[DISCUSSION] Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Forever (Movie)

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The last chapter in the Generations cinematic series.

Welcome to the discussion thread for the theatrical movie: Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Forever.
Synopsis: Sougo Tokiwa/Kamen Rider Zi-O and Sento Kiryū/Kamen Rider Build must join forces with all the Kamen Riders of the Heisei era against Tid, a Super Time Jacker who intends to erase the entire history of Heisei Kamen Riders.


This thread was made with Toku Prime's permission. And remember, this is a SPOILER ZONE! If you are trying to avoid spoilers, this is not the place for you.​
 
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I started out watching Zi-o with the intention of keeping up with it, but I just really didn't like it, so I stopped before the Wizard episodes. Since then, I'll just watch the episodes pertaining to the shows I like. I knew I wasn't going to be interested in this movie -- even though it pretends to pertain to Kuuga and W, it's long been spoiled that the movie does jack with them -- but decided to watch it anyway.

I thought the movie was far too long. I can't believe that Rider movies are beginning to get as bloated as Hollywood stuff now is. (I mean, 104 minutes is a short compared to Hollywood, but adjusted for standard toku length, it's as bad as a three hour Avengers.) I thought the stuff with the brothers was a good idea, pretty touching, but the movie's structure kept tripping it up. The rest of the movie is the same nonsensical mumbojumbo all the other "event" Rider movies are. It's a movie that thinks it has a cool concept, but is really just stupid -- hey, Kamen Rider's just a TV show to this ordinary charcter who's only going to matter in this movie, but the real characters we've followed all this time might just all be fake! People on Twitter are getting crapped on for complaining about this part of the movie, but it's just dumb. If you want to see this idea done in a much, much better way, go watch the 8 Super Ultra Brothers movie. In this movie, it's just ineptly executed -- an attempt at a high concept idea, but with no idea how to put that idea into motion. But, uh, hey, here's Takeru Satou, let him distract you from the fact that this movie is nearly unwatchable!

I'll compliment Toei for this, at least -- I dislike Den-O and think it ruined the franchise, and I'll never understand why Takeru Satou became so successful, but they managed to successfully keep his involvement secret. It didn't hit until the movie was released, and that's not only rare in this day and age, but rare for Japanese media. They're never afraid to spoil things in ads or promotional material. It's kinda sad that this movie was so successful and it fooled people into thinking it's good just because they got back Takeru Satou for 30 seconds. Take out that surprise and you're left with Zi-o and Build VS CGI Movie Taisen. Whoop-dee-do!

As someone who hasn't watched a single episode of Build, this movie or his appearances in the Zi-o series doesn't make one feel the need to watch it. The suits are ugly, his sidekick's not funny, I hate Otoya, and Build himself is basically just Kamen Rider Sheldon? No, thanks.
 
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^Sento/Build has some good things going on for him as a character in the show. I'd safely call him the best MC in the franchise since Shotaro (not that he has a lof of competition here, but still). Since you disliked both Gaim an Ex-Aid, Build probably isn't going to set your world on fire, but series does have some neat things that I personally appreciate. Especially compared to the majority of Phase 2.
 
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Build himself is basically just Kamen Rider Sheldon? No, thanks.

I don't know if I can agree to that assessment. Sheldon's an anti-social awkward doesn't understand humans kind of guy. Sento has a similar range when it comes to his intellect, but he's a very socialable, likeable kinda guy. I think the genius that is socially awkward, skinny, and doesn't have a lot of friends trope is so overdone to death and stereotypically inaccurate, so I think characters like Sento are a refreshing take, geniuses are humans too. Just because they are intellectually more capable, that doesn't make them suddenly have all the anti-social qualities people associate with their architype. But that being said, I do think Build suffered on it's lack of consistency, or at least the kind of consistency you can vouch for that inherently makes sense in it's own world building. I mean, a lot of the Best Match forms are just random things thrown together with almost little to no sense besides one is organic, and one is inorganic. Sometimes, they're thrown in because of things like Octopus-Light. "Oh Octopus can... spread ink... CREATES DARKNESS! And Light can... LIGHT UP A LIGHT BULB! WE HAVE OUR DUALITY!" See, it's things like this that irks me. Sure, they're opposites, but in no way does it offer a really interesting narrative to that form's existence or it's significance in a fight, how combos could be executed in an interesting way and all that.
 
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^ Build seems kind of mean to his little buddy, though, always calling him stupid. Doesn't seem likable to me, but...maybe he's different in the show.

The random combos of the forms that you mentioned is another thing that bothers me about it. It just seems like they're pulling items from a hat. There's been too many ugly forms in Kamen Rider as of late. If you're following a show that's wall-to-wall ugliness like Ex-Aid, you better have some pleasant to look at designs.
 
