I wrote in my review for the TV show that Eureka Seven did the recap clip show in a way no other show has done before or since: The edited clips were recut as though they were written as reports from 2 perspectives, one from the eyes of a counterculture magazine writer, the other as a military report by a young officer doing what he thought was the right thing. So it might be natural to think that Bones would introduce some new material and bring the old series new life with the same technique, right? Yeah, about that... I think they were trying to be alittle too clever. They planned a movie, they got some sponsors together, they sketched out a story, they decided to add a bunch of prequel scenes, cool, cool cool cool. Then something threw a wrench in the works. Maybe the higher-ups didn't like the direction. Maybe they ran out of animator resources. Whatever the reason, there is only about 25 to 30 minutes of new content in a 90-minute film. Not nearly as atrocious as Macross Fb7, but still pretty bad.

Fans of the show will no doubt be delighted to watch the new prequel sequence, and anime fans will also enjoy the performance of voice acting legend Toru Furuta, AKA Amuro Ray from Gundam. Honestly, if they packaged this on a Blu-ray as an OVA it would sell like hotcakes: It gives us some perspective of Holland and Dewey when they were inseparable brothers, it shows us Eureka not long after she was discovered, and it shows us just what transpired in the show's past to catapult Adroc Thurston to the "hero of humanity". Unfortunately Diane, Renton's sister, doesn't make an appearance, even though she was a persistent, distant goal for Renton in the TV show, nor does his grandfather Axel (though this is understandable as his actor died years before the film's release). It's not a reinterpretation like the first film, it doesn't throw the show's lore and history into a blender like AO did (though there was a weird ding by changing Renton's surname and backstory by using subtitles), it's a solid addition to the canon.

But it's only solid if they left it at those 25 to 30 minutes of new content.

I get it. They needed to pad out the remaining hour, they needed to capture new fans, they were probably butting heads with the other studios working on the film, and they were probably running over budget, so even though fans of the TV show will be fast-forwarding through the latter two-thirds of the film, maybe there's someone new to the franchise who could see something they like about the heavily truncated, shoddily edited synopsis of the TV show up to episode 24-ish? Well, that's the thing, the first half of the TV show is a bit of a slog, and even if we cut it down to an hour like this, there is a significant amount of lost content that helped shape the world and the characters. I don't think a new viewer would get a very good grasp of the show, it's almost like trying to get the full experience of a nice cup of hot cocoa by pouring a packet of cocoa mix down one's throat. Also, there was probably nothing wrong with keeping the existing content chronological; I'm used to Japanese shows frequently flashing back and forth, but seemingly doing it every 3 to 5 minutes, even with the "flash back/forward" cards, is honestly exhausting to watch.

Naoki Sato, by this time a music powerhouse in his own right, wrote the score, and while I miss his soaring and dramatic tracks from the TV show, the music of the prequel was fittingly epic.

I remember the "alternate script" the cast performed well after the TV show wrapped, it was as though the writers/directors had hundreds of stories they wanted to tell with this cast of characters and this world, but they couldn't for fear of creating a monstrosity instead of the "symphonic psalms of planets" they were aiming for, and with the film and sequel series they picked up the pieces from the cutting room floor without much of a plan to tie them together. This film represents a sort of return to basics, but it feels like Bones is jumping on the "remake bandwagon" that Hollywood and Gainax are infamous for by now. Had they kept it to the prequel and the chase scene, I think it would've been a tighter, more solid production overall. Unfortunately, that's not what we got here.