2015-11-05, 21:46 | Link #1061 |
YOU EEDIOT!!!
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: I'm right behind you
Age: 42
|
Yeah, considering that the TV series is almost half a decade old now (seriously?), Movies 1 and 2 are now past the three-year zeitgeist threshold, and Rebellion will be there next year, I kinda think that the show is over, what can I say? The show is over, yesterday...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ5PQppudHc (God is a concept by which we measure our pain...this would make a good Rebellion AMV) |
2015-11-06, 01:27 | Link #1062 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: In the middle of nowhere
|
Yeah, a sequel is starting to look less likely by the day... Although of course, to me this basically just translates to "Rebellion was a complete waste of time what the actual hell people." I mean, I know I'm far from the only one who thought that taken on its own, that thing does not even remotely work as an ending. I mean the ideas behind it are not bad, or rather the ideas it implies for future content aren't... But if that was meant to be the final ending to the entire franchise, then the way it was presented makes absolutely no sense at all.
...Then again, my theory is more that they did intend to continue the story only to then realize after the fact that, for as inconclusive as Rebellion's ending is... it really doesn't lend itself very well to another full-length movie or TV-series. I mean, I've been thinking a lot lately about how I would conclude the story... and I can really only imagine an ending. An ending that, theoretically, could happen immediately following the events we saw in Rebellion. And which probably wouldn't take more than 30 to 45 minutes to play out on screen at most. And ending it all with a >1hour movie... would probably seem like a bit of an anti-climax.
__________________
|
2015-11-06, 02:11 | Link #1063 |
YOU EEDIOT!!!
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: I'm right behind you
Age: 42
|
I still wonder somewhat if Gen and Shinbo had a similar mentality behind Rebellion as Anno did with EoE; that maybe Aniplex wanted a continuation that they didn't want to do, and so they produced a middle finger.
Last edited by andyjay729; 2015-11-06 at 02:44. Reason: the same -> similar |
2015-11-06, 10:27 | Link #1064 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: In the middle of nowhere
|
Quote:
But nah, much as the ending completely rubs me the wrong way, I think Rebellion clearly had way too much time, effort and thought put into it for just a massive middle finger aimed at the executives. Besides, if that was their intent, you'd think they'd make the ending a bit more conclusive... and a bit more "F you"-ish. They probably wouldn't end it with a twist that is seemingly ripe with potential (even if I've since come to realize it's actually a bit of a narrative dead-end that is hard to make a full new story based off) and the entire cast alive and well.
__________________
|
|
2015-11-07, 12:21 | Link #1065 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2006
|
^ I think it works as a "middle finger" exactly because at first it looks like an ending with a lot of potential for continuation, but it actually pushes the story into a corner and it's not easy to write a continuation for it at all.
I also get the feelings Urobuchi likes this ending as the overall ending for the franchise. I think a sort of twisted ending like this might actually suit his taste.
__________________
|
2015-11-07, 12:42 | Link #1066 |
Cross Game - I need more
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: I've moved around the American West. I've lived in Oregon, Washington, Utah, and Oklahoma
Age: 45
|
I don't think continuation would be that hard.
It's a pretty clear setup. Pick one of the girls (most likely Sayaka or Mami, Hitomi as a wildcard) as the heroine that starts to figure out that something is wrong with this world. Possibly as a gambit by the incubators to try and recover from what Homura has done to them. The end goal, that they probably don't even know right now, is to reawaken Madoka to godhood. Homura of course is the antagonist trying to block them, and takes on a role similar to Queen Beryl almost. So you'd need to give Homura some minions so the heroine can win some battles while not making any real progress. If the incubators are involved, expect some double cross from them as they want to undo Homura's world, but also don't want to return to Madoka's either. The problem isn't the continuation. The problem is the ending. The TV series (and first 2 movies) was clearly a "Passion of the Christ" based story, with heavy Faust overtones. Rebellion was a "Paradise Lost" story, with Homura in the position of Lucifer. Continuing on, the only natural ending to the continuation is either "Restoration" or "Apocalypse." "Restoration" would be open ended, and basically be restoration of Madoka to Godhood, but with Homura still free as an opposing Devil. Thus opening up direct conflict between them, and a hardening into enmity. This could then be followed later by an "Apocalypse" style ending. "Apocalypse" would be the end end- Homura is defeated and banished to hell for her sins for all eternity, and Madoka re-establishes her reign as the Law of Cycles. Notice that both of them result in a miserable ending for Homura. That's the difficulty here. The only "corner" that the authors have been written into is that Homura has openly rebelled against salvation. Therefor, how can she ever benefit from it again? That was the entire power of the Rebellion movie, that's why it was a good movie. It's also why I hated Rebellion. I like Homura, and I don't want her to be damned, but as Homura clearly already knows at the end of Rebellion, it's too late for her now. Thus fans of Homura (which make up the majority of the fanbase) are going to hate whatever new story comes out. It's not that there is no good story left to tell, just that it's going to be unpopular.
