Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos The Movie 2024 Movie Review
So everyone was right in that the pacing for the films is truly not helping the story develop as it should and it’s incredibly difficult to relate to characters when you can’t even sit with them. Some cringe scenes occured in part I with no rationale behind them, such as a character I won’t name switching from random dialogue to breaking out in song, also too many scenes occur on the same rooftop.
The star lights barely get any screen time, look I am sorry but that was the big appeal about this arc. They also took away the iconic music when they transform which is a shame. There is a bit of strange back and forth between “are these new fighters our enemies” and “omg the star lights have a concert tonight even though we just found out their real personas” fangirl moments in the same scenes and it’s incredibly confusing. We also never get any closure whatsoever and it’s the film’s biggest flaw. It’s fine to follow the manga but I don’t get why not add a one-liner with an explanation at least. In the original version (sorry, yes I will mention it) we not only spend a lot of time to get a feel of their individual personalities but we also get closure, even though that respective ending was rushed and left the story largely incomplete. I feel as though you’d need to combine them to get any sort of satisfaction.
Ultimately, the animation in Part II is much improved, similarly to how Eternal films behaved. The final 15 minutes are really beautiful and well done, incredible use of colours and composition, the atmosphere is good, deep insight into characters. It was fantastic to see Galaxia and we got time to spend with her (unlike any of the other villains in Crystal) and understand her background and motivation a bit, which really helped with the world building and storytelling.
The OST was lacking yet again, apart from the intro music. Still largely choir music mixed with piano and some metal. I feel like 70% of the 90s atmosphere was the music composed by Takanori Arisawa, and the remainder 30% the voice acting. The original had a much much darker atmosphere and it was a bit frustrating to see this largely lacking yet again. It is a bit too vanilla when the manga clearly depicts various violent events. These were never translated into the Crystal remake. It can be quite bland in parts without this element.
The VA for Cosmos sounded bored, no idea what happened there. Still, I enjoyed the 2nd episode and thought it was the best the remake could do with the budget and attention. Nice closure and ending. It felt authentic.
It’s sad we never got to spend some time with any of the girls and Usagi’s friends in the remake, there could have been more scenes showing the girls bond and build on their friendship. You can’t rush these things and just show character 1 cry over the death of character 2 with no background whatsoever and expect viewers to care.
