Macross Δ Movie: Gekijou no Walküre

So many recap movies are ragged on for well, being a recap movie. Big shocker that a 2hr movie can't fit every detail from a 26 episode anime series. But ask the question did it need every detail from the show? From the little online discussion about Delta I've seen over the years, Macross Delta was largely panned by Macross fans as being a mess. Given the choice between 2hr recut of a mess or 26 episodes of a mess, I chose the time-saver option.

Should mention that I did not watch original series, I walked into this recap movie with fresh eyes. First impression was ... this recap movie is more a Walkure album visualizer with a minimal coherent Macross subplot to tie together each Walkure music video. With that perspective, the movie was pretty entertaining, considering all the songs were bangers. The rushed windermere plot felt like a rehash of Frontier's Varja plotline anyway, so I actually look forward to the new story in the sequel movie.

As newcomer to Macross Delta, I can recommend the recap movie as a starting point. Maybe down the line I'll loop back to the series to see if all that cut Slice of Life and Love triangle drama was actually worth seeing or not.

Do this film succ? Undoubtedly. But this film kinda understands what was the TV Delta’s problem and trying to do something about it. The problem is almost nothing can be done with the source material like TV Delta, and reimagining in the Macross F way never took place for some reasons unknown to me, so the film still succ. Graphics got better, CGI improved from “make me unseen it” to “acceptable”, flat characters became more flat because their developments got cut alongside with filler parts or shortened to a fewer scenes.

This version of Delta improved in some parts and deteriorated in others, which resulted in ... the same 5 sad Mirage’s smiles out of 10 for me.

Still better than a TV due to length.

It's just not fair, Delta. When Frontier makes a movie that re-tells the series with new context, it has the money to feel like an entirely new production, and when there's glaring 3DCG in a song section, it feels like part of the concert production and not, you know, THE WHOLE THING. That's not to mention the dodgy editing of reaction shots that's on the level of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Riding with Death where, "GO SAM, GIVE IT THE OLD COLLEGE TRY!!!" is horribly ADR'd on top of a scene to try to slam two separate episodes of a TV show into ... a "coherent movie."

I could look past this if their attempts to re-edit the series to tell a new story worked, but it doesn't. Making Freyja more the main character isn't a bad move at all, and this thing is a lesson in using editing to change context, but it doesn't work. Freyja seems less heroic because there's a more "chosen one" vibe. Even if she had the same special advantages in the series, she still auditioned and passed the final test. On the other end, what they removed weakens the piece just as much. The dancing Valkyrie scene the internet edited Earth, Wind, and Fire into (And is probably the only scene most have seen of Delta) features Freyja and Hayate when they have known each other for two minutes rather than two people who've gone through a similar experience sharing a special moment. When Mirage later asks Hayate for suggestions on a birthday present for Freyja because he knows her better, does he really?

Sure it's better than just slamming 7-13 hours of a series into a feature film and calling it a day, but the experiment doesn't work and the extra scenes distract the movie as a whole while not being worthwhile by themselves.