__________________
|
2015-11-07, 14:59 | Link #1067 | |
Senior Member
Author
|
Quote:
My gut feeling is that Madoka Magica will probably get a NGE-esque reboot at some point in the future. I think its popularity and legacy is as such that somebody will probably take a crack at that a few years to a decade down the line. But a direct continuation now seems very unlikely to me.
__________________
|
|
2015-11-07, 15:17 | Link #1068 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: In the middle of nowhere
|
I don't really think a continuation where we focus on Mami or Sayaka or Kyouko uncovering the truth would work. Simply because, well, we the audience know the truth. It'd be all about characters uncovering what we the audience already know due to the end of Rebellion. Of course, if we're talking how to continue the story, I guess I can just say how I'd do it too. Mind you, the ending I came up with is admittedly a bit contrived, but I feel it mostly works in line with what we've been shown so far and would provide a fairly satisfying and unambiguously conclusive ending.
Spoiler for So basically what I'd have happen is...:
...What can I say, I felt that a perfect happy ending would be the greatest possible betrayal of what made the show great. I will admit there are several things that would need to be addressed for what I suggested to fully work, but then I'm not a professional writer.
__________________
|
2015-11-07, 19:23 | Link #1069 |
Senior Member
Author
|
To your credit, this is a pretty creative ending idea with a flash or two of brilliance to it.
However, I honestly prefer Rebellion's ending, even as a series ending, to what you've outlined here. In my view, your proposed ending would undo what positives there are to the Rebellion ending, and without really gaining back the positives that were lost due to the Rebellion ending. Honestly, it almost has a "worst of both worlds" feeling to me. It would in fact be the least happy of the three endings in my mind (less happy than the TV series ending as well as Rebellion's ending). What made the TV series ending great wasn't simply the system that Madoka set up, it was also Madokami herself. She was beautiful and glorious, and filled the ending with great hope and warmth. For me, Rebellion's ending had two big negatives - Essentially undoing Madokami, and feeling less conclusive than the TV series ending felt to me. Your ending idea doesn't bring Madokami back, and in fact subjects Madoka to a worst ending than what she has in Rebellion's ending. Your ending would be more conclusive than Rebellion's, I'll give you that. But in seeing a hypothetical conclusive ending that I don't like, I'm starting to have 2nd thoughts on PMMM having an open-ended ending in general. Maybe an open-ended ending isn't so bad after all. Maybe such uncertainty and world of unpredictable potentially double-edged magic is well in-keeping with the overall vibe and tone of Madoka Magica.
__________________
|
2015-11-08, 03:50 | Link #1070 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: In the middle of nowhere
|
...Yeah, not gonna deny that. My mindset here was basically "How could I bring about an actual conclusive ending that doesn't just completely disregard what had come before it?" Simply restoring the TV-series ending as-is, (tempting though that may be being that I consider it to be one of the most perfect endings to anything I've ever seen) would just kill the whole point of a sequel in the first place, so I tried to think of a way to make something similar without actually being the exact same thing. And I wanted to bring some closure to Homura's character that wasn't just "I've set up this new system that is clearly not going to work in the long-term but whatever." Which is basically what Rebellion's ending was to me, I mean, what else can you take from that final scene beyond "this setup is unstable and is going to collapse on itself sooner or later?"
...But oh hey, just on this page we have three suggested outcomes that Rebellion's ending could lead to, and all of them have the problem that it would result in an utterly miserable outcome for Madoka and/or Homura. How about that... Now I'm just trying to think if there's any way one could give both of them a satisfying conclusion and still commit to all the plot-developments that had come before...
__________________
|
2015-11-08, 12:48 | Link #1071 |
The True Culprit
|
Honestly, I could be more satisfied with Rebellion as an ending if I knew what the fuck was going on. As things stand, the Homuverse's properties are so ambiguous that you can't make heads or tails of what's what or why Homura's set-up is a good thing or a bad thing.
Which might well be the point, but the moral ambiguity comes from "I don't know" rather than legitimate controversy.
__________________
|
2015-11-09, 01:40 | Link #1072 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2006
|
I think making a continuation would be hard mainly for two reasons:
1) There's no mystery element after the conflict introduced by the ending of Rebellion. The characters might not know what's going on, but we the audience know, and that kills the mystery. This is a huge contrast to both the TV series and Rebellion itself. In both works the audience is completely ignorant about the real nature of the conflict until around episode 10 in the anime, and the moment Homura learns the truth of the dream world from Kyubey in Rebellion. A continuation would lack this mystery element and I think it would lose some of the charm from the previous works without it. I bet this is quite the concern for the staff and producers, who usually try to keep the same genre and tone in sequels (there's a reason the TV series and Rebellion are similar in their efforts to keep things from the audience during their first half). 2) How to end the continuation. Madoka's world is a thing of the past, so I think going back to it would feel like the story is going in circles (going nowhere). Rather, whatever happens in a continuation should lead to something new and better. A world that takes the best from everything that came before, the best from both Madoka and Homura. But that wouldn't be easy to write, especially with Homura in an antagonistic position. My guess is that Urobuchi wrote Rebellion as the definitive ending of the franchise. A twisted ending that suits his taste. But he probably was told to leave sequel hooks by the producers, and so he did, but it's clear he didn't put a lot of effort into making things easy for a potential continuation to be made, and now the producers are probably having a lot of trouble trying to find a suitable storyline that can guarantee the same success of the previous works. This last point is most important: they don't want just any story; they want a sure success. And for that they need a story that can bring as much of the charm of the previous works as possible. In that respect, having Homura as antagonist is probably a problem too. She's the most popular character after all.
