Fate/Stay Night is one of those franchises that needs very little introduction. TYPE-MOON's hit visual novel from 2004 was adapted for anime in 2006, and while the original series was good for the most part, the show suffered due to an inherent problem with any visual novel adaptation.
Visual novels are a strange blending of anime, manga and games that, in a number of cases, allow the player a degree of choice over the events in the story (although there are some purely linear ones out there). The issue though, is that the same event may have several different outcomes that are dependent on the
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choices made within the game, and it's this aspect of many visual novels that causes the most problems when it comes to making an adaptation as the storyline for these types of games are generally lacking in certain areas. The first anime version of Fate/Stay Night, for example, didn't just follow the game's Saber arc but also included bits from the other two arcs as the plot was believed to be too weak to support a 26 episode TV series.
Unlimited Blade Works, the second story arc from the game, has now been adapted as an anime movie, and unlike the TV series it promised to be a more faithful reproduction. The major question though, is whether the franchise works better in this format.
Ostensibly, Unlimited Blade Works is an alternative retelling of the original story, with many of the fundamental plot points, characters and settings included. The major difference between the two though, lies in the aim of the plot. In the original Fate/Stay Night (or Saber Arc, whichever you fancy), the goal was to stop the creation of the Holy Grail and end the war once and for all, but Unlimited Blade Works only uses this as a peripheral concept, with the main story being about the relationship between Archer, Tohsaka Rin's noble phantasm, and Emiya Shirou.
The main problem with the storyline is simply that it becomes too caught up in itself. While the basic concepts are good, the plot is far too reliant on knowledge of the previous anime series or the game itself. There are far too many occasions where no explanation is given for an action or event, a factor which doesn't help viewers with little to no knowledge of the franchise. Granted there is some effort made at the beginning of the movie to bring the casual viewer up to speed, but this is nowhere near enough to support the weight of the actual story.
That said, fans of the franchise may find this entertaining viewing at the very least, however they may also find it lacking in certain areas, in particular where the characters are concerned as, again, Unlimited Blade Works relies too much on what has gone before.
The problem with the characters is one that is fairly typical when it comes to movies - a lack of development, however the fact that this is an alternative retelling of an existing tale only serves to make this more pronounced. Both Rin and Shirou are decent enough characters for the most part, but one has to question why Shinji receives almost no development at all (and I never actually thought I would ever use that sentence when talking about anime), especially as a number of events in the story occur because of him.
There seems to be a kind of blatant ignorance of every other character aside from Rin, Shirou and Archer in Unlimited Blade Works, which may be due to time constraints admittedly, but given the degree of overacting and the long, drawn out fight scenes, it should be asked if this is actually the case. In addition to this, Shirou's abilities seem to grow at an accelerated rate over the course of the movie, and while one may accept this as some innate ability, the lack of any back story where this is concerned makes it nothing more than a convenient addition to the plot.
Be that as it may, this movie is looks very good for the most part. Studio DEEN have done a great job with Unlimited Blade works, but given that the director and most of the crew worked on the TV series, one might expect them to improve on their previous work. The animation is of a very high standard, and is a far cry from that of the TV series. The characters move very well, especially during the numerous combat scenes, and while they may look the same as always, their respective designs have been sharpened up. The settings have also undergone a degree of sharpening up, and are now more vivid and detailed than in previous versions of the story.
That's not to say it's all good in the visuals department though. There are occasions during where the design logic simply doesn't make sense, Saber's evening gown being one of them. There are also occasions where the characters movements seem far more theatrical than is necessary, especially during several of the combat scenes.
Which, strangely enough, brings me neatly on to the acting. Unlimited Blade Works uses many of the cast from the original series, which is generally a good sign for any retelling. Unfortunately the seiyuu have worked on many other projects over the last four years so their familiarity with the characters is not as good as it once was, and this shows in the amount of over acting in the movie. It seems as though the actors and actresses have focused more on the popularity of the franchise than the need to get the role right, and because of this it sounds as though they're trying too hard. In addition to this whichever bright spark decided that using English in certain scenes would be a good idea should be flogged as it seems totally unnatural, especially as it makes the character look foolish.
