Good place to start?

[Hirokey123]

From that angle it could make some sense, especially since DiZ, Xemnas and Riku, the supposed main antagonists of this title, got wasted due to blackhole-Xion requiring all attention.

It is still ironic though that it comes to the "catharsis" factor since there are several other characters who "hurt other characters' feelings/are mean to them" (Riku to Sora in KH 1, Larxene to Sora in CoM, Marluxia to Naminé in CoM, Vanitas to Ventus in BBS etc.) and yet several of those actually have quite the fan following despite being "assholes" just as Saix is in their particular roles in these titles.

I don't know what game you were playing but never were DiZ, Riku, and Xemnas the main antagonists of this title and they never were going to be. DiZ is a continued X-factor working for his own ends just as he is in KH2, Riku is an anti-hero as always, and Xemnas is setting up for his eventual antagonist role in KH2 but during CoM/Days he's just the rarely seen orchestrator who sets the seeds of the plot.

Part of what makes Days's story nice is that it's much more heavily character driven than plot driven and as such each character is their own antagonist, there is no clear cut divide between the roles of antagonist/protagonist as they all actively help and hurt one another for their own goals. Xion is her own greatest enemy, Roxas is his own greatest enemy, Axel is his own greatest enemy, Saix is his own greatest enemy, Riku is his own greatest enemy, etc.... Their inner conflicts and flaws are the source of their big problems and those problems intermesh driving the story forward. But the movie cuts so much of that....

The Days movie is cold and mechanical, it's what you get when you take a story that is character driven and remove the focus from the characters. You're left with what you need to know to understand the greater lore of the story but you miss everything else, the actual stuff that made the story enjoyable to watch.

Spoiler Show

The human moments where Roxas asks what love is or when Axel tries to explain girls to 15 year old boy with the mind of a toddler. Where Axel sincerely believes and trust in Roxas and doing so lets him fly. When Roxas finally gets tired of being a jerk to Tinkerbell for ditching her at every turn and decides even if Saix doesn't like it he is going to help her this time. Where Xion loses hope at ever regaining the keyblade only for Roxas to hand her his and then say he'll make do with a stick which Xion regards with skepticism at that being a suitable substitute. Where Xion comes to a belief that things that are stolen should be returned to where they came from. Or when she actually gets to travel with Roxas and just have these short adventures processing the world together coming up with cute little ideas like "when in doubt give things a good whack" or Roxas making a joke to her when she asks how he solved a block sliding puzzle in his earlier mission and his response is "I don't know things just kinda clicked into place".

Where Roxas gets a taste of normal life when he befriends HPO and plays grandstander with them on their vacation. Where Roxas becomes so incredibly disgusted by Saix's inability to care for seemingly anything when Saix thinks that assuring Roxas "Xion's failure won't affect your standings" was a good attempt at calming Roxas down. When RAX rejoice at being able to be on 3 party mission remarking they've never experienced this before and Axel tells them to focus because as cool as it is that they are on a mission together as trio, they do in fact have work to do. And of course just about any interaction/relationship Roxas had with the other members is gone to from Luxord mentoring him on life and luck to Xaldin in his own way trying to tutor and help Roxas grow into a strong warrior.

The Days movie sucks it sucks so hard and is the worst way to ever experience the game.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

I don't know what game you were playing but never were DiZ, Riku, and Xemnas the main antagonists of this title and they never were going to be. DiZ is a continued X-factor working for his own ends just as he is in KH2, Riku is an anti-hero as always, and Xemnas is setting up for his eventual antagonist role in KH2 but during CoM/Days he's just the rarely seen orchestrator who sets the seeds of the plot.

Part of what makes Days's story nice is that it's much more heavily character driven than plot driven and as such each character is their own antagonist, there is no clear cut divide between the roles of antagonist/protagonist as they all actively help and hurt one another for their own goals. Xion is her own greatest enemy, Roxas is his own greatest enemy, Axel is his own greatest enemy, Saix is his own greatest enemy, Riku is his own greatest enemy, etc.... Their inner conflicts and flaws are the source of their big problems and those problems intermesh driving the story forward. But the movie cuts so much of that....

The Days movie is cold and mechanical, it's what you get when you take a story that is character driven and remove the focus from the characters. You're left with what you need to know to understand the greater lore of the story but you miss everything else, the actual stuff that made the story enjoyable to watch.

Spoiler Show

The human moments where Roxas asks what love is or when Axel tries to explain girls to 15 year old boy with the mind of a toddler. Where Axel sincerely believes and trust in Roxas and doing so lets him fly. When Roxas finally gets tired of being a jerk to Tinkerbell for ditching her at every turn and decides even if Saix doesn't like it he is going to help her this time. Where Xion loses hope at ever regaining the keyblade only for Roxas to hand her his and then say he'll make do with a stick which Xion regards with skepticism at that being a suitable substitute. Where Xion comes to a belief that things that are stolen should be returned to where they came from. Or when she actually gets to travel with Roxas and just have these short adventures processing the world together coming up with cute little ideas like "when in doubt give things a good whack" or Roxas making a joke to her when she asks how he solved a block sliding puzzle in his earlier mission and his response is "I don't know things just kinda clicked into place".

Where Roxas gets a taste of normal life when he befriends HPO and plays grandstander with them on their vacation. Where Roxas becomes so incredibly disgusted by Saix's inability to care for seemingly anything when Saix thinks that assuring Roxas "Xion's failure won't affect your standings" was a good attempt at calming Roxas down. When RAX rejoice at being able to be on 3 party mission remarking they've never experienced this before and Axel tells them to focus because as cool as it is that they are on a mission together as trio, they do in fact have work to do. And of course just about any interaction/relationship Roxas had with the other members is gone to from Luxord mentoring him on life and luck to Xaldin in his own way trying to tutor and help Roxas grow into a strong warrior.

The Days movie sucks it sucks so hard and is the worst way to ever experience the game.

I get the vibe that you may be mixing up the concepts/roles of an antagonist and a villain.
It is true that Days has no main villains, but DiZ, Riku and Xemnas are clearly intended to play antagonistic roles to different degrees in relation to Roxas, the supposed, and Xion, the actual main character of that title.

The Days movie's intention is to deliver all necessary information for the overall lore to prepare for KH III, not to provide a character study so maybe that's why it's more "mechanical". Then there is also the fact to be taken into account that this was the first time Square did such an approach and the Re: Coded movie was already a noticeable improvement.
I fully agree with the notion that there are some crucial scenes and situations missing in the movie, yet on the other hand including all those little moments you mentioned would probably have blown up the scope of the whole thing so some things had to be summarized.

In the end the main reason why both Days and Coded were made movies/cutscene collections instead of full games was because it would have taken too much time to remake them for the PS3 (the PS2 titles and BBS from PSP could be more or less ported over) and since those two titles are arguably the least important out of them all for a rudimentary basic understanding of the plot for KH III they decided to cut some corners with those.

Certainly not the best way to handle it, but also not the end of the world as the primary objective is more or less reached, so in the end it depends on each individual person if the movie is enough for them to get the basic gist of what happened in Days or if they want to go through the chore of actually playing it/watching the whole thing as a playthrough on the net.