I JUST FINISHED WATCHING M26!
LITERAL CHILLS. My hands are sweating as I'm typing this. Now I can appreciate your art about it even more!
The movie was great but I feel there's something missing but can't point it out. It feels... short?
I know it'a fiction but damn, Conan, how could you handle that (probably adrenaline?). And how'd you know it was Haibara who saved you(not that I'm conplaining), it's practically dark under the sea and you have no goggles!
Welcome back anon!!! Sorry this is a bit late, working during holiday season got kinda hectic 😔
Y'know, I get you on the fact that it feels short. I let the movie marinate in my head for a bit, and its been a good couple of weeks now since I've seen it, and I do have to agree that the plot progression from point A to B was kinda disappointingly short.
I think from my POV, as Haibara takes more of a damsel role, it kind of disappoints me that the movie hypes up her kidnapping but she is saved not too long after. I feel this way about the Mystery Train arc too lol that for a Haibara centred movie/arc, she's still treated as a B-plot. And that bothers me a lot.
As a production I get the limits. They can't afford to make too much alterations on the status quo as a long running franchise, which is why they can't quite afford to spend time on already a pretty huge decision (the B.O making direct contact with Haibara after the canon explicitly has moved on since then) so they have to find a way to return back to the floating timeline somehow.
But it's a bit contradictory at the same time, given the fact that they've explicitly established a continuity going on here—Irish & Curacao being explicitly referenced, Akai & Amuro motifs referencing Darkest Nightmare, etc—so at that point, I feel like they could have done much more to adjust the plot with some liberties.
One of the biggest weaknesses about the movies is that they'd market a specific character as a focal point of the movie to grab your attention and make you watch it, only to find out they're actually just the last 5 mins of the movie (The Scarlet Bullet left some scars in me 🥴). This movie surprisingly subverts this where Haibara actually takes a decent amount of screen time and a LOT of plot importance, but it still, mysteriously feels tacked on at the end of the day. I only feel this way because I felt that the movie would jump between intense scenes but not pad it long enough to make lasting impact—Conan & Haibara repeating their iconic glasses exchange was very cute, but the sudden shift between that scene and the next was just off by just a beat imo, for example—and Haibara being saved literally in the first operation Conan goes out to get her felt like the challenge & consequences were a bit too easy. Where was the struggle? Just the suspense? It didn't really feel rewarding to see her get saved, despite the intensity of her kidnapping.
Where I would make the changes? I feel as though the last part of the movie should have interwoven with the rescue in itself. Not that the little coffee exchange wasn't cute, but in the greater picture I feel as though they could've rode on that wave of suspense & thrill and receive a greater payoff than what we had. But, well, that's just me.
Might be asking too much for a detective conan movie 🤪
