Heaven's Feel Movies

[Altima of the Gates]

Ah, I see you've seen my posts.

Honestly, they're great movies, but as adaptations I'd say they're pretty mediocre. People will give UBW endless shit because of that goddamn cage monologue, but as soon as you complain about the lack of Illya for no good reason you're dismissed for daring to question Sudou-sama's greatness.

Did Lancer versus Assassin need to be that long? Considering that the only purpose of True Assassin's scenes to get rid of the irrelevant characters? Was the chase really necessary?

I mean, look at the ending of HF3. Shirou breaks out crying for Illya harder than he did when he was trying to kill Sakura. It's not that believable of a scene with how small her role was. Even more so when the movies don't to a good job as showing Shirou growing more attached to her. People didn't just joke about HF also being Illya's Route for no reason.

Also, yes, I'm salty as fuck that we didn't get the "I like Kotomine Kirei" line.

TL;DR: Source material is always better.

Considering the types of people who look at Fate, they know their audience, who appreciate dynamic fight scenes, so of course those would be enhanced, further, its their one chance to see that animated, of course they want to embellish and make it feel like servant engagements are larger than life.

As for the last part. Even as a Sakura fan, I wouldn't be mad that he cried harder for Ilya, because that wouldn't be an insult to Sakura.
One, he didn't want to wake Sakura up, still thinks she is sleeping (since they didn't do the follow up scene where they talked after the knife scene, "Beautiful Aria"), Shirou just walks sullenly off. So that is a matter of time constraints amd how they changed the scene to fit them.
But even if it wasn't, there is a difference here, since yes, he is distraught at the prospect of killing her finally hitting him, but doesn't go through with it, so there would be relief in there as well. With Ilya, she is gone, and all that regret about Kiritsugu, wanting her to be happy, wanting her to live with him, would pile up faster as the emotions condense. Like how you would cry at finding out a loved one is cured of a normally fatal disease, but there is relief that they would stay with you, compared to lowering their body into the earth or being at a wake before they close the casket and effectively "seeing them off for the last time" tears. Usually the later is stronger for that finality.

[TomPen94]

Ah, I see you've seen my posts.

Honestly, they're great movies, but as adaptations I'd say they're pretty mediocre. People will give UBW endless shit because of that goddamn cage monologue, but as soon as you complain about the lack of Illya for no good reason you're dismissed for daring to question Sudou-sama's greatness.

Did Lancer versus Assassin need to be that long? Considering that the only purpose of True Assassin's scenes to get rid of the irrelevant characters? Was the chase really necessary?

I mean, look at the ending of HF3. Shirou breaks out crying for Illya harder than he did when he was trying to kill Sakura. It's not that believable of a scene with how small her role was. Even more so when the movies don't to a good job as showing Shirou growing more attached to her. People didn't just joke about HF also being Illya's Route for no reason.

Also, yes, I'm salty as fuck that we didn't get the "I like Kotomine Kirei" line.

TL;DR: Source material is always better.

Illya was obviously cut due to time constraints.
You can argue that maybe some scenes are unnecessarily long, and that some scenes aren't needed at all. And to some degrees I would agree depending on the scene in question, but I think it is obvious that if they felt they could include more Illya then they would, the scene in HF3 proves that. Did it fall short? Not to me since I know the source material. Will it fall short to a normie? Probably...? I'm actually gonna test that when this comes out on Bluray since I have a friend that got into Fate recently and has only watched Zero, UBW and the two HF movies.

While I think it is important to evaluate an adaptation based on its own merits I also think that there are several ways you can look at it. As a fan of the source material, I don't need everything in the VN to be adapted, and I think approaching the adaptation with the mindset that the adaption needs to include everything, or be just as good as the source material, is unnecessarily destructive to one's enjoyment of it. I look at this adaption, as well as the UBW adaption, as fanservice. They're ways for me to see key moments and scenes brought to life and look pretty. Because to me that is what the adaptation needs to do, it isn't replacing the source material. The VN ain't going away for us.

Still, for what it's worth, I did tear up at the end of this movie when Shirou and Sakura entered the cherry blossom field together, both times I watced it so far. And that is something that did not happen when I read the VN. So while I can't exactly point out what it is, this adaption did do something more than just look pretty to me. And can I really ask more of it than that?

[Comun]

I have a friend that got into Fate recently and has only watched Zero, UBW and the two HF movies.

I watched the movie with someone who fit this description and he cried on the Illya part. It was easily the part that hit him the hardest.

[TheSkipRow]

I feel like I need to clarify that I was joking, lol.
I didn't make any posts on 4chan about Heaven's Feel (yet), I was just making a joke because I can relate to the Illya whiners that Taka mentioned.

The movies still could've been better. I think asking them to split the story into 4 parts rather than 3 would be a bit much, but it is what it is.

[ADab1za]

Ah, I see you've seen my posts.

Honestly, they're great movies, but as adaptations I'd say they're pretty mediocre. People will give UBW endless shit because of that goddamn cage monologue, but as soon as you complain about the lack of Illya for no good reason you're dismissed for daring to question Sudou-sama's greatness.

