Full Metal Alchemist (Live-Action Trilogy): When Alchemy Goes Wrong

Netflix's Full Metal Alchemist live-action trilogy offers an uneven adaptation that ranges from frustratingly bad to surprisingly good. The second film stands as the trilogy's highlight while the first and third installments struggle with poor CGI, missing plot points, and bizarre creative decisions.

• First movie starts well but devolves into a Resident Evil-like mess with strange plot changes
• Second movie (Revenge of Scar) dramatically improves with better action, faithful storytelling, and character portrayals
• CGI quality inexplicably drops in the third film despite being filmed alongside the second
• Many iconic moments from the anime are either omitted or poorly executed
• Key character developments are missing, particularly for Greed and Pride
• Strong performances from actors playing Mustang, Bradley, and Armstrong throughout
• Ending follows the Brotherhood conclusion rather than the original anime's ending
• Second film earns an 8/10 while first and third films rate 4.5/10 and 6/10 respectively

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Full Metal Alchemist Movies
• 1:15 First Movie: Promising Start, Disappointing Finish
• 9:36 Character and Story Changes Breakdown
• 18:22 Review of Revenge of Scar
• 28:42 The Last Alchemist: CGI Downgrade
• 36:55 Final Thoughts and Movie Ratings
• 55:35 Closing and Social Media Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

What's good everybody. This is KokuGasu, and thank you so much for tuning in with me as I finally got an opportunity of watching the Full Metal Alchemist live action movies. So on Netflix in the month of January 31st, they said that they were going to have these movies available and we'll be removing them off of the best access. On January 31st I got an opportunity of watching all three movies, which is titled Full Metal Alchemist Full Metal Alchemist Revenge of Scar and Full Metal Alchemist the Last Alchemist, and I don't like live actions as already as it is. But a friend of mine told me hey, this one's not that bad, watch it. I'm like, okay. Well, I mean, I wound up liking the Roran Kinshia live action. It wasn't 100% the best, but still it wound up being a really good one and if y'all know me, I haven't done a review on it yet. I had struggles or hard. I did not get past the first episode of the new official live action. So when a friend of mine wound up saying I might like this one, let's give it a try, I said, okay, I will give it a try. The point is, let's get rid of it. So, without further ado, we're going to go ahead and break down into this, because this was a good one. So the first movie, formula Alchemist I'm not going to lie, it got me in the first half. It got me in the first half. We started getting really great references. We were able to start sticking to the storyline. It seemed like it was red copying all the first female out in the segment, not Brotherhood, so it started off into that and then about halfway through it just changed into a resident demon, and I'm not even joking about that, it just got insane, as at that point it was like the writers would say, alright, I don't care, we're just going to go ahead and create our own story here. Now, forget what the people watched, we're just going to do our own thing. And I was like what is happening? Because the first half was not bad. You know, when we started off, we got many mercenaries. You know, when we started off, we got many references. We got, uh, he's dead. We got Shia LaBeouf and you know the Chimera Still breaking heart. But you know, we had those moments and we got a chance to really see things play out and it's like, okay, there's a bunch of story elements that we wound up skipping out and it just, it wasn't that great, but it was okay until that last half. So let's go through my notes. This is what we got right there.

Speaker 1: 2:33

Okay, first off, into this, the voice act, the actors and I say voice actors because it was a person who wound up moving around doing CGI um, they wanted to do a motion capture. Even I didn't have we wanted to do in Motion. Catel was motion capture, even if I didn't have the means to get the film to be able to incorporate Al into the movie. The person who voiced Al, the person to me sounded invited to work with Al. Now, growing up, watching the anime, both the metal alchemist in Brotherhood, al always sounded kind of young because Ed and Al were still young. So one of the biggest things about it is that Ed is the youngest, al he's supposed to sound like 14. Kid, this guy here, sounds like he'd be 17, 18, or something like that. It got me a little bit, but it wasn't so bad that I couldn't push through. I was able to push through to that one. But the biggest thing that got me is Al doing Alchemy.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Now there was a change in the anime where Al could wind up doing Alchemy only if he had a Transformation Circle or an Etta, but then Al winds up getting a chance to see him do a 2DH or 4. That's completely erasable. Al winds up getting a chance to see him before two of the eights before. That's completely erratic. All of a sudden we just have a moment where, literally, al said at the beginning of the movie oh yeah, my brother can do Alchemy Without Meaning in the transportation circle and I have to. Then, later on in the movie, there is no change, he never sees the door open. All of a sudden, al cannot use Alchemy Without Meaning in the transportationitched and it's like what is the explanation? What happened? How did we get here? What is going on right now? And it just completely, just skipped that entire thing and it just didn't make any sense. Then, on top of that, al only does alchemy two times in the entire movie. Literally, that is it, just two times in the entire movie. And it's like the CGI, for some of the alchemy was not bad. I think it was something that was worth it, but it was like what is happening here?

Speaker 1: 4:33

Ed, you never see his arm blade Ever. This is not just for this movie, this is for all three movies. Ed never uses his arm blade. He claps his hands and pulls the blade out of his arm as it puts short blade weapons to attack his foes. It's an amazing stuff. You see it in anime, even in the narrow sense. In a lot of action. It never happens. Al only uses a spear, aside from just occasional stumbling block for Al to be a, he only uses a spear and that's it.