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Well, this movie was... Good? Yeah, I'll go with that. Good. Not great, not terrible. It's a little confusing, but I wouldn't say it's bad. I don't like a movie that forces me to take notes. To quote Decade, I understand the gist of what was going on in the movie. However, to fully understand things, I'd have to take notes and make sure I put everything together in a clear order of events. (WARNING! Incoming wall of text ahead...)

There's a lot of details that make it confusing. The opening moments made me think they were retelling the first few episodes of Zi-O, but they weren't. And they never tried to tie in that final scene from Kamen Rider Build's movie "Be The One", which was a trend since Ex-Aid at least, but oh well too bad. There was also conflicting details like how the Build Riders are still Riders with their memories intact, but the villain was using Den-O's time travel powers, which pretty much explains a lot. Two time altering powers competing with each other was a very interesting thing. It nearly overpowered Sougo and his personal friends, but thankfully they kept snapping out of it, probably because of their own Rider gear. (Like I've explained elsewhere, being a Rider that can alter time would be pointless if you didn't have gear that made you immune to timeline changes, and I'm pretty sure that's what the Rider gear from Zi-O does.)

Honestly, the only thing I can't even begin to explain is the whole "creating a reality where Riders don't exist" thing. I doubt an Imagine, a Singularity Point, and an over powered Time Jacker could really pull that off. They never fully explain it, they never explain if it applies to the Showa Era or not, and the two brothers grow up thinking Kamen Riders are STILL a fictional thing despite all those emotional declarations of "If we remember them, then they're real!" I do think Sougo/Zi-O having a meta moment where he somehow leaves the world of fiction and enters a reality where Kamen Riders are fake would make for a cool story. However, the meta narrative here is just ham-fisted and probably should have been left on the chopping block. You can still have this emotional story of two brothers and Kamen Riders being erased from history, just leave the meta stuff out. But while all of that is confusing, I'm not sure if it's bad or not. It's basically the creators giving a nod to all the fans who grew up with Kamen Rider, as well as long time fans that never gave up on the franchise. It's a nice to see that kind of acknowledgement, even if it's confusing.

But what I am disappointed with is how Zi-O got the Double Ride Watch. I knew it would be explained here, but it would have been nice to see SOMEONE from that TV show. Heck, they could've at least hired back one of Shotaro's informant characters from the show to be the ramen stand owner. That being said, there was a LOT to like about this movie too. It's good to see the playful banter between the Build Riders again; I always loved it. That moment between Momotaros and the original Ryutaro (Takeru Satoh) was such a heartwarming 4th wall breaker, because it is good to see him after tons of movies without him. Heck, the Den-O moments in this as a whole were a lot more bearable for once! (But despite how much his Imagin begged, I doubt we'll see them again after this.) Thanks to the recycled voice clips, I'm pretty sure the Hibiki in this was the original Hibiki and not his successor. But the best part was how they handeled Kuuga! Couldn't get his original actor? That's okay, just grab the power from the corpse of the original Kuuga from the ancient past! Best way to handle it, period. And while I'm not sure, as Sougo and Sento shared that final scene together before departing, I'm pretty sure Sougo's Zi-O powers were kicking back in. The Build Riders would soon lose their powers and memories again, but Sougo would still remember and still have the Ride Watches.

The villain was kind of lame, just going to throw that out there. Somethings I do wish happened but didn't: I wish we could have seen the Showa Riders. Yes, I know this is more about Heisei since it's the end of an era for them, and I respect that. Still, would have been nice to see a genuine All Riders moment. Maybe in the next Zi-O movie... Would have loved to see the Kuuga Armor in action outside of the Time Mazine. And I wish the CGI would get a little better, but that's just me.

Over all, I did have a fun time, though sometimes completely confused about what's happened. I know Kamen Rider movies have fallen out of the Director's Cut trend, but if any movie deserves it, I'd say it's this one. The confusing parts just make me feel like something is missing, and maybe 5 more minutes could smooth those plot hiccups out just a bit more. But let's face it, we all know why this movie was made. It's a parade showing off all the Heisei Riders. It's Zi-O, the last Heisei show, this was bound to happen. And even if you disagree, even if you feel like this was a waste of time or a waste of production, I guess we should all just remember what Owner from Den-O said... What's important is not the content, but what is remembered.
 
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Honestly, I like the Build suits a lot.(The weapons are another story: I wish NinjaComic's sword had been a katana with a pentip point, and the comic panels on the blade made to be much smaller, rather than the blatant toy we got) You wouldn't imagine a vaccum cleaner form to be anything but awful, but like with Gaim, they manage to make it work and look good. Now compare that to Drive and Ex-Aid, shows with themes that ought to have lent themselves to cool designs, but ending up with truly awful ideas.

I still think reading outside of the genre can make you appreciate more stuff in the genre. If you know anything about WW1, you can appreciate some of the stuff in Build. Even Black RX, which most people hate but I can like in a "If Stefan Zwig was a toku superhero" way.
 
