They Were Eleven

[sothis]

They Were Eleven

Synopsis, screenshots, recommendations ~ Add Recommendations

Site Reviews: valondar

Discuss the completed anime or post full reviews here. Post format and full rules can be found here.
__________________________________________


Story/Summary: 9/10
(Taken from the AniRec Database)
Tada is a young man on the fast track to the Cosmo Academy -- a school which only accepts applicants every three years, and whose entrance rate is under 1%. Having passed all the prior exams, the final test is drawing near: survive for 53 days aboard a derelict spaceship with only 9 other would-be cadets to assist you. But much to the dismay of Tada and his peers, their ship has acquired an eleventh member! Can the crew band together to survive the test? Or will sabotage simply destroy them from within...

They Were Eleven definitely is a mix between Infinite Ryvius and Twin Spica. While the idea of a test that everyone takes together might seem overdone, TWE manages to show it in a slightly different light, due to the mystery involved of trying to figure out who is the 11th person. This causes a great deal of tension to surface.. so rather than just seeing if these cadets can pass the test, you also have rising suspicions of who is who, etc. If I had to pick genres, it defintiely would be a great mix of sci-fi and mystery. Heavy on the mystery, but based in a sci-fi futuristic world.

Animation: 9/10
Don't like things from the 80s because they look like crap? Think again when deciding to watch They Were Eleven. While the character designs do prove that the movie was made in the 80s, they still are beautifully colored and shaded, as is everything else. Colors used tended to be blues and reds, very solid and appealing. Special effects were usually in the form of the spores breaking, which was well done. Nothing was choppy, everything moved fluidly. Very impressive for its age, and even for a series/movie in general.

Music: 8/10
Very interesting for its time, but still very 80s sounding. Definitely nothing wrong with it, though. A short section for this part.

Characters: 7/10
The characters is a point that both excels and fails in this movie. First of all, there are 11 characters and only a few are touched upon. This means there are a lot of characters that you know nothing about except a very brief introduction or background, and who are not developed at all in the course of the movie. There are several characters, however, who are developed quite well for the time span, in depth. In general, they do a good job at explaining why each cadet is there to take the test, and that makes you a bit more empathetic towards their plight, and you want them to pass.

The one area that this fails is that you really have no idea who the 11th member is until the end. There are no clues and really, no indication it could be ANYONE, until it is randomly sprung on you at the end. The reasoning is sound, but still, it would have been nice to be able to try to solve the mystery on your own a bit first.

As far as voice actors, everyone did a good job. You may think that the woman character has a very misplaced voice at first, but in reality, it is explained and ends up fitting perfectly ^_^.

Rewatchability:
Probably fairly low due to it being a mystery, and/or you knowing the end of it once you've seen it.

Overall: 9.5/10
A really fantastic movie with almost no flaws, except the character development thing I mentioned earlier. A fantastic look at a mystery chock full of sci-fi, thatkeeps you guessing until the very end. There really isn't much else to say about this movie except that you should watch it.

[valondar]

STORY:
8/10
They Were Eleven is tightly plotted stuff. You've got ten students who must rough out living alone on an abandoned spaceship to complete the final leg of their insanely rigorous exams. If they call for help they'll fail - and upon arrival they realise that there's an unwanted and unexplained eleventh member. Who is it? Will he or she sabotage their efforts? Will their inevitable mistrust break the group by itself? Besides all that, can they simply succeed in survival?

It's a simple and even unoriginal premise, but it's one that has a lot of potential - which is lived up to. Throw in a couple of plot twists to keep things interesting and you have a deftly handled product.

Is TWE predictable? Well, there are more than a few plot twists I could see coming a mile off - in particular one hoary sci-fi cliché that should be familiar to veteran fans - but there was at least one that knocked me cold. You're given enough room to guess who the eleventh member is, but perhaps not enough evidence for any viewer to make a definite conclusion. How the students react to the suspected eleventh member is more important than the (albeit satisfying) denouement.

ANIMATION:
6.8/10
TWE's animation is thoroughly solid for its period even if it won't astonish. Inside and out the spaceship draws heavily on an agreeably eighties space opera style.

Character designs may sport goofy hair or, in one case, a rather literal rednose, but generally they're pretty good. The aliens either look exactly like humans or only slightly different - nothing more exotic than Star Trek, which is a peculiar approach for animation.

Another odd choice in character design is one that makes a key development needlessly confusing. I can't elaborate for fear of spoilers - and the design does make sense in context - yet it still perplexes.

SOUND:
6.5/10
The music is eighties synth, and has aged better than some other efforts in that field - not that it's aged especially well.

Despite featuring fan favourites David Lucas and Wendee Lee (Spike Spiegel and Faye Valentine in Cowboy Bebop) the English dub is somewhat corny. I found the Japanese track altogether better but then I usually do.

CHARACTERS:
7.5/10
As TWE's title makes abundantly clear there are eleven characters, though only the few principals get any development at all. The secondary characters aren't even given basic personalities - they're just there and that's kind of it. Our protagonists, however, are more than adequately fleshed out. It doesn't matter what bizarre sci-fi trappings they might have - they're very relatedly human.

The inevitable mistrust that emerges in the group is never handled with excessive melodrama or a descent into paranoia, which I found a welcome change. While there is the standard tendency featured in this scenario for characters to immediately judge a book by its cover, a lot of the tension comes from reasonable if dire extrapolations.

OVERALL:
7.8/10
With engaging characters and an interesting plot, They Were Eleven is great entertainment. The film may not deliver elaborate action sequences, nor does it throw any high concept weirdness at the viewer, but there is an effective blend of character drama and classic sci-fi conventions. Strongly recommended for fans of the genre.

[sothis]

a solid start. one thing i noticed right away is heavy pronoun use to start the sentences.

This is tightly plotted stuff. Get ten prospective students who have passed insanely rigorous galactic examinations, stow them away all alone on an abandoned spaceship where if they call for help they automatically fail - and then give them an unwanted and unidentified eleventh member. Which one doesn't belong and why? Nobody knows, though they all have their suspicions. That's not helpful when they all need to work together to rough through living on a spaceship with its own problems. There's a whole lot of dramatic potential right there.

the most common offender is 'this is', which seems to be used quite a bit in the review; to me it comes across like the review was rushed. "this is heavily plotted stuff" in addition isn't a very strong intro sentence to pull people in - partially because of the 'this is' instead of 'They Were Eleven' (but in general it isn't super catchy anyways).

i'm not sure how to give more specific feedback, but in general it just feels a bit like you rushed out this copy (the large amount of pronoun sentences, the mismatching in titles - TWE vs the full name, and the occasional sentence fragment). imo the majority of the pronoun sentences need to be changed for flow and that will improve things dramatically. for example:

"This is just smartly concocted space opera and will most definitely entertain on that level."

"If you're looking for a smartly-concocted space opera, They Were Eleven will definitely entertain you."

and one definite fragment that needs updating:

Potential on which the film fully delivers.

ill have time for a more thorough read later, but updating the pronoun sentences will definitely help :)

awesome to see someone else enjoyed it like me! :D

[valondar]

As always, much obliged sothis. I've made a stab at cleaning it up.