I only recently saw the Gundam 00 movie, A wakening of the Trailblazer, and I gotta be honest: I wasn't all that impressed. Not too many people were satisfied with it either, so I'm not alone. I think the main issue was that it involved aliens, which is a first for the Gundam series. These aliens were just soulless parasites and we really don't get any explanation for their existence. But besides that, the new Gundam designs were really, really bad. I thought the second season designs were a total downgrade, but these new designs are even worse. None of them appealed to me at all. The Qan't was slightly interesting, but still too plain. The ending was especially unsatisfying. The Qan't, which seemed to have some pretty incredible power, barely got any screen time. Then, the ending comes out of nowhere and it ends. No real explanation is given for what happens.
Still, one thing shined during the movie, and that was the Brave mobile suit. Graham Aker and his Over Flag was a true underdog and badass during the first season of Gundam 00, and the flag has come back to bring that same charm to the movie. The Brave is a successor to the flag unit, and totally kicks ass. As soon as it came out, the Soul Braves elite team saved Celestial Being's ass, showing off some incredible mobility, teamwork, and powerful weaponry. It was so entertaining watching them zip around and kicking alien ass, and they never really degrade to cannon fodder like the other GNX mobile suits. The Braves were the one thing that had a lasting impression on me.
I might even go ahead and buy the HG 1/144 model; its been so long since I've bought a model kit anyway. I bought the Over Flag after watching Graham kick the Gundam Thrones' ass, and the Braves have done the same thing to me!
I won't comment too much about the movie itself since the comments on them tend to lean towards the extremes, but you have fair points regarding how the concepts of alien really is hard for people to accept (and a bit rushed too, a stark contrast to season 1 and 2).
ReplyDeleteThe Braves are a welcoming design since the lore indicates former Union and AEU designers worked together on pre-Celestial Being transformable MS and adding GN Drives to them. And since I like the fighter concept MS in the first season, seeing them coming back here is a plus sign for me.
If you don't feel like building you can also consider the Robot Damashii action figure too. The front tips of wing binders can open up, reavealing the cannons in them too which the Gunpla version doesn't have :o
Just checked out the Robot Damashii, it looks equally impressive! Albeit a little smaller, but I'm sure the finer details are a little nicer on the figure.
ReplyDeleteBuilding is fun, don't rush it, but enjoy it..
ReplyDeletehmm, personally 00 movie seems plain for me..
well not bad, but not good enough..
Unicorn far better than the 00 movie..
and thanks for visiting my blog :D
i have a very flat face after watching the entire movie -____-
ReplyDeleteYeah this guy look bad-ass the Robot damashii or the model kit also nice, I also bought over-flag after seeing graham kick the throne's ass at least no more samurai crap >_<
ReplyDeleteMaftyNavue - Yeah, I tend to rush it just so I can have the end result, I guess that defeats the purpose of a model kit :)
ReplyDeleteakamage - I was -____- for the whole movie really...
Aya - I know right? Mr.Bushido was just...embarrassing. I really liked Graham during the first season, and when he went all samurai I hated him to death. He came back with the flag in the movie so that was a plus for me too.
I found the movie fairly enjoyable. As much flak as it gets for having aliens, they weren't the worst aliens I've seen by any means. Sci-fi writers an artists for the past 50 years have kinda been stuck in a rut that all aliens have to look like insects or octopuses (octopi?) or humans or some other rehash of an earth organism. Really the odds that they would evolve in such a parallel manner are slim. The folks who made this movie were wise to design extra terrestrials that look absolutely nothing like plants or animals; perhaps a nod to the franchises tradition of well thought out hard scifi reasoning. So alongside the Andromeda Strain, this is one of the few "believable" depictions of what extraterrestrial life could look like. The one thing that doesn't make sense is how the hell Eolia Shinburg could have known this was going to happen.
ReplyDeleteThe animation was amazing. So yeah it had it's flaws, but I enjoyed it
-Skyvalr
the whole point of the gundams was to make the dialogues possible. seasons 1 and 2 set the whole thing up so they had to make aliens.
DeleteI think one of the biggest problem I had with this movie has(aside for having a bunch of useless characters) are the curve balls it throws at us. If they were gonna use Decartes Shaman just to show off the ELS' power, wouldn't it make more sense to use Tieria since he was gonna sacrifice his bidy anyway? And Meena Carmine, would it hurt if the movie to spend a few minutes to explain the relation between her and Nena. Speaking of which, I've heard that some of the staff that work on the show were big Nena fans, and that she was very popular in Japan. Which has me scratching my head, considering how she was handled in Season two. But I digress.
ReplyDeleteThe movie overall was just mediocre , the characters were puppets to the plot with the possible exception of Graham. Battles were nothing more than a light show, the ending rushed and abrupt. The resolution was just weird. And the Message could have had more meaning if they didn't preach about it all the time. There's more I wanna say, but I'll stop for now.
This the most Pink Floyd plot in all the series! Really amazing. No happy american ending.
ReplyDeleteThis movie took every ounce of admiration I had for it during season one. The more I watch it the more I'm being sipped by the haterade.
ReplyDeleteEnough is enough. This is the pinnacle of ridiculousness in the franchise and I'm very dissappointed with it. So much for the super robot dilemnas of alternate universe series. Too much beam spamming shittiness.
Aliens?
This is coming from a fan of both macross and gundam. So its goddamn easy to see how this shit fails miserably to emulate macross'- or say, inject new ideas.
Unicorn really puts this shit to shame.
Best comedy of the year.
Wow.. so much hate here. Well, count me in as one of the few people who who actually liked the movie. It took a creative risk by bringing in aliens and despite fans screaming bloody murder, I thought it was done well and avoided many of the cliches associated with this type of story. Not everything was perfect but I felt it did a good job of bringing the themes of the series full circle. Of course not everyone will agree but I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw.
ReplyDeletehahah i just hope that the producers and staffs could make it up to all audience of gundam 00 in the world its not too late hahaha
Deletei recently just watch the gundam 00 movie and i must say that i'm not that satisfied with the all over story specially SETSUNA'S character role and in the ending he just vanished and after he came back he had a new gundam unit unknown and he fully evolved to an innovator whats up with that too much cuts on the story. action on battlefield met my expectations ooohh and i almost forgot he just slept while the others are fighting and took him long before he showed up around nearly 20:00 minutes before the movie end i just hope the producer and all the staffs could make it up to all audience in the world so that UNSATISFACTORY will go away.....
ReplyDeleteI think most people who were disappointed by this movie failed to understand some of the subtleties of its story and were too focused on its handling of character relationships and mech battles. The 00 story (both seasons + movie) was always driven more by the plot rather than the characters. This understandably makes it less relatable to the mass audience which is made even worse by its push towards the speculative science fiction genre.
ReplyDeleteThe movie itself has a perfectly valid story but so densely packed with subtle references that is difficult for viewers to catch without thinking hard about it. For example, the bits of dialogue by Descartes show that innovators are just as flawed as regular human beings and can start wars by their refusal to understand another party (like Ribbons). In this way he is the mirror opposite of Setsuna who throughout the movie is struggling with powers that go against his introverted personality. The movie is the culmination of his development of coming out of his shell and using his powers for the good of mankind.
Overall, the movie isn't without its flaws but is certainly more intelligent than people give it credit for. I think this movie will get better with time and is certainly a brave step forward for such a long running franchise.