The first two Madoka movies were definitely worth watching. Spoilers for more insight (it's gonna be long...really long.).
First what they did right:
The most prominent improvements were the animation, the voice acting. Everything looked BEAUTIFUL. Like, I expected it to look nice, but I was actually blown away by how good it looked. Since I know you like scenery porn and all that, I think you're gonna enjoy that.
The voice actors did an amazing job. Seems like since the original recording they really have come to know their characters really really well. It's hard to really describe, but there's a noticeable increase in the quality of their work. They were able to convey a lot more emotion this time, and it made the experience really fantastic.
Next they did improve certain scenes by adding new animation. The fight with the black and white witch had an extra 10 seconds or so of Sayaka just totally losing it. Though the overall time added wasn't much, it did a great job of hitting home that this was the point of no return for Sayaka, and since this was always my favorite witch I absolutely loved it. The scene just improved so much because of it I think. The other scene I think they improved for the better was Kyouko's death. It's really subtle, but they reanimated the way she moves during that entire fight. Her body language towards the end near her sacrifice just conveys much more of her feelings of regret in how she had lost what she once believed in to live for herself and how Sayaka reminded her of what she once was. It's kinda hard to explain, you'd just have to see it I guess. But most of the new scenes are just added scenery porn, some of which was great, some of which was a bit off putting.
Finally there was a lot of new music. They added lyrics to Mami's theme, Sayaka's theme (which I personally didn't like), and Saggita Luminis. There was some other new music too I believe.
Oh, and a new OP. It was nice. Really, really nice.
Here's where I think they went wrong:
They cut a lot of stuff. They condensed the first 8 episodes into 2 hours. A lot of the stuff I actually didn't notice was gone, but I'm not sure if that's because I subconsciously filled them in or not. But the scenes that I did notice were gone, I feel really needed to be there, because they added a lot to characterization. Here's a few important ones:
1) Mami explaining to Madoka and Sayaka about familiars, and how you should kill them before they become witches and kill people. This is important because it contrasts Mami from Kyouko. It shows that Magical Girls can survive and function living by Kyouko's food chain standard. I think this is very important to Sayaka and why she thinks the way she thinks later on.
2) They cut out a lot of Mami's screen time. They completely cut Mami's backstory, and how she was forced into becoming a magical girl. On it's own this probably wouldn't have been so bad to cut, but when you look at it in the context of how much of Mami was actually cut out, cutting this made it clear they wanted Mami to be more of a plot device than anything else in the movies.
3) They cut out the conversation where Kyuubey explains to Sayaka that Madoka has the potential to be the most powerful magical girl. I think this scene is important to later on when Sayaka snaps at Madoka at the bus stop. I feel like she has a more legitimate reason to actually get angry if she knows this.
4) They cut Homura trying to give Sayaka a grief seed to cleanse her soul gem before it's too late. I just think this scene was really important to the whole "I refuse to accept help from anyone who uses means I don't approve of" mentality that she held right up until they end
5) The most important thing I think they cut was the discussion on why Sayaka made her wish. They never addressed whether she really made the wish for the guy, or because of herself. I think this was very important to understanding Sayaka and the key to a lot of her inner conflict later on.
Aside from the cutting, a lot of the second movie felt really disjointed. The biggest problem was where episode 10 should have been. In the anime, it was seen as a self contained episode, and it worked great. But they here they tried to incorporate it into a flowing movie, and that disconnected self-contained feel didn't flow well. They did a pretty bad job transitioning into it, but the biggest problem came from transitioning out of it - they actually just played Connect and showed the OP.
They also decided to cut the dream sequence from episode 1, and move it to episode 10 as one of the timelines. I think this just felt awkward, and it worked better as it originally was.
Overall I did enjoy the movies. They weren't bad, but a lot of the content that was cut really fleshed out the characters and gave you a better understanding of them and their motivations. Because of that I enjoyed the anime much, much more. But the movie was definitely worth it for all the new animation, better voice acting, and the few scene extensions they actually did do.
ALSO, after the movie they had a trailer to the third move. (actual spoilers)
WTF HITOMI IS A MAGICAL GIRL? WTF KYOUSUKE IS SOMEHOW GOING TO BE IMPORTANT? WTF AT THE END MADOKA MAKES A COMMENT ABOUT HOW SHE'LL BE WITH HOMURA AGAIN SOON? COMES OUT IN 2013 MY BODY IS READY!
I think everyone who enjoyed this series did so because they stopped taking it seriously. I mean, at one point we have a girl flying up on a rocket to sing a song that shoots a gun to stop the antagonist from shooting the moon with an underground elevator shaft turned neo-Babel in the name of world peace.
I refuse to believe there exists anyone who can take that seriously!
I can't see what you gave it because you made your list private! What evil and perverse secrets have you hidden in this list such that even I can't see it?
And, since I can't see your list, what did you give Symphogear?
