This movie was a slap in the face to those who enjoyed Zeta Gundam and Char Aznable. I'm shocked to see many users here giving this movie such a high score when it really doesn't deserve it. Spoilers ahead, You've been warned.
Let's start off with the plot, with no reason given nor hints during the entirety of Zeta Gundam and it's sequel ZZ (which Char never appeared in), we see that Char Aznable, the man who gave that great speech to ward off the titans from Earth, is now the leader of Neo-Zeon. Char's goal is to wipe all life on Earth by dropping an asteroid on it. Yes, the same Char who refused to join with Haman Karn in Zeta who also had a similar ambition (dropping colonies in ZZ) is now trying to kill all of Earth's inhabitants. Why and how did this happen? We saw that Char got over the death of Lalah in Zeta, yet here he is in this film complaining to Amuro that Lalah could've been his mother. It's almost like that "MARTHA" meme from Batman v Superman. Does this movie at least take the time to explain why he's doing this? Barely. His motive for doing all this is to get back at Amuro for killing Lalah, when he actually teamed up with him during Zeta without even a hint of a grudge against him. Again this all doesn't make any sense.
Do you see a pattern in this review? It's like Yoshiyuki Tomino and his writers wanted to undo Zeta Gundam's story when it's actually one of the best stories from the U.C.
Another gripe I had with this film was the characters, there was barely enough time to get to see characters like Amuro and Char. Instead screen time is given to characters like Quess and Hathaway, and let me just say, if you thought Reccoa was a bitch, wait till you see Quess. Within the first 20 minutes of the film, you'll come to wish Bright came out early to slap the shit outta her. I was actually cheering for Chen when she killed Quess but that turned into disappointment with Hathaway acting even worse than Kamille or Amuro's tantrums by killing Chen. I almost felt bad for her but then I realized it was Chen's fault that one of the key crew members from the Argama, Astonaige dies due to her recklessness. A pointless death that wasn't given any mourning or impact. Just a quick boom, he's dead. Just like how Tomino cared for Zeta when he wrote this movie.
I wanted to see some of the characters like Astonaige and Bright react to Char's sudden change of character, but instead we're given a sappy side love triangle/square between Quess, Gyunei, Hathaway and Char. What for? At least 3 of these characters end up dead anyway. Another thing that I would've love to see are characters like Sayla and Kamille show up. Remember that crappy ending with the Newtype Psychic wave that covered the Earth? I would've loved to see Kamille and Sayla sense and feel that wave. What did we get instead? An old grandma and some animals reacting to this wave. Not even a cameo from those two. I guess Kamille and Sayla missed out on this shitfest. I think the movie would've been slightly better if we had them show up in some way to remind viewers that those characters still exist. I would've loved to see Kamille and Sayla just try and ask why Char is doing all this exactly like I was when I saw this movie.
The ending was a WTF moment too, did Amuro and Char die? Did they just disappear out of thin air? The last thing we hear from Amuro is a "aughh". We didn't even see the cockpit explode or the asteroid explode either. It just moves away from the Earth. I guess I'll have to watch Unicorn to find out. I'm getting a lot of mixed messages on this ending.
I read some background information on this film and found that Tomino actually based this film on a novel he did. So basically this movie was all just a cash grab to get his novel to sell but most of the stuff he writes turn outs to be the exact opposite of what actually happens in the anime so I guess this time we didn't get so lucky. (He originally wanted Amuro dead in the original series and in Zeta, he wanted Kamille to commit suicide after killing Scirocco.) I think we should be glad that someone is forcing him to change these endings around but I guess since he was allowed the reigns to do as he pleases in this film, we got such a sad and pathetic sequel.
Trust me, I wanted to like this film, this was hyped up among the Gundam fandom for being the thrilling conclusion between Amuro and Char's rivalry, but instead I left disappointed. This was as much as a negative whiplash to me as Tenchi Muyo's OVA 3 was. Both this film and Tenchi OVA 4 required reading outside source material that never left outside of Japan, leaving viewers like me just confused on this whole film. This film probably would've been a lot better if it was another TV series instead of a movie, that way we might understand these new characters better. For now, this movie really blows. 4/10