Speaker 1: 5:03

You don't see the arm blade whatsoever. This is so sad because one of the biggest things about it is the fact that he is so diverse. He can do alchemy on water. He can do alchemy on metal. He can do alchemy on literally anything Like. He can use alchemy specifically on his arm blade to make a legs, because it's a quick and easy short weapon. So he can't take it away and he never does. And it limits them as a character because it doesn't show them to me as their most famous unit.

Speaker 1: 5:36

Now, my biggest biggest issues is so many characters are gone in this movie. I'm talking about the fact that it skips through so many statements I already mentioned we got to shot down him. He soon refuses death. We got to see Shotgunner being released, which was confusing in itself, and he winds up creating this false homunculi army and this the cgi for the transmutations was really good in the first half. In fact, it was so good that it continued those same animations. But these false human, the white super, whatever it's supposed to be, it looks like they came straight out of the very first Resident Evil and, considering the fact that this movie came out in 2017 and they asked for the presence, it was disgusting that it was not good and I'm like what they're watching me? What is happening?

Speaker 1: 6:45

It's like the only thing that wanted to happen here is that Shao Kahn is the biggest villain for this movie, which I understand him pushing into that because everybody knows him. He did alchemy and transduced his wife into a creature and figured out. He's the first chimera that wanted to be alive to kill himself, and then he did the same thing to his daughter, which is mercilessly offensive. He was the research leader, he was the author of the research, but it is funny, he shot the other, but he was not the main enemy of this series. Like there was a starting point to understand that, yes, there are some people who will go so far into how to produce a new power that they would be unseen a herd of things, and Sean Tucker was our introduction into that. He is not the main villain. His introduction was the biggest shaping change for Ed and Al to understand that they are going to need some of the most guy-empowering people who can do anything. And at first they had that and then they changed it to make it like one of the final bosses. Seriously, what is happening right now?

Speaker 1: 8:03

And then this throwaway general. This general is so unimportant to the story as far as the anime and he is the main bad guy who made all these false homunculi and then dies to them. He's unimportant. He doesn't do any type of outcome. He doesn't do anything. It's like why is he even here? What is going on? It's like we have to have some type of you know, you need to do this story that was called with what is happening, though, so we have no on show at all whatsoever, as we've been skipping through. This whole thing makes absolutely no sense. We have completely skipped ed's uh alchemy exam. It's completely removed, which means that there is no fear of bradley whatsoever here.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Bradley is like a main goal for, like obviously later on into the series where we start to see him more, but we get to see bits and pieces of them towards the beginning. It's that understanding that, hey, he's a hero, he's the king of this country and you know someone to look out for and respect for him. And eventually that, of course, changed. He is mentioned one time in this movie by this general, this throwaway character, and he just mentions that. Oh, the hero moves in mysterious ways and that's it. After that, nothing else. We hear nothing else. It's just. It's like, you know, if you're a writer, there's a duty to look out for you. You know, even if you don't make him like, obviously make him here.

Speaker 1: 9:32

But this movie doesn't feel like they intended to make a continuation. They tried to wrap up as much of the main story into one short thing as possible and it didn't work out this way. None of the people from Ching show up whatsoever in the first movie and with all this skit that's happened. We should have seen them and they're just no longer there. Greed is not here. Greed's beginning staple, his beginning story all the way to his first death, when the father wants to take him back into his body, is completely removed. And that's not just from this first movie, that's from the series period.

Speaker 1: 10:12

It is one of the biggest ball drops and I will explain that just a little bit later, but finishing up my notes as well, they did gluttony and lust very dirty Like they put so much emphasis to lust. They did gluttony and lust very dirty Like they put so much emphasis to lust. But the thing about it is, is that lust? If you watch the anime, the manga, lust is called lust because of her death lust. She manipulates people, uses people and she absolutely loves just killing people. She is a monster. I mean she's a monster. That doesn't make sense. She's a monster. I mean she's a monster. I said she's not human. That's the thing. You don't get that from Lust here. It's like you got the strategist part. She's the team leader, but that's about it. Other than that, it's like what's going on? It doesn't feel like Lust and Gluttony got done the worst.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Gluttony had a moment where he got a reveal of his character, like in a shadow, and it's like, oh, they're gonna reveal him later and they get this reveal and then he waddles like a penguin and I was like wait, that's not. No, that's not what happens. Like wait, wait a second, what are you doing? And it's like I said, the first half kind of gets you. It's like little bits. It introduces things, it starts foreshadowing and then it just falls. It's bad. Final fight with Mustang. Ok, first off, mustang. It hurt my feelings. They I felt like I was slapping faces. This mustang has his iconic snacks when he kills him.

Speaker 1: 11:58

In this movie we see envy supposedly died. Envy doesn't want to die in this andvy does want to come back later into the second movie. But in this particular movie it looks like Envy dies. But Envy dies from Mustang doing a single snap and just holding it and it's a flying drone that comes out of his hand. She's burning. It's terrible. It's one of those ones where I'm like, okay, let's see if you guys are ready.

