I had to watch this movie three times before I finally "got" it. And when I did get it I loved it.
When I first watched it I was spending the whole movie trying to figure out the mystery and the continuity with the series; I'm just like that. The second time I was focused on getting the events in the movie straight: "who did what, when, and why did they do that? And how does that tie in to everything else going on."
The THIRD time I watched it I was finally able to connect with the character journey and invest emotionally the themes and motivations. I started noticing all the subliminal and background details I had totally missed before.
THEN I went back and watched the first two movies, this time viewing it through the lens that Homura was really the main character of the story. With that context in mind I then watched Rebellion a fourth time. This time I totally connected with Homura, her experience, where she was coming from emotionally. It was a real epiphany for me. I went from not liking the ending to loving it.
I’m not saying everyone needs to watch this a bunch of times, but I wanted to share my experience of coming to grips with it. A lot of it was my preconceived notions on what I thought the movie should be rather than understanding what it is.
