Alright so, a lot of you asked for a spoilerific discussion of the film
And I'm happy to bang out a quick video for that so here it is.
Warning, this is just a supplementary video to my spoiler free review that I released yesterday
So, if you don't want to be spoiled, click off this video now
But if you don't mind being spoiled, or if you are just coming here after watching the movie
then let's talk about it
Also, as I've basically used all the available footage out right now for the review
I hope you don't mind this bare bone editing, as I don't have much to work with right now
Now what I want to talk about mostly is how much better the film could have been
like it really could have been something to put a whole new light to this franchises
So, as I'm guessing you already know the basic synopsis from my review
The important things to note in the movie are the new character and their devious plot involving the Augma
As it turns out, Yuna, the idol program, is actually an AI reconstruction of someone who died in Sword Art Online
And this was develop by different people memories of her time during SAO
You can probably see where this is going
Dr. Shigemura, the developer of the Augma, is actually the father of the deceased girl
And Eiji is her boyfriend I think
I can't remember if he was her partner or just someone was very close to
but either way the plot is them trying to fully reconstruct her using memories of everyone who was in SAO
So yes, any SAO player who dies in ordinal scale, gets their memory of SAO taken away from them
And one of these people is Asuna
Which can actually see here with Asuna taking a hit from a dragon for Silica
as usual being f*cking useless
This serve as the main stake of the game and is the crux of the drama that happened
which is good
I liked that
It wasn't something as dramatic as your life being taken away
but something a lot more personal was being lost
See, I know memory loss being a plot point for drama is common cliche in itself
But the way it was handled was different from what we usually see
What we normally see with memory loss cliche is a character losing all their memories
Thus resetting their relationship with every other character
and the drama comes from not the amnesia of victim themself
But from everyone around them, as they tried their best to rebuild the relationship they had before
In Ordinal Scale, all that's loss is people's memory of SAO and everything that happened in that game
no relationship are reset, and Asuna of course still loves Kirito
But imagine losing some of your first memory you've had with say...
your best friend or in this case your partner
obviously you're still best friend with them because you'll still having memory from after that time
so your relationship has not changed
But not being able to remember how you met them
or indeed why you even became friends or lovers in the first place
knowing that there are some treasured memories in there would be painful and emotionally straining
And seeing Asuna quietly breakdown from that revelation
I genuinely felt for her
and I didn't think I could be sympathetic to any of these characters
Now let's talk about the antagonist and the general plot line of the movie
So Dr. Shigamura was trying to reconstruct his dead daughter in AI form
and I've talked to people who thought the entire plot of using everyones memory in SAO
to reconstruct the personality of the deceased person as an AI program is stupid
and if you agree I then i urge you to watch an episode of Black Mirror called Be Right Back
It's a short story about a girl who lost her boyfriend in a car accident
But through new technology she is able to recreate her boyfriend as an android
entirely using his post and present on his social media to construct his personality
It's a similar concept and obviously was handled much more interestingly than it was in Ordinal Scale
but it certainly did have the potential to be handled in a much more interesting manner
instead of,
you know,
just making her an idol program.
