 Hello and welcome to the Grand Line Review, your source for everything One Piece. And today we are going to be taking a bit of a break from the canon of the series and shifting our focus onto the films. Now, when it comes to the movies, One Piece is not, you know, the friendliest of franchises to leap into because there are a total of 14 films which currently have come out between the year 2020. All of which have wildly varying degrees of quality ranging from a must see experience for One Piece fans to what I would describe as a complete and utter waste of time even for a One Piece fan. But as someone who has eagerly consumed each and every one of them over the course of the last 14 years or so, I am here to advise on which films you should watch. And what we're going to do is we're going to go through all 14 titles and I'm going to assign them a rather complex grading system consisting of, definitely watch the film, definitely don't watch the film or maybe watch it or not. But starting with the first thing you should definitely do that would be subscribing to the Grand Line Review for regular One Piece content uploaded straight until YouTube feed. It is a 10 out of 10 five star Gourmet experience I would highly recommend. Plus you'll be joining the Grand Fleet and helping us become the pirate kings of YouTube which sounds simply glorious. And one more quick note before I begin with the actual movies you may or may not need to watch. I just want to say that I will not be going through the TV specials. So this means things like episode of Mary, episode of Nami, 3D2Y, Heart of Gold and all of that other stuff. Those things are an entirely different discussion which we'll probably have another time but right now I am only considering the films that were released in theaters. And with that we will start with the very creatively titled One Piece, the movie. This is our first theatrical outing for the One Piece franchise and you can tell it takes place incredibly early on because in this sort of fake movie chronology these events occur before Sanji joins the crew. And I really don't want to spend too much time on this one because I'll tell you right here and now you can skip it. Watching this film is actually quite surreal because it was created long before One Piece really solidified itself and it follows a very standard piracy treasure hunt story. The main antagonist Del Drago is pretty underwhelming but I will say that the animation of One Piece, the movie does offer some really beautiful nineties charm but that's only relevant to me because I enjoy the nostalgia of my long lost childhood. Otherwise, don't bother. Next up though we have Clockwork Island Adventure which was made in 2001. And while this only debuted almost exactly a year after One Piece, the movie, it is amazing the difference a year can make. This is a 55 minute long shot of classic One Piece featuring Sanji this time around which is important because you get that wonderful dynamic of the first five crew members. But unlike the first movie, Clockwork Island Adventure has a much larger scale and it focuses on really pushing the straw hats. Like early on all of their key items get stolen like Zora's swords and Sanji shoes, Hussup's slingshot, et cetera and most of the film sees the straw hat struggling and succeeding to fight at an incredible disadvantage against a legion of fun and quirky villains. Although the main antagonist, the bear king is a bit meh, that's okay though because the rest of his crew makes up for that. And the fights themselves rather shockingly for something that was made almost 20 years ago are quite possibly some of the best in the series in terms of art and animation. But this is one you should definitely watch. It's fun, it's short, it's competent and it's One Piece which is a lot more than I can say for movie number three Chopper's Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals. Look, just don't do it. This is in my opinion the worst film in the entire series. The villain sucks, the child sucks, the premise is meh. Although I will say it's probably worth looking up Zora and Sanji's fights. They are the only and I mean the only redeeming factor of movie three because Zora ends up facing off against a kick specialist and Sanji fights a swordsman. So it's a nice flip on One Piece standards which we really don't get too much in the canon itself. So yeah, look those up on YouTube and just abandon, completely abandon the idea of watching movie three. It's 56 minutes long but it feels so, so much longer. Moving on, we have movie four being Dead and Adventure which is the first full length feature being 95 minutes long and this is a definite must watch if only for the premise. Basically the idea is that in an attempt to make some good old money, the Straw Hats enter a pirate race against a whole horde of other crews including our main antagonist, Gasparde, a former Marine Vice Admiral who is the first main villain in one of these films to really make me feel like the Straw Hats are definitely in over their heads. He has a terrifyingly commanding presence along with a candy syrup blue gear fruit and his fight against Luffy is well worth it. In addition, this film also features the first truly interesting side characters one of which would be Shiraya who in retrospect seems like the love child