SHOWA VS HEISEI: Kamen Rider WAR talk up

[HurricaneDragon]

I went into this expecting to hate it. This is my first big MOVIE WARS (I haven't gotten around to the Sentai vs Rider ones for a variety of reasons, mostly because I'm lacking experience on the Sentai side) and the premise alone made me sure I would hate it.

And frankly, I did hate a lot of it. The Showa Riders' reasons for doing what they did was ridiculous. At the same time, the plan? The plan was so, so perfectly Showa (if you've seen the one "DAMN YOU V3!" image with the hostages, even if you haven't seen many Showa shows, you might get an idea of what I mean), that had it just ended before they had Hongo start the fight back up again, I wouldn't have any complaints. They could have said the whole thing was just an act and they were doing it to be able to gather every single Kamen Rider in the exact right place in the exact right moment, which they did. It was silly and not entirely necessary, but it's that kind of ridiculous campy plan that I'd totally expect from those guys.

On the other hand, this... random, irrational hatred of being kind? Were the writers of this at all familiar with the source material here? We're talking about some guys who are really actually pretty nice. They're not just their Rider "persona," and even those aren't all super serious. I'm reminded of the ZX special. They didn't look down on the new kid, they welcomed him with open arms and showed him home movies. Heck, look at Megamax! The worst the Showa Riders tossed the Heisei guys was "let's stop the shenanigans and get to business." And let's not forget that Fourze and Amazon are buddies! What happened there, huh?

Really, the "Showa and Heisei doesn't exist between Kamen Riders!" that made up the last line of the movie should have been the movie's entire theme. A gathering of these classic actors, and they couldn't get them to work together? That's so disappointing - and in a way, it's disrespectful. This might be their last chance to do these roles, and this is the best Toei could do for them? The Showa guys almost came off as condescending villains by the end of this, in a way, and that's just sad. It shouldn't've been that way.

So yeah, I wasn't pleased with a lot of it, but... I really was surprised at how much I was. Pretty much everything not related to the Showa vs Heisei plot was really enjoyable, stock plot (because it's not like we just had that exact plot with Wizard or anything) and all. The different Riders interacting, even Takumi and Keisuke. In fact, I was really pulling for them to be like... I don't know. Kaito's shenanigans with the turtle were fun, though Micchy... Man, I think they just gave him and Takatora random lines to fill space.

Meanwhile, Shotaro being Shotaro was fun, though I did find his reason for not wanting to leave a bit odd (Accel? Philip? anybody?), but they had to throw in conflict somewhere I guess. Randomly throwing in Haruto out of nowhere at the end was actually nice. I don't know why - I have so many problems with the show, but damn if I wasn't happy to see the poor guy. :laugh: The more the merrier I suppose.

All in all, I think I'm going to have a love/hate relationship with this movie, which is... actually a lot more than I would have thought before I saw it. I'll even give it as high as a 6 or 7 - let's say 6.5 out of 10.

One odd thing though - was it me, or did a lot of scenes feel like they could've had music when they didn't? Particularly some fight scenes that started to drag on.

 

[Henshinger]

I liked it for it being a KR movie. The Sentai feature was nice but The whole 15 lock seed was cool and I liked how they incorporated it into with gaim. I was not digging the story line but it's something to expect from these types of movies. It seems the plot has been rehashed. Idk, for a while it felt like I was watching Kamen Rider × Super Sentai: Super Hero Taisen,

 

[NeonZ]

For those who saw the Showa ending, Kouta threw in the towel because he felt that the fight between the two Rider groups was pointless.

He didn't say anything like that. In the Showa ending, Gaim gives up because he notices that Rider 1 was holding back, not counter attacking and such, and that Rider 1 just wanted to draw out Gaim's greatest power. Gaim then acknowledges that real power is a kind strength and Rider 1 is satisfied that Gaim got the lesson he was trying to teach.

On the other hand, this... random, irrational hatred of being kind? Were the writers of this at all familiar with the source material here? We're talking about some guys who are really actually pretty nice.

Like said above, the Showa ending helps a lot fixing that impression, IMO. Their actual problem wasn't with kindness itself, but with fighting with halfhearted kindness. They thought the Heisei Riders might not be able to protect the world by themselves as they were and challenged them to that battle to teach what's the real strength they need. Unfortunately, the only subs are for the Heisei ending, which is kind of odd since only one scene is different in each ending... The Heisei ending by itself though does make it seem like they wanted to discard kindness altogether until watching Gaim's action at the end.

