Nanoha is a spinoff from an eroge, aimed primarily at an adult male audience, and its transformation sequences are rather sexualized (seriously, compare Nanoha's to Precure's - what Precure, aimed at preteen girls and thus not sexualized at all, notably lacks is step-by-step stripping of its characters, complete with camera angles to emphasize it). From there it's pretty reasonable to assume that fanservice was their intent when it might otherwise be a bit ambiguous.
Actually poking at cultural differences of characters is common theme, even if mostly shows in things like that (well and name order and who uses honorifics and who do not). Nanoha is Japanese, Yuuno is from Western-culture equivalent. It's not a thing for Nanoha (or Japanese viewers), but thing for Yuuno. Later there is clash about common bathing between Caro who comes from tribal culture (and later grew with Preservation Corps and Forest Rangers that live for prolonged time in wilderness have different taboos among themselves even in western culture) and Erio who is again from Western-equivalent is quite flustered about that.
That only skips two episodes, actually - she shows up in episode 4. And the movie is so pretty, and only very mildly suffers for its compression (though it does like to exaggerate power levels).
Not quite sure what's up with Subaru and Nove not just removing the suspenders, but I can roll with it. I'm really liking the art style.
Funny thing about that it doesn't actually exagerate.
Uh... were we watching the same show? They weren't at "Accidentally break the whole area of city we're fighting in" levels before StrikerS at least. The level of casual property damage they do in their big fight is just spectacular. Hell, just compare Fate's Phalanx Shift in the series to the movie - in the movie it's at least 6 times the size (could be bigger, hard to say with the buildings in the way).
Soundstages confirms that the movie 1st is 1: an alternate timeline and 2: that it is an in universe movie where the magical combat is accurate enough to be used as reference material for TSAB mages.
Yes, they're in-universe pseudo-documentaries, which is an extremely cool idea to explain inconsistencies. But "This is how high-level magic combat works in-setting" is distinct from "Nanoha and Fate were actually slinging around this kind of power at that age;" they weren't. There being a reason for the exaggeration doesn't actually make it less exaggerated.
It's a TSAB propaganda film, of course.
Linith does show up, yes.
No, not at all. The first movie devotes more energy to Fate and Precia, introduces Linith, and I feel does much better justice to Nanoha's own motives, which don't get across very well in the series. The tradeoff is that the relationship between Fate and Nanoha feels a little bit less natural (because you're seeing it develop over an hour or two, not twice that).
They're half propaganda and half bio-pic docudramas.
Does it cut out the flashback scene where Nanoha confronts Arisa for Suzuka's sake and the Chummy Trio is born?
Believe they did. Arisa and Suzuka (and Nanoha's family in general) feature a lot less in the movies, though they're still present.
So then how does the movie establish that Nanoha is willing to fight Fate with live weapons in part because fighting has proven to solve her problems and win her friendships?
...okay, it's clear you feel really intensely about this, so I'm not exactly inclined to try to argue the point? I stand by my earlier statements, and you can dislike the movie if you want.
What I feel strongly is that someone's introduction to Lyrical Nanoha should be a version of the story that includes all of these events, as they are all very important to Takamachi Nanoha, the title character and main heroine.
From memory, the movie is basically for if you already know the plot and characters, and are now there for the remastered fights.
I have no particular problem with that.
