Voices of a Distant Star (2002)

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Better Late Then Never

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

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.

Voices of A Distant star is a wonderful Sci-Fi love story running at a brisk 25 minutes, chronicling the parallel yet inverse experiences of two adolescents as distance and time isolate them from one another. This is a reoccurring theme in Makoto Shinkai's works and is executed so effectively here, that it creates an emotional space-time echo, while vesting the viewer heavily within the character's ordeal, it manages to play on the theme that emotions can travel the expanse that perhaps not even technology can conquer.Being as close to a one man project as anything you'll see that maintains such high production value, Voices comes off more like a story you wish would never end then an Anime short. Shinkai wrote, directed, and animated the entire project only handing off sound responsibilities to others. In the original directors cut the only two speaking roles were voiced by himself and his fiancé.Most notable are the settings, for which the director is perhaps the best there is in the medium. Here, the vivid backdrops and beyond realistic lighting play so prominent that they rival the characters themselves. As one Youtube poster put it, Shinkai's works are like, "scenery porn, with story lines that make you cry buckets." Voices of A Distant Star is one of the best original video animations, scratch that, one of the better shorts period this viewer has ever seen, while serving as the perfect introduction to his work, it also underscores the fact that the only limit animation has is the imagination itself.

This would be an example of a movie that has to be taken under two different considerations.First, as an anime in general, it is basically a closely followed and strong example of the form, featuring giant space robots for very little reason, melodramatic love stories that are as ridiculous as they are randomly and achingly sympathetic, and a sort of underlying surrealness that I basically find in pretty much every anime I've seen. The ones that stand out are the ones that make some sort of strong underlying point to the storytelling, like Ghost in the Shell and Akira, as well as Satoshi Kon's general body of work, but with this one, the only "deeper meaning" I gleaned is that the director probably heard of, but did not read, Ender's Game. What the movie really needs is to be fleshed out more.HOWEVER. "The director" is Makoto Shinkai, as well as the animator, compositor, voice-actor for the male lead, and editor. The female lead is his girlfriend. This is a 27 minute long gorgeously animated love story lovingly made in one guy's computer, from one guy's sole imagination, with little to no other help otherwise. This does, in fact, change everything.Because this movie is damned gorgeous. The sentimentality still manages to win you over, and the action still manages to excite. In terms of absolute craftsmanship, Shinkai has my mad respect. And, did I say this movie "needs to be fleshed out more?" Well excuse Shinkai for living and doing this all on his own! Shinkai's name is getting relatively famous for independent, carefully animated, gorgeously stylized animations, and he seems to be doing it with as little resources as possible. Although I haven't seen anything else by him yet, he's got my attention. As other works by him are longer and apparently more fully realized, I'm eager to see more.For people who insist that the work has to be taken without concern for its production history, fair enough, this movie might not be all that interesting. On the other hand, Avatar was a terribly plotted inane story that nevertheless explored a world created in the minutest detail straight from Cameron's head, and that world and his skill in portraying it got butts in seats and stole imaginations. Same here. Respect for the craft is respect for the art.--PolarisDiB

This really was a delightful little film, as others have said the animation was beautiful and the story touching. Obviously being only twenty five minutes long it can't have the depth of a full length film but it certainly filled those twenty five minutes well.Mikako and Noboru are girlfriend and boyfriend ending their time in middle school, he goes on to high school but she is recruited into UN Space Army to pilot a Mecha against the Tarsians, an alien race that have attacked a human exploration team. She keeps in contact with Noboru by text message but as she goes further and further from Earth her messages take longer and longer to get to him, by the end her messages take eight years to arrive. While the love story is the main theme of the film we also see some good action sequences involving Mikako's Mecha and the Tarsians. By the end I was left wanting more, I'd definitely recommend this to anybody who enjoys anime. If I hadn't heard that this had been made by one person on his home computer I would have never have guessed as the animation is as good as that on most studio made productions I've seen.These comments are based on watching the film in Japanese with English subtitles.

A bittersweet tale of love and hope between two kids in an unfair world. With its beautiful imagery and soundtrack filled with longing and tragedy, this piece will leave you breathless. It will leave you wondering about our world, how the bond between two people can remain so strong, despite an unfathomable distance. The end of this film brings a touch of hope for the future, that perhaps tomorrow will bring something better, that maybe the world won't be so cold. It brings a reminder that we never forget love, we will never forget hope. There is no other short film that will move you as much as this piece. It will leave you in tears.