Speaker 1: 12:27

At this point it has started getting worse. This should have been the easiest thing, because you've already done where he snaps and just shoots the little fireball. That's how his snaps work. He doesn't snap and hopefully just continue a flamethrower. That's not what happens. He doesn't do that. That's not what happens. He doesn't do that. That's not how this actually works.

Speaker 1: 12:47

And it's like what are y'all doing here? And then it's so confusing because Envy winds up admitting the exact same thing that happened to Envy. Envy admits that she's upset that she was not the one to put it in his ears. And then looks at Indy and Indy says I'm the one that did it, but Mustang is more upset at Lust than Indy. Indy, right there, just specifically said I'm the one who killed your best friend, but he's mad at the girl. And it's what, what? That is so confusing. And I'm like what, what are you doing to my show? And I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't keep watching this. I can't keep watching this. What is happening right now?

Speaker 1: 13:41

They have destroyed the story, the storyline where, literally, the Ishwarans were completely massacred and turned into philosopher's stones. They wound up changing that and made it to where the military wound up making thousands of philosopher's stones. That was just absolutely not even possible. It was never possible To make a philosopher's stone, even to make a false one. It takes so many lives to do so. It kills so many people, which is why it's such a horrible thing to do. And it's like, oh, we just throw 12 people at a time and just, hmm, made a small stone, okay, took another 12 people, made a small stone, took 11, this time, made a small stone. And I'm like what? Confused? And I'm like what are you doing? It doesn't even stop there.

Speaker 1: 14:33

I already mentioned the fact that these false human super soldier nonsense that they make is crap. They wound up giving the general deposits, all of the philosopher's stones into each of these creatures. These creatures have their own, albeit fake, philosopher stone, but they have philosopher stones in them nonetheless, and every philosopher stone is based is out there, on the life of those that's in there. So we have 12 people in there. That means that, roughly enough, this monoculi should be difficult to kill, but they die with a single headshot or just a shot to the heart per se. Now, if you shoot and destroy the stone, I can understand that. They've shown that false philosopher's stones can be broken. They were able to show that. But the philosopher's stone is in the chest. If I shoot the head, you should heal from it, not fall dead and be done. That's not a super soldier. You said literally oh, human transmutation is bad because we didn't want them to make the super soldiers. These are our super soldiers and they can't run, they walk like zombies, they die. That's what I'm trying to. And they can't run, they walk like zombies and die in a single headshot.

Speaker 1: 15:46

And I was, like you, literally just made a bootleg version of the first Resident Evil movie and you have your computer, just shit on my face and it hurt my feelings. I was like I can't. But this one the first movie, was so horrible. I gave it a 5 out of 10 because they did justice on some iconic moments. Obviously some destroyed.

Speaker 1: 16:10

The first half of the movie was not that bad, I mean. The only other thing that kind of got me some of the voice actors, some of the actors, the actresses, the actresses that played Lemony, I could. She was like laughing right before the movie. Every time she would have a sad moment, like she was supposed to be sad and upset. She couldn't. She was just laughing and I was like, okay, but I'm laughing too because this movie is absolutely trash. Um, actually I can't even get to five. It was a four point five. It was absolutely. It was absolutely just. Why would you do this? I can't.

Speaker 1: 16:44

And so the first one was so bad that I didn't even. I was like I've already started it but I don't know if I can continue this Like. I did not know if I could continue doing this and watching the second movie. But then I said, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and look it up and see what happens, and then I wound up watching Revenge of Scar and finally, finally, we have a live action that does justice. It was so amazing watching the second movie the second movie I absolutely would go back and watch again and just the literally quick key points the fights are fantastic, absolutely amazing fights. The CGI like I said, they kept some of the transformations of the CGI from the first movie because it wasn't that bad. We have no Resident Evil characters whatsoever. Envy does come back and there's not really much of an explanation to that, but Envy we get Envy's transformation to this giant lizard form and it is extreme. It literally puts some of DC like Warner Brothers made this and it puts their newer DC movies to shame. And what the details that they put into the animation for this one and I'm talking about I watched this on my phone, cranked up my brightness all the way up as well, to this one I totally kind of see and it still showed really well. This one I'm happy, but I also hate. This one is the best movie of the third and I wanted to just be like, oh, the second movie, and if the third movie got better, not bad. But really, though, onto the second movie, the idea is that it was actually amazing. The fight's fantastic.

Speaker 1: 18:43

We finally get our characters that should have been in the first movie. We got Van Hohenheim. We finally get a chance to see Ed and Al's dad. We get a talking. We can see him talk. So we got understanding that Ed doesn't like it, understanding how things are. We finally see Fiora Bradley and my gosh, the actor that plays Fiora. Finally see Fiora Bradley and my gosh. The actor that plays Fiora Bradley plays Fiora Bradley. When he does the lines and does the scenes, it feels like I am watching full metal office. It is. He does a fantastic job in how he did this one.