 

[HurricaneDragon]

I suppose that does make sense in the context of the movie... but on the other hand, nothing in the movie ever seemed to show evidence to them actually being half-heartedly kind. They were trying to help a kid out, then help a dead kid out, and just be good people. Isn't it Shotaro's kindness that makes him half-boiled in the first place? All of these guys are kind, yet somehow, the Showa guys can just come in and say they aren't kind enough based on... nothing, really? That's the biggest flaw of the movie for me after hearing about that ending. They were trying to teach a lesson, but nothing even in the movie really tells us why it needed to be taught in the first place.

Though come to think of it, what the hell was Rider 1 intending to do with Shu? Considering their entire plan hinged on the enemy feeling like they got what they want to the point that they could summon all the Riders at once, was he just going to hand him over to Fifteen?

... Well, anyway. On the other hand, there's their whole "you can't be attached to the dead" thing. The problem with that is that there are kind of some guys on their side that that should apply to as well. To that end, there are some guys on the Heisei side that that doesn't apply to at all (like Haruto, who explicitly got over this exact thing in Wizard/Gaim - and they even mention this in the movie), yet because they were on the wrong end of the eras, they got lumped in with the guys who dared to care about dead people.

Plus it just seems like a strange thing to treat as "wrong" in general. It makes them come off as heartless, even with the Showa ending. I'm guessing there's some culture dissonance going on here to some extent, and maybe they're focusing too much on the "lone hero" aspect of the old Riders (despite all the Double Rider, Legendary Seven, and so on focus), but even then, it just struck me as really hypocritical given some of the Showa Riders' pasts. V3's entire schtick, at least initially, was becoming a cyborg for revenge for his dead family, for crying out loud. And let's not even touch on Shin and death.

If the Showa Riders' excuse for letting that slide is is "well we've had time to move on from that," then, uh... Why not just not be hypocrites and give the Heisei guys that same chance? Or help them, even? That's especially what bothers me about the X/Faiz portions - they could have used that as a bridge between the generations (if not for the ~plan~), but instead... Yeesh.

There's also the elephant in the room (so to speak) that they'll likely never address, but really bugs me. Hibiki is only 10 years younger than Shin. Considering how young people are when they become Oni in the series, unless they addressed when he became one at some point and I forgot... Isn't it possible Hibiki is technically a Showa Rider too? Obviously not in the sense of when shows were made, but considering this movie was about generations and all of that? Well, they'd never touch on that sort of thing, but still.

 

[NeonZ]

but on the other hand, nothing in the movie ever seemed to show evidence to them actually being half-heartedly kind. They were trying to help a kid out, then help a dead kid out, and just be good people. Isn't it Shotaro's kindness that makes him half-boiled in the first place? All of these guys are kind, yet somehow, the Showa guys can just come in and say they aren't kind enough based on... nothing, really?

I don't think it's their lack of kindness, but their lack of effort or strength put onto it, considering Rider 1's attempt to raise Gaim's power during their combat. It's all rather vague though, since the only different scenes in each ending are Rider 1's and Gaim's match up, Narutaki's commentary about it, and their few lines immediately afterwards (when they appear alongside the other Riders, it's all the same for both endings).

If you look at it from that point of view though, the movie did show the Heisei Riders often losing and being taken down by Badan, also struggling to go back to combat due to various reasons, while the Showa Riders seemed to be united from the start. When Gaim beats Fifteen, it's with a lockseed given to him by Rider 1 that mimics Rider 1's own power. Also, this time, if it weren't for Rider 1's plan, the villains could have killed quite a few Riders (like Ryugen, Zangetsu and Den-O who fall to Badan's forces and would have been just straight up killed if the lockseed plan wasn't in effect - although I guess killing Ryugen wouldn't be a problem :sweat.

Though come to think of it, what the hell was Rider 1 intending to do with Shu? Considering their entire plan hinged on the enemy feeling like they got what they want to the point that they could summon all the Riders at once, was he just going to hand him over to Fifteen?

Their plan would work as long as they could gather the Rider lockseeds. I don't think giving Shu to Badan would be strictly necessary. If Shu hadn't been taken by Badan, they'd likely just have appeared inside their fortress city directly.

