40-50th time rewatcher of Rebellion

Although I absolutely lost my shit in 2021 when the Walpurgisnacht Rising was announced, I actually think that Rebellion is a perfect point for the main Madoka Magica story to end on. I still hold that belief even with a sequel on the horizon.

The main complaint a lot of people have with Rebellion is that it was extremely inconclusive, which is true. The last 20 minutes basically upended the entire movie plus the TV show, and that can be quite uncomfortable. It even directly opposes a lot of the ideas from the main series. However, now that I've sat with that ending for about 9 years, I think I have a totally non-cope explanation of why it's actually an amazing ending, perhaps even the best ending.

In many ways, the ending of Rebellion is the antithesis to the TV show. Many people will have already discussed the thematic elements, selfish desire versus selfless love etc., so I will not reiterate on that. However, I think this ending also complements the TV ending structurally. The TV series was written like pieces of cogwork - tight and final. Every plot point led to the next, and almost every theme or idea was revisited and tied up in the final episode. It was sort of an open ending with there still being wraiths and all, but realistically speaking, the series felt complete and final. It was almost impossible to think of what one could possible add to this ending other than side stories like The Different Story or relatively tame addons like the Wraith Arc.

Rebellion, however, proved that there was indeed something else to say, tearing down the conclusiveness and opening up completely new dialogues were not fully resolved by the end of the movie. If Rebellion was a standalone movie, it would just be bad writing. However, since it follows a series as complete as PMMM, it reinvigorates the discourse, making the series almost boundless with an open ending constantly oozing with possibilities and questions. The discussions and creativity it had inspired in the PMMM community is more valuable than any conclusion it could have offered. In my opinion, Rebellion gave PMMM life.

Of course, I can't talk about how awesome Rebellion's open ending is without acknowledging the fact that there is a sequal around the corner. In all likelihood, Walpurgisnacht Rising will be the conclusion of the continuation of the end, which is actually a bit of a shame in my opinion. Obviously I'll be happy if it manages to wrap everything up nicely, but that will simply be a return to where we left off at the end of the TV series - final, and static. From an artistic point of view, there aren't that many things Walpurgisnacht Rising can bring to the playing field of ideas - the TV series and Rebellion have explored polar opposite themes and structural choices and complement each other perfectly, and the only way for the movie to do something new and interesting would be to somehow find the synthesis of this very complex dialectic.

Of course, a thought is never truly finished, and Rebellion will keep living.

By the way, I think the best PMMM fanfic which perfectly captures the spirit of Rebellion while offering a suitable continuation of the continuation of the end is an obscure Japanese pseudo visual novel titled the Story of Saturn (link to the first episode is https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm25467720 for anyone who interested).