Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: A solid movie.
Comment: I enjoyed this movie very much. Yes, it has a distinct Ghibli feel to it, and while they don't pull off the grandness that movies like Nausiica and Mononoke Hime manage this movie is still a wonderful watch. The man vs. nature theme is done well, not going overly preachy, but more thought provoking. As others have mentioned, the scenery is beautiful and masterfully rendered. The characters weren't overly captivating, but certainly likable and interesting to watch. The music was gorgeous (and the Kokia song at the end is her best song, in my opinion) and worth the viewing just to hear it.
My only complaint is that this should have been longer. I saw the original theatric previews and they showed more characters and much more depth. Some intruiging scenes were apparently just cut out or were just left out after they put out the previews. If they had found a way to put more of that into the movie, it would have been a perfect 5.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great concept, but lacking in polish...
Comment: Understand that Origin: Spirits of the Past was NOT a bad movie, but it wasn't a great one either. This anime movie has an amazing concept when it comes to the storyline (i.e. the opening sequence, the idea of plants taking over, interesting future concept), but its execution wasn't great. For example, the climactic scenes aren't all that climactic and the story has so many loose ends. You don't really see much of the military city's "power", the forest druids that are supposed to be the guardians of the forest don't show up much either, and the supporting characters have little to no purpose. Recycled themes aren't necessarily a bad thing, because if they were done well enough, it wouldn't make much of a difference how many times the themes were used. So, I have to stand up for Origin there because this seems to be the main reason that this movie gets a bad rap.
You really don't get a good sense of who the characters are and they don't really connect to each other. They seem to lack polish: the youth are average youth, the adults are average adults, but there's no sort of individuality that makes you remember them. Most of all, they lack emotion. The character design and voice acting was average, though. However, the art and environments were top-notch! The beautiful environment really gives you that sense of depth and adventure, redeeming this movie from mediocrity. Compared to the other material that has come from GONZO (Trinity Blood, Samurai 7, Blue Submarine No.6, Chrono Crusade, Desert Punk), Origin isn't as good. It's a pity, because Origin had SO much potential. I wouldn't recommend buying it, but watch it firs t and see if you think it's worth purchasing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A better anime than most of these reviews lead on to be.
Comment: I see a lot of complaints that the storyline isn't very original, saying that the nature and humans living side by side or battling eachother storyline has been done to death. They're right... BUT a lot of movies and anime have used this premise and not gotten the backlash Origina has. Nausicaa is the first anime I know of that had this storyline, and many animes followed suit, including even Princess Mononoke, but no one complained about that. Is Origin as good as Princess Mononoke? I'd give Origin's storyline a 3.5/5, the voice acting a 4.5 and the animation a 5/5. This has some of the best animation out there, and if you love nature and despise what humans are doing to it, Origin's plot and story will hold you from beginning to end.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Adequate ecofable
Comment: The setting seems familiar. On after-the-crash earth, orbited by a shattered moon, the remnants of humankind have split. The forest-dwelling druids take their place at one pole of the dichotomy. Mechanized warmongers stand at the other pole, barely able to breath because of the smoke that belches from rows of chimneys. (Sound familiar?) A young couple in love tries to reach across that bottomless divide. (Sound familiar?) Literally - a huge chasm separates the two lands, with Neutral City perched precariously between the two. Then, one side prepare to unleash untold destruction. Well it seemed to make sense at the time.
And so on like that. As befits an animated sermon on living green (also literally, in some cases), this consists entirely of recycled plot elements, in an apparent effort to conserve our ever-dwindling supply of new ideas. That doesn't mean it's bad, just that the characters and plot will fade from memory after you've seen two or three other anime.
The good part is good, though. Scenery and backgrounds meet the highest standards. At times, I even found myself comparing them to the gorgeous hand-painted backgounds in Disney's feature films, the ones before computers took over. So, there's nothing much to object too (unless tree-huggers give you a rash). Visuals range from standard characters to exceptional backgrounds. You could do worse, and we need to watch something until Studio Ghibli sends out another masterpiece.
-- wiredweird
Customer Rating:
Summary: Where have I seen this before?
Comment: If Origin: Spirits of the Past seems familiar to you then you are not alone. Even the most indiscriminate anime fan can tell that this is basically a watered-down copy of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. There are so many similarities that I'm surprised no lawsuits were involved.
Set in a future where plant life has taken control of a desecrated world the survivors try to live a delicate existence between the powerful forest and the fascist military until one day a mysterious girl arrives out of the past with lots of questions and long, drawn-out answers. Meh, it's all just so generic and dull full of all the usual anime nonsense. I never really understood why the hero, Agito, falls in love with her so easily. There's not much going on between them. And who was that calling her on that weird phone thingy near the start? It's never explained.
This story has been done bigger and better 25 years ago and there's not any particular reason why anyone should rush out and see Origin. Sorry.
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