Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

boclani Watch the visual review at https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=pTvCA1i6B50Never would I have thought that so much emotion could be captured and work in a 25 minute movie. I was surely proved wrong.The Voices of a Distant Star follows a girl and a boy. These two are together but become distant as the girl is sent to war in different galaxies, and the only form of communication is over their phones, but the messages take almost ten years to send. This is a movie as you might be able to tell, explaining the distant relationship between some and even the issues that soldiers had to face when wanting to talk to their loved ones on the other side of the world. And I found it very surreal and scary, and that's why I got a little teary eyed. And I just want to say, that this isn't your normal anime. All of Shinkai's movies focus on emotions, and things like loss, love and finding yourself, these all tend to kind of break the fourth wall and make you analyse your own emotions and ask you if you're okay, regardless of the characters. He says through his story telling that sometimes the situation is out of hand and it is impossible for you to change anything, much like in Distant Star.The story, like most of Shinkai's work, is simple. But as I always say with his movies, it doesn't need to be anything else. This is beauty in simplicity. This is the same reason I loved The Garden of Words. Everything feels so real. Regardless of the mecha robots fighting in space, the characters aren't superficial and is a big part of what backs up this simple story. They don't have horns on the head, or have tails on the back, they're just people wanting to talk to their lover. Earth feels so much like Earth, from the rain and the landscape. A planet that the girl discovers seems a lot like Earth with the same looking creatures, landscapes and rain, and then she bursts into tears realising that there is nowhere like Earth. The real winner in this movie is the gorgeous soundtrack this comes with! Holy moly, what sound! I think that at times I felt I was going to cry from the music itself!This isn't a perfect movie though, it has its downsides. I can't say that it needed to be longer, as this director likes creating these shorter movies, and having this as a short worked well. The main issue I have is the machine that the girl is in. The 3D rendering of the objects looks so fake and extremely overdone, I believe they should have stayed with the 2D drawing style. The mixture of 3D and 2D in animation can work hand in hand with each other, but here, the mixture of both didn't gel and work. I think Shinkai learned from his mistake as I haven't seen another machine looking as bad as this since he made it in 2002. Another part I didn't like was the English dubs. I've definitely heard worse, but this is nothing to write home about.But all-in-all The Voices of a Distant Star is just another movie to persuade you that this guy can create beautiful films, from the music to the characters to the artwork. Everything is done with so much heart. This is a film that beautifully looks at war, love and separation. This is more of an emotionally investing film than most of Hollywood's movies. And seeing that this short 25 minute movie, that was created by one single person and is executed with a great amount of detail shows just how special this film and director is.OVERALL : A

imalmostgone Voices of A Distant star is a wonderful Sci-Fi love story running at a brisk 25 minutes, chronicling the parallel yet inverse experiences of two adolescents as distance and time isolate them from one another. This is a reoccurring theme in Makoto Shinkai's works and is executed so effectively here, that it creates an emotional space-time echo, while vesting the viewer heavily within the character's ordeal, it manages to play on the theme that emotions can travel the expanse that perhaps not even technology can conquer.Being as close to a one man project as anything you'll see that maintains such high production value, Voices comes off more like a story you wish would never end then an Anime short. Shinkai wrote, directed, and animated the entire project only handing off sound responsibilities to others. In the original directors cut the only two speaking roles were voiced by himself and his fiancé.Most notable are the settings, for which the director is perhaps the best there is in the medium. Here, the vivid backdrops and beyond realistic lighting play so prominent that they rival the characters themselves. As one Youtube poster put it, Shinkai's works are like, "scenery porn, with story lines that make you cry buckets." Voices of A Distant Star is one of the best original video animations, scratch that, one of the better shorts period this viewer has ever seen, while serving as the perfect introduction to his work, it also underscores the fact that the only limit animation has is the imagination itself.

Joseph Sylvers Fantastic short film, all made by one man on a mac. Voices Of A Distant Star is the story of a future intergalactic war, and young couples separated by minutes, months, and eventually years communicating via texts, in one of the most entertaining movies about long distance relationships I've ever seen (the first one with space fights anyway). The direction alternates between simple objects and images caught in daytime shadows, and grandiose sweeping shots of ultra violet skys and vast alien landscapes and space. Likewise the plot alternates between introspective voice overs about longing and the passage of time, wonder at the magnitude and beauty at the psychical world, and anime style space battles with giant mech soldiers, aliens who resemble T1000esque Crustaceans, and Space Vessels which look like swans. Emotionally and visually moving anime, about growing up and growing apart.

jwmagpies First of all, Japan should be producing this caliber of work more, rather than producing endless episodes of meaningless animes.In this film, the action, lighting, sun rays, backgrounds, stills, and cgi are done beautifully. I like them very much. The concept is also pretty unique. The photography and colors are pretty brilliant.But what makes it a pity is the hand-drawn characters. they are not professionally drawn and animated. Proportions are often off. Animation of the hand-drawn characters are not natural. It could have been a much more perfect film with much better feel and look if the characters are done right. What a pity. Generally, a pretty good animated short film.