Spoilers, of course.
The movie starts off with a bit of 4th wall breaking with a ugly fish reappearance to talk about theater etiquette, which is appreciated with an eccentric fanbase like this. And then a message directly from GLITCH about spoiling, pirating, and leaking, unfortunately ironic considering it was leaked a month before it would have been published to YouTube and Netflix. I happened to stay spoiler free just for this early theater release.
There is then a funny, not that helpful, mini recap from Caine. I think they included this because they know a lot of viewers (teenagers...and kids) would bring their parents, who wouldn't have a clue of what is going on mostly. I do like that a lot, the humor reminded me of the videos seen in the interactive favorite character poll seen before Episode 6.
Beginning Episode 8, I adore the abstract art style seen in Caine's backstory, showing that he was the failure and ended up absorbing his successor Abel (presumed name). Seen is a bit of early circus life before abruptly cutting to the present, where some of the cast starts to accept their fate in the circus. Caine is seen is his office and Bubble abruptly antagonizes him about being defective of his role in being a circus ringmaster. This is the start of pacing issues I've seen in this movie itself.
Caine lets go of his passiveness and becomes more irritated and sadistic with his newfound god complex. This leads to Pomni pulling Kinger into consciousness with a trick she remembered, asking him how to stop Caine. As Caine grows unrelenting and almost aware of their tricks to stop him, Kinger accidentally deletes him and part of his creations. Those being the circus, which has deteriorated and lost color. The cast learns this demise from him and noticed his censor is gone as well.
Beginning Episode 9, Jax's brief altercation with Kinger over Caine's deletion was stopped, and Kinger revealed to them that they are truly brain scans and not directly digital human concepts. This leads them into a quite short crisis about who they are as people, ending with Pomni and Kinger learning to conjure together. Jax abruptly, and to be honest, finally abstracts and the cast have to work to contain him. Pomni traps his abstracted self in a hallway, shooting out all the lights before coming face-to-face with him in a similar fashion to Kinger and Queenie in Episode 3.
Pomni then quite literally 'walks into' his mind file. Pomni walks into possibly conjured experiences and even his personalities. I noticed that while inside, a very pretty water-based effect is happening on the floor and wall of the abstraction, possibly to emphasize how it is a dream-like state. One of these rooms is not an imagination, and is actually flashbacks of his time with Ribbit. It is revealed to the her, and the viewer, that the reason why he was so protective of himself was because he accidentally shoved his mom too hard when she went to hug him after mocking him.
He then notices the true Jax sitting and runs towards him, in an altercation that leads him to seemingly 'eject' her from the abstraction. Though it was seen that Zooble and the rest of the members pulled her out, to the audience's surprise of Pomni being quite roughed up because of the abstraction's touch. They setup a tent enclosure to keep the now abstracted Jax in.
Underground and aware of his deletion, Caine sits at the bottom of the void. He, alongside Abel, realizes how bad he has gotten and he directly grabs the blue dot from the top side of his head. He then rushes toward a folder containing Wi-Fi, a convenient setup towards the conclusion. Still using his flawed shapes, he manages to get into the folder and see the circus members' names and find the _oh-so-convenient_ Instagram and Facebook profiles of every member. He joins back in a surprise act, healing Pomni and Ragatha of their abstraction bugs.
Caine then promises to tell no more lies and shows them their real life profiles and what they've gone to do in real life. Explained in a quite unremarkable social media slideshow with a disembodied voice. They then reluctantly welcome Caine back into the circus, where they will live...probably until the power for the PC goes off. Goodbye C&A.
I'm kidding but the plot holes and coincidences have been over bearing for this finale episode. I must say again I love the visual design and effects of Episode 9, I wish it was streaming already just so I could see those effects again on replay. Ribbit's appearance was oddly not that bad and showed that there was indeed a person to match Jax's spirit, even if he didn't like the care that came back with it. A bit of _shoehorning_ was present through the movie like Pomni and Ragatha's friendship that was barely shown in the previous episodes, a bit of 4th wall break from Jax calling the episode "crying", mentioning that Jax was insecure about his masculinity, Wi-Fi and Instagram in a computer that was probably pre-Web 2.0. The post-credits scene, though that was kinda granted.
I, of course, still love this series and I'll replay the entirety someday, and I'm jealous of the newcomers who will by then have the whole series available on YouTube to binge without waiting.
This is honest upfront about what it is: parts eight and the grand finale of a long running television series and if you haven't seen the previous episodes, this isn't going to make a great deal of sense. Barring a thirty seconds recap and an opening scene that reminded me of Norman McLaren's line-based artwork, that is correct and so for much of the rest of this I had only a developing clue as to what was going on. The gist appears to be that "Caine" - an animated and slightly menacing set of dentures bedecked in a circus-master's costume - is holding some characters captive in his nether realm where he tries to keep them entertained but without them ever having any hope of returning to the human world from which they originated. What follows sees each of those given a few moments in the digital sun as we start to understand a little of their characteristics and of what drove them to seek refuge in what turned out to be this purgatorial existance. Each has a story to tell, and gradually they learn that only by working together and by being honest about themselves can they ever hope break the cycle. The quality of the animation is pristine, but that's what computers do so I wasn't so impressed by that. What it does offer us, though, is an interesting observation of introspection and modern-day isolation driven by an obsessive use of technology that alienates rather than engages. It ultimately extols the benefits of honesty and inter-reliance and of course, there is a clear message for bullies too amongst this brightly coloured and quickly paced film. There's a tremendous amount of imagination in play here, and though there is far too much dialogue throughout, there is more to this than I initially expected. If you are going to see it in a cinema, though, it is probably best to watch the earlier programmes first.
