Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Where There's a Will, There's Hathaway
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Scion Drake
Posts: 941 |
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Reminds me of this one description I've seen about the movies Mobile Suits which I really find to be a cool detail. "Barring one-off mobile fortress-type weapons like the Psycho Gundam family, the mobile suits in this are the most humongous in all of the Universal Century, representing the absolute nadir of the trend of increasingly overbuilt, overpriced "dinosaurian" MS design that more or less began with the ZZ Gundam before it was finally reigned in during the Mobile Suit Gundam F91 era. Even the story's main Mecha-Mooks, the Gustav Karls, are enormously chunky, with a whooping head height of 22.0 meters." I guess it kinda helps with the themes of the movie and the Federations ongoing corruption. Mobile Suit development have become absolutely unwieldy money sinks as they are now on the design philosophy of "Bigger, Badder, Better". Again it gives a real end an era feel to this branch of the UC. As for the movie itself, good stuff. A bit too much set-up but overall a pretty good watch. I'm excited for the next 2 movies and to finally see the Xi Gundam and Penelope in brightly lit scenery. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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Yeah it is, although a lot of UC is a mess since it was written at different time and some of it in novel that may or may not get adapted (like star war millions of novel). I don't think much though was ever put into official UC cannon when it came to novel. Char is weird because his popularity with the fandom is more important than his action in the universe. So Char is treated as a tragic hero rather than a mass murdering psychopath. Even in Unicorn the main character and the princess are dismissive of Full Frontal and act like he's just a pale imitation of Char when he reveal that his plan is to do an economic blockade, they treat this action as worse than Char attempt to drop a meteor on earth (somehow genocide is better than bloodless economic war). |
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John the Dark Lord
Posts: 232 |
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Not true. Nobody even compared Full Frontal's plan with Char's, they only compared his person with him. Their critic against his economic blockade also has nothing to do with it being horrible, immoral, or worse than a Colony Drop. The point was, it wouldn't change a thing in the long run. The reason UC was so full of war at this point is because Earth oppress the colonies. Full Frontal wanted to make the colonies oppress the Earth. A few years after a new war would inevitably start, just with the positions reversed. And for the record, they also weren't angry with Full Frontal being "a pale imitation" of Char because they liked Char. It's because his whole "being a vessel for the ideals of Zeon" business actually meant "being a vessel for the resentment spacenois feel against the Earth", which led to him prolonging the conflict between Neo-Zeon and the Earth. |
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chronium
 Posts: 288 Location: Canada |
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I just watched the the MSG compilation movies and CCA for the first time as prep for Hathway and I was so disappointed at how bad they were even for them being 80's content they were still bad. I hope they do a good job with the live action movie so that could take over from the UC from being the main timeline.
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5912 |
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Bad in what way? |
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chronium
Posts: 288 Location: Canada |
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Most of the characters are idiots, the dialogue is terrible, the logic behind a lot of plans just doesn't make sense. One thing I can blame on for being very 80's writing is solving Amuro's ptsd with a heavy amount of toxic masculinity it was just written so poorly that it was even bad by 80s standards. Gundam Seed is almost a 1 to 1 reboot of MSG and it's writing and logic is far superior then the UC time period. Destiny falls apart with the dialogue and the concept of the Zaft master plan but the overall plot and point they were trying to get was good. |
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IMS Judi
 Posts: 8 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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"It was bad even by 80s standards." The MSG movie trilogy, which remains to this day to be the highest-grossing Gundam film in the franchise (though Hathaway's Flash is coming close to topping it). "It was bad even by 80s standards." The MSG movie trilogy, the movies that propelled Gundam into the mainstream and paved the way into turning it into an actual franchise, and also brought it back to life especially after the disastrous performance of the original 1979 TV series that it was based on, which almost led to Sunrise pulling the plug on Gundam if it hadn't been for the movie trilogy, which retold that same story in a way more faithful to Tomino's original vision and unimpeded by pesky toy company sponsors? "It was bad even by 80s standards." The MSG movie trilogy, which drew in crowds of both otakus and normies so large that lines extended for blocks around movie theaters back in the 80s, and also helped pave the way for the rise of the cosplaying community, as men and women helped popularize the budding cosplay fandom at the time by cosplaying as Gundam 0079 characters? And also led to record sales numbers as nerds and normies alike bought MSG movie trilogy vinyls and cassettes in record numbers and immortalized "Ai no Senshi," "Beginnings," and "Meguriai" into Japanese pop-culture history on a similar level to Michael Jackson songs? I can forgive the rest of your reasons for disliking the MSG trilogy, since we all have different tastes and opinions, after all. But to simply state that it was "bad even by 80s standards," almost as if it was fact? I don't think so. Let's be honest, all you're doing is judging the movie trilogy by YOUR own personal standards, which based on your own words is clearly shaped by modern day (American left) politics, and then projecting your own modern, personal standards as if they were also the golden standard of 80s anime fans in Japan. By the way, that statement is hilariously wrong, and this is coming from someone who actually experienced Gundam's history first-hand. 
