Doraemon the Movie: Nobita and the Green Giant Legend

This was the first Mizuta-era Doraemon movie with an all-original plot, as the first two installments have been remakes of Oyama-era movies. As such, I tried to be open-minded of its flaws. But that didn't seem to matter; I just couldn't understand the movie all around. The first half hinted at some nice moments, with hidden homages to previous movies and pre-existing manga chapters (in fact, Kiibo does appear in the original manga for one chapter). Like the first two Mizuta-era Doraemon films, this one also had a hand-drawn/pencil style to the design, which was neat to see. The music was okay,sounded like your typical easy-to-listen movie score with no bad choices but also no mindblowing twists. The entire second half of the movie really disappointed me, however. I started seeing hints of Nausicaa here and there, which was okay at first because a lot of Doraemon films have made homages/parodies out of popular shows in the past (e.g., Star Wars for their 1985 film, Gundam for their 1986 film, etc.). But it got a little out of hand when it copied one of Nausicaa's climactic action scenes near the end (you'll know when you see it, it's rather blatant). That made the entire climax for this movie feel super cheesy instead. As far as the main conflict of the movie, it seemed to resort to monologues and quarreling that made the movie feel really dull, basically a lot of talking. Add to that most of the guest characters' voice acting was done by children or stage/TV drama actors who weren't trained in voice acting, making a lot of those voices sound off and almost annoying... Kiibo's screeches almost gave me a migraine. This made it really hard for me to concentrate on what the main arguments were about. Additionally, none of the characters were intriguing enough for me to want to hear what they have to say. Why does the princess behave like that? What is the Elder's issue with the royal family (something about stealing, what?)? I get that the general idea is that Earth's humans are responsible for depleting natural resources and that the tree-like aliens want to seek vengeance. But then they added some things about past conflicts and old wisdoms that quickly fogged up the focus of the narrative. I don't know what happened at the end when everything seemed to resolve. Even Doraemon himself was unsure, but I don't think I'm wrong to say the audience wants an explanation of what exactly happened. The happy ending didn't feel genuine despite an effort to put in a bittersweet emotional scene before the credits. Overall, this first effort for the Mizuta-era Doraemon production staff for an all-original movie falls flat on its face. There was nothing to grasp onto except for a very generic "let's be green and respect Earth's natural resources" message. The ending was disorganized and did not make any sense. A lot of the characters' arguments were hard to understand. The story needs to be smarter than its characters, and I could not sense that with this movie. The whole movie could have just been a short PSA featuring Doraemon and Kiibo; no need for additional characters, unnecessary drama, annoying voices. (Kiibo does appear near the end of the 1992 Doraemon film "Nobita's Kingdom of Clouds" with a pretty significant role. I think there was a part of this movie that actively tried to not be too similar to the 1992 film. If you want to see Kiibo being featured, that film might be better to watch, although it also has its share of flaws. This movie didn't seem to be able to improve on that.)