600https://i.ur.com/DcezWVe.png This review contains unmarked spoilers for Fullmetal Alchemist 2003. It does not spoil Conqueror of Shamballa itself. Review in brief: Review in brief: The Conqueror of Shamballa attempts to be its own thing while being a sequel to a show with loose ends and completely fails to succeed as either. Its almost as though this movie was initially a failed standalone pitch before being shoehorned into FMA as the 2003 anime was reaching its end. As disappointing as FMA 03s ending was its far better than anything The Conqueror of Shamballa has to offer. Review in full: Anyone who finished FMA 03 knows that its ending was just a setup for a sequel. Aside from the implicative final scene there were still a number of lingering questions regarding specific details from the show that were left unanswered. This movie serves to end the animeoriginal storyline but nothing more. It has no desire to answer the questions the series left open and instead seeks to stand on its own as the final arc of the story. This in itself raises serious questions about the validity of its setup FMA 03s finale but considering how much of the series rules this movie forgets they may as well have just forgotten about what they had done before. This is especially true when it comes to the gate the means by which alchemy acquired its energy to function in FMA 03. The TV show went to great lengths to show that transmutations had a cost except the last one that got Edward Envy to Earth apparently the gate stopped caring. Now the gate arbitrarily lets people switch worlds either freely or at a cost so long as they can open it. The old rules simply dont apply anymore nor are they cared about as the ending similarly tosses chunks of the remaining system out the window. Even within its own story this movie features an unending torrent of plot holes conveniences. Many of these revolve around characters and most of the characters at that doing things not because it fits their presented character or because its a sensible thing to do but simply because otherwise the plot would not have moved forward. This wouldnt bother me as much if it wasnt the excuse for such events as Edward cheerfully deciding to miss the public unveiling of his past 2 years of work for a quick snooze because it was apparently the only simple way to set up the next scene or Fritz Lang crashing the Beer Hall Putsch because he magically knew Edward would be there or just about everything Hohenheim does. The whole movie is like this too in fact its difficult to give examples without giving spoilers. Theres more hole than plot and its not even funny. https://i.ur.com/LRU0faF.png By crash the Beer Hall Putsch I do mean Fritz crashed his 1920s automobile into the beer hall where the putsch was just kicking off. Nearly all of the characters including the new main characters are cardboard cutouts who are either only present to push the plot another step or enforce a stereotype to hammer down its broken attempt at a moral lesson. This movie could have had a solid central message if it understood or remembered what it was doing with its characters much less had any actual characterization but instead its failed effort only drags the sorry display down further. The few characters with any meaning to them derive all of it from the TV show so while Edward has clearly matured since his state alchemist days and Alphonse Elric that is has become bolder and can fragment his soul to control objects now no reason given as usual none of the development is actually shown and rather is just what were given from the getgo which means that most of what they do is just set up to push the plot forward as well. Meanwhile you have characters like the main villain who attacks people shes supposed to ally with because how else is someone who leads the antagonists going to look evil? and Maes Hughes who has been reduced to a laughably shallow evil nazi stereotype. Its frustrating considering how little the setting has been tapped into by general media. Weimar Republic Germany was a time of wild uncertainty with revolts and movements of just about every kind that would have been possible during the Interwar period. Many of the important events and people associated with World War II were already set in place during this time and Germany was at the center of it all. The Conqueror of Shamballa does tap into its setting though events revolving around the gate and the antagonist Thule Society are the main focus and provides an interesting though hard to believe mostly due to poor execution theory regarding the Beer Hall Putsch. However even if it succeeded at building a story around this it has nothing to do with Fullmetal Alchemist and would have likely worked much better as a fully separate entity. What few elements that were brought over from FMA almost all appear shoehorned in to remind the viewer that this is in fact a FMA sequel and certainly not something completely different. FMAs world could have been swapped out with any other fantasy world without any other change. https://i.ur.com/vRr91e7.png Conqueror of Shamballas graphics are quite standard for GameCube titles of its time. Finally this also isnt a movie that features worthwhile production values. The sound is merely alright with passable music forgettable effects and in Japanese anyhow voicework that only could have gone as far as the flat characters who were speaking to begin with. While the animation quality is generally slightly better than the TV show it also features highly dated CGI and plenty of stilted moments. Theres definitely worse but theres something to be said when a 2005 movie cant truly improve over a 200304 multicour TV series. Verdict: Its the FMA 03 finale and it has so little to do with FMA that its painful. If you want a sequel that cleanly ends FMA 03 rest unassured that there are no answers just holes. If you want a good standalone movie set in the Weimar Republic then I regret to inform you that you wont find it here. Those are the only two things this movie attempted to be. You can skip this movie without missing anything worthwhile in fact I wholeheartedly recommend avoiding it. Related reviews:
19 /100
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