I got to see the original Star Blazers when it first aired and became a huge fan. In my opinion the show has no equals as far as plot, humanity, relationships, friendships, love, and death. It is the first cartoon I had ever seen to deal with death before and its message of hope and human determination in the face of annihilation. I voted it 10/10 on here and have watched the series over and over enough to be able to quote it.
When 2199 was released I was worried it would not be as good, and I was not wrong. It is hard to equal the original but it did a very good job and I deeply enjoyed it. Though there were a few elements that changed both good and bad. They added more female characters on the ship, Yuki (Nova) was not a Mary-Sue who worked 3 jobs, she was broken up into different new and interesting female characters. You got more inside each character than before, but they didn't diversify which annoyed me. In the OG Show the (Argo) Yamato was crewed by an internatinal crew. In the 2199 it was up to ONLY Japan to save the world. Poppycock! In any case they still managed to do a good job with the plot, and I loved the changes made to the Gamilas (Gamilons).
However I cannot say the same for 2202. First off they went completely off script from the original show, keeping only the basic element of the new threat. They turned Kodai (Wildstar) into a whining uncertain snowflake for what ever reason, nothing about his would give anyone in any military reason to follow him or be inspired by him. There is less interaction with important characters, less relationship and personal interactions and more crappy plots and anti-war propeganda coming from soldiers who have to defend themselves from a viable threat. Which leads me to my last problems.
My biggest gripes is with the Time fault and the Wave Motion gun. The time fault is a singularity that was formed after using the Cosmo DNA (reverser) to remove all the radiation from Earth and save the planet. This singularity left behind by it had a gravity field around it that sped up time by a factor of 10. The United Earth Government decided to use this loophole to quickly rebuild their fleet and defenses. Sounds great to me. The problem is, everyone seemed to have a problem with this. They were questioning its morality and the fact they were using it to make instruments of war, in spite of the fact they KNEW a threat was coming that neither Earth or Gamilas alone could handle. This would be like if FDR back in WWII said we should not use 'factories' and 'machines' to build our tanks, planes and ships. We should just use our bare hands and wooden tools as they did in the 1800s. This is the stupidest mess I have heard ever.
Even worse than that is the treatment of the Wave Motion Gun. They were treating it like an Atomic Bomb. REALLY? There is a reason why humanity fears the use of Atomic Weapons. Not only are they weapons of mass dectruction that will kill any and everything in an area and cannot be selective about it, it also causes such horrible levels of radiation that it has long lasting effects and could change the face of the planet. The Wave Motion gun is JUST A GUN!!! It can be directed at a Single Target, it leaves behind NO lasting effects, it does nothing that a big Cannon would do. There is not a military in the history of Earth that would not use such a weapon if they had to. I mean what is the GREATEST threat to Earth? Not just aliens but how about stray asteroids. One big enough and Earth is toast. So if WE had a weapon right now that could destroy an asteroid of ANY size do you think for a moment we wouldn't be putting these in orbit to defend Earth from such an attack? It is NOT a moral conundrum. Going to WAR is, using weapons on civilians is, but using a weapon to defeat your enemy and save civilian lives is not.
This show is making too big of a thing about a 'gun' that just happens to be powerful. NOW if they did something like "every time the gun was fired it left a black hole behind" or "it would rip the fabric of space time appart" or something like that as a side effect then sure. If the weapon had to be powered by someone sacrificing their life to power it, that would be a moral dilema. But this is just a GUN.
End Rant. Sorry writers I know why you did it but I don't think you thought this through enough.
