I recently rewatched the first
Mortal Kombat movie, via the digital version I acquired from the recent game's "Komplete Edition." It's silly and more than a little bit cheesy, but I was surprised at how well it holds up. It's a shame this director went on to completely destroy the Resident Evil franchise, because this movie was quite good. It's not my
favorite game-based movie (that would probably be Silent Hill), but it's easily in the Top 3.
Now to deal with an earlier post I've been putting off replying to because I have to break it down:
The Haruhi series isn't directly about Haruhi, it's about the characters that surround her maintaining the masquerade. If it means they have to hump around town after a heater, that's what has to be done. Wiping out Haruhi's development was a necessity and only exists for Kyon/the viewer.
First, the character development I alluded to earlier was Yuki's, not Haruhi. She has a major character development chronologically at the beginning of the story, and by the end it's completely wiped out to return the series to status quo. Second, the story being focused on the characters around Haruhi would be great
if these characters were the slightest bit interesting. Even Kyon isn't fun to watch without Haruhi around to provide him wacky scenarios and absurd speeches for him to mock in his inner monologue.
The length was a necessity without cutting it in two kill bill style making it an even slower movie or applying western style pacing which would have destroyed the movie. The pacing is consistant with the TV series.
There is so much needless filler in the movie that you could
easily cut this story down to fit a 90 minutes movie and lose
nothing. For instance, was it
really necessary to have Kyon slumping around asking around for the missing Haruhi and freaking out for what at least
felt (if it wasn't so long in reality) 30 minutes of screen time? The movie goes to extreme lengths to depict every single interaction in the movie when it really isn't necessary, like when it spends 5 or so minutes on Haruhi looking for ways to get some school clothes so they wouldn't be bothered by the staff while in the school. Was that
really necessary? Did all the characters
really need to spend what had to be 10 minutes debating quantum causality in the most dry and boring way possible? This movie could have edited out all the needless redundancy and come out a better
movie. If you want all the details, read the book.
If nothing else, it makes the talk scenes a lot more interesting since it breaks aways from talking heads.
"break away from talking heads?" Are you kidding? Half the movie must be characters just standing or sitting next to each other talking with their arms crossed.
As for the plot holes, I am not too sure what you are referring to
There are a couple that crop-up towards the end of the movie:
1. The one girl (I don't remember her name) is apparently still an android associated with Yuki in the new timeline, despite Haruhi no longer being a god in that timeline and therefor there being no reason for the Universal Thought Entity to deploy observers to watch Haruhi.
2. That battle sequence at the end ends with Kyon falling unconscious after being stabbed, with his future self and future others resolving the situation off-screen and presumably fixing Yuki. Not only is that bad writing, but then the movie ends without the characters traveling back in time to commit those actions. The movie acknowledges that this is a plot hole through Kyon's monologue, but it's really bad writing and feels unsatisfying.Personally, not making more Haruhi is leaving money on the table. As long as they don't pull another endless eight, they should be able to pick right up from where Disappearance ends. I fully expect more in the future.
Well, I'd heard that the Haruhi franchise had waned so much in Japan thanks to Endless Eight that this movie was
probably going to be the last Haruhi story animated. They
could make more, but as far as a I know so far they haven't announced that they
will, and that's what I meant.