Kidou Senshi Gundam: Cucuruz Doan no Shima

I've seen the original Mobile Suit Gundam episode that this movie was based on but I barely remember it, outside of it introducing Zaku martial arts. In that way, I went in to watching this movie pretty much as a fresh experience. I liked how authentic this movie was to the style and feel of the original anime series. All the character designs are perfect, it's nice seeing those 80s style anime eyes again.

Other than frustration with Amuro being Amuro and him not asking anything about who Doan was, this was a nice story. The children characters were really endearing and I liked Doan. My ... only issue with the movie was that I wish the battle scenes were more fleshed out. Especially after bringing in Sleggar, it was disappointing to see him and Kai fold so easily. And the villains had Cucuruz Doan's biggest fanboy, who kind of got on my nerves. I wish we got more screentime of the woman on that villain team instead, who seemed to be very conflicted about having to face Doan again, compared to that cartoon cutout with a lizard on his face.

I hope Sunrise makes more standalone White Base stories like this.

Unbelievably fun. Beautiful animation, beautiful robots. Wish I got to see the white base more but I get why they weren’t in it as much. Marcos was good but I wish Cara his character instead. The music was really good too. Sleggar was a lot better here, and Bright’s character improved tenfold with the more expressive animation. Villain team was meh but the island residents made up for it. Fraw Bow was also really good despite having like six lines the whole movie. Kai Shiden and Hayato Kobayashi, mayors of losertown, got their asses beat by a goat. I wish the secondary pilots didn’t get ... the floor mopped with them, and that the fight scenes were longer in general, but that’s not a huge deal IG.

This Doan's Island movie feels, overall, out-of-place. While the episode it is adapting has a self-contained plot, pulling it out of Mobile Suit Gundam and stretching it to the length of a movie has resulted in an empty experience. This movie would have been better off as a shorter episode in an OVA of reimagined 0079 escapades.

Character animation is emotive and interesting, but very exaggerated, just like The Origin OVA's. The writing and characterization is also just as exaggerated.

Mobile Suit combat is done in stylized CGI. This looks pretty good at points but also has awkward moments where you notice the anti-aliasing on faraway models.

In ... regards to the plot, the movie can't seem to decide whether or not it needs to justify itself or not. The stakes are sometimes played up unrealistically or literally raised in comparison to 0079's Episode 15. At other points, it tries to feel like the episode should; a moment of downtime and an exploration of Doan's dilemma. A Zeon pilot deserting to look after war orphans; what does this teach Amuro?

Maybe I'm just pessimistic about modern imaginings of the Universal Century, but I did come in with a positive outlook. I won't say this is a bad movie by any means, just a sort of disjointed thing. It doesn't fit as a replacement for the original Episode 15 and it isn't a good follow-up for the Origin OVA's.