I think the Last needed that focus on romance though. It's fault isn't that, more that it wasn't long enough. The Last does help fix a lot of NH issues. (Isn't every movie fan-service, technically?), but it could have been better if Kishimoto had chosen to better utilize romance in his manga. If he did, the latter parts of the Manga would have worked better and the Last wouldn't have had to focus so much on romance, giving more time for other things without making the Last drudgingly long.
I don't think the Last did the best job of making NS clearly resolved either, I don't think the one line was enough. (As an aside, I did enjoy that fond moment where Naruto saves Sakura when her painted bird is destroyed. Even if you don't ship NS, you have to really appreciate their relationship in this moment.).Again, I think the blame goes to Kishimoto here as well. If he had made it more clear/spent more time on this, it would have been better set for the movie to be successful, and to really enrichen things, particularly around Toneri, whose motives could have used some brushing up.
As you see, I blame Kishimoto specifically for a lot of faults. I guess his Editors have their place in things, but as the head, I think it goes to his plate.
Isn't that what I wrote? That the Last needed a slight focus on romance? And that's what I meant with fanservice, I wasn't trying to use it negatively.
The thing is - it HAD to be longer. They were also a lot of other things that were unresolved beside NH.
The most important thing is: What exactly did the movie resolve between Naruto and Hinata?
Including new pasts? Or making Naruto into an idiot, that after the Pain Arc and what happened during the war still somehow didn't understand that Hinata romantically loves him? Or that he somehow instantly falls in love with her after seeing how much she always loved him?
The Last is romantically a catastrophe; You are right, it resolves many things between the two that absolutely needed to be resolved - but not without destroying and ignoring many things that were built up in terms of NH in the Manga, only to build up a less realistic new construct.
It ignores the few things that make NH unique and becomes a boring sappy soap romance in fast forward mode. [And includes the ridiculous and stall Kaguya + Doujutsu plot lines as a frame, but that is a matter of taste]
It's still a nice movie, with all its visuals, music's and nostalgia - but is not completely compatible with how the Manga ended.
I think Kishi was on a very good way with how he used romance, for a very veery long time. The last 200 chapters or so, the whole Manga was rushed, which made the romance to take a backseat.
You are right, more romance resolvement at the end, rather than in the movie would have worked much better (like I wrote in my first post - I always thought that we would get a lot of romance resolvement in the last chapters), but the romance is not the only thing that suffered in Naruto during the end.
NS is a tricky thing in such a movie - you also can't give it too much time, because it is a NH movie.
But then again, a lot could have been so much easier and better if Kishi had simply continued with the path NS was going during the Manga, before he shot it off.
I mean, EVERYTHING was there for a great romance [NS is still the main and most interesting romance plot in Naruto although it has a sad ending], he included the many things, scenes and drama aspects that made me love it. I even like the not happy ending - it conveys a whole own selfless message in it, that I cherish.
Edited by Aevrum, 06 July 2017 - 08:16 PM.
