At the end of the first Attack on Titan I wondered how they would resolve all of the hanging plot threads. Any qualms about it being a faithful adaptation were more or less non existent as this point, as I expected the movie to be almost completely original.
Well, I got my answer when I watched the movie last Wednesday. Did End of the World solve all of the hanging plot threads? Nope.
The movie very loosely adapts (and this is an understatement) the second half of the Battle of Trost from the anime and manga. Eren is now under custody after the events of the first film. The gaping hole in the Wall form the first part is still there, and our protagonists have to seal it up.
After a few moments that are supposed to be suspenseful but end up dragging, our heroes find themselves on the road to do exactly that. The film then goes into a little bit of character development, especially with Mikasa and Eren, but apart from a few very short flashbacks we get nothing from the others. Shikishima and Jean both remain jerks, Axe Guy (whose name, as I came to learn, is Sannagi) gets a few nice moments but still gets reduced screen time, Sasha no longer eats potatoes but is inexplicably romantically linked to Armin, and Armin... does smarty pants stuff.
The first thirty or so minutes is just a setup for the meat of the whole two part series, and that is an extended series of fight scenes as Eren tries to seal the wall and they face not one but two new titan adversaries who are just the same as he is. And like other multiple part series whose final part is mostly climax (like what happened to The Hobbit), this film feels like it could be a part of the previous film had it been paced better. In this case, most of End of the World is an extended climax and almost nothing else.
Those attracted by the horror feel of the first movie will likely be disappointed as there aren't any scenes of carnage like what happened in the first film, and the normal creepy titans barely make any appearances. The film does a few interesting things, such as the very B-movie-esque sequence detailing the origin of the titans, and the action sequence at the end is impressive. But all in all the film fails to tie everything together.
While End of the World concludes the immediate story arc, it leaves open the possibility of a continuation since it leaves a lot of things unresolved, and the end credits scene shows a Maze Runner - like notion that our protagonists (and antagonists) are players in a bigger story. But looking at these two installments, I don't really see a reason to watch the continuation. I'm sticking with the anime and manga instead.
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