Just a small note before I start: this review contains spoilers for the end of .Hack//Roots. You need to have seen that series anyway in order to understand Trilogy. In any case, .Hack//Roots has been my second-least favourite Bee-Train production (the least favourite being .Hack//Dusk, but that’s a totally different story), and that was a real pity because of all the great ideas it had. The Trilogy-movie at least eliminates one of the problems I had with this series: it provides closure! It answers questions! The movie still has its problems, but it’s a must-watch for everyone who managed to sit through the original series.
Nearly all of the bad points of this series can be traced back to just one simple decision: the decision to not include the final scene of the original series. The scene where Haseo stopped angsting and actually learned his lesson. In Trilogy, Haseo actually continues angsting, even after being defeated by Tri-Edge. The result is an obnoxious amount of forehead-shot and more scream-fests than you can shake a stick at. The character-development that does get included was by no means as memorable as in the original series (about the only thing that went right in .Hack//Roots).
In addition, the music has been down-graded as well. In addition, though, the graphics turned to 3D, which is of course perfect for a setting of an on-line game. The good parts of this series, however, are the times when characters aren’t screaming. There’s a clear line between angst and emo that Trilogy continues to hop back and forwards to, and the moments you want to watch out for is when the characters are on the angst-side of the spectrum.
Trilogy is by no means a great movie, but it is a good one nonetheless, worth of your ninety minutes of attention. Oh, and be sure to watch the parody-modes that come included. They’re hilarious!
I’d assume that it’s called .hack//GU Trilogy because the content is derived from the three PS2 GU games. I don’t think there’s any more to it than that.
Pretty much that is my understanding as well. Trilogy is just a retelling of the story of the GU games (and it may be a plus if you didn’t play the games either)
Yes. It’s called Trilogy because it’s an alternate storyversion of the three (trilogy) .hack//GU PS2 games.
Roots was just sort of an intro for the three games.
i thought it was kind of annoying to sit through. but for those of us who haven’t played the games it was nice to see how the story went after .hack//roots. does anyone know if there is any new .hack anime on the way? or is the end
There’s no official announcement, but if .Hack//GU was such a success that it spawned a movie then there’ll surely be another game. And if there’s another game, then there’s a good possibility of another anime in a few years. I just hope that the creators will take that one back to the brilliance of .Hack//Sign again…
Yes. They are currently creating a whole new .hack saga (after the SIGN/IMOQ and ROOTS/GU saga).
There will be an announcement the next months. They already began with a new .hack manga called .hack//LINK, which is the beginning of the new story and take place in 2020.
And yes, I, too, want to see a new .hack anime which is more like SIGN than ROOTS. SIGN is imo brilliant and still one of my absolute favoanimeshows. I don’t like ROOTS.
But I have to say even if the movie was good, that it´s only an alternate retelling of the games, and the story it´s explained a lot better in the games, the characters get even more development (not to say that some great scenes were cut out, and a good number of excellent supporting characters too). BTW, the music it´s different because it was composed by the same team that composed the music for all of the .hack games (Chikayo Fukuda being the lead). And if anyone wants to see some differences between the GU games and the movies, go to bluelaguna.net, all the cutscenes of the three games are there for downloading (special mention to a pair named “Roar of the Beast” and “Kuhn proves a point”)
You made a review of the Movie without knowing about the games… you fail right there.
This post is still unedited? It’s embarrassing enough as it is, and it actually shows up on google!
I still wonder how can you still review a well-known series such as .Hack and not even know about the existence of the games? Don’t tell me you thought .hack was only an Anime? Not only that, you seem to be ignoring other people’s comments about the games, and you fail to acknowledge them.
.Hack is pretty much well-known, and anyone who have heard about it know about the games. Please remove that ignorant paragraph regarding how you do not understand why it’s called Trilogy; it’s because its based on the 3 volumes of games for the PS2: Rebirth, Reminisce and Redemption. It’s not that hard to google them and find out more about them even though you don’t own a PS2. You should really do more research on what you’re dealing with before reviewing them. Anyone who is familiar with the series would start to rage when they see your scathing review.
The fact that you did not know about the video game series makes your entire review redundant, obsolete, and lacking credibility.
Have you even heard of the “original series” which consisted of 4 volumes of .Hack games that came out back in 2001? Because it doesn’t sound right to call ROOTS the “original series”.
I’m not being a ball buster here, and heck I’m not even a fan of the series nor played the original four video games, and only played the first volume of .Hack GU. But reading your post and noticing your ignorance despite getting comments about the game really made me rage a bit.
Sorry if I sounded too mean. I just wanted to clear things up.
Go play the games if you will, or you could just read up on Wikipedia.
You must remember that Anime, Manga and Video games are part of each other; don’t go reviewing something out of the blue. Half of the Anime you reviewed here contain story arcs present only in the game versions…
It was actually my full intention to review this movie from the perspective of someone who hasn’t played the games. I simply don’t have a PS3, and I don’t have the time to look up on the differences between the movies and the games.
If you don’t have access to some content it’s Playing the games means you probably like them. Liking them is obviously going to bias you towards the film. I doubt you would stick through the games if you didn’t like them, and I doubt you would even NEED this review if you didn’t like the games.
This review is obviously based towards people who have not played the games as a heads up. If you’ve played the games, why would you need a review to go take a look into a movie on content you know you enjoy?
@pagel: It’s on the PS2, not the PS3.
Even if you hadn’t played them, you can always look them up on Youtube or read them on Wikipedia to get a gist of what it is.
Also, .Hack relies heavily on this medium of continuity. To fully appreciate this story, you have to have BOTH the anime and the games. So really, it wasn’t meant to be reviewed as an anime anyway.
It’s just that the review above doesn’t acknowledge even the mere existence of the game (including the four original games since 2001) feels a little unsettling, and slightly unfair 🙁