FMA Sequels

 

I pretty much explain my previous feelings of the 1st movie in another post.

It shoved 30 storylines into one little movie and somehow made some random minor dude as the main villain from the train robbery episode.

I found out the past few months that they released two sequels on Netflix. I went ahead and watch the 2nd movie and it was "Better-ish".  I only saying that because it mostly adapts episodes 13 through 26, which is kinda a small handful of episode rather adapting and grabbing random story points from the source material.

There were a few bits here and there that got adapted. The movie starts with a very quick adaption the train attack story that was only present in the 1st show but skipped in the 2nd show. The only difference was they saved Fuhrer King Bradley instead of Major General Halcrow. Also instead of meeting Maes Hughes, they met with Ling Yao and his gang.

Behold, an actual Asian character played by an Asian instead of Asians wearing wigs and having German names.

Also him and Winry's dub voices are the only returning voices from the tv shows. I heard Ed and Al had their original voices in the 1st movie but I guess Netflix waited months to quietly release it's dub because I didn't know the 1st movie had a dub track when it 1st came out.

Anyways, back to the train attack.

The guy on the right is Major General Halcrow aka the *main villain* from the 1st live-action movie

Both the 2003 show and 2008 show were adapted from the manga or comic. The 2003 show quickly got caught up and made up new storylines partway. When 2008 was made, the story from the manga was almost done but since it's been half a decade and the 2003 show was still fresh in our heads. They sort of speed through was was already told in the 2003 and skipped certain parts that didn't really matter.

The terrorists attacking the train episode's main purpose was to introduce Maes and Roy who were major characters. The terrorists never appeared again and the Major General was pretty much forgotten aside a minor cameo. So I have no idea why they made him the main villain in the 1st film.

Unlike the live-action movies, the 08 show did a far superior job of having 1st 12 episodes being an adaption with some stuff cut down and trimmed but still successfully told a great story that ran through. The way the movies done it is just jump point to point, making sure at least everything is in the movie but told so quickly it's confusing.

There are two main antagonists of the movie. One is the Homunculus, artificial created beings whose names based on the 7 deadly sins and there's this guy.

This man is called Scar. He's a survivor of the losing side of the war and becomes a serial killer, hunting down military alchemist.

The entire movie is mostly focused on this guy. In the original story, he slowly becomes an anti-hero, realized his murderous ways caused harm, even to innocents. He did end up working with the good guys as they all find out the war that started in his homeland was the result of an 300 year old conspiracy.

The movie does try to compress his entire character arc into the entire movie but believe me, it's not as laughable as some of the stuff I saw in the 3rd movie but yeah, he goes from murderer, to started to realized he he caused harm to innocents, to somewhat being forgiven by his enemies and started to work with them in one whole movie.

Here's a few comments about the casting.

 

Instead of a little girl, Mei Chang is a full grown woman

Alex Louis Armstrong is suppose to be a ridiculous character and he even looks ridiculous in live-action. Some things can't translate from animation to live-action. The 1st pic, we're laughing with it because he's goofy and over the top while the 2nd pic, he's we're laughing at it since he's look ridiculous for the wrong reasons. Also he's not too muscular. He's just some dude that does work out at the gym but no where like a big bodybuilder type.

Kimblee is a recurring villain who is heavily hyped in the flashbacks to the war but in the movie, he never appears after the flashbacks again, even in the 3rd movie. All this hype for nothing.

One thing I will praise besides the set designs is the whole scene

The scene where the main hero's love interest finds a gun and nearly goes gun crazy on her parents killer but he snaps it out of her and slowly pulls the gun from her hands. He tells her hands help deliver a baby and help attach metal limbs to people who lost their organic ones.

I like this scene for two reasons, one, because I hated how the 03 ends and left them divided in different universes and it was nice to see an actual romance scene. Two, the movie could of shoehorn the entire story of her help delivering the baby but it didn't. His line about saving lives means the list of patients he saw earlier that needs automail aka metal limbs to replace their missing ones and it was only seen in half a second. There was no shoehorning whatsoever. Just a half a second scene that don't interrupt the narrative of the movie and ends up fitting with this moment.

Now oh boy, on to the 3rd movie which is a pacing nightmare. It adapts episodes 29 through 64 all in a two hour movie.

There are episode that done in like less than two minutes and then move on to the next. There is no time to breathe. It just jumps point to point. It hurries up, tell a certain story in 2-3 minutes and then jumps to the next scene.