As far as the music goes, the movie is well served with a selection of dramatic, classically themed pieces to enhance the numerous action scenes. The sound effects are also very well crafted and choreographed, although it should be pointed out that certain scenes can become overwhelming with the combination of speech, music and effects.
On the whole, Unlimited Blade Works isn't a bad movie, but it's a far cry from being great either. The simple fact is that it's entertaining in its own right, but there's little there to recommend it to those unfamiliar with the franchise. That said, one could fairly watch it and find it works to a degree as a story, but only if they could forgive the lack of detail in the story, and the fact that the plot has several areas that needed further investigation.
That said, everything about this film screams out that it is definitely one for fans of the franchise, and ultimately they'll be the judge of whether it's good or bad. The movie may have its flaws, but fans may find these are forgivable as the well choreographed action scenes may make up for a lot. It could be fair to say that this movie was made specifically for fans of the franchise in the first place, as the efforts to introduce newcomers to the series seem a bit slapdash.
One final point is that while the TV series needed to borrow from the other game arcs in order to fill out the story, Unlimited Blade Works is almost the exact opposite, and because of this one has to wonder if the franchise would work better as a 13 episode series rather than either of its current iterations. At the very least there would be more time for explanations and the actors would be able to relax into their roles.
Whatever the case may be, we shall have to wait for Heaven's Feel to find that out.
Alternative Titles
Synonyms: Gekijouban Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works, Fate/stay night Movie, Fate/stay night UBW
Japanese: 劇場版 Fate/stay night UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS
More titlesInformation
Type:
Movie
Episodes:
1
Status:
Finished Airing
Aired:
Jan 23, 2010
Licensors:
Sentai Filmworks
Studios:
Studio Deen
Source:
Visual novel
Theme:
Urban Fantasy
Duration:
1 hr. 45 min.
Rating:
R - 17+ (violence & profanity)
Statistics
Ranked:
#23582
2
based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.
Popularity:
#1094
Members:
233,193
Favorites:
897
Available AtResources | Reviews
Filtered Results: 37 / 37
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Your Feelings Categories Oct 3, 2010
Fate/Stay Night is one of those franchises that needs very little introduction. TYPE-MOON's hit visual novel from 2004 was adapted for anime in 2006, and while the original series was good for the most part, the show suffered due to an inherent problem with any visual novel adaptation.
Visual novels are a strange blending of anime, manga and games that, in a number of cases, allow the player a degree of choice over the events in the story (although there are some purely linear ones out there). The issue though, is that the same event may have several different outcomes that are dependent on the ... Nov 26, 2014
Who is this for? Why was this even attempted?! Who the hell thought cramming 30 hours of story into a 90 minute movie was a great idea?! This "movie" is a disaster! If you have never heard of fate, you will be lost in this incomprehensible mess. If you have seen fate stay night by DEEN, the first third of the movie is a boring recap, the twists in the second act will be rubbish to you and in the third act... you will have an embarrassingly hilarious final fight and instead of a CG dragon you will get a
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Oct 4, 2010
Oh, UBW, where should I start?
UBW was probably one of the most anticipated movies, and I can't blame people for that - the original route in the Visual Novel was outstanding, touching, at one time keeping you at the edge of your seat, at another causing you to cry about the pain of the characters, the results of their unfortunate choices, their small mistakes or simply outstanding sacrifices. The movie made me remember that story, made me want to live through it again. Too bad it doesn't MAKE me live through it again. IMO the obvious mistake the creators did, was forcing 20 hours of game-play into ... Jul 20, 2011
There are many times in anime where I've been left dry simply because I was out of the target audience. However, there is a time, rare that it may be, that an anime is created with absolutely no target audience in question. Unlimited Blade Works is lucky that I don't consider it a movie because it would be one of the worst, if not the worst anime movie I have ever seen. Unfortunately compiling a slide show of random fights without any well established context, background information, plot, scene transitioning, and character development does not qualify as an actual movie.