Speaker 1: 19:21

We do get some you know pride this is. We don't get to see him as Pied in the second movie, but we get our introduction into him. We finally get our people from Sheen. We get Ling Xiao, we get Xiao Mei. So we finally get the prince. We finally get the upcoming princess, those who are really trying to figure things out. We finally get to see Pinako. One of the funniest things is that we introduced Wendry in the first movie but we never introduced her mom, so we finally get a chance to see Pinako. We finally get to see the lady who's running towards our house, who's doing the auto, nail, how to do the body prosthetics and everything together and we finally get Armstrong. And we finally get Armstrong. Yes, now I will be honest into this.

Speaker 1: 20:11

If you wind up trying to watch this and thinking that Armstrong is going to be big muscle man Armstrong, fortunately no. Now the guy that's there, he's got a build, but it's not an Armstrong build. It would definitely be really great if it could have gotten a bodybuilder to actually play this role, but it's okay. The guy who plays Armstrong, he did a fantastic job. His prosthetics look great, giving him the same weird shape that Armstrong has. He's got the same hairstyle. He's confident in himself. He rips his shirt off all the time to show his muscles all the time, which is also really the point of showing that he definitely managed to head a bodybuilder. The actor that played Armstrong. He did a really fantastic job. I felt like I was watching Armstrong, so I was like I can work this Now.

Speaker 1: 21:09

The only other two cons for this movie is the person who plays Scar is too young to be out as a character. I understand Scar is also supposed to be a big person. He's supposed to be tall, really strong, looking pretty much like a muscular guy too Not as muscular as Armstrong, but still this guy he's short. He's not super short, but it's one of those ones that it really pointed out one thing to my wife that I noticed she said she wished the person who played Ed was shorter, because even though he was short but he really did a good job making his skin short he wasn't short enough. And Scar was a real point in doing that, because Scar was not much taller than Ed was in this movie. So I was like, okay, the last con is the fact that, because WD picked this up, they did not do a remake of the first movie. It's a continuation of the first one.

Speaker 1: 22:09

So, um, lust is dead. We still do not get introduced to any of the first movie, unfortunately. So we never get to see the interactions that came after Lust, which is actually very important for not just Lust development but also Greaves development as well. So the entire half of Greaves development is completely gone and does not happen, and this is a huge new storyline because it becomes confusing in the book. Continuing on my notes for the second one, so I can go ahead and finish up to the third Ant finally does more than just stone alchemy. We get to see him do an alchemy water. We get to see him do an alchemy on the train tracks. We finally get to see him doing more alchemy stuff. How he is able to do his alchemy without a transportation circle, just like how he did in the first movie. He was finally able to do. So he's able to do it.

Speaker 1: 23:08

The iconic scenes in this movie are a good one. The actress the same actress who plays her in the first movie she couldn't stop acting In this movie. It felt emotional when we got to see Renu, when she heard that Scar was the one who killed her. We got to see the back story, the flashbacks we get plenty of flashbacks in this one. So I love the way they do that. They do a good job as James from the flashbacks and the white guys in that part they do a good job. So they get the first understanding of the story and the emotions are you know. It's extremely, extremely good and, like I said, this movie felt like I was watching it, even though I know I'm watching a lot of action films. Some stuff is cut short, it's still. It didn't cut any of what was cut, but it just looked that it did a great job trimming the fat and we got the music in. It was absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 1: 24:13

The fight scenes we finally get to see Head and Owl versus Scar Beautiful double, beautiful double. Getting a really good chance of watching the fight scene Bradley versus Lynn oh my goodness. When I tell you that it made Bradley feel a little bit fearful, I will say I wish we got a chance to see Bradley's his variables hide a little bit more, but of course we don't get a chance to get as much into that. But they do kind of showcase that. We get that iconic scene of you flash this eye, but this eye still works fine and literally constantly mocking. When prince learned for the fact that he's always going back and saying his coordinates and king bradley was like why would you do that? She just got away. He's like there's no type of rule. I want to be sounds like only good to me and like that whole dynamic between them. You get that. It feels amazing. It really feels like yes, I am, I'm getting the story, I'm getting these a plot, b plot, I'm getting character development. So really happy to that. I'm still mad that they skipped his entire alchemy exam.

Speaker 1: 25:27

We start off the movie just knowing that ed had just passed. So it starts. So it's like the whole alchemy exam supposedly takes place between the first movie and second movie and just don't watch it at all. So it kind of hurt my feelings after that one. But lastly, we do get justice for gluttony gluttony. We finally get another reveal for him. But gluttony is now the gluttony in the anime and manga. When gluttony reveals himself, he's not waddling like a duck or like a penguin or whatever, he's just praying and praying his way type of thing. This dude has a nit speed. He's able to do his eating blast where he shoots the like a blast in front of him and then sucks it all into himself. We get an understanding of Letton himself as he is explaining this as it is in Brotherhood Because now this one really feels like a game for Brotherhood as well that Letton is a false door tree. It was Father's attempt to recreate the door tree, and so then we also get a chance to really see his hunter speed, that he's super fast, that when he jumps through he's extremely fast. We get to see mustang's development more, mustang's constantly being pushed aside because everyone's like you're supposed to be moving at the time and we get the truth.

