Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale

This movie had great production quality but that's about the only positive thing that can be said about it. I disliked how the motivations of the 'bad guys' are not revealed until the final battle, it was just weird and didn't add anything. There was nowhere to direct tension of any sort because the audience was in the dark about what the whole struggle was over in the first place. The 'threat' was also pretty contrived, it doesn't make much sense that he would have to permanently steal everyone's memories; why not just copy them? It's clear that aspect was extremely artificially amped up inan attempt to make the stakes higher. This is the same problem with Eiji's treatment; Shigemura had blatantly lied to him and throws Eiji under the bus to make him look more evil or whatever.

And more broadly, I don't think this movie has much justification for existing. In terms of plot it feels entirely tacked on. What does this whole story add at all to the larger sao-verse? It feels like a more fleshed out 'extra' episode.