Review of Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa (2005) by Andrew F — 06 Nov 2007

The Fullmetal Alchemist movie, Conqueror of Shamballa. An ending to the epic anime. Conqueror of Shamballa starts a few years after the FMA series ended. It ties up all the loose ends and answers all the questions left by the end of the series. Fantastic animation, music, voice acting, action, and plot was what made Conqueror so great. However, as a fan of the series I was extremely upset by the ending. The whole point of the series was that Ed and Al wanted to get the philosopher's stone to get their bodies back to the way they were. It's somewhat accomplished, Al gets his body back, (but he's 14 years old instead of 17 years old) and Ed never gets his arm and leg back. To top that off, they're stuck on Earth, as opposed to Amestris, with no possible way back. Here's how I would've ended it:

Before Ed left to follow Eckhart into Shamballa (Amestris), he should've told Alphons Heiderich to destroy the gate with one of his rockets from Earth's side. Ed would've gone through the gate, and then him and Alphonse would've killed Eckhart, and then destroyed the gate from their side, but before they destroy the gate...(we know that the gate is very powerful brought Ed back to life, with arm and leg, and brought Al's body back) Alphonse would've gotten his memories back, and Ed would've gotten his arm and leg back, because I mean, they just saved the world, so it would be equivalent exchange (and they HAD the Philosopher's stone at the end of the series, so they were SO close to getting their bodies back to normal, but didn't know how to use the stone until it was too late and Dante and the Homunculi screwed things up by killing Ed, Ed sacrificing himself for Al's life.) That way, Al had his memories and his body, and Ed had his arm and leg and they would live happily ever after.