Wonderful Days/Sky Blue
(2003 movie)
Man, I really wished some of these shows would just keep the same title. I actually watched this under the title "Sky Blue," but Wikipedia has informed me that it's actually supposed to be "Wonderful Days". Whatever. Wikipedia has also informed me that this animation comes to us from South Korea, which is actually where a lot of animation is done for both Japanese and American companies. Of course this is also where movies like
Diatron-5 come to us from, which is basically Korea's attempt at doing anime. I'm not saying
Sky Blue is that bad, though between the CGI (used for basically everything but the characters) and the story, it does remind me an awful lot of
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which isn't really a good thing.
The story, such as it is, takes place in 2142 in some unspecified region of an environmentally devastated Earth. There's mention of global warming, and toxic rain is supposed to be responsible for the barren landscape, so, as you might guess, this movie has a very heavy-handed environmental message. About the only thing going for it there is that its only about as heavy-handed as Ghibli's
Castle in the Sky, as opposed to some of his other movies, just to give you a feel for what you'd be in for this movie. As in
Castle in the Sky (and
Avatar, for that matter), the story follows two star-crossed lovers who are somewhat awkwardly made to share the protagonist spot. What I mean by that is that Jay, a rather attractive female security officer in the "living" city of Ecoban, seems like she's the protagonist early on in the movie, as she not only narrates, but the film follows her perspective for the most part. This changes when we're introduced to the male lead, Shua, who's an environmentalist terrorist bent on messing up Ecoban's power core. He's also later revealed to be a former citizen of Ecoban and the boy Jay totally liked when they were kids. Point being that Shua takes up most of the movie's focus from the point he's introduced, with Jay being relegated to more of a supporting role. But then this movie isn't really what I thought and hoped that it might be from what the opening of the movie teased me with.
What can I say? I like 'em with short hair.
You see, I was led to believe that Jay would be the protagonist, and the movie was even kind of setting her up as the type of strong female protagonist that I like seeing, mostly because that isn't a type of protagonist that is seen very often. She informs us that it's been raining for a century, and that Ecoban is not only the last hold-out of humanity, but that it's also a living city. Of course it's only almost always cloudy, not always raining, and only the computer/power core of the city is "living" in the sense that it's neurally-based and happens to be shaped like a flower bloom. Of course Jay turned out to not be all that strong, or the main protagonist, so it shouldn't be hard to understand why I was disappointed by this movie.
The thing is, this movie is pretty predictable, and not terribly compelling on top of being somewhat boring. Right off the bat, we're given underdogs to root for, as survivors of the environmental apocalypse mentioned in the opening are basically used as mistreated labor to do all the dirty work of digging up the resources Ecoban needs to run, somewhat similar to what was depicted in
Battle Angel Alita and in
Star Trek's "The Cloud Minders." Within the first few minutes of the movie, we're shown not only the bigoted way that most of Ecoban's residents treat the people they call diggers, but the way they abuse them. Apparently Ecoban is powered by carbonite (no word on if they use it to freeze people, too), and they use these diggers to, well, dig it up for them. So the opening consists of Jay, the one non-bigoted person who lives in Ecoban, heading out to an oil-rig looking mining platform, just in time for it to start falling apart and to show the complete disregard the Ecoban foreman, Commander Locke, has for the diggers' lives by not only ordering the part of the platform that's falling apart on its own to be cut loose into the ocean, but by shooting the digger foreman when he refuses to do so and threatens a mass strike if Locke gets someone else to do it anyway. Of course this doubly serves to introduce the main antagonist to the audience. And that being done, Jay goes right back to Ecoban, Commander Cade is introduced as her boss and the guy who wants to bone her, and Shua sneaks in, kills some poor security guard, and hacks Ecoban's computer for his boss, Dr, Noah.
Sadly, no. (Photo Credit: Memory Alpha)
Dr. Noah, who not only used to be a citizen of Ecoban but designed its computer system, wants to do some kind of an energy release that will supposedly clear the entire planet's atmosphere, making sure to note that the only "harm" to the citizens of Ecoban will be that they'll have to use solar energy (because I'm real sure that's developed a lot under a sky that's constantly cloudy) and have to do some hard work themselves, because, you know, the diggers are the underdogs who do all the work while the Ecobans are bastards who live like rich people and do no real work themselves. Class warfare, basically. It's also at this point we're given some brief background on Shua and Jay, as Shua also used to be a citizen of Ecoban, and he and Jay were totally into each other even as kids, apparently. We're also introduced to Woody, some little orphan kid Shua adopted as a little brother to show us he's totally domestic material, and to the comedy relief thugs that Woody hangs out with, and who naturally turn out to nobly sacrifice themselves so Shua can get laid- I mean so he can win the day and get the girl in the end.
The conflict of this movie is also quickly set up, not only between Ecoban and the diggers, but between quite a few of the characters. Locke and Cade are set up as political rivals, with Locke being more militant and Cade being more moderate. Cade is also an antagonist, though he's made much more ambiguous than the straight-up black hat wearing, mustache-twirling (if he had one) antagonist that Locke is, at least in every area but one – Cade totally wants to bone Jay, and has been jealous of Shua since they were kids. Shua brought Jay outside Ecoban at one point to show her a brief break in the clouds, but Cade tattled on them, as the area they were in was supposed to be off limits. The guard was a real prick himself, and went really overboard on Shua. Naturally Cade was all for that, but when the guard turned his attention on Jay, Cade tried to pull him away from her. In the ensuing struggle his foot knocks knife out of the guard's belt and he uses it and to stab the guard in the back. Then, being rather forward thinking for a kid, Cade not only frames Shua for the guard's murder, but does his best to kill Shua so he can't be around to defend himself, as Jay was conveniently unconscious at the time. So as you might guess, the conflict between Cade and Shua is made to be the main conflict of the movie, rivaling even the plot's main conflict, which is Dr. Noah's plan to screw Ecoban so the sky can be magically cleared.
Naturally, everything turns out exactly the way you would expect, with the underdog terrorists succeeding at Dr. Noah's plan at the cost of all of their lives, with Shua and Woody being the only survivors out of them so that Shua can hook up with Jay and the two of them can adopt Woody. Cade actually turned out to be the most fleshed out character of all of them, as he actually stopped short of killing Shua, instead sacrificing himself to save Jay from Locke. Of course, everything was very melodramatic during all of this and I couldn't help but roll my eyes. There's also the reveal that the mythical "Gibraltar" Shua had been going on about having a blue sky all the time was actually where the entire story took place.
I mean, this isn't a horribly bad movie or anything, but it's just so thin in story and characterization, and the plot is very basic. I suppose if you enjoy basically anything that has class conflict, star-crossed lovers with a love triangle, and an environmental message, you might be able to just turn your brain off and enjoy this movie. As for myself, I found myself bored and disappointed. Really the only entertainment I got out of this movie involved all the names of characters which just also happened to be the same as characters from other shows or movies, all the flaws in logic the movie had, and just how transparently manipulative this movie tried to be. I also couldn't help but see some similarities with
Ergo Proxy, which I totally would have made a crack about, except that
Ergo Proxy came out about 3 years after this movie. Well,
Ergo Proxy may have borrowed from this movie, but it was definitely a better show and far more entertaining. Other than that, while there are a few enjoyable moments, and it has some pretty visuals here and there, I can't really recommend this movie to anyone. 4/10.