Not Recommended
Saint Seiya legend of sanctuary is a film that, at least for me, looked very striking and interesting from a distance, but in the end I was quite disappointed. I must say that this movie is not as bad as I had heard, I would even recommend it (even though it was not to my liking) for some points that the movie fulfills. First of all we must say that the film is not decided very well between if it is a movie for very "loyal" or "hardcore" fans of Saint Seiya or for those who do not know much about the original work and wantto introduce themselves (it is true that I I am not one of the 2, I saw Saint Seiya recently and I liked it, but I do not consider myself a big fan). But this idea is very contradictory throughout the entire film, starting from the beginning where Tatsumi (Saori's butler) explains the whole "plot" of the original work to Saori in such a sudden and unbelievable way , literally exude all the concepts to the viewer suddenly, resulting suddenly for those who do not have much idea about Saint Seiya and being very hasty for those who did see the manga or the anime, I would say that this is one of the worst scenes of all the movie, but do not take much importance, since the film did not have enough time to develop in its entirety (the fact that the film did not have much time when 3 characters were very irrelevant and wasted).
Another point that disappointed me enough about the movie were the personalities and actions of the most iconic characters of Saint Seiya, Hyoga is someone "badas and cool" instead of that loyal, sensitive (he lets himself glimpse in the battle against Camus, against Isaac and when he sees the illusion of Camus) and intelligent gentleman that was in the original work, Hyoga may be the main character character with less personality in the original work for some, but for me it was well constructed throughout the scenes and the reasons that are known from the beginning, I would say that here you can see again the little time that the series had, the personality of Hyoga is not explored even in the battle against Camus, that is because the movie did not have time to show their past or motivations, so the battle against Camus does not generate an emotion or satisfaction for the fact that Hyoga has outdone his teacher, here in the movie was only to get some special effects of gall or, show facial expressions of pain and grief without any reason for the fact that the viewer is supposed to already know about Camus and Hyoga (I say and I talk a lot about Hyoga because he is the character that most contradicts the idea of the film being for all public that even know Saint Seiya), the battle in my opinion is by far the worst of the whole movie presided by the great difference of emotion and context between the film.
Unfortunately Hyoga is not the only one who undergoes such a drastic change, Ikki also suffers from the same, but much worse, Ikki, who is supposed to be the tough guy, but who feels empathy for your team and always tries to help them, it was the personality more suited to the character that always served to defeat the strongest enemy (see Shaka, Kanon and Aiocos in his part), in his part that was what made Ikki so iconic characterizing him as someone strong who does not waver (this personality even it complemented the fact that he was the eldest and always Shun called him older brother). The personality that Ikki has in the film in my opinion is very bad, starting from the fact that he has no outstanding personality, that is because he appears 2 times in the movie and his dialogue is very bad, he says nothing about it and It seems that their dialogues want to look great, but the fact that Ikki appears so little makes these dialogues quite empty and irrelevant, so I would say that Ikki is the worst character in the entire film, added to the fact that he does not defeat no one important in the whole movie,this is very disappointing because Ikki is usually the most surprising character in the series, but the character could easily be removed from the film without causing a big impact or even bother the viewer, Ikki happened to be a character that had an impact and that was strong to one that is simply nothing, neither in personality nor in actions.
I would say that Shun would say that he is the character most faithful to his original personality in a certain part, he is the most gentleman of the team and he knows how to speak with respect to all his team, the personality of Shun remains the same but he can not do good chemistry with Ikki nor with the others because of the little depth and because of the very bizarre changes that it has, one could say that Shun's personality remains fairly stable in comparison, but we can not see his side that does not want to fight because he does not have any battle, wait to talk about Shun to mention another very big problem that the series has, the changes of personality can be passable or even very good, but because of the little depth of the characters you can not rescue much of the personality, we do not know how they trained or that they learned through the years or the relationships they had with some characters, but the film wants the viewer to know that, cutting the important parts tantes of dialogue and wanting to create something different without knowing what the audience is focused on and that causes a lot of plot flaws, the characters want to protect Saori without any reason, they do it because if, by not deepening their past we do not even know if it is that they were raised for that, in the end the idea of wanting to create a Saint Seiya movie for people who are fans and those who are not fans results in a contradiction too great for all the failures.
Seiya and Shiryu are the characters that least bother me since Shiryu maintained a personality very faithful to the original and Seiya because I could notice a bit of evoulucion as Seiya assumes his defeat against Aioria before going to the 12 houses, otherwise I could say that the first personality of Seiya seemed very good to me, the fact that first of all its strength and the angle that the camera is shown when Seiya puts on the armor for the first time seemed to me a very good scene and that easily serves as an introduction for the great animation that waits in the following battles, the only thing that I would say about Seiya is that his personality is very annoying to me and also the fact that he has captured all the attention in the whole movie, the normal Seiya was recognized for being the stereotype of shonen acceptable for his time, is not the best, but certainly is better than an arrogant and pretentious adolescent, Seiya is a character who is very unpretentious because his topics are almost "I'm going to take care of Saori without reason" and nothing else, his goals to save it may be more justifiable by the little flashback that is done about how Saori healed his wound, but the flashback is too short to think that is important ( besides, that memory is never mentioned later). For me Seiya is the most passable character, the only bad thing is his annoying personality.