Remember Ling, the Asian actually playing an Asian. Well I need to explain the homunculus, Greed.

The man know Greed is a rebellious man who ran away from the other villains and started his own gang in a city. Later Wrath killed most of the gang and captured Greed. His body was boiled down and turn into a stone.

Later on, Ling was captured and turned into a homunculus with Greed's stone. It took over his mind and became the new Greed. It didn't have memories of it's past life as a rebellious gang leader.

Also, Ling came to our heroes' country to find the secret of immortality to help his country's emperor but as they were forcing the stone into his body, he was told he was going to become "immortal", so he easily gave in to be possessed.

Throughout the story, Greed's memories of his past life will surface and end up joining alliances with the good guys and Ling started to sometimes take control of his body. It's based like Brock and Venom sharing a body. At the end, Greed sacrifice his life to save everyone, including Ling.

Well in the movie, Greed 1.0 doesn't appear and makes they make offhand references he was rebellious in his previous life. Ling easily gives in to become a homunculus and this was commented by our heroes. The good guys flee the villain's lair, literally five minutes later he meets up with the good guys at house and he said something like, "Don't worry, I'm back in control and Greed is on our side."

Also it is jarring Greed still sounds like Death the Kid instead of Prince Schneizel/Steeljaw/Snow Villiers because in the show, when Ling became Greed, they got a different voice to play him unless Ling takes control of his body. That be like Venom is using Tom Hardy's regular voice.

The beginning of the 3rd movie also introduced Izumi Curtis who was Ed and Al's teacher and randomly gets introduced, meets the brothers' dad, gets her missing organs magically heal from his alchemy, and then moved to the another scene. She only shows up again to help to help the Armstrong siblings to fight Sloth at the end. It's kinda pointless this late in the game to introduce her, tell her entire tragic story why she has missing organs, and then make her show up.

That entire arc where our heroes travel up North to the border of the country in Briggs, all told in a few minutes. They hurried up meet Armstrong's sister, encounter a very obvious cheap CGI Sloth, go underground and learn the villains goal to transmute an entire country. All this in a few minutes with no time to breath.

At one part of the movie, Ed and Al were for some explained reason were separated(unless you watched the show). They meet Fuhrer King Bradley's son(and Gluttony) and instead of making an big epic reveal of his true nature as the Homunculus, Pride, he was all like, "BTW, I'm Pride".

In the middle of the battle, he randomly decides to devoured Gluttony. Gosh, this entire scene is a way too rushed.

Their rapidly regeneration abilities were fading out and he straight up eats his ally to recover but they don't explain this in the movie.

They did the entire final arc, "The Promised Day." The arc where our heroes raided Central Command and attack everyone, killed all the Homunculus, and defeated their Father and stop his plans to attain godhood. Pretty much everything from that arc was adapted, except that every major scene was done in a minute or two. I feel I like I'm watching a Michael Bay action scene where it's all too fast. If you watch the movie with no idea of the show, that's exactly like that. You be wondering whose who and who killed who. The only difference is no shaky cam or explosions.

Tough characters like Sloth went down in two or three hits. Even if you never seen the show, you think a behemoth that's 3 meters tall wouldn't go down in three hits. I mean heck, the 1st movie had Ed and Roy figuring out the Homunculus have a limit of how many times they can regenerate and it show Roy burning them down over and over.

So yeah, this movie is a complete nightmare. It's faithful to the source material but instead of creating a story based on it, it more like cherry picked the best scenes of the show and turn this into a live-action recap aside a few differences like killing off Dr. Marcoh in the 1st movie, forgetting Kimblee, or the cutting out the Chimeras. 

I think I mention it once but the CGI looks fake. I know I don't except it to be a high-budget Hollywood film but you know, it still look animated.

Despite it being set in a fictional world similar to Germany, you got Japanese actors in wigs and dyed hair unless they are from the FMA's version of China. Something similar happen to the Attack on Titan live-action movie where's it's also based on a fictional version of Germany with a ton of Japanese actors. However, at least they sort of have a sort of have an excuse, that movie pretty much made up it's own lore since it was made far back when that show was in it's 1st season, meaning it takes place in a post-apocalyptic Japan. Also their token Half-Asian never said within the movie that her mother came from a far away land. Also never wore wigs. The only problem is they have European names, which is weird.

If there some positives I say for the FMA movie. The sets and locations look great.