The All Purpose Mobile Suit Gundam Thread

I actually agree on that point, Ilmaestro. But for me, seeing 'real' Gundams duking it out on screen would be a blast, in much the same way that seeing the Transformers movies gave me a real visceral thrill of seeing GianT Robots That Look Almost Real on screen.

Sure, they're not exactly superb movies, but they provide decent robot mosh action.

Of course, the real peril with any live action Gundam movie would be working out who sits in the cockpit.

Zac Efron? Snrrk! :p
 
Yes, actually, I will admit that I really enjoyed seeing such impressive CG for Transformers, whatever anyone says about the films themselves, so I guess they could always surprise me.
 
There IS a danger in that, though.

A frind of mine went to see the last Transformers movie and spoke to a girl who happened to be in the adjacent seat, who was literally bouncing up and down with excitement at seeing the movie.

She told my frined that she'd seen the first movie, couldn't wait for the next one, and was looking forward to seeing the giant robots fight on screen.

'Which is your favourite?' my friend asked. The girl simply stared back blankly, unaware that the robots themsleves even had names.

100% true story.

And the point? Quality CG and breathtaking battles may indeed be a lot of fun to watch. But if the character ain't there, it'll make less than no impression on an audience.

In an age where Hollywood seems hell bent on providing soulless, dumb entertainment to an audience it clearly percieves as easily entertained, I think that's a pretty timely caution.

And if that Akira remake ever happens, I swear I'll not be held responsible for my rantings here.
 
HdE said:
And if that Akira remake ever happens, I swear I'll not be held responsible for my rantings here.
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It seems highly likely.
In virtue of the fact an original story already exists in the form of the manga, the remaining tasks consist of throwing money at the project and altering plot specifics to maximise financial return. Neither of these, I fathom, are particularly challenging activities for those with the right resources.
 
Actually I like and enjoy the Transformer films...Not as much as I do the 1986 full length toy commercial though but you know...

The point about being able to bring the gundams into real life isn't that good of a deal sealer. Sure it would be awesome, but I thought a real life guyver movie would be awesome. What I got was something horrifing, more scarier then if it turned out that Jedward are god. Regardless of who acts in it, they will never get the story right and the feeling that goes with each gundam series...except Destiny as that can just go and die in the corner with G-Saviour and SD Gundam Force.

Also don't joke about Zac Efron being in a gundam adaption. I did a similar thing about him being cast in a Full Metal Panic! movie and I was almost lynched by people when rumours started circulating that he was going to be in the movie.
 
HdE... you need to explain to your friend that it is not dangerous to talk to girls who are bouncing up and down with excitement, regardless of their ignorance towards Transformers. :p
 
Three points, people:

ONE: My last post was full of typos.

TWO: SEED Destiny actually isn't that bad. It's silly in places nd underbaked, yes, but I found it entertaining. That's my two cents on that particular can of Gundam worms.

TWO AND A BIT: Zac Efron can expect hate mail for life if he plays Kaneda, and the notion of an Americanised remake that takes any broad libnerties with the source material MUST BE CLEANSED WITH HOLY FIRE.

THREE: Ilmaestro, that was actually WHY he started talking to her. ;)
 
See, a live-action Gundam film would bother me less than Bay-formers for the simple fact that for the most part the Transformers were ignored as characters and instead the (puny!) humans were central to the story. This is obviously a fault that can't happen in a Gundam film, as the humans are the main characters. Okay, it would strip it of all depth that comes from the Earth vs Colonies storylines that are often the main aspects of the various Gundam stories, but it would still personally bother me less than Bay-formers did (then again, I am a far bigger TF nerd than GD nerd).

Oh, and SEED Destiny was watchable once. Tried to watch it a second time, but Shinn's whining meant I couldn't make it through the first episode =/

And there was a draft storyline for the Live-Action Akira posted last month:

The story has been “Americanized,” with the center of the action taking place in New Manhattan after the decimation of the city ( an incident resembling a nuclear bomb explosion), has been blamed on the work of unknown terrorists, with the iconic shot of Akira as the sole survivor clutching his teddy bear standing solemn in the crater at ground zero.

Flash-forward to sometime in the future where protagonists Kaneda and Travis (gone is the name Tetsuo – why not just keep it? ) belong to one of several biker gangs that control the burned out old Manhattan, while the shiny new Chinese-owned-and-invested “New Manhattan” glitters back at them like a star that cannot be touched.

The story somewhat follows the animated film but introduces a new character, Ray Arcman, who is the mad scientist that created Akira by using psychic and kinetic experiments on children including the three Espers (the elderly looking 10-year-olds from the animated film).

Asian gangsters run the underworld along with several motorcycle gangs (sadly, the “Clowns” are not in the film). Illegal drugs are still in demand and the gangs in turn have to pay tribute to their bosses, the ”Packies” (Pakistanis).

Liberties are taken with some of the characters: Princess Miyako is now an elderly trash-collecting lady in Old Manhattan and the Colonel’s part doesn’t come off as strong as he did in the animated version.

There are also continuity problems with the script. In one scene, the Colonel sets off a claymore mine in order to block the approaching Black Ops army and is wounded. Yet, in another scene after this, when he is captured, The Colonel is able to take out two military policeman and operate a .50 caliber mini-gun in a helicopter gunship in order to save Kaneda – then he promptly disappears for the remainder of the film.

Yes, Travis (Tetsuo) does expand and morph into a ballooning human amoeba, but only for one short scene. I think we can all agree that this is one of the landmark, crucial scenes that needs to be in the film, yet it’s only a mere fragment.

