Escaflowne

The techno fantasy potential is completely tapped and suits the darker theme, it's an absolutely beautiful improvement from the series that deserved a 16:9 movie.

The title should be reinterpreted as:
The Vision of Escaflowne: Alternate Fate (Valiant Wing Goddess).

It is not a reboot, a retelling or a rewriting of the previous story. Many alternate fates are possible due to how the storyline was designed from the start, it's nice to had seen this one without the PG cushion the Escaflowne series was bound to.

The movie would make little sense to anyone uninvested in the series since a great deal of background on these characters ... is sourced from the viewer's prior knowledge of the series, this grants it a pass to be an abridged story, as it no longer needs to tell the whole story. So much of the true message of Escaflowne was lost, this movie puts it all back.

PS. Watch the Funimation version for a good time.

"In the darkness; the dragon wakes, till the heart numbs cold, the dragon roars, with you by my side; the dragon sleeps, when the dragon gains wings, our hopes will leap into the sky."

Overall: has massive potential.

This feels like the plot of a video game, but as a movie instead. I think if the WAS a video game the story would be much better, thanks to more character interaction, flavour text, and time (for story to develop, the world to be fleshed out, etc). I heard that this is based off of a series, which has actual character development and moments that are more than just "depression" or "action" moments. The overall feel of this movie is a depressing, dark tone. Which is cool! I love series that have a dark/depressing theme to them, however there weren't really ... any fluctuations in emotion throughout the movie. It just leaves the viewer with a sense that they're supposed to feel sad without much change (even with increased sadness! It's just the same level!) throughout.

I'm going to check out the series this was based off of because it can really benefit from the extra time a series allows for. I'm also looking forward to more moments of different emotion. Looking at other reviews I feel safe to recommend the series it was based off of over the movie.

The original „The vision of Escaflowne“ TV-show from 1996 is one of the greatest anime of all time. It had spectacular world building, interesting and realistic characters and an unmatched OST making the emotional scenes that much more impactful and the action scenes that much more exciting. At the end it perfectly wrapped everything up in a tight package with no need for more. 4 years later someone decided to make a movie about it. So how do you follow such a masterpiece with a movie? Well the only conclusion I can draw out of this case study is…. you don’t.

The Escaflowne movie ... basically is an attempt of a retelling of the original “The vision of Escaflowne” show with the same characters (not all of course), but in a different setting and everything is basically a bit different now. It is ridiculous to believe a movie that spans 90 min can achieve what a show did in 26 episodes, however the movie tries to attempt that. For example look at the romance between the 2 main characters. In the tv-show a slow build up that is relatable with setbacks until at the end everything comes together to make it that much more fulfilling, while in the movie they talk to each other for like 2 times (once in a very aggressive manner, almost leading to the death of one of them) and suddenly Hitomi wants to stay at Vans side forever? It would be just pathetic if it wasn't so insulting to the TV-show.

Then there is no world building and no politics in the movie, which already takes away a large part what makes the original great and besides being a weak attempt of a romance the movie boils down to a generic action flick. While in the original the villains had motivation that was somewhat understandable, here they are just bad because the script told them to. And when the movie tackles some interesting ideas, like seeing your previous allies being forced to work for the villains to survive, with the moral implication how to deal with it, this situation gets instantly resolved and forgotten about in an instant. Basically the movie doesn’t want to try anything new, like killing off main characters and shine the spotlight on someone else, its just the most boring re-imagination, stripping off all that was great about “The vision of Escaflowne” without adding anything of value.

As I eluded before, the whole movie was too fast paced and couldn’t even make the action scenes interesting. There were no stakes or threats or any worth while connection between villains and main characters. The end felt rushed and not well thought through.
The only thing good about the movie is its visuals and audio. The animation was top notch, and the artstyle nice, although since all character look a little different from the original it felt a bit weird and not correct. The whole astetics of the movie had this feudal japan vibe to it which I found also not really fitting for Escaflowne. The OST was also nice. The best songs were still taken from the original but it had some nice additions. It shows however that all the money you spend on making your movie look and sound nice is lost if you cant make the story engaging and your characters interesting.

So overall the Escaflowne movie is rubbish. It’s like they wanted to include so many things; romance, character relationships and pasts, action and so on in a 90 min movie, rushing through everything half-heartedly not achieving anything of value. Just dont watch it.