.Hack//GU Trilogy Review - 77/100
Just a small note before I start: this review contains spoilers for the end of .Hack//Roots. You need to have seen that series anyway in order to understand Trilogy. In any case, .Hack//Roots has been my second-least favourite Bee-Train production (the least favourite being .Hack//Dusk, but that’s a totally different story), and that was a real pity because of all the great ideas it had. The Trilogy-movie at least eliminates one of the problems I had with this series: it provides closure! It answers questions! The movie still has its problems, but it’s a must-watch for everyone who managed to sit through the original series.
Nearly all of the bad points of this series can be traced back to just one simple decision: the decision to not include the final scene of the original series. The scene where Haseo stopped angsting and actually learned his lesson. In Trilogy, Haseo actually continues angsting, even after being defeated by Tri-Edge. The result is an obnoxious amount of forehead-shot and more scream-fests than you can shake a stick at. The character-development that does get included was by no means as memorable as in the original series (about the only thing that went right in .Hack//Roots).
In addition, the music has been down-graded as well. In addition, though, the graphics turned to 3D, which is of course perfect for a setting of an on-line game. The good parts of this series, however, are the times when characters aren’t screaming. There’s a clear line between angst and emo that Trilogy continues to hop back and forwards to, and the moments you want to watch out for is when the characters are on the angst-side of the spectrum.
I have no idea why this movie is called “Trilogy”. I can understand how the combination of .Hack//Roots, .Hack//GU Trilogy and .Hack//GU Returner together form a trilogy (Roots asks the questions, Trilogy answers the questions and Returner provides the aftermath), but I didn’t really recognize three parts in the movie. Trilogy is by no means a great movie, but it is a good one nonetheless, worth of your ninety minutes of attention. Oh, and be sure to watch the parody-modes that come included. They’re hilarious!
I’d assume that it’s called .hack//GU Trilogy because the content is derived from the three PS2 GU games. I don’t think there’s any more to it than that.
Comment by DiGiKerot — April 19, 2008 @ 21:41
Pretty much that is my understanding as well. Trilogy is just a retelling of the story of the GU games (and it may be a plus if you didn’t play the games either)
Comment by kiryuu — April 19, 2008 @ 22:05
Yes. It’s called Trilogy because it’s an alternate storyversion of the three (trilogy) .hack//GU PS2 games.
Roots was just sort of an intro for the three games.
Comment by Dr. Pest — April 19, 2008 @ 22:25
i thought it was kind of annoying to sit through. but for those of us who haven’t played the games it was nice to see how the story went after .hack//roots. does anyone know if there is any new .hack anime on the way? or is the end
Comment by asdf #1 — April 20, 2008 @ 17:36
There’s no official announcement, but if .Hack//GU was such a success that it spawned a movie then there’ll surely be another game. And if there’s another game, then there’s a good possibility of another anime in a few years. I just hope that the creators will take that one back to the brilliance of .Hack//Sign again…
Comment by psgels — April 20, 2008 @ 18:40
Yes. They are currently creating a whole new .hack saga (after the SIGN/IMOQ and ROOTS/GU saga).
There will be an announcement the next months. They already began with a new .hack manga called .hack//LINK, which is the beginning of the new story and take place in 2020.
And yes, I, too, want to see a new .hack anime which is more like SIGN than ROOTS. SIGN is imo brilliant and still one of my absolute favoanimeshows. I don’t like ROOTS.
Comment by Dr. Pest — April 21, 2008 @ 1:44
But I have to say even if the movie was good, that it´s only an alternate retelling of the games, and the story it´s explained a lot better in the games, the characters get even more development (not to say that some great scenes were cut out, and a good number of excellent supporting characters too). BTW, the music it´s different because it was composed by the same team that composed the music for all of the .hack games (Chikayo Fukuda being the lead). And if anyone wants to see some differences between the GU games and the movies, go to bluelaguna.net, all the cutscenes of the three games are there for downloading (special mention to a pair named “Roar of the Beast” and “Kuhn proves a point”)
Comment by aquagon — April 22, 2008 @ 7:13