After having finished the two seasons of Gundam 00, for some reason I did not feel satisfied enough and wanted some more high quality mecha action with hormone fuelled teenagers whining about their personal issues and arguing about light-hearted universal politics and utopistical world theories, so I decided to look up when the next release was due. Soon I found out, that the next instalment would be a Gundam 00 movie instead of a SEED one, that made me a little disappointed because I somewhat liked Gundam Seed more character wise, and did not expect that 00’s story could be developed any further to compensate for my childish desires. Well, after I had finished the movie I was proven right, but not the way I had initially thought.
Story:
The reason could mostly be attributed to the setting the movie was placed into. I had seen many Gundam shows till that moment, though not all of them, and I knew that aliens never played a part in any of them (I think). So when I realised that “yeah, they really picked aliens as the new enemy” I was afraid how the anime world would just scrape up some lame excuse for alien species again. Scary space monsters would be trying to invade our precious Earth whom we must hold back together with our might and sheer determination, and of course a bunch of high tech, overkill Gundams at our disposal.
Well, I have pretty much explained the story and cannot comment more without spoilers, but what became most entertaining about my initial thought is that the writers could find the exact type of enemy that was the most unexpected, yet realistic! enough to me to nod in approval. Their goals and directives, and the solution to the conflict were simple and reasonable enough not to think I have wasted two hours of my life. And while it made the whole story quite childish, yet brilliant, it also made me anxious to read some Arthur C. Clarke novels again.
Animation:
The movie is around 120 minutes long, from which around 70-80 minutes is action and mass slaughter. I have already rewatched it several times and could enjoy the action without having to read the subtitles and I have to admit, I don’t remember seeing repetitions of firing/blowup scenes, all of the action was original and unique to each situation. Everything else is the same as in the series, high quality, beautiful mecha action, with great HD rendering.
Sound:
Sound effects stayed the same, were not improved at all, the voice actors stayed the same as well, giving us all high quality performances again.
Characters:
To know the characters, you have to watch the TV series first. If you have seen it, you know everything you need to. Though several new characters were introduced, some of them die quite fast after serving their purpose others are just there to advance the story, so I’m not complaining about how underdeveloped they remain at all.
Generally, the Gundam 00 movie is a fairly standard, spectacular mecha-action packed anime. While it gives the viewers nothing new or very original, its setting is unexpected, and interesting enough for a Gundam show to bind even the most hardcore sci-fi fans to their seats for a few hours.
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Personally I was disappointed by this movie, it did not have the same feel as the tv show did because it lacked the philosophy and it constantly talked about "understanding each other". I enjoyed the move up until the last 10 minutes where it all goes sides ways and leaves holes and unfinished plot lines such as Setsunas and Feldts relationship which I though was a pretty big plot line. The way that Setsuna "understands" ELS is completely left open all the do is go to the home world and you see nothing about how he makes peace with them. After the credits I was hopeing to see what had happened to the rest of the crew and how their relationships with otheres had gone IE Setsuna and Fedlt. But in the end I was further let down because it is all about Setsuna and Marina "understanding" each other.
Well, thank you for your kind comment. =)
Nice review :)