Berserk: The Golden Age Arc I Discussion *Spoilers Beware*

[War Machine]

*Spoilers Beware. This thread is for discussing the movie and spoilers are to be expected, read at your own risk*


First and foremost, holy shit, it's a Berserk movie and there's lots of blood and it's awesome.

I'd like to hear from a non-fan, who hasn't seen the anime or read the manga to see how the story progression and pivotal scenes seem to them considering the limited number of scenes they were able to put into the movie, but speaking as a fan, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I agree with lon3vvolf when he said in another thread that you can see the movie just fine without subtitles if you don't speak Japanese, the movie adheres well to the manga and as far as I could tell all the dialogue was taken directly from it.

As for the whole visual style, I liked it, but there were a few moments where I felt that some effects on top of the CGI would've helped enhancing the impact of the scene or give it a more gritty look that conforms better to the manga. For example, on the moment Griffith is struck by the poisoned arrow, I didn't feel like it was such a serious thing in that there was only a quiet hit and then him falling back with a very slight slowdown. The other point about the gritty look is just that I feel the whole movie looks too clean and illuminated, which is a stark contrast to the manga. Overall though, all this didn't bother me much, but some

And lastly, there were a couple of differences I saw in the movie when compared to the manga. One is that when Guts bites Griffith's sword and throws Griffith down to the other side of the hill, on the manga there's a cliff there and they fall a little before the fight continues, while on the movie they only fall to the other side and continue fighting right after. This change seemed weird considering it only save them a couple of seconds in the movie run time. The other change I noticed was when Guts assassinates Count Julius and then Adonis by mistake. In the manga, Guts sees Adonis from across the the room and then runs and stabs Adonis on the pretext of having been seen; in the movie though, Guts hears Adonis coming, hides and waits for him to open the door and then Guts lunges at Adonis, only seeing who he was attacking right as he was stabbing him. I thought this change was quite interesting, I liked it. It gives credibility to the immediacy of the action and heightens the consequence of the mistake.

[somefatman]

First and foremost, holy shit, it's a Berserk movie and there's lots of blood and it's awesome.

I do believe that this sums up my feelings exactly.

As you and lon3vvolf said, understanding the dialogue is not imperative to understand the overall movie since it does follow the manga pretty damn closely. I do want to know what was being said in the scene where Griffith was knighted which was accompanied with some random battle scenes. I figure there was a little more exposition to establish how badass Griffith is. My only real regret is that they cut Guts first battle with the hawks, since that showed Griffith's mastery of strategy. But otherwise, the animation and CGI were great and the battles were beautiful. I can see what your saying about everything being clean and not gritty but I don't think is subtracts significantly, especially since they made sure to make the battle with Zodd darker and grittier. The overall feel will probably slowly slip more towards dark and gritty as the story progresses to show the way the world was spiraling into oblivion and then get brighter and cleaner again after the creation of Falconia.

[brunoafh]

Alright, so I watched the movie twice now. First time in, I really didn't like it. Now what I didn't like was how incredibly rushed everything felt. Characters and relationships aren't built very well, you're given no reason to care about any of the Hawks but Guts and Griffith really. Guts and Griffith's relationship is developed hastily and poorly too. What the heck was with that random flashback to Guts' childhood? Unless you've read the manga or seen the anime, that would make absolutely no sense and would be meaningless. There's just no depth or substance to the movie. Way too much material to cram into 90 minutes. Lots of stuff was cut too, I was sad to see that Guts' first battle with the Hawks was cut, that part is great. What I found interesting though, that despite what was originally my chief complaint, the animation, ended up actually being my favorite part of the movie. I have to eat my words and admit it really does look gorgeous overall, but at times the CGI was distracting. The gore and swordplay/battle scenes though, are the movie's saving grace. First time I watched it, 4/10. Just a really poor adaption that doesn't cover the ground it needs to and fails big time at detailing the intricacies of the Berserk world. Second time watching, I think it's more like a 6.5/10. I went in with low expectations and was really disappointed by the story aspect of things, but the real draw here is the eye candy. It looks great and seeing Berserk animated is just going to be pretty awesome no matter what.

