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Last Exile: Ending
Previous in Anime: Last Exile: Discs 4 – 6 | Next in Anime: Otaku Quiz |
A lot of dramatic stuff happened in the last two discs. A lot of main characters died. A lot of stuff got blown up. The world itself changed. There was a lot of drama, but for the most part I never got caught up in it because I was struggling to figure out what in the hell was going on. Oh wait. They blew that thing up? I thought they wanted to capture it? No? But what was it anyway? They captured that other thing? Why do they want that? They must really want it, though. They’ve just sacrificed all their ships to get it. No? They have more? But where are they going now?
In the last battle I was never clear on what their goals were, so when things happened I couldn’t tell if they were good or bad. Part of this may be due to the fact that I took a three-week break right in the middle of the series and watched some other stuff, but I don’t think so. They had lots of flashback moments to earlier parts of the series, and those never really illuminated things for me.
At the start of the series I said:
I love watching [vanships] fly. The sounds and the motions are perfect and really convey the speed and intensity of the dogfighting. It reminds me of the thrill I felt the first time I saw X-Wings and TIE fighters going at it. Seriously, it’s that good.
So it was really funny to see them recreate lots of Star Wars moments near the end. There was a scene in which they ripped off paid homage to the Death Star assault. They even had a “stay on target” moment. I don’t think I was supposed to be laughing at that moment, but I did.
I started off really liking Claus, but near the end of the series he became a lot less interesting to me. He stopped taking part in the what was happening, and just wandered around watching events unfold on behalf of the audience. By the end I was more interested in Mullen Shepard and Dio.
What can I say about the plot? I don’t know. Maybe it would have made sense if I was willing to work at it, but I wasn’t. By the end I was just following the main characters around and waiting for them to win. Maybe if I was Steven Den Beste I could come up with a thousand word essay that would iron the thing out and make sense of it. He did that for The Matrix and it retroactively made the movie a lot better. But for crying out loud, explaining the plot is the job of the writer, not the viewer. I wanted to love this show. In some ways, I do love this show. The visuals are top-notch. The characters are wonderful. The world is interesting and inventive. The gadgets are fun to watch. The voice acting is great. (Although they re-used too many voices in the English dub) In short, they had all the ingredients for a stellar show, but it ultimatly fails because the overall story is far too vague.
Previous in Anime: Last Exile: Discs 4 – 6 | Next in Anime: Otaku Quiz |
11 comments. Hurry up and add yours before it becomes passé.
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[...] In terms of new material, I’m still interested in Kamichu, mainly because it’s the kid-friendliest of the lot, though it looks like it can’t sustain the initial tempo. Last Exile looked interesting, but Shamus was down on the ending. And there’s not much to look forward to either – Gedo Senki looks to be a wash. [...]
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I thought the ending cluttered as well. It’s remarkable how much a good capstone can influence one’s overall opinion of the series – in my case, LE went from a must-buy to a may-rent-again-someday very rapidly. The inverse makes for a happier example.
Now my thesis of “You had too little feel for the characters or stories” will look secondhand!
It was hard, but I kept my mouth shut and didn’t say anything, in the hope that you wouldn’t be as disappointed as I was.
Oh well, I’m a men’s issues advocate and activist who’s tried to date heteronormatively; I’m already very, very well-accustomed to a diet of false hope. . . .
What most pissed me off, without getting into spoilers for others: the climax of Lucciola’s story. Man, but that really annoyed me aesthetically. It was right then that I soured on the series as a whole. Just Plain Wrong Ending. Bad animators, no panties!
[...] In terms of new material, I’m still interested in Kamichu, mainly because it’s the kid-friendliest of the lot, though it looks like it can’t sustain the initial tempo. Last Exile looked interesting, but Shamus was down on the ending. And there’s not much to look forward to either – Gedo Senki looks to be a wash. [...]
Shamus: you said earlier that you hoped the villin would die screaming.
did that happen?
She did die badly, but by the time it happened I was so befuddled I almost didn’t care anymore.
The ending was perfectly understandable. Ask me anything about it, I can answer it for you all. Also, the end is meant to conclude everything, not add even more things to be figured out.