of Ace and Trafalgar Law. You know, he has that cool guy vibe about him but with some hard hitting tragedy. But probably my favorite aspect about Dead and Adventure is that it's a story that takes place almost entirely at sea which is one of those things where for you know a pirate based manga, that doesn't happen all that often in One Piece. So it's quite a rare experience, definitely recommended. Now continuing on the train of terrible odd numbered One Piece films I now give you One Piece Movie Five, The Cursed Holy Sword. Now initially this was the film I was most excited to see because it focuses on Zoro. This is his story where he has to confront and defeat a childhood friend and as a proud Zoro fanboy I was all on board with this idea or at least I was all on board with it until I saw it. And I'm not saying that this is impossible to do but this movie made clear to me that Zoro was just not meant to be the primary protagonist. He's too quiet. He's very difficult to identify with and he works best in support to someone like Luffy. Even if he had the greatest of stories to work with it would be hard to pull off and The Cursed Holy Sword is a terrible story. So it's a profoundly awful combination. A lot of which boils down to the fact that magic is heavily utilized, which is not something that One Piece even comes close to delving into. Like we're talking hard magic here. Orbs and moons and swords that absorb blood and hatred. It's not what One Piece is and sadly it's not even a solid fantasy film either. It sounds tempting but just stay well, well away from this one. Now for Movie Six we have Baron Omatsuri and The Secret Island. And this is probably the most infamous One Piece film and one thing you will consistently hear as to why this is is because it is dark af. This movie goes places I never expected One Piece to go and unlike Movie Five it does so very, very well. And the idea is fairly simple. The Straw Hats land on an island to relax but are coerced into a series of games almost Davy Backstile. Except there is a much more twisted motive behind the actions of the Baron, our lead villain who looks like a joke but he is anything but. There is something about this island and it's people that is quite disturbing and I don't wanna say anymore if you have yet to see it. In addition, this film also has an entire plot of the Straw Hats turning against each other which leads to some really great drama and a fairly desperate situation that seems all but hopeless. But once again, this is a must watch. It is One Piece like you've never seen it before and likely never will again. And that brings us to the strange creature that is Movie Seven, the giant mechanical soldier of Caracuri Castle. Not to be confused with Caracuri Island which is the birthplace of Dr. Vagabunk in the actual series. But this movie is, well, it's weird. If I had to sum it up, I'd basically call it a parody of every other One Piece film that has come before it. I think at this stage, the production team were well and truly aware of the consistent tropes and plot devices that had appeared in almost every One Piece film, especially the bad ones. So Movie Seven is very self-aware because it uses all of them but with some sort of comic twist. The movie is almost pure comedy, by the way. At no point is it or can it be taken seriously which, you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing. However, if you're not familiar with the other six films, I don't think you'll have a full experience of this one. I will say that it does have one really cool piece of action though which attempts to give an origin story to Luffy's Gear II, which is nice. And I guess it's fairly enjoyable in general. So look, this is going to be our first meh rating. You can take it or leave it. Now Movie Eight is where we change things up quite a bit because this is the episode of Alabasta, the Desert Princess and the Pirates which is basically a super abridged and reanimated telling of the Alabaster arc. And it's another pretty tough one to recommend. What I will say is that this is not, I repeat, is not a substitute for reading or watching the full arc and in my opinion, it fails horrendously in its mission to retell the Alabasta story. What this movie is good for is for fans who are intimately familiar with the arc and want to see it with some updated animated fights. That's really all. Even then, I think you can quite easily skip this one. And Movie Nine is a similar yet different premise because we now have episode of Chopper Plus, Bloom in the Winter, Miracle Sakura which at its core is a retelling of the Drama Island arc. However, unlike in the Alabasta film, this takes place in an alternate universe where Robin and Franky are already crew members and Wapol has an older, more sinister brother named Mushul. And it sounds really weird but it actually works quite well. Firstly, because Drama Island is a much more achievable story to condense into movie form. And secondly, because the alternate universe aspects make it worth watching for those of us who are already very familiar with Drama Island. It offers something new yet very familiar. I mean, with that said, I'd still rate it as a bit of a myth though because it's interesting but in no way is it a must watch event. This does change though once we reach Movie Ten which is one