Ooooh, boy, this was a slog. I think my expectations going in were to blame for that, but my expectations were not unreasonable. I have not seen the TV show version of this, and I checked out the movie in the hopes that it would be more condensed. I've heard the show itself was condensed, so that may have presented an issue, but I also know this is going to be a series of 5 films, so getting a headstart on the story here would mean that they could do more in the later parts. Instead, I feel like this movie, the length ofabout five standard anime episodes, is just the first five episodes of the show. Why. What possible reason could there be to do this in this way? What could you possibly have wanted to say except "come see it and give us cash for stuff we did a few years ago?"

Because it's 5 fairly distinct episodes, there isn't even a strong through-line for us to follow all the way. There aren't any character arcs. The battles go absolutely nowhere except for the one major death that seems to BEGIN a character arc, but which is left unresolved by the end just like everything else.

The most interesting (and good) thing about it is its feel, for lack of a better word. This show is distinct from every other Gundam show I've seen in that, while the pacing was quite bad, something is always happening. It's not content to have anyone just do anything; there's always a wrinkle or imperfection or something to react to or a shot that lingers a bit to long so something unrelated can come into the frame or cheerleaders. It's an interesting choice and I would be embracing the chaos if there were any interesting characters or story elements for my mind to latch on to.

The art is mid-to-high TV quality most of the time, and there are a bunch of mid-range shots where characters are noticeably off-model. Why is this a movie?