![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jan. 29th, 2016 08:50 amWatched the Dragon Age: Riseeta: Dawn of the Seeker anime last night.
Good: younger Cassandra's characterization was fairly spot-on, and the male lead was not badly written. Cassandra demonstrated very clear ability to take falls and recover from them in a hurry. The Chantry members wore headgear that was not the standard-issue Chantry Stupid Hats, most of the time.
Not so good: what the hell was up with the computer animation trying so hard to look cel-shaded?
Not good at all: The primary villain was a major case of 'he's deformed and ugly so he must be evil'. (In fairness, he had a smoking hot male accomplice and a porcelain-doll-pretty female one.) The story was set in Orlais and had several enormous crowd scenes, but there were precisely two elves anywhere. There was a major pilgrimage event that was called The Ten-Year Gathering. The story had so many 'the HELL just happened' moments that at the very end I found myself saying "There's going to be an after-credits scene where game!Cassandra storms in on Varric and yells at him for his latest round of lies about how she became Right Hand, isn't there?".
Also, while it more or less passed the Bechdel test thanks to a couple of scenes involving Chantry hierarchy members discussing Chantry politics and blood mage activity, it severely failed the Sexy Lamp Test. The MacGuffin of the plot was a girl with specific powers. The girl had no lines whatsoever. She made a squeaking noise once and giggled briefly in another scene, and spent the remaining 99 percent of the movie looking like she'd been pithed; she got from scene to scene by being slung over male characters' shoulders and hauled around like a sack of potatoes. She was too young for the sexy part of the Sexy Lamp Test, but she could've been replaced by an interestingly coloured rock that happened to grant its holder the same powers and the plot would not have been affected in the slightest.
I did not come out of this movie wanting to play Dragon Age in the slightest. Movie, I am disappoint.
Good: younger Cassandra's characterization was fairly spot-on, and the male lead was not badly written. Cassandra demonstrated very clear ability to take falls and recover from them in a hurry. The Chantry members wore headgear that was not the standard-issue Chantry Stupid Hats, most of the time.
Not so good: what the hell was up with the computer animation trying so hard to look cel-shaded?
Not good at all: The primary villain was a major case of 'he's deformed and ugly so he must be evil'. (In fairness, he had a smoking hot male accomplice and a porcelain-doll-pretty female one.) The story was set in Orlais and had several enormous crowd scenes, but there were precisely two elves anywhere. There was a major pilgrimage event that was called The Ten-Year Gathering. The story had so many 'the HELL just happened' moments that at the very end I found myself saying "There's going to be an after-credits scene where game!Cassandra storms in on Varric and yells at him for his latest round of lies about how she became Right Hand, isn't there?".
Also, while it more or less passed the Bechdel test thanks to a couple of scenes involving Chantry hierarchy members discussing Chantry politics and blood mage activity, it severely failed the Sexy Lamp Test. The MacGuffin of the plot was a girl with specific powers. The girl had no lines whatsoever. She made a squeaking noise once and giggled briefly in another scene, and spent the remaining 99 percent of the movie looking like she'd been pithed; she got from scene to scene by being slung over male characters' shoulders and hauled around like a sack of potatoes. She was too young for the sexy part of the Sexy Lamp Test, but she could've been replaced by an interestingly coloured rock that happened to grant its holder the same powers and the plot would not have been affected in the slightest.
I did not come out of this movie wanting to play Dragon Age in the slightest. Movie, I am disappoint.
