Originally posted by Y the Alien: You mean, like the Wave Country arc? Oh, well it appears again in anime-only flashbacks, so I guess there's one big relation.
What the hell are you talking about? The anime dosen't have any flashbacks from the movie. Hell if you look at the anime time line there is no way that the events seen in the movie could have taken place since team 7 never gets the chance to reform after naruto learns the resengan.


I challenge you to come up with an anime, book, comic, or film that isn't made primarily for the same reasons.
Clockwork Orange, Animal Farm.

Japanese animation is an industry first and an art form a distant second. I somehow doubt Kishimoto's dream was to write a plucky coming-of-age tale about ninjas. He writes it because it sells
You may be right about this but that dosen't mean that brand extensions about naruto have to be completly unoriginal and derivitive. Take a look at what the Wachoski brothers did with the Matrix triology. When the second movie came out they had the release of a video game and anime DVD planned similtaneously. These two things were comercial products designed to generate revenue but the key difference between those two things and other examples of merchandising we've seen before is that they were directly related to the storyline. Not only did they provide an expanded view into the storylines of the movie but they also interwined seamlessly with the films chronology. You can say what ever you want about the actualy quality of the matrix triology but this was a genious move on their part.

Which brings me to my point about the naruto movies. The naruto world is a very broad universe filled with many questions. Why make a dumb movie that works against the already established chronology rather then make a movie that builds up opon the already established mythology. For example why not make a movie about the 4th hokage and dramatic battle with kyubi as he fought to protect the leaf village. Or why not produce a movie that details the great ninja war and show how the 1st hokage brought an end to it and formed the leaf village.