Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu Gaiden: Ougon no Tsubasa

Okay, this definitely won't be an objective review, but at the very least I'll try to make it descriptive and hopefully understandable, even for people who disagree with me. There's not really any need for another review of this, I just really feel like putting my negative thoughts about this movie into words. As I said, this won't be objective, and it's coming from the perspective of a fan of the main series, and my criticisms are intended to be read by other fans of the series (after all, I don't see why anyone else would watch this). On its own, this movie might have been"okay", nothing great, but really nothing worth getting worked up over. But since it's so heavily associated with the established characters and plot line of what is my favorite anime, I can't help but find it frustrating to watch. First of all there's the art style. Most of the characters get a jarring facelift that leaves them unrecognizable from their original iteration. For a new viewer who isn't familiar with the original art style, it might not be quite as irritating, but nevertheless it is a step down in terms of sheer quality, and definitely looks rather ugly. I was in pain when I saw Yang's appearance, but enough of that. I could complain about the visual design all day. The art is a superficial issue that can be overlooked as long as the story and writing is up to par, right? Well it's not! A battle between the Empire and the Alliance that takes place at Iserlohn Fortress serves as a backdrop for most of the story. Well this is a good start. Are you looking forward to those interesting moments of juxtaposition, where the perspective shifts back and forth between the Empire and the Alliance as the battle develops? Well too bad. Any perspective from the Alliance side is rare and shallow. What about the complex military strategies and plans, laid out by the most intelligent commanders of the fleet? "Wait, what's strategy again?", the studio who made this asks. In fact, the battle barely gets any special emphasis at all. It never makes any effort to explain why the battle is important, or why you should care about it within the confines of this story. Instead, the real focus of conflict comes from the most generic, uninteresting, and cartoony villain that's ever been in the series. "Such impudence!" and "How rude of you!" were his most memorable quotes. Also he looks stupid. Really, the most annoying thing about this movie was how pretentious it felt. It was trying to imitate what made the OVA so good, and hoped that if it just echoed a few things without putting much thought into it no one would notice. The most grating example which made me realize this was when Yang, who could hardly be called Yang due to the fact that his face and voice is entirely different, at one point says "Even though I think wars are pointless, I end up thinking of ways of winning them." Wow! That sure was precise of you, Yang! It's almost like the creators didn't know how to write dialogue for you and just made you state the most fundamental aspect of your character out of nowhere... In summary, this feels like fan fiction. It completely misses the point of LoGH in almost every respect. Even though it has just about everything you'd expect: Reinhard and Kircheis bromance, large-scale space battles, and even some intrigue, it's all executed with no spirit or finesse, with a complete disregard for what makes those things worthwhile in this series. Reinhard's unrecognizable face serves as a good metaphor for this movie: You're -told- that he's Reinhard, and you see a slight resemblance at first, but in the end he's just an unidentifiable mutant masquerading as someone you once knew.

Well this was a let down. If you're watching this it's because you've seen and liked the other OVA's/movies. The art is lacking, some characters are hardly recognizable, both in look and voice. But that's not the worst part. This movie lacks consistency of information that you get from the other movies/OVA's. It contradicts with what you already know. 4/10, pretty bad compared to what you would expect from such a great series/franchise.

Whoever was involved in making this movie within the Legend of the Galactic Heroes franchise made something that is quite the far cry from the quality writing and presentation one would expect from the franchise. Golden Wings' presentation is significantly different from other chapters of the LoGH franchise sporting a far different drawing style, new voice actors in the roles of the show's prominent characters, taking away the title's famous orchestral music scores for generic dramatic pieces and dumbing down the writing of the series to the point where this movie gets in the annoying habit of rubbing in your face the ordeals faced byReinhard and Kircheis. The last mentioned issue was one that really irked me as other titles within LoGH are well known for their intelligent writing that explores the complex motivations of the show's various characters and factions, while Golden Wings doesn't seem to trust the audience to come to their own conclusions with how the characters go about with their activities throughout the movie. As for this movie's plot, it is mostly focused on establishing the bond with Kircheis and Reinhard with the first third of the movie showing how they met and joined the military to rise in power while later parts feature the two involved in a battle at Iserlohn Fortress with Alliance forces and getting by against Imperial assassins from a grouchy concubine of the king who is simply jealous of Reinhard's sister getting the king's attention. Details from the first third of the movie are likely those you would have already seen from the OVA series and while the Iserlohn Fortress battle is a decent enough plot, it still reeks of the annoying hand-holding that Golden Wings' writing has with exploring the difficulties faced by Reinhard and Kircheis through their rise in the ranks of the Empire's military. While Golden Wings isn't a bad movie per say, it lacks the sophistication and intelligence that is given to other titles within the LoGH franchise as the movie is too radically different in presentation and writing to be admired by the franchise's fans. If you really want to see the challenges faced by Reinhard and Kircheis in their early military years, you would be better off checking out the two LOGH Gaiden OVA titles.

The majority of people are going to be watching Golden Wings after seeing the main series of Legend of the Galactic Heroes. As one of those people, Golden Wings was painful to watch. Where do I begin?: -Dusty Attenborough and Yang Wenli look nothing like their characters from the original series, and Yang's voice actor and personality are even radically different -On some of the Imperial characters, the uniforms look so different that you'd think they're Alliance uniforms at a glance -There's barely any storyline perspective of the Alliance -There's barely any interesting storyline at all save for what we already know from LoGH -The music is mediocre at best comparedto LoGH If you've never seen LoGH this might be OK, but if you have stay away from this disappointment of a movie.

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