Fate is the series that I desperately want to be good. I remember seeing a clip of Saber vs Berserker from UBW and scouring the internet for the source. There are parts of this series I love, from the animation and general production Ufotable has brought to it, to the really touching character arcs a lot of the characters go through, to the really interesting way the main story gives us alternate endings that give us a good look into how the characters would behave in different circumstances. Despite all these things going for it though, there is not a single entry in the series that isn't riddled with problems, and the Heaven's Feel trilogy might be the most frustrating of all.
A lot of this trilogy is good...with an asterisk. Sakura, arguably the most important character of this adaptation, is a great example. She'd been built up in previous movies as a kind hearted girl who's years of abuse has left her mentally and emotionally fragile. This is shown visually by her magic becoming more and more unstable in conjunction with her mental state, and this movie capitalizes on all this set up brilliantly when she finally breaks down and confronts her sister Rin asking why she never rescued her from the hell she grew up in. I loved this scene, it's raw, and it's honest. Even though we understand Rin wasn't at fault for what happened, Sakura still had to let out those years of resentment, because bottling up those feelings does not solve anything. This is a fantastic conclusion to a strong character arc...if you ignore the first 2/3s of this movie where her arc is completely undermined by being possessed by an evil Zoroastrian God who's goal is to destroy the world, turning her into an incredibly boring antagonist who's sadistic love of violence not only doesn't line up with Sakura's established character (kind-hearted but broken from years of abuse) whatsoever, it also is just unpleasant to watch since her insanity is so contrived it becomes really uninteresting. Honestly, every scene "Dark Sakura" has a speaking line in from the beginning of this movie to her confrontation with Rin at the end actively detracts from her character, which sucks, because it really wouldn't be that hard to completely cut it from the script. We see her almost kill Rin, but Rin recovers off screen in no time. She kidnaps Illya, but Shirou rescues her immediately. She kills her grandfather, but as far as the audience knew, he was already dead. Literally nothing she does in the first hour of this movie affected the plot in any way other than killing time and undermining her core character arc.
This same meandering writing style can be seen in other aspects of the trilogy as well. Take Rin's character arc. Her big conflict in these movies is balancing the guilt she feels for not saving Sakura with her responsibility for stopping Sakura from killing everyone. This is...actually pretty great! There's a reason Rin is one of the most popular Tsunderes ever, watching her pretend she doesn't care, only for her to get flustered as cracks in her emotional defenses start getting exposed before she finally accepts her new relationship, a sisterly one rather than a romantic one this time, just works...if you pace it well. Seeing her revert from "dere" back to "tsun" just feels like they're trying to elongate the last movie more than they had to, we'd already seen "stone cold killer" Rin Tohsaka, we already knew it was just an act, so to see her put it up again, then take it off as if it's some big reveal just felt unearned. Don't even get me started on the time travel side quest where she gets a magic dagger that lets her effortlessly overpower the strongest character in the entire series (I'm basing this on Sakura effortlessly overpowering Gilgamesh, the strongest character in both Zero and UBW, I'm sure there's stronger characters in the rest of the series, I just haven't seen them). You're telling me this Deus ex Machina was just sitting in the back pocket of the Tohsakas this whole time? I don't think the writers understand how awful of an idea this is, if nothing else, it completely undermines the climax to Unlimited Blade Works.
These weird and unnecessary backtracking and side quests are especially annoying when you realize how rushed other parts of the story are. Take Shirou's relationship with Illya. I want more of that. Realizing they're basically siblings, coming to terms with what that means, fighting and dying to protect each other, taking 5 minutes to explain what exactly Illya is and how she fits into the Holy Grail War so that we actually understand what the heck is going on when she saves the day at the end, those would all be freaking amazing, but instead we get two really short scenes that are nice, but insufficient.
And while they're at it, explaining how Shirou's powers work would be nice too. Unlike in Unlimited Blade Works, they never really did that in this adaptation, and having him save the day by copying Caster's Rule Breaker that can sever Sakura's connection to the Holy Grail doesn't have the same impact if you don't understand Shirou's projection magic lets him copy other powers.
Allow me to pitch a version of this movie that would have been absolutely amazing. Right off the heels of Sakura losing control of her magic at the end of the last movie and killing Shinji, we again see Shirou burst into her home, but instead of creepy grandpa dude, he actually catches Sakura. It's not "Dark Sakura" though, but the shadow we saw in the previous movies. We're going for an allegory for the stages of grief here, in the previous movies we saw denial, then bargaining when she tries to reason with Shinji, now she's in the anger stage and can no longer be reasoned with. The shadow lashes out at Shirou, he attempts to escape. Eventually he makes it back to Rin, Rider, and Illya, but the shadow is still hunting him. Now creepy grandpa dude shows up, but he has no control over her, so even assassin joins the fight. This is when the shadow spits out Berserker Alter just like Dark Sakura did in the real movie, and we get a very similar scene to the original movie where Shirou releases the seal on his arm and uses Archer's powers to beat Berserker just like the original. While he and all his friends are busy with that, the Shadow is busy brutally murdering creepy grandpa dude and absorbing Assassin, and this time he stays dead the first time (dying 3 times in one movie is really stupid). I'm completely cutting Kotomine because his sociopathic character is just irredeemable at this point. Having defeated and absorbed all six servants other than her own, Sakura has officially won the Holy Grail War. Now Illya begins to explain exactly what the Holy Grail even is. This time, there's no evil Zoroastrian God, it's 100% Sakura losing control of her magic due to her shattered mental state and resonating with the negative emotions involved with the Holy Grail War. If she's not stopped, her negativity could turn into a wish to destroy the world. Shirou, Rin, and Rider chase her like normal, fight Saber Alter like normal, but give Saber a final line like they gave Berserker when he was defeated, but this time when Rin catches up to Sakura, she's just barely gaining control of herself back from the shadow. This time their confrontation is clearly the transition from anger to depression for Sakura, and Rin doesn't have a magic dagger that lets her effortlessly win, she takes advantage of Sakura realizing everything that she's done and going into shock to get close this time, and just like before she decides not to kill her. We still get that touching moment between the sisters. Now when Shirou shows up and uses Rule Breaker to free Sakura, it's made clear that it's a metaphor for him reaching out to her to rescue her from herself. With no Kotomine, the final scene of the climax is dedicated to Illya explaining the energy from Sakura's Holy Grail needs a vessel or it'll run rampant, we get a touching goodbye between her and Shirou, and Illya can sacrifice herself, just like before, but there's more time for the sacrifice to have its desired impact. We then get an epilogue showing Shirou and Sakura living together, showing her finally overcoming her grief and living a happy life.
Sorry for the big rant, like I said at the beginning, I want Fate to be good so freaking bad. I love the characters and concepts, I just hate the convoluted story and writing. I think there's a masterpiece in here somewhere, we just didn't get it.
