Review of Mobile Suit Gundam I
The Gundam franchise is one I've talked about a few times. Half of the time, Wing and Iron-Blooded Orphans, it's been good. The other half, 00 and 8th MS Team, has been mediocre to sub-par. This time, we're going back to the beginning. To be specific, we're watching the first recap film based off the original series. Story: Our narrative is set in the distant future when humans have formed various colonies in space to handle our growing population. In this climate the Zeon colony declares itself independent from the Earth federation and they go to war. We open in the Side 7 colony whereFederation troops are delivering a new mobile suit weapon and Zeon forces attack.
The biggest problem with the narrative is that it's all kind of formulaic. And I'm not just talking about the Gundam specific tropes that started with this series. In general, it just uses a lot of very obvious flags and old sci-fi tropes. Like, there's a point where a character is about to go into battle and you know just from thirty seconds of build up that he won't survive. The death flag is just really obvious. We're talking a senior cop two days from retirement obvious. Which makes things more than a little uninteresting since you can always predict what's coming. Another issue is that the film tries to present this balanced perspective where the Zeon aren't all bad but then they have a Nazi style speech and salute towards the end of the film which pretty much destroys any moral grey area. I mean, the moment any side is reminiscent of Nazis, they're the bad guys. Just objectively.
On the positive side, this series does do a good job of explaining why young teenagers are the best choice for piloting these destructive weapons into battle. It's a simple explanation of "most adults have already been killed in the war" but it works.
Characters:
The big problem with the characters in this is that they're very bland. one of them have much complexity or development. About the most we get for that is our protagonist, Amuro, sulking in his tent like Achilles because he feels overwhelmed and that ends up boiling down to three minutes of "I can't go back out there and kill more people" followed by "guess I have no choice." So, it ends up coming across as him being an easily malleable tool. Another issue I have with Amuro is his relationship with his parents. His dad disappears during his first battle and he barely says anything about it after. And his mom, who he hasn't seen in like ten years, gets mad at him for changing in that time and for killing someone in self defence. Which just lacks verisimilitude.
The only character with some potential at the end of the first film is Char. His story arc is kind of obvious. He has some vendetta against the family at the top of the Zeon empire and he's infiltrated them for the sake of his revenge. But I do think if that gets properly developed it can be really interesting. Other than that, the cast is boring.
Art:
The artwork is dated. It uses a lot of those old school animation tricks to save on frames. Reusing cells, blurred motion lines, segments where characters basically stand completely still and the only animation is some mouth movements. It also doesn't have designs that are as good as the subsequent instalments of the franchise. Which is understandable since this was laying out the groundwork but it also contributes to the whole thing looking dated.
Sound:
The acting is fine. Furuya Toru, Ikeda Shuuichi, Inoue You, Ukai Rumiko and the others all sound fine. It's just one of those series where the acting is limited by the lack of character complexity. The music is pretty good.
Ho-yay:
There isn't any to be found.
Areas of Improvement:
1. If you want to have a conflict that's morally grey, you can't have one side be reminiscent of Nazis. It's a good thing to have sympathetic antagonists, but once they start talking about being the superior race and doing Sieg Heils, sorry Sieg Zeons, they're never going to be sympathetic. No matter how much you talk about them having families and fighting for their freedom.
2. Develop your main cast. The protagonists in this are all just bland. And it does hurt the film that Amuro is such an unevenly written character.
3. Use some subversion. Yes, there are times when writers should play their tropes straight. But when they do it with everything, you end up with a narrative that's far too obvious and predictable.
Final Thoughts:
As a start to a film trilogy, this is pretty dull. So far, the narrative is predictable, the characters have nothing to them, the artwork shows its age. Overall, I give it a 5/10. Maybe the other two films are better. I will look at them eventually. Not a great start though.