Speaker 1: 26:51

We were feeling that, um, keith bradley, that pure bradley, is actually lucky. So I love the second movie, absolutely highly recommend watching it. I hate that you would have to watch the first one to get the understanding of what was skipped. So you know why we're here way we are. But I wish I could say it was great in the standard, because you have to watch the first one to still kind of get an understanding of what storylines were skipped and what storylines were there. Um, I kind of have to drop the rating a little bit. Um, if it wasn't for that, I got past Scar, I got past Armstrong for not being big enough, I would absolutely have given this movie a straight up 9 out of 10. But I would have to give it an 8 out of 10 because of the fact that it still reliance on the first movie. When Warner Brothers picked it up, it would have been better if they had just remade it and dropped it first. It had plenty of years went from 2017 to 2020.

Speaker 1: 27:56

Now the final movie, the Last Alchemy. It hurt my feelings so bad. It really hurt my feelings. I could tell that they recorded the Revenge of Scar and the Last Alchemy all together and they were both reasonably released the same year. But the difference in cgi is absolutely terrible and I mean that this. It is so terrible that you can straight up see it. At the very end of Revenge of Scar we get to see Envy's giant lizard form and it says to be continued. I was excited to click on to the next movie.

Speaker 1: 28:40

Click on the next movie wasn't even a recap, it just straight up started off with Envy revealing his giant lizard form and there was a distinctive difference in animation quality. It was unrefined, the textures were not smoothed out anymore. It looked just as bad as the CGI in the first one. It feels as if they went from the second movie and it just didn't get as much views as they thought it would and they were just like, oh okay, well, I guess people weren't really caring about it and they were pushing it that bad and trying to see if this has a possible continuation and see that it would be better. And they just straight up said we're just gonna lose what we got. So all the actors and Tessa Johnson, the CGI and animation I feel horrible because it's like you did not give the animators a chance to finish what they were. It's like they started it and just said, hey, stop it, stop whatever you got right now just gave it to us one bad thing. Cg animation literally went just as bad as the first movie. So but I'll go ahead and try to focus on some good points in the movie from the end, even though it wound up being bad as far as the animation. Again, the actors, actresses have done a fantastic job. It felt like a really good simulation from the second movie.

Speaker 1: 30:19

We finally get the chance to see Teacher Sue and Sig. We get them. Unfortunately, we do not get a Sig and Armstrong reaction together, because that was also an iconic moment. Unfortunately, that was one of the facts that they trimmed out for the length of the movie. This movie is the longest, where the first movie is about 2 hours and 15 minutes. The second movie is just over 2 hours long. This one is the longest movie at 2 hours and 24 minutes, which is around 30 minutes of gap. I think it's about 2 hours and 15 minutes, so there's still a lot that they have here, so it's kind of sad that they changed that.

Speaker 1: 31:02

I don't know if this is in Armstrong's book Hohenheim, now the Hohenheim actor. This one confused me towards the end. Now, the Hohenheim actor. This one confused me too much. It was one of those ones that, just to make it clear, hohenheim and the Immokalani glass ball.

Speaker 1: 31:23

Literally, what happened is that they wanted to be in two people's pot in order to make it seem for Ed and Al to be like brothers and siblings. They wanted to be like brothers, like siblings. They wanted to be two different actors and gave them the old ways. And so for young Ben Hornheim, when they do the flashback for him, they use the same actor as Ed. So it really showcases the fact that Ed and Ben Hornheim look so much alike, because it's like almost like a spinning image right then, because he used the actor to play him, his younger version. However, in order to play the young, powerful version of father, they used the actor to play pal. So you can see that they're almost like the real brothers and it was kind of interesting how they kind of did that. Because of the fact they did that, there is a distinct difference in the acting quality, because once we go from the old man, father't being played by the actor who plays Al, who stars in the body and stuff, there's a distinct acting difference that you can kind of tell it doesn't fully line up and so it's like, okay, you can kind of pick which one you think will fly the most better. So there was a moment that it did kind of make a real difference to me.

Speaker 1: 32:58

Pride's entire sequence is cut short. Pride is when Pride is revealed. He's revealed after he's taken over Al's body and tries to fight Ed and the Force, and literally we don't get to see. We see Pride's shadow, but we don't get to see. We see private shadow, but we don't get to see how dangerous he is. We literally mention that he is the most troublesome. Van Horn heist, he is the most troublesome, he's the most dangerous one, and we don't see that. You don't see it. There's nothing to make you believe this whatsoever at all. The only thing that makes you feel like you would probably believe that is that he winds up killing Glemmi and even then like yeah, obviously it was made more gruesome in the anime when Glemmi died, but this one was pretty simple. Glemmi kind of just faded away like a thin snack, like they literally just copied them from Marvel of, from Marvel of Endurance. Oh, endgame, literally. No, not even Endgame.

Speaker 1: 34:07

Um, the one right before that one, I was just skipping that Infinity War, the band one, and then I did Snap and that one just kind of dusted away that's exactly what I did to it to gluttony. Then it just shows the kid looking at this and it's like you're really dead, but it's just not like you're a robot. It seems a little weird. It seemed more weird than scary, so it didn't work out that well for me on to that, but it was one of those ones that still they cut Pride. Every time they showed this kid it was like he had an opportunity of showing how powerful he was, like, oh, he started summoning his shadows, oh, this is not dangerous. And then they cut it short and immediately moved on to something else. So they completely cut to the scene. It was like there's nothing to make you believe that Pride is actually scary. It's just a kid that can make shadow puppets.

