The Sky Crawlers

[Pandadice]

yes!!! finally, after (for me) a year of building anticipation, a sub for Mamoru Oshi's The Sky Crawlers is out!

[今日のSUBS] The Sky Crawlers [1280X720 H264]


i've been looking forward to this movie, and reading everything i could find about it, and waiting to see this since February '08.
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Synopsis:

The Sky Crawlers is based on a Japanese novel series by Hiroshi Mori. First published by Chuōkōron-shinsha in June 2001 and spanning five books, it follows the journeys and tribulations of a group of young fighter pilots involved in dogfight warfare, and is set during an alternate historical period.

there are more complete and detailed summaries around, but i went with this one for lack of spoilers i guess.

[masamuneehs]

this movie was all over the place when i first got to Japan, but by the time I get settled down it had finished its run in the theaters. i absolutely love pilot animes, so i'm downloading this one now to see if it's as good as people said.

[Munsu]

I really like pilot animes myself, something like Area 88.

Let me know how this release is.

[Board of Command]

I found this movie rather hard to follow. The story was very discontinuous and it felt like not much happened. Both of the main characters were somewhat emotionless (by design), which made it difficult for me to relate to either of them.

Overall, after finishing the movie, the first thought I had was, "So...what was the significance of what just happened?"

[KrayZ33]

What about the subs? are they good?

edit: ok the subs are pretty bad (errors, timing) and often wrong, they are so wrong that even I who doesn't speak a single word japanese know that they are wrong now and then, sometimes they don't even make sense but I'm not sure if that is the subs fault... because it's seems hard to follow even if the subs were right. Oh and it's not like the subs say something totally different than what they meant to say in the movie.. the "meaning" should be correct nonetheless (but it's not like I can say that for sure because I don't speak japanese ^^.. but they speak english now and then and thats when you can see that they are not accurate)


the movie itself doesn't give anything away until maybe the last 30 minutes
I was absolutely clueless about what's happening there (but maybe thats because of the bad subs)
I had to use wikipedia to see what's going on there and after doing that, it became a lot more understandable

the fights (especially the large ones) are great! probably the best in that genre

whoever is interesting in this genre, it's probably worth buying it since it's already licensed if I'm not mistaken in north America and Australia... so people living there shouldn't have to wait that long, and they'll get good subs too


I'll watch the last 20 minutes now, maybe they will explain everything in the end and my visit on wikipedia was actually not necessary

edit: wow at 1:51:35 he says somethin totally important.. in clear english.. but they translated it as something *totally* different.

and as I thought some things were revealed in the last 20 minutes
but some things were totally left out... for me the most important part about the movie wasn't explained at all!

Who the fuck is the so called "Teacher" and what were/are his intentions

spoiler question until more people watched it:

"So who is that "Teacher" guy now? He seems to train the kildreds how to fly and then he has fun hunting them down? but why is he called "Father" by the main character?"

[Pandadice]

just watched it.

I thought it was amazing. it was exactly what i was expecting.

The subs started to bug me a bit, just because they were constantly so far off grammatically.

also the amount of spoken English in the film. though i think it's cool that they add actual foreign dialogue to a foreign setting. the tourist part was so cheesy it bugged me.. and though i didn't like them speaking english, it was obvious that the main character's VA is fluent in English, so i actually liked hearing him speak it. however, everyone else, not so much. i dunno if the main command giving guy in the raid was Japanese or British, because he seemed to have a British accent, but man, hearing him say "lets dance" was disappointing. because that was such an awesome line, but i really didn't like his delivery.

amazing backgrounds. the first time it showed them take off from the base and fly, i thought that they inserted real life footage into it. it was so great.

I loved the character designs as well. the superflat style was great. the characters themselves were cool too. I especially liked the main guy and the female pilot that joins them, but all of them were good.

[KrayZ33]

amazing backgrounds. the first time it showed them take off from the base and fly, i thought that they inserted real life footage into it. it was so great.

right?

it really looks like a intro or videosequence from a very good computer game
I mean you can see that it's not "real" but it's really damn close! extremely close

especially when they flew over the industry-area... they gave the scenery a "brown" touch (difficult to explain) but it made it look really good

the same goes for the large scale areal battle.. those bombers looked really great (especially the turrets) and so did the town on the ground.

oh and do you remember the scene during the first fight (with the main character), when he shot down that plane and the camera dove into the water? *THAT* was extremely good, it felt like I was swimming there

The animation and the dogfights were the best I've ever seen so far..the dogfights (the only reason why I watched it in the first place to be honest) did not disapoint me at all. The sounds of the guns and planes were great too, they really draw you into the battle.

I don't think I'm overreacting here, because the movie does a great job in that point... and it isn't so unrealistic and over the top like other movies.. for example from the macross series or so. I'd even go so far and say that's how a dogfight could have looked like in WW2, but natuarlly I can't know that for sure (ok the last move from the Teacher is probably not possible ^^). I liked it that the pilots have such problems to breathe properly when they make a difficult move or get excited because they are in a pinch... no screaming or unnecessary talk during a tense dogfight, just fully concentrated pilots trying not to die in battle which is also what makes the ending more dramatic.. you get a feeling that says something like "That's just how it is".

[Pandadice]

yeah, to be honest the only real reason i was hyped about this was because i watched the trailer a year ago and thought that the dogfights/animation looked so cool i just had to watch it. so yeah, i watched for the dogfights, and like you said, they definitely did not disappoint me at all. though there were very few of them for the length of the movie, it was well worth it.

and i really didn't mind any of the in-between either. i actually liked the character interactions and stuff. but the dogfights definitely put this over the top.

oh, subs by Thora out. I'm sure the subbing is a much, much better job, but it's like 4+gb :x. are the better subs worth tripling the size? really the only thing wrong with the first subs is that they constantly use the wrong grammatical tense...

[shinta|hikari]

I loved it until I got to the ending, then it just made me depressed.

[digitalrurouni]

I am looking forward to seeing the 1080p version that ThorA is going to release. I hope they use some good subs in their release. I dont know what pilot animes are but I am willing to give it a shot!

[Buffalobiian]

Meanwhile, Thora 720p is out.

http://www.thoranime.org/?p=843

[KrayZ33]

oh, subs by Thora out. I'm sure the subbing is a much, much better job, but it's like 4+gb :x. are the better subs worth tripling the size? really the only thing wrong with the first subs is that they constantly use the wrong grammatical tense...

since the story didn't interest me *that* much, I wouldn't download it....except that I still don't know who that "Teacher" guy is, because he was called "Father" by the main character in the end
he said something like "I'll kill my father" when he left the group to battle him, and they translated it as "Teacher, you will be brought down by me" or so.

but well, the quality of the movie is so good that I won't notice a difference to the 4 gig video anyway. I'm pretty sure about that.