Movies: Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan) Live Action Movie Parts 1 & 2

My daughter and I were fortunate enough to be able to catch local showings of the live action movies Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan) Part 1 and Part 2. Having watched and loved the anime, we thought it would be great to see the characters come to life. I was pre-warned by friends however, to not have high expectations going into it.

Part 1 was pretty similar to the anime, though there were changes that confused me. Not having read the manga, I'm not sure if those changes were in the manga but I kept an open mind. At the end of Part 1, I was pretty satisfied with how the movie was done. The visual gore was a little over the top for me, but I expected it going in, seeing as I knew what to expect from the story. The action scenes were great, I thought The Colossal was amazing and the casting for Hange was spot on, in my opinion. I think that her performance was probably my favorite of both movies.

Then a couple weeks later, we were able to see Part 2. This part, though it did start pretty similar to the anime, was not even close. The story line was completely new to me and there were moments where I wondered to myself what was going on. The action sequences were still very good, and it got really interesting towards the end. The credits started rolling and my inital thought was that I was ok with how it ended. Until the little portion after the credits...there is another scene after the credits that made everyone in the theater ask out loud, "What was that?!". Then I was left in confusion asking myself "What did I just watch?!" ∑(O_O；)

I suppose, I should've gone in expecting nothing, but after how close the first part was to the anime, I guess I did have expectations. That's probably where things went awry for me. You definitely can't watch this part expecting it to be anywhere close to where the story in the anime is. If I had not had expectations, I probably would've enjoyed this part and the story as a whole a lot more than I did.

We thought the anime was so awesome, but unfortunately this movie just didn't come up to par for us, not even close. I definitely have it on my list to read the manga however. All in all, I'm glad we watched these movies, but I will probably not re-watch or purchase it.

Have you seen these movies? What were your thoughts?

Until next time, Take Care and Smi-Le Always,

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/___\     Di

Image credit: www.attackontitanthemovie.com