Macross Δ Movie: Gekijou no Walküre

Unlike Frontier movies, this adaptation attempts to fit the whole show into 2 hours. All big highlights and key moments were restructured to accommodate the new narrative. Premise remains the same: Var syndrome infecting people, militant Wandermerians plan to battle the entire UN government, and only special sound unit WALKURE is ready to fight new enemies with the power of music(and weapons).
All action improved with a higher budget and new bangers. Issues are obvious - writers cut out several plot points and character development. Still, a fast-paced, action-packed story accompanied by WALKURE hits makes an exciting watch. There is only a CGI music number ... that sticks out like a sore thumb.
Now, the big question is what new story awaits in the next movie, considering the Wandermerian plot from the Delta show has already reached its conclusion. Gotta watch and find out!

Do this film succ? Undoubtedly. But this film kinda understands what was the TV Delta’s problem and trying to do something about it. The problem is almost nothing can be done with the source material like TV Delta, and reimagining in the Macross F way never took place for some reasons unknown to me, so the film still succ. Graphics got better, CGI improved from “make me unseen it” to “acceptable”, flat characters became more flat because their developments got cut alongside with filler parts or shortened to a fewer scenes.

This version of Delta improved in some parts and deteriorated in others, which resulted in ... the same 5 sad Mirage’s smiles out of 10 for me.

Still better than a TV due to length.

It's just not fair, Delta. When Frontier makes a movie that re-tells the series with new context, it has the money to feel like an entirely new production, and when there's glaring 3DCG in a song section, it feels like part of the concert production and not, you know, THE WHOLE THING. That's not to mention the dodgy editing of reaction shots that's on the level of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Riding with Death where, "GO SAM, GIVE IT THE OLD COLLEGE TRY!!!" is horribly ADR'd on top of a scene to try to slam two separate episodes of a TV show into ... a "coherent movie."

I could look past this if their attempts to re-edit the series to tell a new story worked, but it doesn't. Making Freyja more the main character isn't a bad move at all, and this thing is a lesson in using editing to change context, but it doesn't work. Freyja seems less heroic because there's a more "chosen one" vibe. Even if she had the same special advantages in the series, she still auditioned and passed the final test. On the other end, what they removed weakens the piece just as much. The dancing Valkyrie scene the internet edited Earth, Wind, and Fire into (And is probably the only scene most have seen of Delta) features Freyja and Hayate when they have known each other for two minutes rather than two people who've gone through a similar experience sharing a special moment. When Mirage later asks Hayate for suggestions on a birthday present for Freyja because he knows her better, does he really?

Sure it's better than just slamming 7-13 hours of a series into a feature film and calling it a day, but the experiment doesn't work and the extra scenes distract the movie as a whole while not being worthwhile by themselves.