I was disappointed by Ideon in part because nearly every review gave it a perfect score. The world of Ideon asks me to suspend my disbelief too much and supports a contemptuous view of humanity. I didn’t hate the film. There are plenty of reviews praising Ideon, so I wanted to touch on stuff other reviews mostly don’t. I haven’t watched the entire TV series, but I believe my criticisms apply regardless of that.
Suspension of Disbelief
My first major gripe is in-universe Ide shouldn’t be so important, especially at the start. It is stated directly in the film that one of the major reasons the Buff Clan has continued fighting is that the power of Ide can destroy their home planet, and they also mention constant meteors being sent to their planet. But the technology of Ideon is too advanced for Ide to be the only way to destroy planets. They can clearly travel or at least communicate faster than light, and even use a supernova as a weapon later on in the movie. Both of those technologies would be capable of destroying solar systems, yet Ide is treated as an unprecedented threat. It wouldn’t be all that difficult to avoid this problem, by having the story take place on a smaller scale, not introducing guided supernovas, etc. but Ideon includes these elements to the detriment of its story. The power of Ide isn’t a weapon worth a war to acquire in the world of Ideon.
Minor Issues
I have a few minor issues with characters occasionally becoming brain-dead. Two examples especially bothered me, the first being when two characters tried to kiss with helmets, but they couldn't figure out how to tilt their heads. And the second is when a character went into one of the dumbest villain taunts I have ever seen, to a person who pulled a gun on her while a soldier with a gun in her hand, that presumably should be protecting her, stared into space. Characters are killed a lot in the movie so this scene genuinely baffled me, the villain is even proven right when the character misses. Also, the main cast ignores the obvious bait of the enemy, even after falling for the same tactic once. These are more nitpicks than large problems, but they added up throughout the movie for me.
# Major Spoilers Start Here
The Ide is protective of children and often acts to protect babies from harm, yet it isn’t stupid and when a character tries to manipulate Ide by essentially abusing a child the character dies. Ide believes grown people aren’t worth as much as babies and even protects a 4-month-old pregnant woman's child while letting her die. However Ide also reins meteors on planets and has no problem destroying them, I guess no babies live outside of the spaceship? Wasn’t there a single pregnant woman in the multitude of vessels Ide destroyed? Since they would have to be, why are those babies' lives worth less than the ones on board the Solo ship? None of these questions are answered, or even asked in the film. It is mentioned in the film that Ide destroyed those planets “to erase those with evil hearts” but it also destroyed presumably billions of innocents in the process. This is supposed to be a bible reference, either of Noah’s flood or Sodom and Gomorra, but the makers of the film clearly missed the part about not everyone dying in both those stories and that the bible doesn’t paint a very charitable view of god if you take everything in it literally. If the film didn’t call the child of Karala Messiah and deified them the weird Christian parallels might have been excusable. The emphasis on Messiah made me think the makers of the movie gave up halfway through reading a summary of a story from the bible and then decided to base their ending on it.
The ending is the part where the weird ideology of the film fully shows itself. The Ide kills every human and decides to create humanity anew through the messiah because apparently, that is the solution that is best for the preservation of intelligent life. Ide clearly dislikes humanity, even babies if they don’t happen to be inside the Solo ship, as it has no issue killing billions even before this event. Since Ide is portrayed as good, this view I can only describe as anti-human is also supposed to be good. In the end, everyone is shown as happy to have been eradicated. The film’s point seems to be that humans will kill each other no matter what so the best thing to do is kill them all and start fresh. The ending is basically “Kill them all; let God sort them out.” applied to the whole of humanity. Perhaps in 1982 total war seemed closer but that still doesn’t justify this disdain for humanity in my eyes. Blind hatred of humanity isn’t a good ideology to preach and I find no redeeming qualities in that worldview.Major Spoilers End Here
Evangelion
I feel obligated to mention Evangelion since every other review also does. This movie isn’t really a progenitor of Evangelion's ideals, it preaches nearly the exact opposite. The mechas and Christian symbolism are present in both, but their ideology is completely different. The ending of Ideon has more similarities with Platinum End than Evangelion once you exclude the imagery.
Conclusion
Lastly, I want to repeat I didn’t hate Ideon, I was just disappointed because my expectations were inflated. Even though I find its message, at best, misguided Ideon delivers its message and general story well, despite a few hiccups. Even when watching the movies it made me understand and care about its characters and the main conflict. This isn’t a bad film, but it also isn’t nearly as great as many reviews suggest. I would recommend Ideon to all who enjoy mecha and space operas, on the condition that they temper their expectations a bit.
Oh, and there is also a scene of a squirrel eating bread through a helmet which I found hilarious and wanted to mention.
