Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Golden Wings

Beatnik★ 8

Golden Wings is a slight misstep in the Legends of the Galactic Heroes franchise, not enough to stumble on its face but not enough to style it out by whistling innocently and pretending it didn’t almost trip over. It’s best to watch this movie after episode 54 of the LotGH OVA, as this movie was released after that and before episode 55. The story is set before the OVA, but after watching 54 episodes of Reinhard ascend through the ranks of the military and getting comfortable with his acquaintance, you can get the most satisfaction out of Golden Wings in seeing him ascend through theranks of military school and learn how he matured into an adult. All the characters from the OVA are near unrecognisable in their new incarnations in this movie. It’s the first thing to hit you if you've been watching the OVA for a while. They lose the handsome character designs and replace them with foppish haircuts, wide anime eyes and voice actors that don’t match their characters, Yang Wen-li especially. It’s pretty jarring and serves as a barrier between the two experiences, with only the thematic narrative tying the two anime together neatly for the viewer. The movie is a spotlight on Reinhard and Kircheis. The first twenty minutes don’t tell you anything you don’t already know if you've seen the OVA, but after they graduate from military school the plot picks up and shows us their friendship getting them through tight scrapes in the beginning of their military careers. Yet even with that encouraging premise, the movie as a whole is a big step down from the OVA in nearly every department involved, from art, direction, but most importantly, in story. Yes we get a nice background on two beloved characters of the LotGH universe, but generally this movie is directed in a very sluggish, bland and hand-holding way with a script exactly the same. The OVA by comparison is bold, assured, confident, intelligent and doesn’t hang around for you to keep up, it’s too busy being awesome. Golden Wings is too busy trying to hook a completely different viewership, one that will be sorely disappointed when they check out the OVA and are hit in the face with masterful direction and sublime script, and not five minute montages of Reinhard and Kircheis running around as kids without uttering a word, just laughing like lunatics on crack. Ok, there's only one five minute montage of lunatic kids on crack. The latter half of the movie has a decent enough plot that manages to tie an Alliance attack on the Death St-, uh Iselhorn fortress; and Reinhard's life at risk by imperial grouches. It culminates in a reaffirmation of one of anime’s greatest friendships and a pretty cool death scene for an obligatory bad guy. Getting in the way of Reinhard and Kircheis’s friendship will cost you your life, don’t forget that. They used to be crack-dealing hyena-laughing junkie kids back in the day didn’t you know?

Abby-★ 2

Okay, this definitely won't be an objective review, but at the very least I'll try to make it descriptive and hopefully understandable, even for people who disagree with me. There's not really any need for another review of this, I just really feel like putting my negative thoughts about this movie into words. As I said, this won't be objective, and it's coming from the perspective of a fan of the main series, and my criticisms are intended to be read by other fans of the series (after all, I don't see why anyone else would watch this). On its own, this movie might have been"okay", nothing great, but really nothing worth getting worked up over. But since it's so heavily associated with the established characters and plot line of what is my favorite anime, I can't help but find it frustrating to watch. First of all there's the art style. Most of the characters get a jarring facelift that leaves them unrecognizable from their original iteration. For a new viewer who isn't familiar with the original art style, it might not be quite as irritating, but nevertheless it is a step down in terms of sheer quality, and definitely looks rather ugly. I was in pain when I saw Yang's appearance, but enough of that. I could complain about the visual design all day. The art is a superficial issue that can be overlooked as long as the story and writing is up to par, right? Well it's not! A battle between the Empire and the Alliance that takes place at Iserlohn Fortress serves as a backdrop for most of the story. Well this is a good start. Are you looking forward to those interesting moments of juxtaposition, where the perspective shifts back and forth between the Empire and the Alliance as the battle develops? Well too bad. Any perspective from the Alliance side is rare and shallow. What about the complex military strategies and plans, laid out by the most intelligent commanders of the fleet? "Wait, what's strategy again?", the studio who made this asks. In fact, the battle barely gets any special emphasis at all. It never makes any effort to explain why the battle is important, or why you should care about it within the confines of this story. Instead, the real focus of conflict comes from the most generic, uninteresting, and cartoony villain that's ever been in the series. "Such impudence!" and "How rude of you!" were his most memorable quotes. Also he looks stupid. Really, the most annoying thing about this movie was how pretentious it felt. It was trying to imitate what made the OVA so good, and hoped that if it just echoed a few things without putting much thought into it no one would notice. The most grating example which made me realize this was when Yang, who could hardly be called Yang due to the fact that his face and voice is entirely different, at one point says "Even though I think wars are pointless, I end up thinking of ways of winning them." Wow! That sure was precise of you, Yang! It's almost like the creators didn't know how to write dialogue for you and just made you state the most fundamental aspect of your character out of nowhere... In summary, this feels like fan fiction. It completely misses the point of LoGH in almost every respect. Even though it has just about everything you'd expect: Reinhard and Kircheis bromance, large-scale space battles, and even some intrigue, it's all executed with no spirit or finesse, with a complete disregard for what makes those things worthwhile in this series. Reinhard's unrecognizable face serves as a good metaphor for this movie: You're -told- that he's Reinhard, and you see a slight resemblance at first, but in the end he's just an unidentifiable mutant masquerading as someone you once knew.