Kidou Senshi Gundam I

Story: At first it seemed pretty messed up. I couldn't distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys but then innocents got killed so yeah. The story started slowly with a little display of conflicts, nothing wrong here. The problem is that it kept dragging on till the first hour and a half. I got sleepy there and had to take a break. However the "second part" got a lot better because the actions made more sense and some characters got development.
A mix of good and bad so 5.

Art: The art part was good for such an old movie, the chara design was great, ... no look-alike. That's a plus for me. However some scenes were weirdly drawn like one where Amuro puts a sad face but the way I see it, it looked like he was high on mushrooms with eyes gone white and staring at the wall like a broken robot. Not much to be considered a flaw but had to be noticed.
Good old stuff: 8.

Sound: The film had good music and the ending was great too. The main theme is a plus (the dvd menu theme). I give it a 8.

Character: Some guy need some development (Char: good introduction as the Akai Suisei but then fall into oblivion). Maybe I'm asking too much with just the first movie but then I'll see how it goes. The same goes for Sayla Mass. She seems like a strong female lead character but the only thing I know about her is that she hates cowardice. The main character Amuro is getting more interesting as he has some inner conflicts with war stuff but there's a chance he just turns out to be an ace pilot who's good at saying "Yes Sir!". A 6 for now might get better for the second movie.

Enjoyment: I couldn't watch this movie as a whole so no plus here. A 4 because it wasn't shitty yet nothing amazing.

Now, I may be a little biased, but I really really love Gundam. It's one of my favorite things, UC Gundam especially. The Original movie trilogy is my typical go-to if someone wants to experience the original story, as 40+ episodes can be pretty daunting to someone who is interested in Gundam but not yet ride-or-die, y'know? But, I always lay it out like this-

The first movie is kind of a tough watch in lots of places.
The second movie gets it's shit together in the right places, and is pretty dang enjoyable!
I have requested in my will that I am buried with a copy of ... the third movie.

This movie is a tough watch- it's pacing is odd, as it tries to capture as much as it can in a short amount of time. That's just the nature of a compilation, I can't fault it too hard! I doubt I could do it better, in fact! But, in my opinion, this movie is slow going, but with the two that come after it, I'd recommend powering through! Hey, you might even end up liking it a lot more than me! :D

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 where ... Federation 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.

This is the first in a trilogy of films adapting the original Mobile Suit Gundam series in a paced up yet still incredibly long format. This can very safely be watched in the place of the series, but you do trade some scenes for better overall animation quality. The first film covers the events of Amuro Ray's first flight in the Gundam all the way up to the fight with Garma Zabi.

The animation is passable, improving on the original in terms of avoiding stock animation (mostly) but still keeping the charm of the original's very saturated colours, large, blocky mobile suit designs and cute ... characters. I do prefer this approach to redoing the original, and I would say this means that the film generally gives the same experience as the series.

The films are edited a bit strangely, with very harsh cuts at times that don't give you much time to process what is happening. For example, in the early scenes a hole is blown in a colony and Amuro's father just gets sucked out into space, which happens insanely quickly and is barely brought up later. Characters die, jump between battle and being onboard, in and out of mobile suits and all around white base with very little warning from the score or dialogue. I have decided to optimistically take this as a way of showing how war does not allow people to take proper time to grieve or something, just make sure to not look away from the screen too long or you'll find yourself missing the whole battle.

Mobile Suit Gundam's greatest suit (lol) is by far its characters. Char particularly is THE character for most of MSG, and I am always glued to his presence and the incredible VA work. Amuro is a very interesting protagonist, subverting the expectation of a wide-eyed kid who wants to give his life in a cool robot to fight for justice, instead he is far more aware and sensitive, the first flight in the Gundam ends with him being visibly disturbed at his capability to kill. Amuro is often insubordinate to anyone he can be to, particularly Bright, the 19 year old captain of the white base who by far is the most relatable character, embodying the complaints of the viewer at Amuro and the other (child) soldiers aboard the white base by beating respect into them often.

The mobile suits are just cool. I like the Zaku II. Nothing more needs to be said without being unoriginal, big robots are cool and I very willingly assembled many gunpla after watching this film. They look cool, they sound cool, and they fight cool.

The original series and the film trilogy certainly hold up today. Maybe not as anybody's first anime, but I had plenty of fun experiencing an absolute classic in a faithful but revised form. Available on netflix brah.

This is my second full exposure to a Gundam series--the first being Gundam Build Fighters--though I'd consider this to be my first 'main' Gundam series as, after all, this is a condensed version of the series that started it all. For true Gundam fans, the original series is a must-watch.

But I'm not sure if these movies warrant such praise. In fact, this film felt like a horrible way to introduce yourself to Gundam's core story. The first hour is pretty confusing: yes, you clearly understand that this is a war between the forces of good and evil. Yet, characters aren't fleshed out enough for the ... audience. I found myself confused as to why the protagonist was piloting a Gundam outside of it being an absolute necessity the first time around, not to mention why he struggled emotionally before and after piloting the Gundam. This, I feel, is thanks to the pacing of this film being all over the place.

It's clear this movie is made up of a bunch of episodes that have been Frankensteined into a coherent film, which makes story/character comprehension and immersion equally difficult. The pacing is absolutely shot. At first, it feels like nothing is happening, and then you're inundated with action scenes and character development which gives you no time to process what's going on. Complete focus isn't enough as there's too much and too little information to properly understand what's going on. Keeping up was impossible; I kept getting lost in the previous 5 minutes, where I then fully absorbed what happened, only to realize even more important things happened while I finished processing the previous scene.

I'm sure Gundam fans, especially ones who are somewhat familiar with or have seen the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, will enjoy this to some extent. But this feels like a significant downgrade from the original show, as there is just so much happening in a little amount of time. I didn't identify with any characters, nor did I empathize with any tragic events, because I didn't have a full understanding of what was going on. And, worse of all, when I did finally understand, the frantic pacing meant I was left in the dust as a new dramatic scene passed me by.