Did Lancer versus Assassin need to be that long? Considering that the only purpose of True Assassin's scenes to get rid of the irrelevant characters? Was the chase really necessary?

People gives UBW shit because it is awkwardly directed all around and Miura was still figuring his style during that even his action scenes pales in comparison to what he did later, compared to Sudo who have a solid vision for what he wanted to do with it and probably achieved all of it.

They are 3 well directed movies that if you don't niptick every change from the VN they pretty great as movies and as adaptations.
and the chase scene is 4 minutes long so really long.

[Altima of the Gates]

Before the movies were made I was thinking "I hope people don't pray for a set of movies, only to complain later".
This outdid my expectations both personally and how the movies themselves were received, so I don't have to hear some gloating about it sucking from other route fans when its been one of the higher grossing TM works.
Best thing I could have gotten out of this is Nasu re-evaluating the route (and a certain someone) as marketable.
Not that it will change fandom memes, but eh, its something, I'll take it.

[Astroprogs]

Well, purely as adaptations, the ufotable Heaven's Feel trilogy is still far superior to UBW, despite all the cut content IMO. HF was concise and had a laser focus on what it wanted to do (the Shirou/Sakura relationship) and executed it brilliantly.

ufoUBW, on the other hand, didn't do any aspect of UBW's story as well as its source material, let alone better. At almost every important scene in that story, you can find questionable direction decisions all over.

Look at the Sakura in Wonderland scene, for example. UBW doesn't have a single equivalent where it tried to not only adapt the theme and atmosphere of a scene so well but flat out elevate it using its medium. Well, unless you consider animating an action scene well to be that, which I don't.

The movies still could've been better. I think asking them to split the story into 4 parts rather than 3 would be a bit much, but it is what it is.

That's exactly what they should've done. Four 1h:45m movies would've been a much better solution to all the problems of those movies. And they can still have all the useless runtime wasted on that True Assassin vs Lancer scene for that target audience too.

The entire thing would've to be replanned, but that should've already happened at the pre-production phase.

A part of me wants an extended/director's cut at some point in the future where Sudo adds some of the scenes fans wanted and would help make the payoff in Spring Song a bit more impactful and the ending less abrupt.

I know that this happens quite a bit in Hollywood, but I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like this beyond BD releases for anime.

[TomPen94]

Usually Hollywood has those extra scenes already filmed. The meat of the scene is already there.
Anime episodes and movies aren't produced like that. You don't waste hundreds of man hours into drawing every frame of a scene only to throw it out before the release. The fat is trimmed probably before even the storyboards are done. Extra scenes in anime BD releases are scenes that were always meant to be finished from the get-go. That is why, for example, the people that attended the UBW premieres could see the BD-only scenes despite them not airing in the anime that season. Using UBW again, Sunny Day was always gonna be done. It wasn't in some limbo state until the decision was made to include it in the BD, it was made specifically for the BD release.

[Astroprogs]

I mean, we do have evidence that there are finished scenes that were cut from the movies, like these from Lost Butterfly:

Spoiler:

Those may as well be the singular finished content that was cut, but they may not be.

If there's a good chunk of such scenes for the 3 movies, it wouldn't be a bad thing to restore them into an extended version that could be released in a year or two from now.

And if I'm being greedy, they could sweeten the pot and get more eyes on that new release, by adding a few extra scenes in the style of the Code Geass movies, if they feel inclined.

[Laserman]

Well, purely as adaptations, the ufotable Heaven's Feel trilogy is still far superior to UBW, despite all the cut content IMO. HF was concise and had a laser focus on what it wanted to do (the Shirou/Sakura relationship) and executed it brilliantly.

ufoUBW, on the other hand, didn't do any aspect of UBW's story as well as its source material, let alone better. At almost every important scene in that story, you can find questionable direction decisions all over.

Look at the Sakura in Wonderland scene, for example. UBW doesn't have a single equivalent where it tried to not only adapt the theme and atmosphere of a scene so well but flat out elevate it using its medium. Well, unless you consider animating an action scene well to be that, which I don't.



That's exactly what they should've done. Four 1h:45m movies would've been a much better solution to all the problems of those movies. And they can still have all the useless runtime wasted on that True Assassin vs Lancer scene for that target audience too.

The entire thing would've to be replanned, but that should've already happened at the pre-production phase.

A part of me wants an extended/director's cut at some point in the future where Sudo adds some of the scenes fans wanted and would help make the payoff in Spring Song a bit more impactful and the ending less abrupt.

I know that this happens quite a bit in Hollywood, but I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like this beyond BD releases for anime.

I haven't seen the last movie, but I don't agree with any of these things at all.

- - - Updated - - -

And what do you mean by target audience?

[Astroprogs]

I haven't seen the last movie, but I don't agree with any of these things at all.

That's fair. I'm just saying what I personally feel and probably what the people who say they prefer the movie trilogy over UBW feel as well.

