Kidô senshi Gandamu

Of course the big negative of this film is that I'm now hooked into the Gundam universe. I have set time aside, quit my job and cancelled all social plans.

I have no idea why I thought Gundam was like Power Rangers. It's not really a big thing here in New Zealand, at least from the 90s onwards. So my perception is pretty skewed I suppose. This is a pretty dark and dreary war-torn universe that happens to have young people as the protagonists.

This first film was a solid start. It's dated, but if you grew up watching old Hannah Barbara cartoons like I did, it's actually pretty well animated. You have to go in knowing the nature of the original film trilogy: it's a series abridged and because of this the pacing is kind of weird. Basically, it's episodes stitched together, with 'filler' removed and improved animation. I liked it a fair bit. There's actually some gorgeous matte paintings to be found throughout, and the shot composition keeps things visually interesting. There's also none of the anime tropes that I find annoying (those tend to permeate through 2000s-2010s shows). So, a lot of positives. I think due to the shortening, some side characters that presumably got a lot of mundane things to do aren't developed as well as they could have been. The pacing is still rather slow, though I don't mind that so much. And, it does end on a note that doesn't seem incredibly impactful.

Overall this was a great first Gundam experience, and every second I watched improved that one moment in Ready Player One.

In the future mankind has expanded into space with humanity now living on both Earth as well as self-contained colonies in space. Eventually several of these colonies form the Principality of Zeon and succeed from the Earth Federation leading to war. On Earth Federation colony, Side 7, a surprise attack is lead by Zeon forces who are targeting both the warship White Base, and the newly developed mobile suit, Gundam. A teenager named Amuro Ray stumbles upon the Gundam during the siege and out of desperation boards it and against all odds manages to hold off the Zeon forces long enough for White Base to evacuate. Amuro now finds himself embroiled in the conflict between Zeon and the Federation reluctantly piloting the Gundam for the Federation and often squaring off against Zeon's best mobile suit pilot, Char Aznable also known as The Red Comet.

In the past 40 years since the first Gundam series graced airwaves in 1979, Mobile Suit Gundam has become not only one of the most recognized "giant robot anime" ever made, but also one of the most recognized media franchises spread across TV, OVAs, video-games, manga, models, and even a forthcoming live-action film, but that almost didn't happen. Ratings for the original series were so poor that the show's sponsors, now defunct toy company Clover, cut the episode order from 52 to 39 with staff able to negotiate an extension for 43. After Clover cut ties with the series, Bandai acquired the rights and with their release of models the series popularity soared giving second life to the series and spurring the creation of three compilation films retelling the story. Series wrtier/director Yoshiyuki Tomino took the concept of "power armor" found in the novel Starship Troopers and mixed this concept with traditional tropes of giant robot anime and manga to tell a story about war making Gundam the earliest examples of the Real Robot genre where giant robots are more grounded in terms of how they're utilized and operate forgoing the more over the top Super Robot elements seen in things like Giant Robo. Following the renewed success of Gundam, Tomino revisited the series by recombining footage into a trilogy of feature films which became massively popular to the point crowd control measures were implemented due to the large crowds drawn by the first film with grosses for the films only growing with each subsequent installment. In terms of the first Gundam series, this is probably Tomino's definitive version of the story, but it's inescapable that it feels like a series of episodes daisy chained together.

In terms of getting across the story beats, the movie does it well with clear establishment of characterization with Amuro Ray's reluctant hero who's world is shaken when he becomes a reluctant participant in a war with very clouded motivations (which is to be expected as we're experiencing his exposure to the conflict primarily from Amuro's viewpoint). The movie creates a world where all the key military personnel on board the White Base are all either very old or very young giving the impression of a world where the most able have been lost to this widespread conflict. There's also other plot threads such as character Sayla Mass and her set-up familial ties with Char Aznable which in turn leads to Char's ties with the ruling Zabi family of Zeon. The plot threads are engaging and keep you interested, but since this story was originally told in the format of a TV series, the movie feels like a TV series with really no sense of finality to so it really doesn't stand on its own as a film (at least individually).

If you are curious at checking out the original series, the Mobile Suit Gundam trilogy is probably the most convenient and polished way to do so. While the movie is pretty obvious in how it's scrounged together from episodes of the original TV show, it's about as well as one could expect given the circumstances, and the movie's themes of war and its wide reaching consequences and inherent shades of grey are well conveyed to the audience.

I am purely reviewing this movie as it stands now. The effect it has had on mecha anime and anime as a whole is not considered and frankly doesn't make this movie any better. The question I am trying to answer is: "does this movie hold up compared to modern works of anime?"

With that out of the way, let's actually review this.

It doesn't take a keen eye to notice that the visuals are clearly dated. However, if you enjoy this type of eighties aesthetic you might still be able to enjoy it. And while the visuals can be seen as having a certain style to them, the audio suffers from its age far more. Sadly this makes for a rather poor listening experience.

The plot isn't anything to write home about either. The tropes that this movie popularised forty years ago have now become so widespread and have since been improved upon so greatly that this movie starts to feel like a parody of its own genre at times.

It's full of plot holes, logical inconsistensies, slow pacing and dumb character choices. The main character is a bland Mary Sue or Gary Stu, whichever you prefer and the side characters aren't too well developed either. There is a relatively interesting dynamic between our hero, Amuro and the main villain, Char. But in general, this plot has not much to offer anymore.

The strongest part of this movie is its sci-fi theme. It gives an interesting take of how people thought our future might look, and to be honest, I'm a sucker for that sort of stuff. I won't delve too far into it, as it is best to experience this for yourself.

In short, I can't recommend this movie to a broad audience anymore. Anyone who wants to watch this should be aware of this movie's shortcomings (even if they are a result of the times it was produced in).

There are plenty of movies from that time (and even way before) that have better animation, story, characters, pacing and sound design. And there are plenty of mecha anime from the last 20 years that have completely surpassed this.

P. S. Also who in their right mind came up with the name "Fraw Bow"?!

Mobile Suit Gundam, along with "Star Blazers" and "Lupin III", helped push anime toward more adult stories in the late 70s/early 80s. It's influence can certainly be felt in later anime classics such as Macross and Escaflowne. No longer would the mecha Genre center on a spike-haired hero with a mecha sporting super-special attacks and fighting evil scientists from Mars-it would at least aim for some sense of seriousness. Although it retains some elements of it's predecessors, such as brightly colored heroic mecha(Something that in 20 years, Gundam *still* has), Gundam is more serious. The villains are ambigious-it's really hard to tell who's good and who's really evil. The characters are well-fleshed out, from Amuro-the prototype for later milquetoast such as Shinji Ikari-and Sayla Mass, who is torn between duty and her own secrets. Since this is 1979 TV budget animation, the animation isn't the best(It's better than "Superfriends", at least), but the character designs are well done and facial expressions are very good. The musical score is also well done. This motion picture is actually a compilation of the first third of the Television series, so it's sort of condensed, with many scenes cut out. If one wants to see the full series, Cartoon Network has plans to air it next year, although it's dated animation might turn off many viewers.

That dumbs out important character development and world building elements (and pacifist messages, I might add) more pronounced in the original series while slightly improving on some side things, most notably the Gundam now not being made of three separable parts and the way the Gundam descends into the atmosphere. Not really that worthy of attention, IMHO.