__________________
Last edited by Kazu-kun; 2015-11-09 at 02:01. |
2015-11-09, 13:36 | Link #1073 |
The True Culprit
|
1) In fairness, they could always pull a fast one on the audience like they did with Rebellion. Everyone thought they'd know what was up in a Wraith World sequel.
2) If things DID go in a circle, it'd be hilariously poetic because Madoka's name literally means 'Circle'. Puella Magi Circle Magica.
__________________
|
2015-11-10, 22:08 | Link #1075 | |
Senior Member
Author
|
Quote:
Suppose the movie starts with Homura back to being Moemura, and Madoka back to being a magical girl. You could even have Madoka rescuing Homura all over again. Woah, how did that happen?! Well, there's all sorts of ways this could happen. Maybe Homura gets depressed at seeing Madoka grow up and living a generally dissatisfying adult life, and decides to force the clocks back. Madoka is a very nice person, but she does have her failings and self-worth issues. It's quite possible that she doesn't grow up to be a happy adult in the life that Homura is forcing upon her.
__________________
|
|
2015-11-10, 23:38 | Link #1076 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2006
|
Pulling a fast one on the audience is not as easy as it sounds though. The audience already had their expectations, and if you're going to betray them, you got to deliver something really good and interesting. In that respect, Rebellion barely succeeded. A sequel would need something even better, because everyone is looking forwards to what's going to happen between Homura and Madoka right after Rebellion. If you're not going to give them that, you better give them something REALLY good. Otherwise, don't even try.
It would be lame, and I'm convinced the staff are aware of that.
__________________
|
2015-11-10, 23:50 | Link #1077 | |
Senior Member
Author
|
Quote:
Ultimately, it just needs to be fun and entertaining. It just needs to play to what fans would like to see. Heck, shallow as it may sound, playing up some yuri subtext in the first quarter of a sequel would probably be enough to get most of the fanbase totally on-board. Have some nice HomuMado and KyouSaya scenes in the first quarter of the movie, and you'd already have the full support of the most of the audience. Yes, it's probably cynical, but I also honestly think it's true. Not only that, but given how HomuMado looks at the end of Rebellion, I'd say that a lot of people would feel a huge wave of relief at seeing the two in happy blissful friendship scenes again. I daresay that this might even apply to you personally, Kazu-kun. I'll admit it would probably apply to me. Also, defying expectations can in fact be a positive. Showing scenes that people aren't expecting, but are like dream scenarios to them, can be tremendously effective. And frankly, I think that's a big part of the reason why Rebellion was largely well-received. Whatever one thinks of its finale, it's still an excellent piece of entertainment overall. With excellent visuals, interesting character interactions, fun new scenarios that are different from what we've seen before (Puella Magi Holy Quintet!), and one of the best fight scenes in all of anime (Homura vs. Mami). Matching (or even surpassing) Homura vs. Mami would in fact be one of the biggest challenges facing a sequel, in my opinion, as people looking for flashy magical girl action would certainly be hoping for that. We here on this thread can maybe get a little too caught up on plot and theme and world building and stuff like that. That's all important, but at the end of the day, this is entertainment. Manage to be entertaining, and showcase the characters in ways that fans of the characters will like, and fans will forgive a lot if needbe.
__________________
|
|
2015-11-10, 23:56 | Link #1078 |
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2006
|
I think it's far more likely that none of the creative parties involved see a point in pushing to make a continuation when they have other projects competing for their attention. There is no demand from their employers because Madoka franchising revenue is still good enough and the next big hit could be whatever projects they currently have in the pipeline. In terms of ending the main story, Rebellion could easily be continued but the ending is pretty simple: "Homura wins, the end". There's no burning need for Gen to "fix" that ending and Shinbo would rather just slice of life the whole thing.
So yeah....if this is the end of Madoka, I'm okay with what we got, and to be honest it's probably better that they just stop here rather than milking it to death.
__________________
|
2015-11-10, 23:58 | Link #1079 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2006
|
Making anime isn't cheap. They're not going to make a sequel if they're not sure it's going to work, specially for such a hit franchise like Madoka.
If they did, we would have our sequel already. And Solace is right that Shinbo would probably prefer a slice of life spinoff rather than a sequel anyway.
__________________
|
2015-11-10, 23:59 | Link #1080 | |
Senior Member
Author
|
Quote:
Which if anything, should support relatively safe properties that already have a strong fanbase. Also, you never addressed most of my argument there. Or even the crux of it, really. So why don't we have one yet? Or even the slightest hinting of one? It's been over two years...
__________________
|
|
Tags |
madoka magica, movie |
|
|