Kaneda gets a Tech 9 machine pistol instead of the high-tech-looking plasma-type weapon that was used in the original anime, and on the iconic Akira poster.
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http://geektyrant.com/news/2010/11/12/a ... eview.html
 
Eh. I'm immune to Shinn's whining. Really.

I saw that Akira article a while back. It lost me at 'Travis' - there's absolutely NO WAY I'm going to see that movie if it ever gets made and, furthermore, Hollywood needs to MAN UP and DO THINGS PROPERLY if they expect anyone to take it seriously.

Rant concluded.

Incidentally, King Jimmeh: I offer you my handshake of friendship. Crappy human characters are taking over the entire Transformers franchise right now. It's a sad thing to behold. You were right on the money.
 
Illegal drugs are still in demand and the gangs in turn have to pay tribute to their bosses, the ”Packies” (Pakistanis).
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Vis-à-vis the likelihood of the film being poorly received by existing British fans of the Akira franchise, this particular choice of vernacularism lends it no favours over here.

(Should mainstream audiences fail to generate enough revenue to justify this adaptation's drastic alterations, I hereby bags the right to use the term "travis-ty" whilst uttering scornful comments regarding the project.)
 
Zin5ki said:
(Should mainstream audiences fail to generate enough revenue to justify this adaptation's drastic alterations, I hereby bags the right to use the term "travis-ty" whilst uttering scornful comments regarding the project.)
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Can we use it anyway, please? I mean, it's GENIUS!

Never before in the history of films and bad comic-to-movie adaptations have I ever wanted something to NOT happen so badly.
 
With regards to Destiny, my thoughts on SEED are well known and are in this thread somewhere. So shinn's whining is as bad if not worse then Shinji's (Yes i said that) So saying you're immune to it is quite an achievement :p

With regards to the Transformers, I'm the same. I love the franchise to pieces, own all of G1 (inlcuding the jap stuff). I understand though why the bayverse focuses on the humans. The sad fact is that the fan's aren't the main target audience. The main target audience may not want to see a movie where its only robots. For evidence of the target audience look at all the jokes in the two movies. Humans have to be in the movies, i mean that's the whole marketing point wasn't it :p Robots in Disguise after all.

Chances are we may have a new and better transformers movie after this final bay one this year. It may even do a batman.

Back to gundam though, I've finally nearing the end of Turn A Gundam after having it on Hiatus for so long. I'm strangely looking forward to starting ZZ despite all the comments I've heard about the beginning of the series.
 
I've seen Mobile Suit Gundam, Zeta and ZZ are on Crunchyroll, so I am gonna start those soon and see how they stand up, though I do expect that MSG will be quite "Monster-Of-The-Week"-ish.

As for the "humour" in Transformers, it just was pretty dire, and was even worse in #2. I have no issue with having a human character in the series, but there were too many. They should be the victims caught in the crossfire of the war. I don't go to a film about big robots to see a random high-school kid get the girl... I go for the big freakin' robots! I want to know about them as characters. As for how this applies to a Live-Action Gundam film, the gundam themselves are tools, and it is more of a human drama than TF.

And I honestly don't count the Japanese series as part of G1. I watched one episode on Anime Central, and did not like it. G1 ended with the US season 4 for me XD
 
Did you watch the ep subbed or dubbed as that makes all the difference in the world. The Jap G1 is better then season 4, and in fact better then Season 3...I can't believe they screwed Rodimus up. Then again I guess Optimus is a hero you can't do without.

Still I rather them not take a chance with a gundam live action. Not after last time. I won't get fooled again *cue The Who*
 
Admittedly it was dubbed, which certainly didn't help towards my acceptance of it, but I don't think I could accept watching it subbed. I think if it animated in a similar style to the original G1 series, but doesn't sound like it, I won't enjoy it. Though that is still inconsistent with the fact that the '86 movie had different VA's than season 3 if I remember right (I haven't broken into my S3/4 discs yet), and the new game, set before G1, but that is canon also uses different VA's for the most part, and I still enjoyed those.

As for Gundam Live-Action, I agree it shouldn't be done, but I disagree less with it than I do Transformers.
 
I want that game. A lot. Going to search for it in the January sales. As I said the jap G1 shows are pretty good, and there was rumblings I heard that people were pushing for them to be dubbed properly and with proper voices (So Peter Cullen as prime). I'm also being drawn to Transformers Prime as well, heard its a direct follow on from the game, but is more darker in tone then Animated was.

I'm thinking maybe we should have a dedicated transformers thread one of these days :p
 
It may be better than hi-jacking the Gundam thread :p Otherwise just turn this into a general Mecha/Bot thread :)

As for the Prime series, I've just been reading what it is, as prior to now, I only saw an advert on the back of one of my comics, and that made it look very much like a spin-off of the Live-Action films, so was an instant no-no from me. While I like the idea of using War For Cybertron as a new beginning, it was originally written by the developers to be canon with G1.

If you want to play WFC, I'd recommend just renting it. It's still about £25 pre-owned, as it didn't sell all that much (obviously not enough idiot humans in it for the general audience). The single-player story is good, but there isn't a great amount of replay in it, and it only takes about 10 hours to finish.

And I'm not touching Animated with a 20 foot bloody barge pool... though Armada was ok, and I liked the game based on it.
 
Yeah WFC got shoe-horned into contunity with Prime just like Cybertron did with Armada and Energon. It has got good reviews though from places like Seibertron. I saw a bit of Animated and while it was good at refrencing G1 it just didn't feel right, although dropping refrences to Masterforce did make me smile.
 
The art style of Animated just made want to rip my own eyes out. I love the original style of the 80's series, as like with most other 80's cartoons, it tried it's best to look natural. Unlike modern western animated series which often try their hardest to look as unreal as possible.
 
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