After doomsday, most of the earth had been flooded, & what remains dry land
has been divided inot 2 regions: ECOBAN, the decadent high tech-city which
feeds on pollution, & the Marr, a barren land mainly consisting of ruins of
the once civilisation. Further more, the inhabitants of the MArr, the Marrians
are enslaved by ECOBAN, & the leaders of ECOBAN even think about using the
Marr - its pollution that is - to have Ecoban feed of its energy for another 50
years since energy-levels of ECOBAN are terribly low.
One day a Marrian, Shua, enters ECOBAN though, to shut down its central
computer & thus reunite the people of ECOBAN with the Marrians, but he is
found out by ECOBAN's top security officer Jay before he can finish the job -
& she doesn't shoot him only because Shua triggered some memory - turns out
Jay & Shua had been childhood frriends in ECOBAN, but while Shua, a
dreamer, fled ECOBAN for a better world (he did not yet find) the more
reasonable & correct Jay stayed behind to become a top security officer.
Shua now lives in the Marr with his mentor Doctor Noah - who knows ECOBAN
like the back of his hand & thus can provide Shua with all the necessary
details of how to enter the city - & with 2 kids he takes care of. & it
is in the Marr where Shua meets Jay again, when she wants to interfere in a
irot, but instead is cornered by a handful of rebels & only saved due to
his intervention. Slowly her belief in superiority of ECOBAN begins to crumble.
Later, some Marrian acquaintances of Shua - among them the kids Shua takes
care of - start an all-out attack on ECOBAN, but most of them are slaughtered,
& the kids only saved by bopth Shua's & Jay's timely intervention.
& while the few survivoras of the attack group soon plan another raid to
avenge their comrades, Shua enters the city alone, by glider, & again heads
for the main computer, where it's the finla showdown between him & the
ECOBAN-guards - until Jay, hoving changed sides of course, does fullfill his
plan by shutting down the computer in Shua's stead, but in the end she has to
die - of course.
The film ends with the sun fuinally shining over both ECOBAN &the Marr
...
It has to be admitted, the animation of Wonderful Days is top notch,
& the designs are way cool ... on the other hand though, everything looks
just a little too slick & runs a little too smoothly to really work, &
often the action sequences are just used to show off all the high & mighty
computer effects while totally losing sight of much needed timing.
Same goes for the story as well: the concept sounds very thoughtful, &
nobody can seriously dismiss its ecological message (though it does come off
somewhat heavy handed), but the whole premise - a Romeo & Juliet-style
story set in a post doomsday science fiction setting, wioth one of the lovers
changing sides bujt having to give his/her life in the end - has been told oh
so many times in oh so many forms (& yes, even as an animated feature),
& often much better, to deserve too much interest, especially since the
storytelling of this one is less than exciting & its characters rather
run-of-the-mill one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs.
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