When it comes to many mecha anime, the protagonist is the pilot of some special or powerful mobile suit and uses it to turn the tide in a war (often one between Earth and space). Aldoah.Zero is the reverse of this. Rather than the heroes, it is the villains who have Gundam-like mobile suits powered by crazy sci-fi technology. Meanwhile, our heroes have only weak, mass-produced units to fight back with. This turns every battle into a puzzle. In each fight, they must figure out the enemy mobile suit's special power and devise a way (often on the fly) to take it down.

However, each Martian mobile suit does share at least one exploitable weakness: the pilots. Every Martian is arrogant to the point that they view themselves as not only superior to Earthlings but invincible when it comes to battle against them. They've never bothered to think about the weak points of their mecha because they refuse to admit (even to themselves) that any exist.

There is also a ton of intrigue in this story. Not only does our group of ragtag heroes carry secrets, tragic backstories, and dubious loyalties, but the villains are far from unified either. There are constant betrayals, emotional outbursts, and other infighting on both sides of the conflict. All this is brought to the fore through the love triangle between Earth soldier Inaho, Martian Princess Asseylum, and Earthling turncoat Slaine—who also exemplify the thematic core of the anime.

On a thematic level, Aldnoah.Zero is a story about the battle between logic and emotion. Inaho is practical and level-headed to an almost inhuman degree—he simply does not see the world as others do. Meanwhile, Slaine is a creature of passion—one who will throw consequences to the wind for the sake of his feelings. And, in between the pair is Asseylum, a naive innocent who starts on the emotional side of the spectrum but, throughout the story, can find a balance point between the two extremes. In the end, it is her tempering of logic and emotion—pragmatism and idealism—that gives her the ability to do what neither of the other two can do and find a path to peace—giving us an overall moral of the story in the process.

While the story being told is fantastic, it's how the story is told in this film where issues arise. After all, this movie has to cram 24 episodes of content into around 100 minutes. It is accomplished through the near-constant use of montages. Time and again, be it planning scenes or battle scenes, we get montages with lines of dialogue taken from the corresponding episodes and used as a voice-over to explain what is going on. The only time these montages stop is for big character-defining moments that develop Inaho, Slaine, or Asseylum—or simply action climaxes necessary for the overall plot.

To be frank, the vast majority of the story's impact is lost in this CliffsNotes-style presentation. It feels like this movie is simply for people who want to watch the “new episode” at the end of the film and need a refresher (as we're a decade out from when the TV series aired) but don't have time to watch the whole series again. As for new viewers, while you may be able to generally follow the story, I can't imagine connecting with it on anything close to an emotional level.

The new epilogue episode portion of the film is a different beast entirely. Set in June 2017 (around a year after the end of the series), this episode is about healing after the war. During the final climax, it was revealed that Asseylum asked Inaho to save Slaine. However, while Inaho did spare his life, that forced Slaine into a fate of near-solitary confinement—one where he is being punished not only for his actual crimes but also treated as the scapegoat for the entire war. So while Inaho did save Slaine's life, this epilogue is the story of Inaho saving his soul.

Only here at rock bottom can Slaine honestly reflect on his mistakes. Thanks to careful prodding by his worst enemy, he can think logically about the emotions that caused his lapses in judgment. The moral here is that as long as you're alive, you can heal and grow—even if you can't escape the consequences of your past actions.

Meanwhile, as a result of his interactions with Slaine, Inaho does some soul-searching of his own. Finally, he is able to begin getting in touch with his emotions—connect on a new level with both his own memories and the people close to him.

This all serves as a solid thematic capstone to the battle between logic and emotion in the main story and its moral of needing to find a balance between the two. While Aldnoah.Zero still works without this new epilogue, it is certainly better with it than without.

As for the presentation of this film, both the old and the newly-animated footage look fantastic—even when blown up for the big screen. A-1 Pictures and TROYCA brought their A-game to this series a decade ago and it holds up well even now. And as for the music, Aldnoah.Zero is certainly in the running for having the best soundtrack to ever spring from the mind of Hiroyuki Sawano. Listening to these tracks is always a treat.

All in all, Aldnoah.Zero [Re+] is worth watching for the new episode alone. It furthers the themes of the main story and gives us a bit of information about what happened to our heroes after the war. The compilation film attached to it, on the other hand, is akin to reading a Wikipedia summary of the TV series. It looks and sounds great—just like the series that was cut up to make it—but most of the tension-filled puzzle-solving in the mecha fights and nearly all the emotional impact of the story ended up somewhere on the cutting room floor. If you're interested in the new episode, do yourself a favor and just (re)watch the series instead of this film. You'll be glad you did.