Mobile Suit Gundam III: Confrontos no Espaço

A recyclying of the series material with the "Newtype" word thrown at the viewer with no subtetly, another guncannon in place of the guntank and some nonsensical plot changes just to give the idea that this retelling has a reason to exist. No, it doesn't. Skip all this 0079 compilation movie trilogy and go directly to Gundam Z after watching the original series, you won't miss anything.

Just as Part II was set almost exclusively on Earth, Part III takes the White Base and it's crew back to the stars to a final showdown with the Duchy of Zeon. Along the way, both Amuro and Char once again face each other, and events transpire they won't soon forget(and which carry on to the sequels Zeta Gundam and Char's Counterattack). Part III also has 75% new animation, so it appears more solid than it's predecessors, although the animation is still dated in most places(mostly during battle scenes). Overall, it's very good stuff.

Simply put, this is perhaps the best Gundam animation released in America yet.This is actually the last thrid of the TV series compressed into a film.70% of the animation was redone so it looks alot better than the first two films.Also the film changes some things from the show such as replacing the Guntank with another Guncannon,changing around the sequence of events(for the sake of drama) and cutting out some of the silly enemy mobile suits from the orginal such as the Braw Bro.Like the others the chartecterization is strong and the realism of war brutal.No Gundam fan should be without it *****/*****

Encounters in Space (bad name, but whatever) feels like an actual film much more than the other two entries. Perhaps because it *is* originally designed as an ending; it doesn't feel weirdly truncated like the prequels.

This entry also has by far the best animation of the three. The writing has been epic before, but here the visuals live up what was promised.

The level of brutality on display is also more in line with what's happening in the story, and a few of the deaths were quite impactful.

I'm moving onto Zeta Gundam now (the show, not the films this time) and am very excited to see where the franchise goes. This trilogy was a great foundation for a hopefully expansive universe.

The NewType concept takes away from the Gundam story. It has a lot of potential, but to me it distracts from the main message that war is hell and people are dumb. I would have loved, for example, to have this NewType thing being thrown around as a political token and as a genuine concern or fascination, only to discover that no, there is no new stage of human evolution, just some people who worked at it and some who didn't. But it wasn't to be. For the sake of this idea, poorly developed characters are introduced, given a lot of importance and then killed off. It did not help the story at all.

There are a lot more fights and there is some closure, but story-wise and on pure enjoyment level, I liked the second film in the series. I was about to look for the Gundam series only to discover that in fact this IS the series, reedited, quality improved and compressed into three films. They should do this with all anime :)