The Ideon: A Contact, is the first of two Ideon movies that were released on the same day back in 1982. Densetsu Kyojin Ideon, AKA Space Runaway Ideon was a 1980 television series that got cancelled after 39 episodes. A couple of years later director Yoshiyuki Tomino and crew were able to provide a conclusion to the show in the movie The Ideon: Be Invoked. In order to help people recollect the events of the TV series, this movie was also created. The movie’s plot is basically the exact same as Ideon the television series; enough so that I’ll simply use the same description from myreview for that show here. Ideon takes place far in mankind’s future. Mankind has searched throughout the stars, finding many long dead alien civilizations. On the planet Solo, they find the sixth such civilization, which left behind various relics such as the three trucks that make up the Ideon and a giant spaceship, incidentally called the Solo Ship. At the same time, humanoid aliens known as the Buff Clan suddenly appear. Karala Ajiba, daughter of the military commander of the Buff Clan, Doba Ajiba, heads down to the surface of Solo and in their pursuit to find her, a war between the earth settlers and the Buff Clan begins. Our heroes, led by Bes Jordan, and teenagers Cosmo Yuki and Kasha Imhof board the Solo Ship and head throughout the universe, under pursuit of the Buff Clan, who are seeking the power that the Ideon holds.

Tomino and animation director Tomonori Kogawa take advantage of the movie format to provide some enhanced animation. While a large portion of the movie is footage from the TV series, there are also several scenes that are significantly improved with new animation, and we have multiple changed character deaths. The movie’s music is quite strong, and the ending theme is one of my favorite music pieces from the Ideon franchise.

At the same time, the movie suffers from the same thing that almost every compilation movie does in that there simply is no way to provide sufficient development to the plot and characters in a movie versus a full length television series. If anything this movie is much more aggressive with the running time than it should have been. It clocks in at under 90 minutes, but really could have used even 30 extra minutes to help develop things better and retain some additional television series plots. A notable example is the fact that the movie doesn’t fully summarize the first 38 episodes of the show (the 39th episode is featured heavily in the next movie), but only the first 32. So when you start watching The Ideon: Be Invoked there are still several episode’s worth of plot that you are missing. In fact there is a recurring character who died during that timeframe in the series who just completely disappears, their death completely unexplained in the movies. Also, this movie puts in the effort to completely remove all reference to the Ome Foundation, a mysterious faction of the Buff Clan. It is true that many parts of the TV series plotline featuring this group was not in this movie. Yet said faction is referenced heavily in the second movie (its leader is a significant character), which is bound to cause even more confusion.

Is this movie worth watching? If you truly think you don’t have the time to watch the television series and want a primer so you’ll be ready for the second movie, then go ahead and watch it. This was how I got introduced to the Ideon franchise myself, after all. But you will have a far better experience if you get a chance to watch the first 38 episodes of the TV series before jumping into the second movie.