piece film, Strong World. And so with this, we have entered the most recent age of one piece cinema with Etcher Oda heavily involved in their creation. In fact, he wrote this particular film and it shows. Strong World is like nothing that came before it. Every aspect of filmmaking is displayed on an entirely different level be it story, animation, art, music, whatever. And in fact, you know what? I'd really like to single out lighting. One piece often feels like a very flat experience for me because the movies and even the Toei animated series are quite aesthetically one note. But Strong World makes a huge effort to provide that aesthetic depth with lighting. And even in the more subtle of scenes it makes Strong World stand apart. The one negative thing I will say is that it does suffer from middle of the movie syndrome where things slow down and you're just kind of waiting for it to kick back into gear but otherwise it is a must watch. As for Movie Eleven, that would be one piece 3D straw hat chase and don't bother. It's a 3D CGI meh vest that's only here by technicality because it was released in cinemas paired up as a double feature with Toriko's 3D film. The full thing is also really painful to find and it's just not worth the time. Not worth the time to find and not worth the time to talk about so we're moving on. To Movie Twelve, which is one piece film Z. An absolute must watch which is the first movie to take place following the time skip and it does something very interesting by having a more marine centric story which allows for characters like Kizaru, Kuzan, Garp, Gobi and in fact almost every marine that had been created at the time was in the movie in some form or another even if it was just a cameo. Which is pretty cool because these movies are usually a completely isolated affair. So film Z feels connected to the world of one piece like no other and it's main antagonist Zepha is probably the most sympathetic. In fact, I still have to fight the tears every time I get to the end of this film because it hits so hard but the animation is stunning, the fights are superb and it's a great adventure. The only thing I really dislike are the technical devices like the endpoints and the dinostones. They're just boring, they're overpowered and they don't belong in this series. Everything else though, absolute must watch. Movie Thirteen now and we have one piece film Gold which I will say is a really, really good one to have your friends watch you may not be into one piece. And that's because film Gold gives you a solid one piece experience with beautiful modern art and animation without the need to have followed the story up until that point. Which with film Z, you definitely needed to know what was going on in the one piece world. Gold is just plain fun though. It's a heist film with a strong casino aesthetic, a ton of interesting villains and I must say it holds a special place for me because it was the first one piece film I saw in cinemas. It's definitely not perfect but it does everything it needs to do. So it's a must watch. And finally we have the most recent film, one piece Stampede. And this, confusingly enough, is either a must watch or a do not watch under any circumstances. And that's because Stampede is what we would call an all-star film which say Avengers Infinity War and Endgame they could be called all-star films although they're done much, much better and with like 20 other movies have set up that Stampede did not have. Stampede takes an extraordinary amount of canon characters and throws them together in a single setting being the Pirates Festival which is concocted by a former member of the roge pirates for the very boring motive of fighting and killing the world's most powerful people. Who just as a side note most of the world's most powerful people don't even show up. But anyway, one piece Stampede is action porn plain and simple. Most of the movie is fighting like an extraordinary amount. I'd say 70 maybe even 80% of it is just fighting and that can be exciting but do not expect a story do not expect a memorable main antagonist certainly do not expect a memorable secondary antagonist and finally do not expect a satisfying ending to all of the madness that was created. However, I would very much recommend watching Stampede with a group of friends. I was lucky enough to see the Australian premiere of it with like 700 other people in a theater and it was one of the greatest experiences I've had with this series and that was all because of the people around me cheering when new characters appeared or thought but you will not get that alone. Stampede is not a film, I would call it an event something to be experienced but you're better off not treating it as a movie and definitely, definitely, definitely do not try to show this to someone as their very first experience of One Piece and that pretty much does it for the One Piece films you should and should not watch but what do you guys think? Please do leave your thoughts in the comments below or even join my Discord server and if you'd like to see more videos like this then please do go and check out some of my other content or even subscribe to the channel for more glorious One Piece business uploaded straight into your YouTube feed but for now, this has been the ground line review and I'll see you next time.