Speaker 1: 35:04

They trimmed a lot of things. You need it to have Pride. Look like Pride. So that kind of hurt my feelings there needed to have pride. Look like pride. So that kind of hurt my feelings there.

Speaker 1: 35:14

So Let Me does not go into his full-on hunter. Monstrous form, the only form that we ever see throughout the entire first, second or third movie is when he opens himself up as the Paul Skitton troop. However, you know, big fans of the Full Moon Octopus know that Let Me was a patented giant, like actual hunter form and where he's like a big kind of muscular brute. We don't see that whatsoever. We will not see that in either of the movies. So that was kind of a big let down there. I mean even if I could move past it, but otherwise, unfortunately, halfway through the movie. A big let down there. I mean even if I could move past it, but otherwise it's just supposed to be like Um, unfortunately, halfway through the movie we brought back the Resident Evil film.

Speaker 1: 36:04

The doggone false homunculi show up halfway through this movie just to stop Mustang and Ed for a little bit. It was absolutely unnecessary. Honestly, you want to trim the fat. You could have trimmed that. There's two other scenes that we could have had more. We could have had some more pride. We could have had Sig and Armstrong be together Like just something. But it was not necessary to have these thoughts in my head.

Speaker 1: 36:35

I was already mad enough at the animation quality. It felt like it was back in the first movie and then you brought these things back and it wanted to be just as fast as the first movie. I loved it. I was like I don't know what to do At this point. I'm not lost at all and I'm like you know what. I think this one's a hard one to watch. I paused this movie.

Speaker 1: 36:54

This movie took me about three days to watch, and that's just to kind of get an idea of how upset I was. But I finished Revenge of Star in one day. In that day I watched that entire two-hour movie. I had five kids taking care of me. I was watching it, making of what I was watching it, making much watching it, as they were eating everything, they were playing toys I'm gonna watch. I took three days to watch this movie, especially when I was young and they brought back some things and I was like, oh my god, I have to finish this movie. I've already committed so much time it. We need to finish this up. We're heading to the end. Really hurt my feelings there.

Speaker 1: 37:37

Now they finally brought back Mustang's hate for him. They finally brought that in, not necessarily retcon, but just kind of moved on from that point of him being more angry at us than he was. No, he's like you're the one who killed us, I'm gonna kill you. And Ubi talked all the smack and everything, and we don't get flamed over smacking the other way. But unfortunately we get something much worse. We don't get to see it happen whatsoever and I'm not joking about that. That loony man. He goes from Mustang saying I'm going to get him and starts pouring down his glove like tightening his glove on his head, and then it cuts to showing everyone else reacting to you, just hearing snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. And then it shows when his body just burns. So, chris, he's in turn, he's in his little slug, his true form of little slug form, snap, snap. And then it shows when we finally just burned to a crisp. We've been turning into this little slug, true, his true form, the little slug form.

Speaker 1: 38:38

And I'm sitting here like you cook first off, hurt my feelings by destroying the iconic scene in the first. We finally get to the third movie. We're finally at this climax point. This is your chance to really redeem yourself, and you don't. You don't, in fact, you make it worse because you denied us this scene. Like I'm happy, you fixed mustang personality as character development, but you denied us what was one of the most iconic moments, because everyone is fighting Mustang back, like no, no, no, you're not being the leader you could be, you're just reacting out of rage. You're just reacting out of rage and stuff like that and it's like, yeah, but that's why it was important to show that, because you know you never see Mustang do that throughout the entire series of Indiana Mayhem and the Bunker. You never see Mustang lose himself. He never loses control. He'll get upset. All of this is calmly calculated. He went to Indy. He lost that and it wasn't just about the fact that Indy killed Hughes. It was the fact that Indy killed Hughes. It was the fact that Ruby killed Fuse and Indy hurt his antennae and it was about killing his antennae. That's the big deal about that.

Speaker 1: 40:01

They cut that out too. So it's like one of the most crucial plot points for Mustang that you remember and it's like you've had this build up. You know stomach's already frustrated, being constantly pushing aside and then take this away and it's like why, why would you do this? So it really hurt my feelings into that one and it's one of those ones that I would be very honest, after watching such a good second movie, I it really dropped the balance. It's better than the first, but still like it really dropped the balance.

Speaker 1: 40:44

It goes right back to again. Let anime be anime, man. I don't think this should be the live action. So continue forward, bradley. You can finally get the iconic Bradley blowing up the train sequence. But they cut Bradley breaking into the castle. That whole scene that shows the hero. Bradley is him, he, he is that dude. He don't fight like that. He put two people in a tank, two people in a tank and they was up against him and they was so scared they was like can a tank back up? I don't know, but we gonna find out.