Last edited by IMS Judi on Sun Jul 11, 2021 6:11 am; edited 1 time in total |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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That's not what they're saying though. They're saying that the movies are problematic even going by the popular standards in the '80s, the obvious implication being that they weren't the same standards as today. You can disagree with someone without making unsubstantiated claims... (Also, I kind of wish people weren't calling anything not-quite-far-right "left". The word you're looking for is "liberal", perhaps "progressive", not "left".) |
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IMS Judi
Posts: 8 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Problematic? According to who? You say it was problematic even with 80s standards. Whose standards are we talking about? Japan's? The West? Because as someone who has personally experienced that time period, I can assure you that almost no one would literally have viewed the MSG trilogy as "problematic" (in the same sense that the leftist Twitter mob uses the word nowadays), especially more so if you talk about 80s Japan (or Showa-era standards). There were detractors even back then, sure, but they were a small minority, and their complaints were more on the legitimate side, such as criticisms of the animation quality, camera work, sound quality, some questionable dialogue, etc, and definitely not on the political/moral side that modern-day agenda-driven western journalists love bringing up. If MSG truly was "problematic" even by Showa-era standards, then MSG wouldn't have gotten as mainstream and popular and critically-praised as it did. It would gotten bashed and roasted even by Japanese people, the Japanese PTA, or even riled up some overzealous politicians back in the 80s. Obviously, none of that junk happened, and the original Gundam instead became a proud cultural icon that's still treasured to this day by modern-day Japan (and many parts of the world). That is why I mocked chronium's statements as "hilariously wrong," because I don't kid when I say I experienced Gundam's history first-hand, and his/her bold claims sounded like absolute baseless projection when viewed by someone who actually went through all of that history. And your last statement? I can throw the same accusation back to you. I wish people would stop labeling anything that doesn't conform to left-leaning politics as "far right." |
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chronium
Posts: 288 Location: Canada |
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Just because MSG created a genre doesn't mean it can't be bad at the same time. I'm judging based on the decades of entertainment and the 80's being probably my all time favorite decade of content. The only reason it remains popular is because of nostalgia. People are ignoring at how bad it really is the only thing that has held up is the animation. You're just mad someone is calling it out and your arguments of why I'm wrong just proves my point about nostalgia.
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tintor2
 Posts: 1815 |
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Actually didn't the first Gundam series was so problematic that it had to rush its ending? Even a parody manga states that Tomino (who is portayed as a sexist comically) realized Gundam was a failure and comes across with the movie trilogy to revise some parts and doesn't make Zeta until years. Tomino himself has claimed he disliked Zeta which made him retcon some parts of the narrative through another parts of the trilogy that even makes it impossible to Double Zeta to even start.
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Crpt774
Posts: 12 |
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They rushed the ending to the original series because while the series wasn't doing too badly it was funded by clover toys, who were struggling to sell the toys. Having seen the toys, I don't blame anyone for not buying.
As I understand it, it got a rerun in a less kid oriented timeslot and did even better after bandai got hold of it, then leading into the movies etc. That said, while the movies are the best currently complete movie series in Gundam, they are still compilation movies, if with some changes to get rid of bits Tomino didn't like, such as G Armour and incorporate some aspects of the novels. I would still recommend the series itself if you have the time. And yes, there was a statement a while back. These films follow the animated continuity. I believe the website has a timeline (poor Igloo) |
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tintor2
Posts: 1815 |
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Using sales as an excuse seems to be the worst excuse to win an argument especially within the Gundam fandom. I mean SEED actually revived the franchise to the point few anime surpassed its with the reboot of Osomatsu being the only superior. The Destiny won two consecutive Anime Grand Prix awards and surpassed dvd sales but if you ask an UC fan about SEED they become ridiculously toxic to they point they keep saying the cast are just mary sues that the director loves without actual proofs. So no. |
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John the Dark Lord
Posts: 232 |
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None of those things has anything to do with what was being discussed. The original Gundam was cancelled because of poor toy sales. What Tomino removed from the movies was the toyetic stuff he didn't want to put there in first place, but was forced to by the sponsors. And the movie compilation of Zeta did NOT retcon ZZ, Tomino himself said so. It's just an alternative ending. In fact, the reason he made a different ending for those movies is the exact same reason he wrote ZZ the way he did: He thought Zeta ended up too dark, and by his own words, "anime shouldn't make people feel sad". |
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Funchal99
Posts: 40 |
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I'm actually going over the UC timeline main stuff little by little. I think it has a lot of interesting stuff in it, and a lot of weird, not-so-good stuff in it as well, but I started with Unicorn, which is in no shape or form a good entry point by my estimate (I had to study a lot of the Gundam wiki to stand a chance of grasping anything that was going on), and I still need to finish reading the Origin manga.
Since everything from Unicorn up really rubs me the right way visuals-wise, I'm doing the effort (I haven't seen Char's Counter Attack yet, so I was pretty confused by this movie), but I'm not sure how much I'm willing to invest in the older stuff past the Origin manga, given the animation quality and the very harsh criticisms I see for this stuff online (I mean, should I even bother with Victory?), not to mention my own opinions regarding the Origin manga and the whole lore behind Newtypes and their very contrived relationships. While it has its charms though, I don't see much of a point in continuing to develop the UC timeline to be honest. There's very little wiggle-room since stuff that's stated to be canon (and with a lot of production problems) exists far up into the future of the timeline, and every new piece of media that releases is shackled by a metric ton of lore and previous knowledge of character dynamics that only alienates anyone trying to get into the series, making those products directed at pretty much only older fans and the few people that are willing to do all the homework for one reason or another. I really see no problem with investing more on AU Gundam, it allows for much more varied and begginner-friendly takes on the franchise's core concepts, the kind of thing that can keep on refreshing Gundam rather than gatekeeping it or further expanding on a single line of lore until it becomes impossibly convoluted. I for one thought IBO was great, though I suppose the market doesn't agree with me, which is a shame. One could say this approach leads to widly variable quality from one work to the next, but isn't it already the case with UC Gundam anyway? On another note:
I absolutely agree with that. I remember that I actually found his plan pretty clever given the dire circumstances, whereas the characters just immediatelly brush it off as the delusions of a mad man who has given up on humanity and is about to cause the most awful catastrophe there ever was. |
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