Jaawsshhh wrote:

Where do you guys think the movies will split? I have a feeling part 1 might end when Saturn awakens again or when Artemis turns human trying to save Minako.

My guess is part one will end on Act 43, at the literal cliff hanger where Artemis is trying to save Minako. Not only is it a cliff hanger, it's also more or less the middle point of the arc, plus they get to save the Outers for the second movie, which will motivate people to watch the second movie.

Jaawsshhh wrote:

Where do you guys think the movies will split?

I think it's where the Outers join the Inner Senshi and it ends on a cliffhanger where we see Usagi is sick with the curse.

Of course it will end on a cliffhanger, sigh. Then, I can curse the world as I wait for the next movie. Granted, I know what will happen, but that doesn't help with the suspense. Cry cry.

Speaking of cliffhangers, I wonder how long the wait will be between their releases? And if they are going for a theatrical release, what will the release date be in Japan vs. internationally...

I'm cautiously optimistic.

And if this goes well, it'll hopefully mean a faithful adaptation of Stars done in the same way.

Since we're now into the Dream Arc in the Manga Reading Club, I've been thinking again about the upcoming Crystal movies. I can't wait to hear what Chiaki Kon will reveal at Anime Matsuri in March! I'm biting my nails, hoping it will be something to do with how international fans will be able to view them! (I am also in the boat relieved that it's her as Director, since I quite liked Season 3 overall.)

I wonder if they switched to a movie format due to disappointing DVD/Blu-ray sales? I agree with Artemis though: I think it's an interesting way to make it fresh, seeing as it's just a straight adaptation. I was always a little disappointed that they didn't use the opportunity to expand the story at all, but c'est la vie ^^;;.

Artemis wrote:

What is the thing that you are most looking forward to or most want to see in this season?

Since I basically love all the plot points of this arc, I can't really decide which part I'm looking forward to most from that perspective. However, in terms of just sheer animation, these are the ones I think I will probably end up crying over XD:

Spoiler:

There's probably some that I'm totally forgetting since it's been a while since my last re-read, but definitely looking forward to it, despite the wait~! Thank goodness I have you guys here and the endless amount of Myu and merch news and prettiness to pass the time XD.

I'm a little put off by the fact that it is a film, though a two-parter makes it better. I perdict they will cover all the first five or six acts, with one act running concurrently with the others. I'm not expecting the best, but I'm hopeful.


As for what I am looking forward too...well...

Spoiler the Dream arc:

...OK, full honesty, I want to see all of it animated. I don't mind if it isn't perfect animation, but just to see this story in animated motion is my waking dream.

I'm really hoping that they keep

Spoiler:

 
I just really want to see the dream arc animated anyway. It's always been my favorite manga arc and the fact that it's so boring in the 90s anime is heartbreaking to me.

I think the movies will split where it shows Usagi is sick from the same curse affecting Mamoru.

Because they said two movies (not one), I'm a little more hopeful, because it means more time and less content to cut.

Here's how I think the plot line of the first movie will play out. We will see the "Acts" played out like they were in manga (Eclipse Dream - Venus Dream) however, between scenes, we will also be getting scenes from New Soldiers Dream with the Outer Senshi, rather than having flashbacks of them near the end of the first movie, while the Inners were fighting the Dead Moon Circus.

magic713 wrote:

...between scenes, we will also be getting scenes from New Soldiers Dream with the Outer Senshi, rather than having flashbacks of them near the end of the first movie, while the Inners were fighting the Dead Moon Circus.

Oooo! I like this! I hope you're right!

EDIT: After finishing volume 9 of the manga with our awesome Manga Club, I also have a few more scenes to add to my animated wishlist:

Spoiler:

CANNOT WAIT!

This needs to hurry up and come out so we can get to the best arc Stars. 

Saw this tweet this morning with a blurry image of a title art for the movie: https://twitter.com/miraiinea/status/969443404059938816



Unfortunately the tweeter has yet to mention any source or where they got this from, so take it with a grain of salt.

Brit-chan wrote:

Unfortunately the tweeter has yet to mention any source or where they got this from, so take it with a grain of salt.

Wise words. Learned that lesson the hard way back in 2012 during Crystal's first announcement.

The photo is from a Tumblr user called crystalbehindthescene, who in turn got it from 5ch. The title is "Eclipse Dream", which is also the title of the first chapter of the Dream arc. Assuming this is real, I'm gonna guess this is the logo from a press release for the staff of the Dream arc movie(s).

5ch, I'm guessing is a chan board? I'm not familiar with it. xD But if it is real, that would be cool! Hopefully that means we'll get some news soon?