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^ Build seems kind of mean to his little buddy, though, always calling him stupid. Doesn't seem likable to me, but...maybe he's different in the show.

The random combos of the forms that you mentioned is another thing that bothers me about it. It just seems like they're pulling items from a hat. There's been too many ugly forms in Kamen Rider as of late. If you're following a show that's wall-to-wall ugliness like Ex-Aid, you better have some pleasant to look at designs.

In regards to why he calls his friend "stupid" it's the common Japanese comedy of one is the "straight guy" and one is the "baka". Actually, we have something similar to that in Thailand here. As in, the "straight guy" is the guy who says things that will counteract the "baka", who often says things that's like almost too common sensical if you catch my drift, it's the things that almost everyone thinks, in a sense, it's "common sense", but it's almost surface level common sense and pretty shallow assessment. Like any normal person with common sense would assume these things, and sometimes, they're right, but that comes at the cost of looking at things deeper, and Japanese Comedy often does this trope where you don't say things that are common sensical that can be detrimental to the collective group thinking. Sento will call him out as an idiot because he doesn't factor in other people's opinions or way of thinking, even if to a certain extent, Ryuga COULD be right. But that's exactly it. He could be, doesn't mean he is.

While I agree with Rider Suits have been getting ugly, I give Ex-Aid a pass. It's engrained in our culture in a sense that these are Mario-looking type characters, as in pixels are retro, and because it IS stupid to look at, it's excellent. I don't know, that's just me.

Honestly, I like the Build suits a lot.(The weapons are another story: I wish NinjaComic's sword had been a katana with a pentip point, and the comic panels on the blade made to be much smaller, rather than the blatant toy we got) You wouldn't imagine a vaccum cleaner form to be anything but awful, but like with Gaim, they manage to make it work and look good. Now compare that to Drive and Ex-Aid, shows with themes that ought to have lent themselves to cool designs, but ending up with truly awful ideas.

I still think reading outside of the genre can make you appreciate more stuff in the genre. If you know anything about WW1, you can appreciate some of the stuff in Build. Even Black RX, which most people hate but I can like in a "If Stefan Zwig was a toku superhero" way.

I agree with NinNin Comic, but I don't know about Vaccum Lion. I think Lion and even Wolf should have been partnered with things that you know... makes sense to be partnered with. What the heck does Lion Vaccum mean metaphorically? In that sense, what is Wolf and Smartphone's correlation? A phone obsessive loner? I don't know, while I like how Vaccum is executed, I think they ruined it by just pairing it with Lion.

If you don't mind, can you please share some knowledge about the WW1 parts and how it relates to Build? Perhaps I didn't catch it in my viewing.
 
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Would it not have been cool if Brave had had an Assassin's Creed or Dragon's Dogma-inspired look? If Snipe had been modeled on Metal Gear Solid? The video game theme just seemed wasted in Ex-Aid.

Regarding Build, examine how science and technology had progressed during the "Belle Epoch", the period from the 1870s after the Franco-Prussian War up until 1914 when Franz Ferdinand took a wrong turn at Sarajevo. With all of these advancements, more and more people were getting concerned over how devastating a potential future war would be. Everyone wanted peace; even military lovers like Kaiser Wilhelm II wanted a victory, not a war (odd as that may sound). Build had a theme of advancements in science being corrupted by entities like Faust for evil purposes. Sento regretted the work he had done in his "past life" since it spearheaded all of the carnage that was going on between the three countries, and Faust's experimentations on innocents. With WW1 came the beginning of the mass death of religion and morality in Europe, which birthed dark worldviews to fill in the void and resulted in even more amoral use of Man's machinery.
 
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I guess I will put it in spoiler in case anyone here is still not watching Build.
Best Match is indeed messed up and I think it is fault of toys department, but in series, scriptwriter have a good idea to turn this messed up toys to become good satisfying plot.
Villain mastermind, Evolt, is psycho evil who enjoying to gather information about Earth before destroying it. Hence, he take control Soichi body and force him to answer his question about what is the living thing which will make him happy and what is needed to destroy it. Love and destruction.
Full bottle essence was created according Soichi answer. At first he answer it with something dangerous like Tank or Gatling, but then his conciousness start to fight back and he start to mumbling about random thing. The reason Soichi snap out is because he remember about his daughter, and first half of his answer is based what his daughter like when he show her drawing book.
From the beginning, it is random thing and become more random because Soichi snap out. Like how the hell you kill a lion with vacuum cleaner. This plot is just to show Shoichi's final retaliation against Evolt to protect his daughter. He is concious this entire series but can't do anything while he watch Evolt messed up with his daughter life.

Heisei Generation Forever is messed up story but they try to cover it with many fanservice which have nothing to do with the plot. I mean the biggest plot hole about this is how can be Fuutaros exist if there is no real Kamen Rider in those sibling world. Is Denliner capable to cross another dimension now?
 
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