First thing's first though and for ... Oct 1, 2010
Undoubtedly today is the day I will be burned alive by the internet as some kind of heretic... You are about to find out why.
I watched the bluray of F/SN UBW because I wanted to know why everyone was like "OMG UBW COMES OUT TODAY!" and, well... Watching it did NOT answer that question. I have very little good to say about the movie. In fact, "The sound and visuals didn't suck." is about the extent of my praise. So I won't bother trying to divide this into pros/cons. First of all, the narrative is almost non-existent. The movie is 105 minutes ... Oct 5, 2010
How deep can an adaption go? How much source material must be understood and internalized before setting foot in an unfamiliar universe? How true can a work be to it's source material before becoming trite? All these questions, and countless others besides, resound from the lips of the wary furiously as they vacillate with abject trepidation. The answers:
1) Should I watch the Anime beforehand? Yes (unless you have played the visual novel, then the necessity is subjective) 2) Should I play the Visual Novel beforehand? Yes. Actually, just play the VN regardless. Really. Stop what you are doing, and get it now. Those ... Oct 5, 2011
So, as everyone should know, Type-Moon is infamous for having poor adaptions of anything not named 'Kara no Kyoukai'. Tsukihime's was so bad its worth thinking of it as an entirely different franchise because the characters are nothing alike, and Fate/Stay Night decided 'hey, we can't decide what route we want, so let's remove defining plot points and replace them with akshun.' I decided to ignore this and went into Unlimited Blade Works hoping it'd be okay. After all, its just one route, right? They can get the important stuff in, right?
If the important stuff is action, then they did pretty good. All the good ... Oct 13, 2010
*SPOILERS*
As the other reviews suggest, there might be many types of people watching this show, but I believe the outcome can only be the same. Let's take that you have neither watched the TV series nor played the game, because there are still too many loopholes in the context of this standalone movie to enjoy, regardless of any rules set up in the TV series or game. As for the plot, you will not understand who is who doing what with whom unless you look it up on Wikipedia. Here I'm just going to make a list of unacceptable loopholes (which doesn't require knowledge from the ... Nov 30, 2019
This review contains a SPOILER.
This is just Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Work (both seasons) made into a movie with the older art style. I'm telling you, it's literally the same story but just made into a movie. I don't know why this exists, but it's useless. If there's already a movie or TV series about the same story, why make a copy of it in a different type? So that people could watch this movie instead of the TV series because it's shorter? I didn't know it was going to be the same, so I completely wasted my time watching it. Plus they killed Illya in this one ... Jul 7, 2015
Some guy: Hey Billy, Our cash cows are getting hungry and most of them are dying. Hurry up and finish that TV series already
Billy: We're not done yet. We're still animating the show and the voice actors are not done yet. Some guy: Goddammit, we need more cash for the cash cows NOW! Billy: How about making a movie based on "Unlimited Blade Works"? Some guy: Huh? Billy: We'll just cut some scenes and cram it all in a 90 min. movie. This should give us more cash. Some guy: Great idea! Billy, I'm promoting you to "Money Whore Executive". ... May 24, 2011
If you haven't watched the tv show or at least completed the "Unlimited Blade Works" arc of the visual novel. You won't enjoy this movie very much, since the characters have little to no introduction and the story moves really fast. It's very clear from the beggining that the plot development assumes the viewer already knows a bunch of things.
Story: 8 As i said before, the story develops at the speed of light. It's heavy on fights and light on background information. During the first 15 minutes, shit happens so fast that you will get motion sickness. The plot follows the exact events of the visual novel ... Jul 25, 2013
I am a fan of Fate/Stay Night and the Fate series in general, but in my opinion, this movie is quite bad. Let's start with the good points though.
