A quick preface to say that if you haven't read my review for the Gundam 00 series then I recommend that you do because this is going to be written relative to what I said there. And one of the things I said was “I'm finally done with Gundam 00.”, but oh ho ho this is the Gundam series that just will not quit. With this two hour movie Gundam 00 is just barely the longest Gundam series ever made... for better and worse as it continues the downward trend that happened through most of season 2. But season 2 still generally held on to the series's good qualities and didn't succumb to its missteps. Can the movie accomplish the same? Let's take a look. Also, expect spoilers or skip to the final paragraph if you want the recommendation.
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 The Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer [sic] is a title that's two integers and one random semi-colon away from being the name of a Kingdom Hearts racing game. It also stars something new for the Gundam franchise: aliens! All is well in the Earth sphere now that everyone has abandoned their differing interests and have gained an inexplicable peace without war that satisfies everyone, but soon humanity faces a new common enemy as a race of aliens dubbed the ELS threaten to drive humanity to extinction. Instead of the usual thing with the aliens being a race almost exactly like humans except with a tail or a weird symbol on their forehead, they're actually metallic-like shape-shifters that can't verbally communicate and bond with things to assimilate (i.e. kill) them.
The addition of aliens to Gundam has met with a lot of controversy, but I can't understand why anyone would care. Gundam 00 is an alternate universe series, and that's the whole reason they exist: to experiment with the standard Gundam formula that's been kept mostly consistent in the Universal Century timeline. It doesn't taint any franchise ideology. The existence of aliens in Gundam 00 doesn't imply the existence of them in other series. Secondly, communicating with other intelligent life was hinted at in the actual series which in fiction is practically enough to confirm they exist in that universe so it's not out of nowhere. Lastly, the use of a non-verbal lifeform that's threatening to humanity's existence is a great medium to use for displaying the series's general themes of understanding to prevent conflict, and ties it to the series's unique technology that's a necessity to communicate such as telepathic quantum brain waves and Innovators. The aliens were the most clever thing the movie managed to come up with, and their first doomsday attack on Earth was cool to watch and had one of the four cool things Allelujuah did in the entirety of Gundam 00.
Getting back to the ongoing story, it's been two years since the end of season 2. Which isn't that much time, but apparently it was enough time to make a big budget movie about Celestial Being that we see a bit of at the start of our movie. Although it's not enough time to expect anyone to noticeably physically age, the creators still want to show time has passed so everyone with short hair has now grown it out considerably while everyone who had long hair has had it cut. It's not a big deal, but it's pretty funny how it's seriously almost a 1:1 ratio. However silly this was, it was all worth it because Felt with short hair is adorable. Short haired Felt is 90% of the reason to watch this movie. She also now has a sudden romance with Setsuna that feels completely undeserved (like anyone's interest in such a dull guy), but it's probably because the creators realized she got the short end of the stick out of all the main characters. Too bad Setsuna doesn't care as usual.
The rest of Celestial Being also gathers together again, each with a newly designed Gundam that looks far better and more elaborate than the season 2 redesigns. While on this subject of art design, the animation is as good as ever which is actually kind of lame. Since the series looked almost as good to begin with, the jump in quality you'd expect from a movie almost isn't there. The frame rate is better, but that's the only change that really stands out. Despite the action being as intense and flashy as ever, it's far harder to get into because of the nature of the enemy. There are no interesting one-on-one rivalries because our new opponents are completely mute and without identity, and so for all of your action scenes you have a bunch of mechs flying around avoiding the metallic spears trying to latch onto them while shooting wildly. No beam saber clashes, no clever maneuvers and people shouting "what!?", just going fast and blasting away for several minutes in wide-open space. With the action scenes and exciting scenarios being the greatest strength of Gundam 00 and what season 2 had to fall back on being nearly gone, A Wakening of the Trailblazer has to rely on its story and characters.
Several characters return but none develop because their character arcs were already finished. New sub characters are introduced only to end up dying and/or doing nothing because the story is still too focused on Setsuna like season 2 was. One new character is named Meena, who looks exactly like Nena would after this time skip. But lo and behold, this confusing thing is never addressed in the movie and only in a niche manga where it's revealed one of Meena's ancestors contributed DNA to the clones that became the Trinitys. In that case Meena's family must have been incredibly lucky with inbreeding considering they look exactly the same generations later. Graham returns and is the only one who has their personality elaborated on in ways the series didn't do as we're actually shown the change in him after his final fight with Setsuna. Susano-o, however, does not come back even though it wasn't fully destroyed and then Graham just ends up being tossed away again for characters less cool than he is.
Nearly all of this movie falls apart under scrutiny and you'll wonder where the time went after numerous unnecessary scenes of the government talking about how they need to evacuate citizens and their attacks on the ELS that continuously do nothing. This all climaxes in Setsuna using his new Gundam's improved powers to telepathically communicate with the ELS to understand what they want.
We learn that the ELS's home planet was under danger so they're migrating. Okay, that makes sense. And that they're bonding to and killing humans in order to understand them. ...What? With the ELS's ability to learn about things they touch, you'd think they'd realize that it's impossible to read the conscious of someone who is dead and give up. But more importantly, why does this have anything to do with their survival? They aren't even after Earth's environment since they just pack up and leave after like nothing happened. If they just want to bond with humans, then why did they begin with taking over vehicles and running them over? That doesn't help anyone. Why are they after people with quantum brain waves? Why do they want to merge with people without them as well then? How does Setsuna's communication with them do anything to fix the problem of their migration? Why do they form a big flower at the end? Is this their new planet or something? If they can do that anywhere in space, why was their extinction even a possibility? Why why why? Nothing is resolved and all we learn is that the problem made no sense to begin with because the ELS apparently didn't have one. For a story about understanding, I didn't understand diddly squat. The ELS just killed a ton of people for no reason. I just watched a two hour movie just to be told at the end it was all for nothing and there's no concrete thematic lesson. Get out of here.
Well, I said all about what I've wanted to say already. For two hours you'd expect I'd have more to talk about, but so little of significance actually happens and the plot is thin despite being stretched so far out. The good qualities of the series such as the action are diminished while the worst parts like plot depth and character drama are exacerbated. It's an unnecessary conclusion and doesn't really shed light on anything from the series. I'd say skip it unless you still loved season 2 despite its faults. If its faults are enough to make you hesitant about the movie's continued decline of quality, then steer away. You aren't missing anything important. What a lame end to something that started off so promising.
