The Gundam Thread

Watching the Freedom Gundam statue opening ceremony and the lack of awareness and scruples is killing me.

As someone who got into Gundam partly for its allegorical nature, sure is great to see Bandai and a lot of people involved with SEED crap on the whole significance of Freedom because a corrupt nationalist country has a booming economy.

Remember, kids. Stand up for others. Unless there's money on the table.
 
Watching the Freedom Gundam statue opening ceremony and the lack of awareness and scruples is killing me.

As someone who got into Gundam partly for its allegorical nature, sure is great to see Bandai and a lot of people involved with SEED crap on the whole significance of Freedom because a corrupt nationalist country has a booming economy.

Remember, kids. Stand up for others. Unless there's money on the table.
Sadly in most cases of money vs. integrity in this world we have created, profits are going to win out. Worth remembering I think that a lot of media franchises, despite being the products of writers and artists who might truly believe in the messages of their work are still ultimately owned by corporations with no such scruples. I’ve been laughing for years about Marvel pushing “progressive” messages while its chairman and largest shareholder is right-wing Trump chum and megadonor Ike Perlmutter.
 
Yeah, to re-rail the thread somewhat I suppose it could also be argued that ordinary Chinese Gundam fans don’t deserve to be penalised for the actions of their crappy government (do any of us, given the amount of civilian deaths and international arms sales the British Government have been responsible for in recent times? Our country is not exactly pro-freedom or anti-war in the spirit of Gundam either) and it’s not like Bandai haven’t been merrily profiting off Chinese people by having them produce plastic crap for them for years to sell at a huge markup either...
 
The new dub really irks me. The new cast are all fine but the changes to the script are really annoying me. I know no dub is 1:1 but there are so many changes.

- Opening narration now states ZAFT were expected to lose in only days, when even the subs still treat it as a statement of the EA being the larger force and no mention made of specific time.

- Kira now asks the shelter to accept Cagalli because she's 'just a kid' rather than 'a girl'.

- Kira falling into Murrue's lap followed by her threatening the GINN in front of her and an embarrassed Kira mistaking it as aimed at his faux pas is now changed into a line pretty clearly directed at Kira.

- Mu's mix of good humour and easy going taking charge is replaced with a more bragging attitude.

- Murrue is now blunt and manipulative, whereas Natarle has her dialogue softened. The two characters have effectively switched roles at times.

It's not unwatchable but it feels like they were given way too much room to reinterpret things.
 
Watched Mobile Suit Gundam F91 last night.

The opening of this film was sensational. Getting to see a Mobile Suit Battle in a populated area but all from the point of view of civilians was really well done. The chaos, panic, death were all palpable and the fact we barely saw a pilots face made the Mobile Suits even scarier and more like giant monsters rampaging a city.

Once the movie settled into its story it was still a good ride but it was never able to match its opening scenes even if the action got bigger. They managed to fit a lot of characters into this film which meant many had to be pretty one note but mostly revolved around how the main 2 characters interacted with others so it worked out fine.

Iron Mask and Gramps were a little cartoony in their villiany. The Federation side did a better job of having characters you liked and disliked. Good and bad people on both sides is something Gundam has always excelled at.

Overall enjoyed it and would watch it again.
 
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Gundam: Hathaway will be on Netflix from 1st July. It's unclear if that's internationally.

It will be nice to see it so soon (if the UK is getting it), but there goes any chance of an AL blu-ray, I suppose.
 

Gundam: Hathaway will be on Netflix from 1st July. It's unclear if that's internationally.

It will be nice to see it so soon (if the UK is getting it), but there goes any chance of an AL blu-ray, I suppose.

Saw that yesterday and I'm hyped. I mean in that it looks incredible and I'm hoping for Unicorn tier fights.

People familiar with the novel, is there a lot of fights? Kinda brain-dead question, but I'm just here for the eye candy.

Or is it the kind of thing where they'll just add those even if there's not a lot present in the source material?
 
Know what still bugs me? A few years back at an MCM panel, Sunrise said they had Tomino record a message for UK fans. But it was apparently glitched so we never got to see it and no attempt was made to release it by other means later. It's seemingly locked away on a hard drive somewhere.

Similarly, they filmed us to put it on an extra on an Origin Blu ray and then never used the footage in said extra.
 
Oh if only...
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Know what still bugs me? A few years back at an MCM panel, Sunrise said they had Tomino record a message for UK fans. But it was apparently glitched so we never got to see it and no attempt was made to release it by other means later. It's seemingly locked away on a hard drive somewhere.

Similarly, they filmed us to put it on an extra on an Origin Blu ray and then never used the footage in said extra.
I randomly remember this and then this week the announce they're releasing an American deco Gundam kit for fans there.

 
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