it was a side I don't believe we had seen much before - only briefly shown in the middle of the first season. This brought a new lightto the character with the new technology brought in - which I would like to say seems like quite a natural evolution from full dive technology. Seeing this side of Kirito made it feel even more satisfying later on seeing the Kirito we remember - 'The Blackswordsman' - fighting at his full strength.
The new technology did seem relevant in a way too, being kind of similar to Pokemon GO which was relatively new upon release and is still fairly popular.
Other themes I enjoyed derived from the memories characters had from SAO. Kirito wanted to experience it again as well as the others shown their excitement when faced with the features of the new technology. Also it explored characters in which had very traumatic experiences from SAO. From this the film did question whether the memories were traumatic or enjoyable. This combination of the two made an enticing story.
For me I always found that Sword Art had an amazing ability to create very unlikable villains in which I believe they succeed once again while bringing a being able to emphasis with them. I would have liked to seen them more fleshed out but I believe it was done well and being able to understand their motives.
Interestingly, the film showed negatives of SAO from both the inside and outside perceptive from which we had not seen before especially from the outside. Personally, I did find myself feeling empathy for the antagonists which a good film should be able to do rather than use two-dimensional bad guys. SAO being very developed with the protagonists should aim to do more of this.
Another comment I must make is the extraordinary visuals. This was by far on of the best looking animes I have seen. Clearly a lot of work went into this.
A reason why I do not believe this was a perfect movie was the fact that there is many characters that are not very developed and they were placed on the sidelines again. The story focused mainly on Asuna and Kirito, while they are generally the favourites, I simply think it is a missed opportunity to bring new light to other characters.
I found the pacing of the film at the beginning was a little slow also. I am not sure this was done on purpose to show some realism with the characters all being in the real world or was simply was done in order to align the story correctly.
Finally, I did thoroughly enjoy seeing themes from the first season and developing upon the world we thought we knew very well - it was done very well but I cannot help but to feel it could be have been done in another way. Using the SAO game as the foundations of the story for the main arc may not be necessary but instead introduce something else and perhaps use a side arc to bring elements of the original SAO. I just believe it was perhaps just a missed opportunity to do something new the universe we already know.
Sword Art Online Movie: Ordinal Scale was a great movie and I would highly recommend. It played all of Sword Arts strengths and worked well, the fight scenes in particular were excellent. I enjoyed seeing a multi-dimensional villain while it could have been developed a little further. The characters were done excellently and using their memories to create an interesting story.
While I did write some criticism as I believe there was some missed opportunities; however, the film was great and I cannot wait to see more in the future.