I actually prefer the original's version of the plot diversion more myself. How the homunculi were made in the original added more of a sense of "we did this to ourselves, brought upon our own destruction", and I really dug that.
Huh? You mean that the homonculi 'brought about their own destruction', or the alchemists who made them? I suppose I could see the latter, but the homonculi backstory still felt kind of shoe-horned in there to me. Especially with the big plot hole I mentioned earlier, it just makes infinitely more sense to me for the homonculi to come from the same source, as opposed to having alchemists coincidentally failing to bring loved ones back only seven times.
And also, I mentioned it earlier, but Trisha = Sloth? What the heck?
QUOTE
I can agree with the "feeling like watching a movie" part of that, but that's actually kinda what turned me away from FMAB. It went from being potentially very emotional and engaging to being a Michael Bay version of FMA pretty much. Plus, the final fight with Father didn't really have me on edge for some reason.
From what I see, FMAB is way more about the action while FMA focuses on the emotional aspects of things much better. The fights weren't too special in FMA, I agree, but what's there in place of fights makes me love the series just a bit more than FMAB. Plus, I didn't mind the no EdxWin thing really. It ended in a good way regardless.
I was about to argue this, but then I remembered the King Bradley vs. A tank fight. So I'll concede that point.
But I certainly didn't mind it. I generally read shounen stories for action anyway. The first one had some great dialogue, but I got tired of seeing Ed act so emo for so long. I missed his usual cheery self. It's almost like the animators decided to take the characters and force their own worldview onto them, as well as the overall story, without considering how Arakawa had drawn them up to that point. Plus the way Hohenheim described our world at the end of the series made me feel like I was watching an anti-war documentary. Which failed IMO, considering that deaths in our world let alchemists fight bad guys in theirs. And seriously, how the heck did Hohenheim know about the Hiroshima/Nagasaki attacks? Wasn't it still WWI when they got zapped over here? Wow, that didn't seem contrived at all.
QUOTE
Seriously? 8/10 compared to 500/10? I think you're giving FMAB just a
bit too much credit there
The real score was 497, but I rounded up. I've spent many nights crunching the numbers on this.
QUOTE
Plus, the ending of FMAB kinda ticked me off on certain things. No recognition of Hohenheim's death from Ed or Al? No burial shown for Fu? Hell, barely any Xing mentioned at all at the end? Plus, the AlxMei thing seemed to come out of nowhere for me. Just felt crammed in there.
Yeah, there were some things that I wish were resolved, but too much falling action in a story does more harm than good, IMO. Hohenheim was acknowleged by Ed (calling him dad) and Fu and Buccaneer's sacrifices were acknowledged by their comrades, so anything more would just drag out the plot, or just give the ending an emo vibe. I prefer to see how things are moving forward, anything else can be safely implied by the reader/viewer.
Also, was the implication in the end that Al and May got together? There was sort of an age difference, but I can't deny that I sort of side-shipped them. It was cute how she went crazy whenever he was around, and how she got jealous that one time he was hiding Winry inside of himself. May wasn't a main character, but the story had two main heroes and only one love interest, so one of them was destined to end up with either no one or supporting character. And I prefer the latter.
QUOTE
Edit: Wow, am I really the only person who thought that the combining of our two worlds in the original FMA was awesome?
Meh, I've never been a big fan of the whole 'portal' style of high fantasy fiction, where the fantasy world is somehow connected to our world. It can be done well, (I wasn't a big fan of the Narnia series, but I acknowledge that it was well-written) but the way FMA did it just seemed way too random to me. Plus, the revelation that wars caused in our world allow alchemists to use their magic in theirs felt so shoe-horned it wasn't even funny.
Anyways, I should probably put a disclaimer at the end of this that I'm not trying to get on your case or anything. If I sound rude, it's probably because I'm pretty tactless in these sort of discussions.
Edited by Boom...Winning, 22 October 2011 - 10:10 PM.