The Urbanis being blown up was awesome. Though I wish that Alex had survived and surprised us all like with Mullin. Also people haev commented about the ending being corny or something like that. Maybe it is but if they made a tv show where a war was ended and everyone saw your life and what you did while enjoying peace, the same thing would be said too.
And yes the three week break did affect you review of the ending. And by the way here is a list of things to clear up because some people dont understand what all happened in the ending:
1. Maestro Delphine was killed by Alex.
2. The world of Prestale was not transformed by Exile into a paradies, they left Prestale for the Blue World, which was the Paradise.
3. The Grand Stream was done away with by Exile. Most likely this was Exile fixing the weather controllers.
4. Prestale is a biosphere and a giant hour glass shape. What opened up in Disith was the way out of Prestale into space and to the Blue World(Earth) Exile is a massive colony ship, just like Maestro Delphine said in clear visible words that could be heard.
5. Exile was not blown up, it was captured. The Mysterium was spoken to it thus resting Exile’s defenses. It was not blown up, its Cacoon was done away with. Exile was within the cacoon. Tatiana: “Do we know what shape the target is?” Alex: “It is covered by a Cacoon.” I guess that three week gap caused you to forget.
I have watched all 26 episodes of Last Exile thru at least three times now and I must say that it was one of the best anime’ series I have ever seen. Admittedly, the ending is a bit chaotic but Dominic’s explanation seems to hold up the best to scrutiny. I had imagined that the human race had been ‘exiled’ from Earth due to pollution/war/overpopulation/the usual apocalyptic fare and mankind had gone to an artificial world to survive while the Earth recovered. Some time afterwards there must have been a rebellion wherein the Guild seized the control systems and entertained themselves by pitting each half of the general population against the other.
The anime’ pays a lot of attention to the fictional technology, which made the whole thing that much more believable, especially the hand-tools used to verify ‘claudia’ operation. I also enjoyed the silly details, such as the much repeated bleating of the toy goat when Alvis fell while out of the screen shot. The soundtrack is exceptional as well. The opening video/audio montage is excellent and the solo trumpet theme for Alex/Silvana throughout makes the experience complete. And most importantly, I refused to even try the English voice-over… The Japanese voicing is so much more in touch with the characters’ emotions. I want to meet Lavie and I want a vanship of my own.
BTW It is ‘cocoon’ and it is Mullin ‘Shetland’. Also, the subtitles and voice-overs all said Silvana, but the uniform markings read as Silverna.
The plot really doesn’t make sense. It’s okay. The series is still awesome.
I’m late for this discussion. But I agree with Dominic on his key points concerning the ending.
But I have 1 concern. I watched the whole series on Netflix, I’ll watch Mullin’s death or supposed death again to be sure. But if he died, his girlfriend would’ve walked away. if he didn’t, she wouldn’t have walked away. Unless she didn’t know he died… And at the end, we find out that he didn’t die. I guess that makes sense. I guess what bothers me was another character that looked like Mullin, his name was Ethan. He was one of the mechanics. At the end, I wondered if it was Mullin or Ethan running in the wheat field with the child. They looked allot alike. But I guess it was Mullin, that makes more sense. Ethan was just one of the mechanics.
Dominic, there is one mystery that was not solved, or maybe they edited out… During the whole series… And I watched the whole series this weekend, in the credits, they showed a woman’s face inside a white block. Almost like a head dress or uniform like the guardians in Tron… Anyone remember the guardians in Tron? The guardian was almost built in a block… I guess that was his uniform. Anyway, in the credits of Last Exile, there was a woman…. I wonder if she was the pilot or AI computer of Exile? Anyone notice that?
Came across this site again and saw my post. And yes I know its been two years since I last commented. But I am bored and up late and I dont even know if anyone will see this but here goes anyways… To answer the above question I will say that that woman is Allister. I did notice it.
Also one more important idea that hollywood needs to hone in on and that idea is to make a Last Exile movie with live actors. Instead of making all these movies based off of cartoons. Plus it would truyl be spectacular seeing the world of Prestale on the big screen and how it would look in real life. Also I dont know if any of you agree but the world of Prestale and the whole story of Last Exile is one that could take a long time to tell so they would have alot of material to go from. I myself am hoping that they make a live actor Last Exile movie.