Speaker 1: 41:28

Today All of the entire sequence erased, gone, just all of a sudden Bradley just pops up. He just pops up in there and then he said his line. Oh, he said you think I'm coming to the back door of my own castle in my own home and I'm. It's an iconic line, but that line that he delivered. What made that line so cold is how he followed up with it. He showed up with an army and told the army stay here, I'm going to handle it myself. Literally walks up and says think I'm going to come to the back door of my own home, no, I'm going to come through the front. And proceeds to walk through the front and handle every single threat in his back, proving himself to us as fans and us watching as viewers that, yes, king Bradley is King Bradley, he is a dangerous man and that entire thing is completely cut from the birth. You don't see that as a fact. Just all of a sudden they find out out Bradley still alive what practice? Still alive. And then when we turn back, after they Ransacked the castle and took over, you're like, oh, brad, this came back. What brothers came back? Turns around, he's already like in the castle right there.

Speaker 1: 43:08

But the fight sequence that we wound up having Major Armstrong not Armstrong, but his sister, her first lieutenant, her first in command wound up getting a chance to see him versus Bradley. We get a chance to see the ice agents. We get a chance to see the old man, his protector, get a chance to see that fight protector. Get a chance to see that fight. They did keep all of that the same Him having the suicide bombs and Bradley swiping them and having them lined up perfectly in the sword. We still get a chance to see that.

Speaker 1: 43:44

So we still get a chance to see it in that we do get greed finally, but, like I said, it gets confusing for greed because we don't see the beginnings. We don't see that greed starts rebelling against the siblings. We don't see the beginnings of this. We don't see that greed starts rebelling against his siblings. We don't see that greed starts having an interaction with her and saying that he's becoming more disgusted with her because of the way that she just chooses to manipulate people all the time and stuff. And so, because we don't see greed have this change before his first death, before he's resurrected again and firstborn, we only get greed just from him going to prison.

Speaker 1: 44:17

So then he gets in there and then immediately starts rebelling and then like, why are you joining us? He's like you've already heard what he said I don't remember my father. I don't remember my father like that. So I'm just a hell of a person and it's like what and nothing explains that. Oh, why would you join? I don't know. And it's like what and there's nothing to explain as that. Oh, why would he join? I don't know. I just felt like joining the guys. I don't feel like joining Father's side and it doesn't make sense because this is the first introduction of him. We have nothing. We don't know. We know he died previously Father mentions that before he puts him inside of Prince William but other than that we don't see anything.

Speaker 1: 44:56

We do get Lynn and Greed's reaction to each other. It's pretty rushed and quick. So we don't get to see Greed actually have, unfortunately, any character development. He's just rebelling. As soon as he's introduced he's rebelling against father and that's pretty much it. That whole character development is completely gone. We never get a chance to see a fully carbonized Lynn Greed at all. Greed has powers that carbonize his body, making himself harder, making himself like a extremely strong stonish type thing. The only purpose of getting carbonization for him would be just his arms, and we don't get a chance to see his body. We don't see that he's able to carbonize his body. We don't see a full carbonized face. Um, that never happens. So we get a much weaker version of this book too. They do kind of keep the sequence where Green winds up inserting himself into Father on purpose, in order to in order to make sure that he was trying to weaken Father, while still keeping the philosophy, giving the philosophy to Prince Lin. So we do get a chance to keep that.

Speaker 1: 46:05

They changed completely why it is that Mustang lost his eyesight. So in the anime, both in Brotherhood and Everyone remembers that it winds up being um Hero Bradley who pins down, pins down. Mustang performs a human transmutation to kill himself by stealing Mustang's eyes Well, technically stealing his sight, not necessarily stealing his eyes, if you've never seen it, but he was still in his sight because of the law. It's really strange. So they completely removed that. It wound up being pride that winds up doing the human transmutation against Mustang. And it was only done just because they needed to have another sacrifice and they needed to have human transm. They needed to have human transportation People who've done human transportations in order for Father to be his plan. So that entire plot device is completely changed in this story For no real reason. So yeah, there is no pure Bradley trying to heal himself and keep the fight going on. It just doesn't happen. Pure Bratly does get to fight against Scar before the bomber dies.

Speaker 1: 47:23

We do still get the scene of Scar and Bratly fighting each other, but we don't see the fight that much. We get little bits of the fight, but otherwise we kind of start tuning in to everything else that's happening while they're performing the transmutations that he wants, opening the door to God so that way he can take the power. So it does kind of suck into that. What we do get of the fight sequence feels more like a video game than it does of the actual fight scene in the movie. So, unlike all the other fight sequence feels more like a video game than it does the actual fight scene in the movie. So, unlike all the other fight scenes in the second movie and in this movie, this one hurt Personally. The worst fight, it didn't feel like a good fight scene at all.

Speaker 1: 48:08

Now, the best scene albeit the CGI still being terrible, the best scene in the third movie was when they changed up. Well, no, they didn't change up, they did kind of keep the same thematics from the manga. This didn't happen inside of the anime, but this happened in the manga, where we get a chance to see father's true form as a human, as the homunculi in the blast, you know, out of flask, as a giant homunculi and with one eye, and so we do get a chance to see him be able to go up into heaven and go up to God. So we do get a chance to see a really awesome sequence of a giant war opening on top of Earth and then him popping up on top of that, coming back as all power, all power to father. So of course that world is going to get destroyed. We do get a chance to see moments with Ben Hornheim in the second movie and in this movie where they were able to piece together a cultural plan to be their stock father. And Hornheim did his own thing with the human weapons, are releasing some of his philosopher stones, while also um scar being able to use his brother's research to create an anti alchemy circle to completely cancel out father's transportation. So we still get a chance to see those little small sequences in there and we finally get a chance to see the full on fight sequence. We did keep the son. We did keep the son. See, father feels like, oh, this is powerful, I can get my own son who cares, and then goodbye. So the last sequence is the absolutely one of the best sequences in this year in the first, second or third movie. I will say that it's one of the ones I'm happy about.