In the long run though, I think the deciding factor will be how the next movies are handled, and if they kind of alleviate my complaints on how crappy the story section was handled. I'm hoping they go into more detail with character relationships and flesh things out more, and that this first movie is just meant to be an action flick used to get the viewers accustomed to everything. I'm pretty eager for the third movie, and I'm really hoping it does a great job in handling the Eclipse and Skull Knight's role in it. The gore is probably gonna be crazy if this first movie is any indication. I'll be more than happy if these movies at least do an average job of telling the events of the Golden Age arc and the Eclipse, and the result is further adaptions of the manga, whether it be OVAs or a TV series. 6-12 episode OVAs for arcs from the manga would probably work well. I hope we get a Berserk PS3 game too. Sadly it seems that Yuke's is now just a mindless wrestling game factory, but it would be fuckin sweet if they did another Berserk game. They make some of the best anime games ever.

Also, the intro movie. Wasn't that weird how they were showing parts of the manga from like volume 25 and up?

[NoNickName]

I liked the movie. Some scenes looked bad, some great. Fights were awesome. I liked the intro movie. I liked it had images from manga.

But I agree with ^brunoafh. It was too rushed. Newcomers cant understand it nor bound with characters. So Im affraid about its success and further production. Its great eye candy for Berserk fans, but without knowladge about full story and stuff you cant enjoy it much. IMHO

[luciferian]

Watched it twice. First time I watched it and enjoyed every moment of it, as I watched it simply for excitement. 2nd time I watched it, I did it to review and critique it.

What I found wrong with the movie is, like others have said, it WAS rushed. With a mere 1 hr and 18 mins creds included, They basically packed in about half of the story arc (with how fast they were moving) into it. I was surprised that the assassination part even took as long as it did, because I was expecting it to end at the 100 man fight. It is rushed, and did not fit as smoothly as rebuild for evangelion, the only other thing I can really compare this too. (hellsing ultimate not so much as they take their time with each episode).

With rebuild, you had alot less character development, but it was still there. Here, you have only 3 characters being developed, Guts, Griffith, and Casca. The other hawks have no real development at all. Kinda makes it a let down, as these three movies are about the Hawks and how Guts forms relationships with them. The Scene where Casca comes and talks to Guts after the black ram knights battle, I laughed, as it did not show the development of either his relationship with the Hawks. Sure he says he cares for his men, but... nothing showed it before Zodd, (this scene was done very well in my opinion.) The largest Character development we had was at this scene and to the end of the movie. Which was fairly well... for just those three characters. Still nothing with the hawks, besides the douchebag being a douchebag.

As for the animation. Fight scenes were amazing. Blood, rain of blood. Pretty much sums up the entire movie there... Well in all honesty, most of the talking scenes out in hawk camp reminded me of some bad anime, where only one plant blows in the wind, while nothing else does. Background animation in those scenes were terrible. How the characters looked, most the "knights" in the beginning battle all looked the same, unlike how muira does it, where everyone is different. The assassination scene was by far my favorite animated scene in the movie. It showed Berserk at its finest. I was thinking, now adays where child killing is almost forbidden, that we would not see much of that. I liked how they changed the scene around, where Guts used a regular sword through the entire night, rather than his huge broad sword (would have been easily picked out by guards... that lived.) I liked how they showed both the kid and adult's deaths. The kid's showed alot of emotion towards Guts. And the animation was quite well done, like the zodd scene.

For as much information they covered in such a short film (alot of movies are now running 2 hrs now adays) id give this film a 5/10 in terms of information. But, overall with the animation, the great scenes, and somewhat fluidity of the film, 7/10 from me. Im hoping for better things though from the second film, where I hope all the hawks development comes in. Otherwise id need to redo my score on this film.

Still starved for more berserk though =(

[legato]

I didnt really like it, pacing is way too high...