On the other hand Shiryu does not change much, Shiryu is still the wisest character among the 5 knights, without falling into pedantic or pretentious phrases Shiryu can be considered the wisest due to the caution and determination he has in battle, the battle of Shiryu against Death Mask does not convince me either for many reasons, the drastic change between the house of cancer, which motivates Shiryu to fight and the Death Mask personality made that at first he reacted in a rather negative way to his fight, the great change of Death Mask spoiled one of the best moments of the saga of the 12 houses, in the original work Shiryu gains strength because Death Mask attacked Shunrei, someone that Shiryu appreciates a lot, that made sense because of the context that had the battle, in the movie Shiryu gains strength for Saori, this seemed very unbelievable because Shiryu knew Saori for less than a week so Shiryu's motivation makes me very poor, outside of that it seemed to me that the battle is quite faithful to the original, so this battle at least has something salvageable, because they do not invent any kind of power to get out of the way of combat, although it is a pity that this is their only battle and I could not face Shura, that was one of my biggest disappointments, along with the fact that there is no battle against Shaka and Aphrodite.
Now that I mention Shaka and Aphrodite I want to take the opportunity to say that I expected their battles a lot, especially Shaka against Ikki, but in the end Shaka does not even fight against anyone in particular, Shaka is the strongest of those golden knights, but in the movie does not fight because of the excuse that he knew the truth during the 13 years, it does not seem so convincing, but I'll let it go (although that is relieved in a way that seems to be irrelevant in that dialogue), at least Shaka appears in an epic way saving Seiya from being finished by Aioria, that scene turned out good.
Aphrodite, on the other hand, is totally "erased" from the movie he did absolutely nothing, this in my opinion is inexcusable since the attacks of Aphrodite are probably the most simpples among all the golden knights, even with his battle could have shown another facet of Shun in combat, but nothing came up Aphrodite is treated like trash being murdered by the great patriarch in a very patetic and very hurried way, the great patriarch looked like a spoiled child who was angry and that's why I killed Aphrodite. Afroita was what bothered me most in the whole movie, instead of spending time with the monster form of Saga (which certainly has no explanation or logic) they would have spent in the battle against Shun, where his would have revealed that a of Shun's motivations is to avenge his teacher.
Saga also turns out to be quite mediocre because all its presentation and explanation of motives turns out to be very flat and hurry, I'm not going to take much time explaining this since the saga of this movie is just an enemy like any other, very different from the one of original work where he had a personality problem that was taken very seriously in the original work, its monstrous form was very elaborate and it does not make sense to be there, at least thanks to Saga the best scene of the film was produced, this is when the golden knights face a giant statue, not only the animation I like, but also the feeling of union and team that emerges, Saint Seiya has always been characterized precisely by the teamwork and brotherhood of the elect of golden knights , I saw that scene very much.
The way in which Seiya defeats Saga is very reminiscent of the classic, Seiya with the power of Athena and the armor of Sagittarius can defeat Saga, i do not have any complaints here, I would even say that I'm excited to see those scenes for the scenarios, the animation, the facial gestures and the music, all well used and complemented to create a good fight scene, although hopefully the end would not have been just about Seiya, it is true that he gets power from his friends, but in the end they do not do much more, in the original work Ikki helped a lot on that subject, but here it was all concentrated in Seiya (besides the arm that brings out the power of all his friends was amazing, I gave him a nod regardless of whether it is a power up or not).
Another of the moments that I found very elaborate is when Milo and Shura read the text that Aiolos left about Athena, literally reading that they went against the great patriarch without hesitation, there was not even a key dialogue to show their confusion (now I must say that my favorite dialogue is the one Seiya has with Athena before the arrow is stuck in him), Mu also falls in the same bag, appears intimidatingly looking like he wants to fight, but when he feels the cosmos of Athena he surrendered and I swear allegiance to Athena, if it were not for I saw the manga I would not have understood Mu's big change, but it's not the worst scene by far, if you're not very precise or you do not want to judge everything it's possible to overlook that scene of Mu, the part that if it is out of place and that in my opinion is horrible is the introduction of Death Mask when the protagonists enter the house of Cancer, that "musical" was so out of place and so far from someone as Death Mask which in my opinion had to have been eliminated, that can easily be the worst scenes of the whole class.
The setting of the film is quite peculiar, but not unpleasant, from the new design of the armor to the visual of the whole sanctuary, everything is seen with a new and attractive aesthetic, the fact that everything has a futuristic touch and cyberpunk I liked, the armor even seem like a wick in minatura, with the correct animation that idea can work and the movie showed that, so I must give a nod to the setting. The design of the 12 houses also seems great, in case the scenes of the film seem good, the 12 houses are no longer the typical pillars that appear monotonous (except for Geminis that does not even appear, that it bothered me a bit since I was expecting the fight against the great patriarch manipulating the Gemini armor), the use of scenarios is key and the film knows that, fulfilling in an exceptional way in that area.
It's time to comment on the beautiful and very well achieved animation, soundtrack and facial gestures, every technical and visual theme in the film deserves my applause, the attacks look great and are very consistent with the character that uses them, the soundtrack complement somewhat the decent battles that the film has (I would say that the best battle is when Shura and Milo appear), the music sometimes failed to be used at very wrong times and unfortunately, but that is not to deny that when they wanted to complement a battle with soundtrack they did, the facial gestures are beautiful by themselves, represent very well the emotion that the characters feel and that's why the facial gestures contain details that lets you know more about the character, that set of technical elements It made it totally worth seeing the movie.
At the end I just want to say that the proposal of this movie I liked, the CGI animation looks good and, although there are some characters that look horrible with the new aesthetics, most of them look interesting and complement their personality, even see Milo woman bothers me, I would even say that I liked it, the film tries to do many novel things, but that does not mean that this good, a bad idea taken ill is worse than a series of cliches since a novel series had more opportunities, here I think the same thing happens, some new things come out as the aesthetic, the animation of the attacks and the scenarios / setting, but others are horrible as the characters or the rhythm of the story that only consists of a short confrontation without depth because we do not "know" the characters, I would recommend the film to a certain audience, but it is not a movie that I like very much.