Anyway, it's not like they're saying to completely disregard the dead. They still help Shuu in the end after all. During the 7 vs 7 battle, which had to happen anyway to conclude Rider 1's plan by that point, Black specifically mentions wishing that the dead were alive or wanting to bring back the dead as the kind of feeling that makes Badan emerge.

V3's entire schtick, at least initially, was becoming a cyborg for revenge for his dead family, for crying out loud. And let's not even touch on Shin and death.

Even back in the ZX special, V3 talks about how although many of them started fighting for revenge and personal motivations, they all put it behind them to become Riders. Really, just look at how this movie's portrayed the two groups.

But, yeah, generally, the grouping in Heisei and Showa by attachment to the dead and "halfhearted feelings" is artificial, and even in the broad strokes painted by the movie, rather questionable.

 

[Murphy]

I really, really enjoyed this film, but the Showa Riders position does make no sense. I kind of get it: I get that the idea is that they're being set up as almost a pantheon of heroes who are in a way distant from humanity but concerned with protecting it as a whole, while the Heisei Riders were meant to be flawed humans who struggle with grief, and who feel that protecting a single life is just as important.

But that'd make more sense if the Showa Riders were ever like that before.

 

[Dark Kabuto]

So I caught Imagination Station’s sub of the movie. I liked this quite a a bit, yeah the plot was dumb but it was better constructed than past All Rider team ups, hell it was even better than Super Sentai VS Kamen Rider.

It was good seeing the Riders that they brought back, this movie felt like one big family reunion and I liked that Decade basically played Nick Fury’s role, it felt fitting considering that his series is about traveling to different worlds and honestly? I know Decade has it’s decorators, but I felt that Tsukasa is far more likable in this film than he has been in the past, it feels like I’m finally beginning to get a grasp of whom the guy really is. I’m also impressed by Hiroshi Fujioka for a guy that must be in his late 80s, he looks like someone that could easily kick my ass, the dude’s still got it.

I have a few nitpicks though:

-I don’t get Rider 1s plan was at all. If he wanted to gather up all the Riders to take down Badam why not just do exactly that? I really hated how much the Showa Riders comes off as stuck up, elitist assholes in this.

-This movie is actually a bit too action oriented, there really wasn’t much room for downtime. I loved the scene with Takumi and Jin interacting, because when they finally did fight each other it felt more bittersweet.

-This film started to fall apart towards the end, the ToQgers weren’t needed at all and it was a shame that they were just thrown in there given how well Kouta interacted with Right in the Spring Break team up, Daigo’s appearance was also pretty random too. They feel pretty shoehorned and it just stinks of corporate meddling.

-Speaking of not needed, the Gaim cast was another part of this movie I didn’t like...which is a bit strange to say considering that I love Gaim but much like the ToQgers...the Armored Riders weren’t really needed in this. They didn't really add anything at all.

I did like a few scenes though, specifically the one in the beginning because it really did feel like all out war. I really liked watching the Gaim VS Jumbo J fight because of how much it reminded me of Attack on Titan. Fifteen was pretty bad ass too, even if he did feel pretty overpowered. Also, is it just me or did it feel like Wizard should've had a much larger role in this movie?

 

[big_j_ny]

Unfortunately, the only subs are for the Heisei ending, which is kind of odd since only one scene is different in each ending... The Heisei ending by itself though does make it seem like they wanted to discard kindness altogether until watching Gaim's action at the end.

From what I recall, the reason why Imagination Station only subbed the Heisei version is because they were only able to find a decent-size encoded RAW of the this version BUT have yet to find a decent-size encoded RAW of the Showa version.

They didn't want to do fansubs over the current RAWs that were originally released because of their file size (both of the released RAWs for the movie are actually around 6 GBs, extremely rare for a fansub group to subtitle RAWs of that size), which is why they only subbed the Heisei version since they were able to get an encode for that was around 2 GBs.

Once Imagination Station gets a hold of an encode of the Showa version of the movie that is smaller than those huge 6 GBs, we will probably see a fansubbed version of the Showa ending pretty quickly.

 

[Ryuutaros]

One things for sure...

I think we all peed our pants a little during Hongo's transformation scenes. They nailed it. They did it justice.

 

[cobabooy]

Wish that there was a scene where the Riders end up in Helheim after being defeated, then encounter and fight the Overlords. That would have been massively entertaining