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I did not have really any "hype" going into the movies (especially after the first one). Most of my hopes (not hype) revolved around wondering if the first movie would do like Frontier and fix things from the TV series people didn't like (re: episode 8 and 10 of Frontier). Sadly, Delta did a reverse Frontier: The first movie chose to focus on the second half of the TV series and didn't really include much from the first half outside of throwaway lines and segmented scenes with new backgrounds. And amazingly, it was worse than the original because even though that second half was slow, you basically understood everything going on. The movie requires prior knowledge of the show itself in some areas, and that's not something Frontier needed once.
For whatever reason, Kawamori (in theory) believed the second half was the best and keeps trying to reinvent the situations in it to sell it. Sadly, I don't think he really understands the execution is what failed, not the ideas. And you know, I keep reminding myself that even if I wrote all of that on Twitter, the man would clearly not care. But I commend him for sticking to his guns.
The second movie... I can only hope it's not gonna try to reinvent the first half of the TV series since the first movie skipped over 85% of it.
As for Frontier and Kawamori himself: Looking back at those movies, I slowly realized those movies didn't age well. Not in animation or quality; but the direction of the plot in the first movie really doesn't work for the second movie. I never really noticed it until I re-watched it last month. Can't really go into it here because this is the wrong thread but I bring it up because looking at how the first movie ends vs. how the second movie begins and how much is skipped over in-between those movies actually helps me understand what Kawamori himself considers "chopping up a TV series for a theatrical presentation". There is a lot of context (and character development) lost for people who didn't watch the TV show. And considering both movies and TV series live in separate universes, it's not ideal for it to be like that. I had to sit down and explain a lot of the Delta TV series to a friend who literally thought she could watch through the first movie and not need to see the TV series. When it's supposedly a recap/retelling, you don't expect to need prior knowledge. But I notice this is a long-standing issue with his works; because I watched the Sousei no Aquarion movie prior to the TV series and I was lost. But I was more confused about the movie after because it had really nothing to do (plot-wise) with the TV series. It's... baffling, really.
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