Brit-chan wrote:

5ch, I'm guessing is a chan board?  I'm not familiar with it. xD But if it is real, that would be cool! Hopefully that means we'll get some news soon?

5ch is formerly known as 2chan, the (in)famous forum that originated in Japan. Given its reputation, I would definitely say take this "news" with a grain of salt, especially since we have no idea what context that picture came from.

Ooooh so that's what became of 2chan (i haven't visited a chan site in years). And yeah definitely agree. Someone could've easily photoshopped that on their and blurred it to look like a crappy phone pic. I guess only time will tell.

...when it's been nearly a year since we've had any announcements and all we get is some potentially leaked, blurry logo.  Ugh.     This is my favorite arc!! I hate how they keep everything so under wraps.  What do they have against giving fans updates lol

Also, while I'm thinking about it:  I wonder if these two films will be released together? Or at least somewhat close together?  I'm going to be so annoyed if it's left off with a cliffhanger and we have to wait another couple years! XD
(sorry if that's already been discussed?)

Oh good gravy.... If it's more than a year between movies I'm gonna be so sad... for them >.>. Lol

You guys think maybe the delay is budgeting issues? It was clear SMC didn't get a big budget from Toei to begin with especially in comparison to their other shows. And it's not like they've slowed down all this SM anniversary stuff, they literally made the 20th stuff go on so long that it melded into the 25th anniversary. The amount of merch being released has not slowed down. If you follow the official twitter, its literally almost new merch announcements every other day. xD And then we're getting new musical/live action type shows with those three different live shows announced. Then theres the Universal attraction. Clearly there's still enough money to be made in SM. So maybe they've been keeping an eye on sales, etc. as this goes along.

Another thing could be, that since it's movies now, they've been working on it all this time. A full length animated film does take significantly more time to make than getting a show where they do the 20 something minutes of new animation on a weekly basis. I don't usually follow animation projects in Japan to see how early they do promotion or release news or give tidbits of information so I dunno if the dead silence is a common thing or not. Sure would like some insight on that. xD


Anywaaaaay I'm just throwing up some thoughts for the thread ignore me if it all doesn't make sense. xD

That would be so disappointing. It's been almost 2 years since the last episode of SMC and if we only get one part of the movie this year I'm gonna be really sad

And that would make sense, Brit. They did release a lot of merch for the anniversaries.

I think Toei simply has other properties on their plate that they're focusing on right now, and the SMC movies are low on the priorities list. We have to remember that as ground breaking and popular as Sailor Moon is, it's still a 25+ years old property. Toei has other shows, like Precure, that are a hit with children in Japan right now. It's logical from a business perspective for them to focus more of their energy on the current hot properties that have the greatest financial returns than an older property that has a more limited audience and financial returns.

Besides the studio, it's also possible that the director and other people who are involved with the movie project have other commitment they have to attend to first. I think I brought this up previously in the thread that Chiaki Kon, the director for the movies, had just released a project she was working on earlier this year. It's evident that she's working on more than one thing at a time, and has to prioritize her schedule.

As for the movie release, this is of course just my own speculation, but given how the Digimon Tri movies (which I've not seen yet, btw), were released a few months apart from one another, I'm guessing Toei would do something similar with the SMC movies and release the two parts 4-8 months apart.

I feel if Sailor Moon wasn't a property capable of making large amounts of money then Toei wouldn't have extended the anniversary celebration in order to keep pumping out merchandise, making more musicals, etc, etc. At the end of the day, it seems Toei doesn't really care considering how One Piece is apparently known for looking awful and that's like...their longest running anime if I remember correctly. I'm sure there are other elements that factor into it taking so long but considering how SMC (and honestly the entire'20/25th anniversary') has been handled, I just find myself not caring much anymore. Everything, at least for me, has been pretty disappointing overall. We still haven't even gotten the new artbook that was announced like 5 years ago lmao. 

I don't expect to see anything on the level of Cardcaptor Sakura: Cear Card from Toei. I can only that the Stars arc isn't complete trash at this point.

So in case anyone missed it from the News Section, it seems there is still 1-2 years wait until the movies come out. I guess that just means more time for us to speculate on what they'll keep and what they'll cut from the manga version XD.

Diagnosed wrote:

it seems there is still 1-2 years wait until the movies come out.

Ye gods...

So, on the back of the latest announcement about the character designer , I just had some thoughts I wanna vent...

After first reading the announcement this morning my initial reaction was kind of disappointed but only because it's *another* major change. I don't really have anything against the designer's work or the fact that they pulled someone forward from the 90's anime staff. But I did feel like it was unnecessary.

