Appleseed (2004); was it better?

In only a couple of words: "This one"

Right off the bat they chose a voice actor for Briareos that sounded larger, more fitting to his massive stature, not even just as a cyborg, but even as a hulking human soldier before his augmentation (which is seen in different flashbacks). The voice is still uncannily human as if it doesn't emanate from a speaker but from a mouth, but we talked about that in the last post.

Where it appears the CGI "Alpha" installment wanted to be more grounded, gritty, and real (even though it wasn't), this one is much truer to the over-the-top anime action one would expect. And it's really quite appealing.

The animation style is the '2D' filtered 3D rendering we occasionally see (think 'Borderlands'), but it works really well for story-telling (and is probably a LOT easier to produce), and best of all, it permits very fluid animation with high, high, frames per second. At the same time, some may say, 'Well this isn't anime anymore', and perhaps they'd be right (I don't care enough to argue, and if anime is defined as being strictly drawn/penciled - which I sort of agree with - then this isn't traditional anime).

To be honest, I much more appreciate drawn anime.... and if this was drawn at this high a framerate quality, I'd choose that over this because this style makes everything look like an in-game cinematic.

One of the gripes I have with this one is the convoluted plot development for how the 'Elders' wanted to end the human race. When the 'twist' that the army had been manipulated starts being unraveled, it becomes twist upon twist upon twist as if the writers were trying to break a record. Is Athena a good guy, is she a bad guy; is Briareos a good guy, is he a bad guy... It felt very forced. And it was so hard to follow the writers actually spend several minutes of dialogue explaining it all (thank you). If it had been written to play out more clearly with dialogue clues along the way they wouldn't have had to do that. Oh well.

I found it very... 'interesting'... that this film mentioned the sin of humanity so much, when 'sin' is so much an inherited idea from judeo-Christianity today (actually 'sin' has been around since the beginning of time because Adam and Eve in a garden was a true story, and every people group around the world came from their line and carried along an oral tradition, which in MOST places was heavily distorted). But it was sad to me that godless Japanese storytellers discuss it, bring up the reality that humans are sinful by nature... and their solution is "Bio-roids" who are 'dead to self' with no desires, not forcing their wills on anyone. These Bio-roids which make up a whopping FIFTY percent of the population aid humanity in keeping the peace. Wow.

I'm not sure if they knew this (probably not), but 'dying to self' and not pursuing your own desires is what a follower of Christ is supposed to be like, except that their desires are God's desires and they do His will. But it's done relatively peacefully. The 'Olympus' they wanted to build could have been attained by the Gospel.

On that note 'Olympus' is the mountain Zeus resides upon. In Greek mythology (which this film is teeming with), he's god above all the lesser gods. And guess what, there was a rebellion by some which is where the titans - offspring of gods mating with humans - came from. So Zeus cast down these titans. Anyway, it all is reminiscent of the rebellion and fall of Lucifer and the spawning of Nephilim as told in Genesis ch. 6 because, guess what, that all happened. Lucifer only distorted the story and made himself Zeus so people would worship him (that's why one ancient ritual involved women having sex with a bull, the icon of Zeus). I write a fair bit about this in my free eBook (link to follow).

The idea of a man-made Utopia is also a godless pipe-dream that will never happen because people are sinful. Only Christ will make 'heaven on earth', and He does so at His return, a frightful concept for those refusing now to bow to Him as Lord of lords. But He graciously loves you (proven by His death on the cross for your sins) so you can accept His free gift of forgiveness anytime by 'dying to self and giving up your desires for His' as mentioned above... but not by being a 'bio-roid' :) (Happy Easter weekend by the way!).

I nearly laughed towards the end realizing the elders had turned Gaia off so they could wipe out humanity even though in truth there was plenty of opportunity for it to go on fairly well it seemed. I don't remember if it's a meme or what, but it reminded me of one person insisting their friend was dying while the friend is insisting they're going to make it.... super fatalistic and even nihilistic of these aging, decrepit Japanese guys... which also reminded me of childless 'leaders' like Angela Merkel purposefully destroying their 'evil' western nations which have just gone on too long, and need to fade into history by any means possible... Laughable. But if you thought the elders in this movie were idiotic, I should hope it's just dawned on you how dumb all these 'anti-colonialist' social Marxists are.

Anyway, all in all, the story was fairly good, the animation was pretty darn good, the action was pretty darn good, but the Greek influence and the promotion of a Utopian one world government (I think they even said "New World Order" in this show? lol!) is obviously wicked, social conditioning to get more people to go along with the devil's agenda (is this why they KEEP putting this Appleseed movie out in different guises? As reboots? Is that why 'Alpha' seemed so lazily done, just to get that narrative out to the masses in different packaging?)...

...so I give it only 2/5 stars **
(not appropriate for minors due to sexuality)

I know, sad. That's what you get for knowingly or unknowingly brainwashing the masses XD

If you'd like to watch it for free, the 720p YouTube version actually looks GORGEOUS on an upscaled 4K TV. You can also buy it at amazon here.

Thanks all for stopping by. Feel free to follow me on Twitch.tv to see more geeky goodness!

Past VODs are all at my YouTube channel.

And I also hope your conscience towards God has been stirred. You can ask Him questions at a website I'm still constructing - www.HeHasAnswers.com - and even read what I've written thus far regarding the irrefutable evidence of His existence (or LISTEN to a rough recording of that at my ministry YouTube channel)

God bless you and good night!