And what do you mean by target audience?

People who'd rather see the runtime prioritized for fight scenes rather than "talking scenes". That specific portion of the audience.

[GarlandGreene]

Pretty much what Astro said. The HF films did more with less in comparison to UBW TV which managed to do fuck all with most of its extra runtime. Sure, some of the fights could have been shortened to focus more on fleshing out the characters but I'll still take a 6 mins long straight up brawl any day over a 3 episodes slog of tediously delivered roundabout dialogues which could have been done within 1 if it was made by a more competent team.

On the other hand, I do feel like Spring Song loses some of that laser focus from the previous movies as it's obviously trying to catch up to both Kirei and Illya's roles within the story which have been both mostly ignored in the first two films. As a result the focus and pacing feel kind of all over the place, almost like a compilation of events with barely any room to breathe in-between rather than something which flows more naturally like in Lost Butterfly. Makes you think if it would have worked out better if they decided to go with an original climax/conclusion for Spring Song (to better fit their version of HF) rather than sticking so closely to the source but of course, a whole bunch of fans would be livid if they took that path. It's kind of a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation.

People who'd rather see the runtime prioritized for fight scenes rather than "talking scenes". That specific portion of the audience.

You just replied to one.

[Saber Alter]

I mean, we do have evidence that there are finished scenes that were cut from the movies, like these from Lost Butterfly:

Spoiler:

Those may as well be the singular finished content that was cut, but they may not be.

If there's a good chunk of such scenes for the 3 movies, it wouldn't be a bad thing to restore them into an extended version that could be released in a year or two from now.

And if I'm being greedy, they could sweeten the pot and get more eyes on that new release, by adding a few extra scenes in the style of the Code Geass movies, if they feel inclined.

There was also this scene cut out (from the first Lost Butterfly teaser,) so maybe something like that may happen in the future.

Spoiler:

[Laserman]

You just replied to one.

I never once said that, but okay.

[TheSkipRow]

The HF films did more with less in comparison to UBW TV which managed to do fuck all with most of its extra runtime.

When UBW changes shit it's trash. When HF changes shit it's better, because pacing/characterization/atmosphere/tone/cutting-out-filler/take your pick.

Bend over bend over, let Sudou come over.

Honestly, both are fine. HF works better as an anime than it does as an adaptation, while UBW shoots itself in the foot on both fronts, but all these hyperboles thrown around about all of them. UBW is not THAT bad, and HF is not THAT good. Both could've been better. The criticism for both is so disorganized at this point that you can't even make a coherent argument in favor of them. Some of the criticism is valid while on the other hand we have shit like "Rin didn't feel like a heroine" in UBW as if it's Ufotable's fault.

All this shitting on UBW gives me some serious mandela effect vibes. When it came out everyone was willing to overlook the flaws, I guess because the counter-circlejerk against Fate/Zero fanboys, and the fact that it was better than DEEN's movie. Now that HF came out everyone suddenly realized that UBW is flawed, big surprise. Doesn't help that 90% of the time, all the whining about the UBW or HF adaptations is from opinionated people who love who either hate UBW Shirou, hate Sakura, hate Rin, hate HF Shirou and so on. Anyway, I'll stop rambling.

TL;DR: UBW is not dog shit and HF is not nectar of the gods.

[eddyak]

What? Get out! Don't you know only hyper polarising opinions are allowed on the internet? Either something's good or something's trash, there's no in between.

Realtalk, it's nice to see somebody call out the bullshit.

[TomPen94]

When it came out everyone was willing to overlook the flaws, I guess because the counter-circlejerk against Fate/Zero fanboys, and the fact that it was better than DEEN's movie. Now that HF came out everyone suddenly realized that UBW is flawed, big surprise.

This is untrue, UBW faced a lot of criticism when it was released, even here. I was there. Sure, some episodes got almost universal praise, like 20 and 24, but most of the time the discourse was a shitshow of varying opinions, both in favor and against it. I do think a majority of the people here were positive towards it, but it was nowhere near "everyone".

As for me I like both of them, a lot. Like, these are the anime I've enjoyed the most watching. Like, at this point the only thing that can top these will be a Tsuki anime. I realize that comes from my attachment to the source material, but as I said before I don't really let the shortcomings of either hinder my enjoyment of them.

[Gyrad1]

some episodes got almost universal praise, like 20

Please get your facts straight, Episode 20 (The Answer) did not get universal praise. It got shit on for no monologues at all, shitty JROCK music insert song and completely misses the point of the VN's The Answer

[TomPen94]

Easy there badass. I said it was almost universal, and I was talking about the discussion here specifically. The immediate reception to it was overwhelmingly positive. Sure, some people might've changed their mind since then, and there were a couple of people that still didn't like it at the time, but it wasn't as mixed as usual. Look son, I'm sorry you don't like aimer, but that was a hype moment at the time.

[weeblord]

FSN fanboy gets full creative freedom in directing a FSN anime adaption: they end up just airing the VN on TV.