Gundam SEED Destiny

I missed this topic for all this time... <.<''' As you can recognize I love the CE Gundam Universe... I find it more realistic than other Gundam Series, more coerent... About Shinn, well I find it a pretty character... (Even I choose it for nick/avatar for different reason...)

For Stellar I think that it is the thing that makes Shinn a good character... The love for Stellar was love at first sight... He doesn't know much about her, but he love her and Shinn isn't a lot mature (And Stellar isn't to much ugly)...

Is a thing that I have appreciate in Destiny... Shinn wasn't the mature, smart, wise hero... Shinn is a child, frustrated, deluded, sad... Shinn is the demonstration that coordinators can be smart as they wish, but the meaning of life, the important things, can be learned without sacrifice... And maturity is not genetic related...

In Gundam SEED, someone tell that "Coordinator can do thing that natural can't do, but even natural can do things that coordinator can't do..."

Shinn is still a child, (16 years old doesn't mean maturity) but someone gave him a MS, teached him to kill and Dullindal and Rey continue to guide him without let him to learn on his own...
 
Just finished watching episode 50 (raw, but I got the rough gist of it)...

The Rey/Kira fight was interesting to a point, but then Kira turned on his God-mode cheat and ripped Legend apart, leaving it with enough energy to move. There was the little interesting part where Rey actually claimed he was Rau, although I don't know if I heard that right. Likewise, Shinn and Athrun's fight was just a bit onesided. Lunamaria attacks Athrun as he nears Minerva, Athrun fires back, taking Impulse's arm and leg off. Shinn jumps in to save her, and attacks Athrun with his Arondight sword. Athrun throws a few words of wisdom and reason sat them, which causes Lunamaria to lose her resolve. Shinn attacks, and Lunamaria moves in front of Athrun, telling Shinn to stop. Shinn continues his attack, remembering Mayu and Stellar. Athrun goes SEED, stops his attack, and takes Destiny apart like it was made out of cardboard. Shinn lives, but Destiny is totalled. In the meantime, the AA blows the crap out of the Minerva, rendering it, er, pwned.

Then we get what I'd hoped would have been played out a bit more; the final Dullandil wrap-up. He gets shot by Rey after Kira makes some comments on what he believes in. I found Rey's turning abrupt, considering that for the entire series he was pretty much either a) emotionless or b) freaking out over the sign of any lab equipment. Also, the way he called Talia 'mother' at the end - does this mean he isn't a clone? We've seen pictures of Talia holding a child, assumably Dullandil's, so are we supposed to assume they are one family? I wish this had been elaborated on further. I guess it doesn't matter now though, considering all three of them died when the control room exploded. Kira escapes, as usual. On the moon's surface, Shinn has an encounter with Stellar whilst he is unconscious, similar to the Flay/Kira encounter back in SEED. She tells him she'll see him tomorrow. He wakes up to find Lunamaria holding him, and he cries as he sees REQUIEM, and later NEO-GENESIS explode.

So what do I think of this series overall? I guess I'd feel better about it if the later episodes appealed to me more, rather than the way they went, using increasingly more stock footage and flashbacks as they went along. Speaking of stock footage, during the S-Freedom/Legend fight, Strike Freedom turns back into orginal Freedom for a scene. A couple of glaring mistakes have been made like this throughout the series, and the whole thing seems lazy, given that Destiny was supposed to have a larger-than-average budget. I have the nagging suspicion most of that money went to the show's merchandising division, although I'm probably wrong.

I was extremely enthusistic about Destiny at the beginning, something I've felt I maintained right the way through to the Battle at Orb circa episode 39/40. After that, things just seemed to fall apart extremely quickly. Kira's reindroduction as the 'main' character again is a big part of this. While it wasn't a problem to see him back in action, kicking ass and taking names, what was a problem was when the plot started to shift to him. It wasn't needed, no matter how popular his character is. I think the ending failed to significantly wrap up a few of the other points brought up in the series, and the whole thing feels even more rushed than SEED's ending. Perhaps (and I really hope on this one) the extra on the final Destiny DVD will shed some light. Despite all these dissapointments, I really enjoyed this series, as the first 20 or so episodes were brilliant. Its just a shame things didn't end as good as they had started. Ah well, better put in my preorder for the next DVD!
 
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There be spoilers below...

All I can say, Rurouni, is that I agree with you. Counting up all the character who met their demise, Destiny is a field of corpses while all the Seed characters survived, in fact one even came back to life. Kira's prominence in the ending wasn't satisfactory at all; all least Athrun, who has encountered Dullandil far more, should have ended it all. It's clear Kira's role is due to popularity, and I agree that the footage used in the final battles was atrocious. It's tiresome, also, how the three pilots on the "good side" manage to destroy the Destiny character's Gundams with such ease. Kira should have had a much reduced role, no matter how enjoyable the Cagalli-Yuna wedding was.

The series was terribly wrapped up, especially the matter of Shinn. I feel death would have been a much more powerful and deserving end for him, as opposed to weak one that we were given. What happens to the characters now? At least we could have had an epilogue episode instead of the cursed recaps. (although I have to admit I thought the Rau-Dullandil episode was well done). And what about Cagalli? Has she been sucked into some sort of void? Her lack of presence suggests it.

The series began with so much promise, but later episodes squandered this: Kira became the star, while Shinn became a mere cardboard cut-out of a faithful-to-the-fault pilot, with nothing done to focus on his bigotted views. I've been severely disapointed with how the series turned out.
 
<a href="http://www.mahq.net/animation/gundam/seed-destiny/gsdep50.htm" target="_blank">MAHQ have put up their review</a> - that's a rating as bad as the final Wing episode!
 
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