Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel movies

A trilogy of anime movies were made by ufotable to depict the Heaven's Feel story arc of the Fate/stay night visual novel. The movies are:

Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel I. presage flower

 

Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel II. lost butterfly

 

Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel III. spring song

Having finally watched all of them, I must first admit that ufotable does an incredible job with its stunning CG animations of epic fight scenes. This trilogy of movies is no exception. But the movies seemed to be a bit rushed. Certain portions were skimmed over, and maybe even outright cut. For example, in presage flower, the opening was like a mosaic of the initial events leading to the start of the Holy Grail War. For those who have watch previous Fate/stay night adaptations, this is not much of an issue. But for those totally new to this franchise, this is necessary background to introduce how Shirou and Rin ended up teaming together.

The ending of spring song was also somewhat glossed over, with very little amplification about how Shirou came back. It was a series of stills and for those without prior knowledge of the series, it is going to be challenging (or even impossible) to figure out what happened.

I guess it can't be helped. Fate/stay night has three main story arc; the one for Saber, then Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven's Feel. The first two arcs were adapted into anime series each running for two cours (around 25 episodes in total), which translates to around 8.5 hours of screen time. Using three movies (total screen time around 6+ hours) to depict another full story arc is going to be challenging. Shortening the background is acceptable if it is made known that the viewer needs to have seen Unlimited Blade Works (adapted by ufotable). But skimming through the ending leaves a lot of open questions, since the ending is not addressed in the other two arcs. Adding maybe another 10 minutes to work through the ending might have made it easier for those new to Fate/stay night to understand what happened in the end.

So for those who are going to watch this trilogy, I would suggest watching ufotable's adaptation of Unlimited Blade Works first, just to get the background. As for the ending, you will need to read up on Wikipedia to fully understand what the series of stills was trying to say.