Though I will say the one flashback of Yuna excitedly showing her dad the nervegear was really well done
In that one scene you understood why, yeah... I can kind of see why he's going so far for this
I mean, any dad who lost their daughter in such circumstances
could go to incredible length to deal with the trauma of that
Then there is Eiji who I thought had the potential to be a fantastic villian
See the story behind him is that he is also a SAO survivor
but in game he was pretty much a nobody
He didn't have any friend and wasn't really noticed by anyone or was even good at it
Unlike Kirito who excelled in the world of VR
Eiji was an average player that never stood up or did anything worthwhile
but with augmented reality he is a god due to his real life athletic abilities
As oppose to Kirito, who in real life is just and average nerd living on cup of ramen
feeling the limitation of his frail body in AR
He is the complete opposite of Kirito, from motivation to abilities to backstory
and the perfect foil to Kirito godlike status that we see in the series
He had all the making of a great villain who was not only a genuine threat
but also had a sympathetic motivation that really could have added some depth into the series
So it hurts me to see all this potential be shafted almost as immediately as it was conceived
because almost as soon as it was revealed
Kirito overcame everything and beat his ass with like no effort
Here, if you thought Kirito was broken for being able to rise through the ranks in Aincrad
by somehow soloing through the bosses himself
how about rising to the top 10 player for the entire game in what felt like a single day
if that's even
It didn't feel like his training montage went on for that long
He kind of went edge murder then suddenly he was toe to toe with Eiji
who had spent all this time building a genuine wall for Kirito to climb
that logically cannot be climb by simply willing himself to do so
and then he just overcame it by willing himself to do so
But here's where I thought they really drop the ball
because thematically Ordinal Scale is an introspective look at the nature of the Sword Art Online experience
If this happened in the real world, the event of Aincrad would have been massively traumatic
But to some it is the most important experience of their lives
as in the case of Kirito and Asuna
they met each other through the game
found their closest friends
AND A F*CKING DAUGHTER
and came out of the experience more than what they lost
compare that to our antagonist
a father who lost his only daughter through the game
and an unpopular nobody who lost the only person who he a had a connection with
for the first time Kirito is fighting villains who are not pure evil
but are in fact sympathetic
It make perfect sense why they have issue erasing any memory of SAO
or using the technology for their own gain
because those memory bring them nothing but pain
In fact, had Kirito gone through the same experience they did and maybe lost Asuna in SAO
he could very much be those people
We had a conflict that wasn't just good vs bad
but a whole shade of grey
and this could be use as a platform to delve deeper into Kirito's own morality
and question his own position from what he himself had personally gained from the game
as oppose to everyone else
There was so much that could have been done with this
so many ways to develop the characters we had by putting them in conflict that was not edgy
not black and white
and stems from the exact experience that shape them into the people they are today
The setup was right there
of course though, none of this ended up happening or was even close to being expanded on
We didn't see any deeper morality conflicts or any kind of development for that matter at all
All this had the potential to be a franchise-changing piece of work
The ELEMENTS were there!
They just needed to be expanded on
as it stands though, nothing really changed
Eiji got his ass handed to him, but I don't know he was just being kind of sort of used by Shigamura
who himself was, apart form that one flashback scenes, nothing short of just your cliche evil vilian
everyone got their memories back
and had a gail time playing more games
with all things said and done, there was no progression and just kind of felt like filler in the end
Sure, it was an entertaining filler but nothing really changed when it really really could
As for minor gripe about the film
well many people have already mentioned that even though this is augmented reality
there are things that seem impossible
like objects looking like they have weight
and creatures causing and effects of a real world like wind and all that
but SAO has always had a more simplistic look at the technology it used and was inspired by
and without all these effect, it would have looked a lot dumber and less for why we watched it in the first place
so though it was never explained, I didn't really have much of a problem with that
and if I could touch on something quickly that I did actually like
HOT DAMN!
That last fight scene was definitely worth the ticket price
The final boss turned out to be the original intended final SAO boss
and just the scale of the thing made it truly feel like an epic boss battle you see and experience in MMOs
Once I mentally got over the fact that I wasn't going to see the plot points I want to expanded on
I just had a great time watching it
The moment they call back to everything the entire franchise had done
from pretty much every name character getting involved
to go through all the old design for everyone
even I who am not an SAO fan AT ALL got pretty excited
so I could only imagine how SAO fans would have felt at that moment
There was a moment where Kirito got back his black swordsman outfit with the dual swords
and I got a bit hype and almost immediately afterthought
god
I absolutely
hate myself right now for that
But it's just a testament for how well the action scene was done and how good it felt to see on the big screen
So yeah
that was everything I wanted to talk about this film spoiler and all
if you have any thought from just hearing the spoilers
or if you have seen the film yourself and have anything else you want to discuss
then leave a comment in the comment section
As I know discussing anime films are hard as not everyone has seen them
and there is not really a place to do so
but apart from that
hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you all next time