Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
MakkusuUnfilwin
The Sky Crawlers is my favourite Mamoru Oshii film, neigh, my favourite anime film of all time, which is surprising as I’ve only seen the movie twice as of writing this. It’s just that the first time wowed me in ways no other media, anime or otherwise, had done in the past. Hell, I didn’t even know who Mamoru Oshii was when I discovered it. I just thought I had found a rather interesting, obscure piece of anime cinema. So, only after watching it a second time, a little over a year later, I’m now able to grasp at why I was so enamoured with the film in the first place, and why I can now claim it be my favourite.
The tone of The Sky Crawlers is cold; it’s bitter, it’s methodical, and it’s meticulous, but in that cold reservation of character and narrative, I find more comfort and solace th…
Read at the sourceStephen2D
The skies are their everything – a mother and a father, love and hate, life and death. And they are the "Kildren" – eternally young pilot/killer-children created to operate fighter planes and wage an endless war for the amusement of adults who lead a “normal life” in bogus peace.
Their world – reminiscent of Europe from the WWII period and run by big, shady corporations – is conceived by Hiroshi Mori in the first book of the same name which chronologically presents the ending of a five-novel saga. According to the original author, it is not easy to adapt, yet one gets the impression that both Oshii and his screenwriter Chihiro Itō (who debuted with a wonderful, yet cheesily titled melodrama Crying Out Love in the Center of the World) have no difficulties.
Deliberately (some might say, le…
Read at the sourceBushman
When I started watching Sky Crawlers, I had an idea that it should be interesting because of cool unusual aircraft, battles in the air and calm everyday atmosphere of the airbase, familiar to me from my military training time. But it turned into completely surprising experience, full of hints and details of life, specific for autistic personality. To be more precise, for high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome.
The art style itself has the really huge contrast between super-detailed backgrounds and locations, while human characters are very schematic. Indeed, it can be often found in anime, but here, the scale of this contrast is striking. It fits autistic perception perfectly: many Aspies (people with Asperger syndrome) have unusually high attention to visual details, while their pe…
Read at the sourceTrequartista
Genre: Drama, Military, Tragedy.
Studio: Production I.G.
Director: Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor 2)
TSC takes place in what might possibly be described as mid 20th century Europe (more specifically Britain) in an alternate timeline. It is an era where the majority of the population lives in peace, with wars being mainly a plaything between different mercenary groups in the name of their respective contractors. These so called mercenaries, who engage in the dance of death in the sky, pre-eminently consists of teenagers who ‘never age’ and are known as ‘Kildren’.
It is under this context we are introduced to one half of our central characters, Yuichi Kannami, who arrives at a small military base, where he meets the enigmatic base commander, Kusanagi Suito and a bunch of othe…
Read at the sourcejyagan0
Sky Crawlers is anime at its zenith, its brilliance derived from the treatment of opposites: the ubiquity of silence that reigns throughout the film against the accuracy of labored breathing from pulling Gs while looking two o clock high; the subtlety of the color palette broken by enhanced crimson of blood; character's lingering desolation between missions erased by the adrenaline of engaging in mortal aerial combat. The silence and the on-screen action are characters themselves, at times conveying more emotion than the most gifted actor. When dialog takes over, superb English voice-acting and impeccable characterization reign. If the tangible silence is broken, the brilliance of the musical score shines through. Built on this canvas, a story unfolds on the futility of war, as kildren (ch…
Read at the sourcebateszi
Mamoru Oshii doesn’t make forgettable anime. Be it Ghost in the Shell or Patlabor 2, the man injects so much personality into his films that it’s impossible not to recognise his touch. There is, of course, his famous basset hound, but there’s also a poetic side that transports this viewer into the ether. I can’t tell if it’s just that his films are ageing like fine wine, or if I’m now of an age where I’m better able to appreciate what he’s trying to say, but whatever the case, he’s now one of my favourite film directors.
I watched The Sky Crawlers for the first time last night. With Kenji Kawai and Production IG alongside him, it’s a film as thoughtful as it is beautiful. Set on an alternate Earth, the ageless Kildren (“kill-dolls”) are fighter pilots forever clashing amidst the clouds in…
Read at the sourceHybridMedia
pre·ten·tious/priˈtenCHəs/
Adjective:
Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.
Yep, I’m once again exploring the direction of Mamoru Oshii and this time, it’s based around the Japanese novel series by Hiroshi Mori that follows the journeys and tribulations of a group of young fighter pilots involved in dogfight warfare, set in an alternate historical period, but it is never mentioned what year or century it takes place. I assume it would be in the near future, due to some notices of technological advances.
