Fullmetal Alchemist, Live Action Trilogy (2017 - 2022)
A Japanese trilogy of live action movies adapting the Fullmetal Alchemist manga by Hiromu Arakawa.
Having seen the Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood anime earlier this year, that stands as probably the definitive adaptation of the manga, I ended up checking out this trilogy of live action movies out of interest. I'm gonna be treating them as a single work here, as they are all directed by Fumihiko Sori and seem to have been shot practically back to back, the final two having been released the same year.
First things first, there isn't any good reason for this to exist. If you haven't seen the anime or read the manga, you're probably not going to care about it in the first place, let's be honest. It almost feels like a no brainer to point this out, but this has neither the budget, nor the runtime to adapt the source material in an even remotely comprehensive way. And if you're reading this, expecting me to tear it to shreds for its inevitable shortcomings in regards to visual effects or casting, or do some funny, not at all offensive, shtick about why these movies set in a place based on turn of the century middle Europe have an all japanese cast, you've come to the wrong place. I'm gonna look at this with as little prejudice as possible. Take it or leave it.
So, these movies once again retell the story of Edward and Alphonse Elric, two brothers who have lost parts, or all, of their bodies after performing an ill begotten ritual to resurrect their mother, uncovering a sinister conspiracy controlling their nation and fighting it alongside their allies in the military. The anime was around 60 episodes long, which adds up to around 28 hours of television. The movies add up to a bit over 6 and a half hours. And, mind, the anime series already had extremely tight pacing with little to no filler. In other words, any shorter adaptation couldn't exactly trim the fat, because there is practically no fat. Which makes the production of these movies a bit of a quixotic undertaking by their very nature.
So, let's start off by giving credit where credit is due. While the trilogy doesn't match the source material, one can't accuse it of not respecting it. There is a tremendous amount of sincere effort made to replicate character designs, set designs and shots from the source material as closely as the budget would allow. Where the first movie still frequently stumbled and fet like a proof of concept much of the time, from the second one onward a tremendous effort is made to maintain fidelity to the original. It genuinely brought a smile to my face how many of the characters looked like the spitting image of their animated counterparts and how well their actors managed to translate their mannerisms. It displays the same kind of confidence in the source material I praised in the american One Piece adaptation. Rather than changing major parts of its visual identity because they might look silly in live action, it has the confidence to say "Yes, they do look silly in live action... and that's fine." I simply don't think it's an inexcusable fauxpas for an adaptation to invoke its original medium, as a matter of fact, I think sometimes it's a virtue.
Now let's address the elephant in the room, the story. It is very much a cliffnotes version of the source material. And there is sort of an interesting progression there. I described the first movie as feeling a bit like a rough proof of concept. It's definitely where it deviates the most from the original, shuffling around some plot points and making a half hearted effort to be self contained. The second movie is probably where the trilogy peaks, a relatively successful beat for beat recreation of its corresponding segment of the original. However, the second movie also ends about one third into the story of the source material, leaving the final one with a lot of ground to cover, which is where a lot of its earlier decisions start to catch up with it. The third movie is where a lot of characters that haven't been introduced suddenly become important, a lot of vital connective tissue is relegated to happening off screen and a lot of the climactic pay off comes out falling flat because the buildup is not or just barely there. Which... well, at that point it sorta barely keeps itself together as it sputters over the finish line.
So, this is gonna sound like I'm damning the movies with faint praise, and it is, but I'd say this movie trilogy was about as good as it could have been, considering the circumstances. There is little point in speculating about how good a hypothetical five season high budget prestige television series based on FMA theoretically could have been. This was a humble japanese three movie production that could contain the entirety of the story about as well as three teacups could contain a barrel full of beer. Yes, there's no point in consuming it this way, but it's neither the cups', nor the barrels, nor the beers fault. I feel they did their best with what they had and it came out about as well as it could have. It falls short of being genuinely good but looking at something like the Netflix Death Note movie or the Cowboy Bebop series you have gotta give it credit for all the bullets it managed to dodge and all the things it did get right.
Although Eps1-3 were ho-hum, by a guy who appeared to have mostly forgotten how to direct in the intervening 15 since RoTJ, at least he had a cohesive understanding and love for the material. Disney dropped SW eps 7-9 into the hands of a bland, nepo-baby hack who didn't even have that.
Let's be fair here, Disney dropped eps 7 & 9 into the hands of a bland, nepo baby hack who didn't even have that. Rian Johnson single handedly tried to use the one chance he had to redeem the trilogy, having to build his installment from absolutely nothing and having it walked all over as soon as it was out of his hands. Episode 8 wasn't great or anything, but there's a huge chasm of quality between it an the other two movies and it's hard not to look at Johnson as the tragic hero of this story.
Also, there is the fact that 9 was originally supposed to have a different director too, and he did turn in a screenplay for it. Which wasn't particularly good, but it would still have been a lot better than Sky of Risewalker.