Speaker 1: 50:01

I can say the end of the third movie on the good note. It has a brotherhood ending. We get the final fight of everyone attacking father, father's losing it because God's great cookout is working out of him and so father's like think he's trying to hold it all in, he's trying to be inside the lake or to take the loss of his arms. We get the sequence, the most emotional sequence, where Al sacrifices his soul to make sure that and he is able to have the power to fight and to be followed and that way they can go ahead and finally get rid of him. And then we get a chance to see that moment and that was happening.

Speaker 1: 50:42

We did not do the original anime ending. We got a chance to do the Mother of Peace, brotherhood ending, where Ed, instead of constantly sacrificing himself anding himself. We want to get in this point of where Dan is like I'll sacrifice my village and keep Calcutta. I'll sacrifice that to get the world back. This is my biggest sacrifice. And God winds up speaking to Dan and saying that was a good choice. That was a good choice. He's like give up everybody that you have in charge, give up yourself, give up your torch, have a torch, have a torch, make sure you have a torch back. Which was a favorite.

Speaker 1: 51:23

One of the biggest plot points in the story is that people would do alchemy, would do everything possible in order to achieve power, to achieve everything. And what sets Ed aside is that he had this ability to be extremely powerful. He has been able to do the transportation. He's done all these different things Like. All of that fails the importance of his brother. So we end on a good note. I don't get his embarrassing moment. I think he was just wearing the uh, I'll be happy. Life and Captain Morse and stuff like that. So June Alka-Szekely's going to be an extraordinary exchange time and so we get that proposal and the comms and the interaction and then, kind of everyone having a nice little send-off, we get Ben and Al together. So we get a good ending for Brotherhood and it has a pretty good scene. On the next one, ben Hohenheim finally dying and being able to join Trish's life in the afterlife, so that everything is done and everyone is fine. We have a good ending. I'm happy for the ending. It's definitely one of the best scenes.

Speaker 1: 52:37

But I have to be honest with you. I'd say 6. 6 out of 10.

Speaker 1: 52:44

On the third movie and those are my ratings into it. First one 4.5 out of 10. Absolutely, it had me in the first half. Second movie 8 out of 10, just because it has to be a good movie. Better as a review, but fantastic job, literally best one. I would recommend the second movie over almost any live action that I've seen so far I have. I mean, obviously, death Note. Death Note would be better than that, better than the Haka Show. And again, I like the Ronin Kenshin live actions. They're not perfect but they're still pretty good. I would actually say Revenge of Scar would be probably either on the same scale or, at least to me personally, better than the Ronin Kenshin live action series. That second movie did a fantastic job. I absolutely appreciate it. It was really good. The third movie yeah, we're focusing at 6, 6.5 at most. The animation quality absolutely terrible.

Speaker 1: 53:46

A lot of the scenes cut, um, not showing us Mustang losing his sanity so that we understand why it is that people are holding him back Just so you get a reaction hearing it and everything. And you see it. You see him lose control. You see that mentality snap and change in him. And it's funny when I say you see him lose his mentality snap as he's snapping in the way, and it's such a major moment. It's the moment you see the future. And then we get a chance to see Brad bragging about that to everyone.

Speaker 1: 54:24

He was like, wanted to bring mothers back to fill those mothers' war and then wound up losing him on, wound up losing his father, wound up losing his body. Instead he was a prison-prisoner's body instead, al, who would never be able to fill warmth again because of that, because he lost his body. And there was much studying, wanting to see the future of the country grow, move the society along the sea more. The teacher wants to bring your child back to life. It's not a walk of air. You're a child. You just want to live a peaceful life, whatever it is. I'm just going to do that, that's it. So we get those great lines, there's great moments. It wasn't the best. I'm happy there's great lines, there's great moments into it. It wasn't the best. I'm happy that I watched the same. That's the best I can do. I'm happy I watched the same. I will go back and watch the same. Obviously not now because it's not a new movie. So hopefully you guys enjoyed our review right down into it.

Speaker 1: 55:37

If you have anything else in person, I'd like to follow us on zonethealliancecom. It's our website. We have a list of all the products we offer. It should be available for so many different things. We have merchandise here that you can just go ahead and purchase. We have items Currently right now at the time of the 40,. We're trying to gather some of our competition out for the January 1st to February 2nd at summerlinerscom, where we have a contest app, and on spring Valentine's Day. Spring Valentine's is our competition, where people get to submit a piece of the art that they've made. Our first person winner, donald Dix, is going to be part of some of the very wonderful apps that you can receive. Thank you all so much for this time. I'll be counting on you. Stay merry, friends. We'll be coming to you next time. Bye.