Origin: Spirits of the Past

2006 "Together, we can face the future..."
Origin: Spirits of the Past
6.3| 1h35m| en| More Info
Released: 20 February 2006 Released
Producted By: GONZO
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

It is 300 years into the future. Earth's environment had been devastated by mankind's own foolish plans and humankind is beleaguered by the sentient forests which they have awoken. The world balance is tipped when a young boy named Agito stumbles across a machine that glowed in a strange blue hue inside a forbidden sanctuary.

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Reviews

uvindu In short, this film was an overall disappointment in many levels. The story contained some very interesting ideas, but they were delivered in a blunt and mediocre fashion. Some of these concepts are clumsily mentioned and ignored for the rest of the film.At times I got the feeling that this film tries to force its message on me. There were way too many clichéd and predictable moments to make things worse. The main characters were annoying and shallow. The film doesn't give enough focus to any of the characters but continuously shuffles from one to the other in a disjointed fashion.The visuals were impressive but that's something very common among many anime films. At times it felt as if some scenes were artificially added for visual value. Gin-iro no kami no Agito, feels pretty much like an incomplete story board strung together hastily. If you are a fan of this genre, I recommend that you are better off with titles as 'Princess Mononoke', 'Grave of the Fireflies' or 'Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind'.
Tweekums Having heard from a friend that this anime film was well worth watching I decided to check it out for myself. As soon as it started I was immediately impressed by the stunning animation. The story is set in the distant future three hundred years after an environmental cataclysm which destroyed most civilisation and left mankind competing with the now sentient forests for survival. In a town built above the remains of a destroyed city two boys, Agito and his friend Cain, descend deep into the old city to get water from a well; here an accident leads to Agito being washed deep into the heart of the old city. Here he discovers a girl in a hibernation chamber and awakens her. She is Toola and she has been there since the time of the cataclysm. They become friends but news of her discovery soon spreads to a neighbouring city where another person from the past is keen to get his hands on her and activate a device that will fix the mistakes he believes he made that gave the forest its sentience. In order to rescue Toola Agito must join with the forest himself; something that will give him superhuman strength but risks him becoming a tree if he loses control of his new strengths.I'm glad a listened to my friend as I found this to be an enjoyable film; most of the animation looks great even if some of the 3D CGI contrasts a little too much with the traditional animation that makes up most of the film. The characters are enjoyable and don't fall into the cliché of having a black and white morality; even the antagonist is doing what he does because he believes that is the right way to save civilisation. The environmental message might seem a little heavy handed to some but the plot justifies it and I don't think it got too preachy. People who want action scenes should be happy too as there is quite a lot including plenty of explosions and a fight between Agito and the antagonist.These comments are based on watching the film in Japanese with English subtitles.
Charles Herold (cherold) This well animated film treads the same nature versus technology ground that Hayao Miyazaki films often do, and in the beginning it is pretty good, with a reasonably interesting premise and very nice, visually striking animation.There are some minor problems in the plotting early on. Most notably, it's unclear why bringing civilization back is a bad idea. Eventually it does become clear why, but the movie just kind of assumes it must be a bad idea without taking much pains to persuade the audience.Still, I was enjoying the movie until perhaps the last 20 minutes, when it becomes ridiculous. It turns out that, rather than restoring the world, the final solution will, as best I could tell, return the earth to the state of burning lava. How is that a good idea? And how would anyone survive? Next, why is the volcano weaponized? If it is just designed to reformat the earth, why does it need defensive weapons? I'm also unclear on why it needs to move. Does it simply destroy a little of the planet at a time? (In which case I suppose the planet could be reformatted piecemeal, which would explain how people could survive.) Lastly, why, if you shut down the volcano, would it self destruct? What possible sense would that make? And how would any personnel in the volcano actually leave? And get far enough away.Towards the end the movie also gets way too sincere and preachy. So that what should be the emotional, uplifting finale feels like a huge let down.All that being said, it's a nice looking, perfectly enjoyable movie if you can accept its flaws.
Adam As seems to be the general gist of these comments, the film has some stunning animation (I watched it on blu-ray) but it really falls short of any real depth.Firstly the characters are all pretty dull. I got a hint of a kind of Laputa situation between Agito, Toola and the main antagonist Shunack. However maybe my mind wanderd and this was wishful thinking (Laputa being my favourite animé, original Engilsh dub). The characters are not really lovable either and as mentioned in another post they fall in love exceptionally quickly, leaving poor old Minka jealous and rejected (she loves Agito, who seems oblivious of this). However she promptly seems to forgive Toola at the end with no explanation for the change of heart other than it makes the ending a little bit more "happy". There is also a serious lack of explanation. Like who are the druids really? Are they people? and who are the weird women/girls who seem to hang out with them and run the forest? There is nothing explaining why they are there and how they can give regular humans superpowers. The plants coming from the moon still does not fill in the blanks about this. It is almost like a weird version of The Day of the Triffids.And who does call Toola? why bother with this if it wont be explained?I really wanted to like this film but I found the plot no where near as deep as a film like Ghost in the Shell or having any real character like those of Miyazaki. I do not resent watching it but I do sort of wish I hadn't bought it. My advice? Give it a go if you have a couple of hours to spare, but borrow it, or buy it cheap! Perhaps if your new to animé films and don't have much to go by you will enjoy it. It certainly is visually pleasing.