The plot involves ace pilot Yūichi Kannami is reassigned to Area 262 after the deaths of three pilots and bond with the other piloting corps, the chief mechanic, and the base’s CO. There is also a subplot with the myst…
Read at the sourceKazeNilrem
This movie was very difficult to enjoy. The depths of the movie is masked under abysmal editing and quality of this film. I do understand that this movie has a lot of depth to it. There are topics such as fate, love, and existence which are to be questioned. But the mark of a good film is not merely what is portrayed, but how it is portrayed.
I love movies that make you think. Especially ones that make you question and look introspectively at your own life. This movie had the potential for it, but it failed miserably.
Characters: The characters in this film are quite bland. Although there is a sense that they are meant to be cold. They showed a lot of characters that seemed extremely out of place. Showing them for the sake of showing them; while leaving out any relation to the story of…
Read at the sourceretasulettuce
Okay, first review. Here it goes.
Story:
Well, the movie's named appropriately, because the plot just crawls along. (I know others have pointed this out too.) Once you can actually figure out what's going on, it's predictable, too. I figured out the plot twist half an hour in and fast-forwarded through the rest because it was so boring. The overall idea was good; they just didn't execute it very well. All in all, story gets a 2/10.
Art:
I did like the art. Some scenes were absolutely beautiful. However, some of the character designs were definitely lacking. during the boring scenes where there was hardly any dialogue, I thought about how ridiculous the main character's hair was. And in my opinion, the shading seemed a little off, somehow. Overall, though, 8/10. the beautiful scenes dis…
Read at the sourceTuskus
From the director of Ghost in the Shell, Mamoru Oshii, comes Sky Crawlers, one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. The whole point of the movie is that the first hour and a half is monotonous. Then, with a half an hour left of the movie, we get a clumsy infodump about how people like war. A little after that, there's a scene where this girl starts freaking out about how her life is totally rote. That scene would have been pretty cool if she didn't flat out yell out the theme of the movie in the process. If you're trying to make a serious film, you have to do it more gracefully than that. What doesn't help this movie is how serious business it is. What I mean is everyone in this movie is super serious all the time. The characters are really mellow all the time. If the characters thems…
Read at the sourcekiriska
STORY - The Sky Crawlers is a thinking movie. It’s a cynical commentary where there is so much more going on underneath the surface than you might initially think. Walking into it with no real idea as to what it was about, I was both tried by its deceptive slow pacing and amazed by its eventual depth, relevance, and poignancy. The movie follows the life of Yuichi Kannami after he’s transferred to a small military outpost in a setting similar to WWII-era Europe. He and his comrades are fighting a war, but appear largely indifferent to both their occasional dogfights and everyday life. However, from the start, Kannami appears to be haunted by the ghost of the man he’s replaced — a soldier that had been killed, though his plane remains for Kannami to fly.
The story unravels with no real urge…
Read at the sourceabennett17
I've heard nothing but great reviews of this movie so I thought I'd give it a shot. Unfortunately, I wish I hadn't. The theme is great, but that's the only thing I enjoyed. The character design is horrible. The voice acting is horrible. The main character's voice is horribly monotone. The plot moves at about 1 mile/hour. I finally just gave up about an hour in. I tried to watch the whole thing, but I would have just fell asleep. I do not suggest watching this unless you like deep philosophical animes with no action(besides the plane action).
Read at the sourcekurodayuchi
If you love me, will you kill me? I’m tired of this endless cycle…
The Sky Crawlers is a movie about genetically altered humans beings called Kildren (kill+children) who can never grow and are bound to endless aerial battles in an alternate historic period. This is a standard synopsis, the real one is that this is a story about meaning of the existence, wars, love, suicide, destiny, and emptiness.
It’s not a movie for general public taste; actually, most of people will probably want to give up on the movie before the first hour, since even though it’s a movie with war as a central subject and has some battles, the development is somewhat slow. The silence of their empty lives almost dominates the entire movie and the great moments are like slices of their lives; nothing really outstandin…
Read at the sourcenaganje
A great movie with stunning animation and sound, yet still a mile away from being flawless.