Art: The artwork in this movie is quite nice. It's more or less what I expect out of Studio DEEN and all of the fight scenes are animated quite spectacularly. Each fight is full of light and particle effects, and it really is one of the few enjoyable parts of this movie. Sound: The soundtrack of this movie is pretty standard. The music was there, and I noticed it was there. It didn't make me cringe, but at ... Oct 28, 2010
I'm not going to write a really long review. So getting to the point.
Story-4- If you have not read the visual novel, then you might of enjoyed this better than I did. The story wasn't to bad, only thing that really got on my nerves was that they really didn't seem to give a time frame. Most of the scenes were messed together and you could easily think that it was all done in 2 or 3 days. In reality it happens in 10 days. Art-9- I would have to say my two favorite parts of the movie was the art and the music which I ... Aug 15, 2023
Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] is an intricate and engaging story that captivated audiences through its extended television series. As someone who revisits and reviews anime on MyAnimeList, it's evident that the attempt to distill this rich narrative into a single movie has resulted in a lackluster experience. With a rating of 3/10, the Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] Movie struggles to capture the essence of the source material and falls short of the series' brilliance.
One of the fundamental issues with the movie is the overwhelming sense of cramming. In an attempt to fit what the 25-episode series painstakingly built over time into a mere ... Oct 17, 2010
Ah the movie every Fate Stay Night fan has been waiting for and for good reasons too. This movie is not a continuation of the anime series. To make it very clear it’s like coming to a fork in the road, picking route A) takes you to the anime series which you seen or heard of, or if you pick Route B) it take you to the movie and the events in Route A) never happened at all.
Now here's some advice, to those who are new to the Fate/Stay Night Series. I highly recommend watching the anime before committing to this movie. The ... Sep 25, 2019
As-salamu alaykum
i merely write reviews some time. as a result my reviews are short and express everything in one time. But ill try my best fill you everything i can. Start with story, many of seen it and very difficult to understand that changing of story and make it so heartless story line and Shirou couldn't save every as he did in Fate/stay night. I think maybe cause of Archer decided to kill Shirou. We already heard Archer is Shirou Emiya Future self that will became hero some day. Archer objective here to kill Shirou Emiya order to change the fate of his own. that ... Mar 16, 2016
UBW movie is a wreck, and if you're one of the few people that didn't know that, now you do.
What makes it a wreck? - It's an adaptation of about 15-20 hours long route in a VN. You probably already understand what that implies. Cuts are out of control, to the point where by the end of the movie I couldn't understand what the hell happened despite knowing story of UBW quite well. That's because movie chaotically jumps from fight to fight to get in all the action bits, throwing out a lot of the exposition. Spoiler ahead: my personal favorite is when after ... Oct 6, 2010
Alright Time For A Short Review !
(I don't know but i always sad when i watch anime's ending) This is just a short review and please forgive me if my english went bad! Story : As it drive you to the epicness , it shows and answered some of the questions that was left behind on FSN series. Well, they use some of same scene a little from the series but still EPIC. The story is all about ARCHER with his related ideals so named Shirou.What i'm trying to say , the storyline is not same as the series.One more , sorry but i found out that was ... Nov 14, 2010
Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works its probably one of the best anime movies that i have ever seen. In my case, Im not a fan of Fate/stay night but the movie its something that it would be good to watch after people ends to watch the anime to get the story.
Story 8/10 As the story its another way to tell you how the anime was , changes a lot of stuffs. The story its mainly concentrated in Shirou and Archer, they both have an important role in this movie. For those that didnt watched the anime, will be hard to understand at the begining. Art 10/10 The art ... May 6, 2012
So first i'll start off with saying that this is a good movie.anime for anybody (except horror-lovers) due to its suspensefulness, action, magic, mystery, and other cool stuff i won't spoil.
I decided the story gets a 9 because the movie has tons of cool moments, the only reason why i took off one was cause there were moments where all the people did was talk about something that already happened and ur just sitting here being like "i get it, get on with the story" other than that it was perfect. The art and sound are my two favorite things, the vocals at the "theme" fit ... |