I felt like Season III was already improved enough. I really was hoping it was solid enough to be the new and final direction of the series. I remember seeing some comments that it still wasn't as good as reboot series x y or z but I thought it was at least far better from the very rocky start of S1&2. I felt after watching it that the efforts made by the staff were genuine and not rushed.

I thought we had arrived.

But now between the director being busy with other projects, the decision to condense it into movies and now this additional change in design direction, it feels like all the changes and the delays are not being made with the purpose of making sure the end result is good. It feels more like these are reactionary decisions made because the project is nobody's top priority.

So, it's being tossed about in whatever direction the winds blow.

If they had changed the marketing of it to make it seem more like it's supposed to be a *collaboration* effort, featuring different staff and leadership on purpose to change things up, it would be a lot less lackluster to me and it would actually fit fairly well with the rest of the products and media that have been coming out. But they haven't even bothered trying that angle. Or any angle, really. Again, just no clear direction going on here...

I guess by the time 2020 arrives, some of these feelings will have subsided for me... I would be so lucky XD.

/rant

Honestly, I feel like Sailor Moon franchise as a whole, despite how iconic it is, is always going to be mistreated by Toei in some ways.  The Original Anime run had so many issues, and it seems to have continued into the new one too. 

I think it's an utter mistake on their part to make it into two movies.  There's no way they can tell all nine girls' stories plus Mamoru's own awakening and stay true to the source material. Somethings gonna be cut somewhere  (And I hope to gods it's not Mamoru! Waiting DECADES for his story to get told too. )

Personally, again (As I said in the other thread) I dislike the moe/rounder faces and looks of the recent art direction and enjoyed the prettiness of the first two seasons.   (I, in general, literally only like the pretty looks in Sailor Moon overall when they're serious. If it's too cartoony, I totally get sucked out of it because it wasn't an established look to start with.  Aka: Like Steven Universe or even Adventure time. I could deal because this was an established feel.)

Anyway, my personal tastes aside,  I get the feeling on both sides of the fence.  One hand, a lot of people are happy with this.   On the other, I can totally get why others wouldn't be.  Because for them, they feel it's a step backwards and trying to make it exactly like the 90s Anime- when the 90s anime already exists.  A lot of them are just upset because they've waited for something faithful to the Manga and the style of the manga, so they feel robbed at the 90s aesthetic being pushed ahead of the other one. 

I can't say I blame the latter half (lol I'm on their side, to be honest. ).  It's just kind of a disappointment especially with so many 90s properties getting really nice art designs or ones that stick close to the manga source and then pretty it up more. 

I think, overall, I wish Toei didn't have the rights to Sailor Moon at all and another studio did. I feel (regardless of the art designs and whatever new nickname I'll come up with this time for it, yes I made up Precure Moon),  that Toei rushes things too much so you don't get a good feel of the story or characters and there's more mistakes made.  (Which is a lot like the old Anime that had some glaring ones.)

Dunno, Dia, if the feelings would subside for me or just be buried for a while.  I'm pretty certain I'll forget about it and then be excited there's actual new content at all. Which is more than some other 90s shows get to have in a second (Third? Fifth chance? ) at life in the mainstream.
/end of rant

Actually, someone once broke down that with the amount of acts there is in Dream, the amount of episodes it would take rounds up to about the same run time as 2 movies, so there's a pretty high chance they won't completely cut out things. Crystal so far has been faithful to following each act as close as possible, with some changes added in here or there.

Honestly, I've set my bar so low now, I know I won't be disappointed and will at least be pleasantly surprised with how it turns out.

I'm also kinda excited about bringing in Tadano. I absolutely love her work from the original series. Though, I'd love to see a dream team of Kazuko Tadano, Ikuko Itoh and Junichi Sato. If only they had not gone that poopoo web only route and waiting to just get more of a budget for season I and II, we'd actually have some consistency here!

So, on Crystalbehindthescenes blog, the guess on how the art style may look (and they say this is Tadano's work here):

Spoiler:

Apparently this is her more modern work. (I don't have a source for this)

If it's true, for me, it's fine, I guess. Serviceable. But they look even younger, despite being in their teens.  I think a real fear is for it being nothing but stock footage again and Chibiusa's powers being a joke again.  (I never liked that her powers were always a joke in the 90s anime and never did much damage.)

Ktenshi wrote:

I think a real fear is for it being nothing but stock footage again and Chibiusa's powers being a joke again.  (I never liked that her powers were always a joke in the 90s anime and never did much damage.)

If they keep following the manga then I highly doubt they'll make Chibi-Usa weak and useless. Her role is simply too important for that to happen without the entire premise of the arc being reduced to a joke.