Although story takes place during a war, it concentrates on the mental and moral aspect of conflict. The main characters are involved in a fight which leads to no benefit at all. Like in a game, the only result is that one party will win over the other. They become cogs in a warfare machine, their humanity is slipping away with every angagement with the enemy. Their life has no meaning at all, once they die new soldiers will be manufactured to fight and step in the same way as new planes are constructed when some get shot down.
The story may seems not to be told to the very end, which in most cases is a great thing. It gives the viewer the incentive to think of what more would happen in the confli…
Read at the sourceSuzuhana
Really I'd give it a 4.8 but 5 is what it gets. Lucky.
I'm not sure really what the other reviewers saw in this movie, giving it a 9 and an 8 but I know full well it didn't get that for me.
The story is the only saving grace for this movie. But the way it was presented was like shit (sorry but that's the word that comes to mind). Your sort of introduced to these kids who fly aircraft and you get the gist of the story bit by bit, but I was confused for the entire first half of the movie until things started to get...serious. (But there was hardly any emotion AT ALL that I'm not sure serious is what they were). And after I looked up descriptions of the people and the background I finally was able to piece things together. That and I figured out what the plot was and how it was going to e…
Read at the sourcePenguin-chan
Story:
Okay, I just finished watching this movie. I have to say that the two hours I spent watching it seemed to have been much longer. From the first few mintues of the movie it seemed interesting. But like right after the dog fights, it just was like; "Is the movie done yet?" I mean in the last 20mintues of the movie the story basically sums up everything and things finally make sense of what is really going on here. Couldn't they have started off the a more pleasing storyline and actually keep the audiences attention? It would have been a good movie, if it was played out correctly in my opinion. So overall, I had to rate the story a 1/10.
Art:
The CGI artwork in the whole movie was fabulous and just breath-taking. I can't complain about the art at all. From the very beginning to the ve…
Read at the sourcesantetjan
Based on a series of books by Mori Hiroshi, The Sky Crawlers, the latest film by Oshii Mamoru (of Ghost in the Shell fame), tells a tale within a world that is essentially at peace, wherein wars have once again become the domain of contracted mercenary groups who fight each other in the name of their contractors, be it for some profound reason or simply for entertainment, these wars being fought to a large extent by 'Kildren', long-lived beings who are not quite human.
The film opens with the arrival of Kannami Yuuichi, a 'Kildren' ('Kild'?), at a small forward base of his company in Europe, where he is seen settling in amongst his new surroundings. Though a few battle scenes are depicted, most of the film follows a slow, almost languid pace, showing the interactions between Kannami and th…
Read at the sourceBeatnik
This is a strangely cold movie with barely any empathetic or relatable characters shuffling around gorgeously rendered backdrops with an unusually lacklustre Kenji Kawai soundtrack effort.
It’s from Mamoru Oshii so it’s automatically thoughtful and has something to say, yet as a movie it fails because Oshii’s auteur sensibilities don’t fit with the backdrop of this particular tale.
The surface story borders on the mediocre, though the backdrop premise is intriguing with the message of warfare that’s been relegated to sport-like competition between warring corporations. It’s a topical and timely subtext, especially during one scene where a conflict is taking place on a screen in a local pub in replacement of the more traditional game of football.
There is so much attention to detail, as…
Read at the sourceCheckeredBoxCat
Basically, this film revolves around humans with manipulated genes - Kildren, the children who live forever. Their job is therefore to mantain the balance between good and evil by fighting wars and nothing else.
It starts out with our lead hero, Yuuichi Kannami who has no recollection of his past when he is first assigned to be his new base. However, as days go by, he slowly begins to find things familiar and struggles with the identity of the mysterious pilot whom was the owner of his current plane.
Soon after, he begins to understand the reason behind his commanding officer, Kusanagi Suito's stoic behavior. In reality, all the pilots who die in battle are somehow reincarnated so that their skills are not lost. And the mysterious pilot whom Kannami was so interested about was actually…
Read at the sourcedtshyk
It's hard to rate this after viewing once, but I would say this movie is epic: a fateful love story with magnificent CGI.
Story
They reorganized the five volumes of the original novels except for the ending. This change in the end of the story was unexpected for me, so I'm still trying to understand what Director Oshii wanted to say from it. The theme of the movie was "the meaning of living a plain life." So he might want tell us that there should be something new in our lives even if we think they're featureless.
Art
The dog fight scenes were breathtaking works. I choose The Sky Crawlers to be the best air fight movie of the decades as well as Macross Plus. Contrary to the dynamic fight scenes, the description of the pilots' lives on the ground was flat. I know they intentionally did it…
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