Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary (2014)

Really Surprised!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

I think this new take on the Saint Seiya franchise is not bad, while it felt rushed on the last 30 minutes, I think it was solid enough.The designs, the CGI and the personalities were great. I was gladly surprised to see Aldebaran looking so bad ass, the relationship between the bronze saints were fun and a reminder of the personalities they had on the first season (while exaggerating some qualities for comedy) and the fights were eye-candy. Sadly I feel like it doesn't deliver so well for some fans because of all the changes to the original story (specially the end that felt rushed) but considering this is trying to get the whole anime season in one movie I think it was necessary and expected. Gotta be clear that that doesn't justify the lack of screen time from some fan favorites like Ikki who never got his time to shine in this movie while it had a really important role in the original plot, I think he was the biggest disappointment and probably one of reasons people were so harsh on this movie.Also I think it was fresh to see some new ideas and some changes like the realization from the golden saints that there was something wrong happening, that the bronze saints may have been right and instead of waiting on their places they tried to actually do something to help.Overall I was entertained, while the big fan in me was disappointed because I wanted to see so much more, after talking about it with my friends (who also left the theaters a bit disappointed) I realized that I actually really appreciate this film from what it is and while it's not perfect, it's a fun time and a good experience overall.

Well, if I wanted to watch the same story as the original, but now in 3D, I could just play the PS3 game. I loved it! And I grew up with Saint Seiya on the 90's. What I like the most is that its original, non repetitive, and the effects are great. People who criticize the movie need to open their minds a bit and understand that when you bring new versions of an anime or movies you need to change stuff around, otherwise it would be boring and predictable. I love the original script, don't get me wrong, but this movie shows a "what if" the original was little different, like actually make a gild saint a girl like Milo. I believe it looks more real, and come on! ya'll already grown up! Don't expect to be impressed with stuff that you saw when you were 10 o 15. Let things change a little bit and appreciate the art and animation that new generations are bringing. Its like watching an extra ending! Yes, it lack depth, but what did you expect in 90 minutes? At least shows the attraction between Seiya and Saori, and full hatred from Saga. The rest could be explained in some other future adaptations. Keep an open mind peeps, and enjoy this movie as if you have never have watched Saint Seiya before.

The movie tells the story of a girl named Saori, who is the reincarnation Athena, and her guardians, the Bronze Saints, against the Pope's servants, the Gold Saints, who were also supposed to be protecting Athena. The soundtrack has a few nice tracks but nothing memorable or related to the original series. The visuals are decent at best, the 3D characters look lively though their exaggerated expression along with the cheesy dialog makes any non battle scene cringe-worthy. The armors redesign are also exaggerated, specially the Gold Saints armor that have far too many details and/or resemble their original design or the constellation they were supposed to represent. The Bronze Saints are also too far detailed to represent the lowest class of Athena's defenders, and the Silver Saints received no attention at all. The fight scenes are nothing special and the camera angle choices are poor. Some effects are dated like dust and explosions but the film makes up for it with some good looking re-imagination of the cosmos which a relevant piece of the plot. The Sanctuary is basically Asgard from the Thor movies. The plot however, is badly conducted as it is quite linear and leaves nothing for the vier to expect, most of the characters suffer from bad development and other are barely mentioned. Some of them were clearly changed so to not be too unlikable (or forgettable) due to their short screen time. On that, the addition of Deathmask's dance sequence is an odd choice, adds nothing to the plot and only takes valuable screen time. The end is just a mess, with a Final Fantasy like giant monster and bad explanation on what's going on. After finishing one question remains, how something that clearly showed so much effort ended up looking so lazy, the answer is beyond me.

I grew up watching saint seiya and I have always been a big fan of the TV show, but I have always hated the saint seiya movies in the past. The only thing I remember from the old saint seiya movies is the long long scenes of the bronze saints getting beat up much like the fillers in Dragon Ball Z when goku and others would scream for a whole episode while transforming to the next super saiyan stage.Back to the movie, all the designs and small details(Sceneries, Architectures, Armours and the fight moves) in the animation were beautiful and very well thought out. People were right that there weren't much character "development" since its a 90 minutes movie, but the actions and dialogues did a very effective job of showing what each character was about. It is basically the same old straight forward but effective cartoon plot which I expected going in, so I have no idea why so many reviewers are complaining about it.Every little detail might not be true to the original TV series, but the whole movie was very entertaining and the details well well thought out if you pay attention. So, if you are not a super hardcore saint seiya fan and are very much into well done animated film then you should probably give this a watch.