Board 8 > How is the original Mobile Suit Gundam?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Local hipster theater is showing the movies, which apparently is just the series pieced together?

Anyway, this is early-80s anime, so is it any good?
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they can be cheesy but the movies are great. the series was 39 (iirc) episodes and the movies condense that down into around 6 hours since there were a ton of episodes that were practically filler. if you have any interest, I'd say go for it.
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Oh the movies.

Not too bad.

Basically a story about child soldiers, little bit dark, but kinda essential for anyone that wants to continue with UC material, which is the main timeline.

Most series that came after reference or pay homage to the original in some form or another.


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voltch posted...

UC material

what does this mean?

and I am just looking to enjoy a good movie!
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The original Mobile Suit Gundam is good in either TV or Movie form (arguably the only movies mostly consisting of previously-released TV content that are worth watching in all of anime?) and the TV series even has a good dub! The dub of the movies wasn't very good but any rights to that should have expired long ago so I assume this has gotta be the sub version they're showing.

UC is Universal Century, basically Gundam's main universe. There are a lot of alternate universes.
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The movies are pretty good. There are things it removes for time that are somewhat regrettable but the TV version has some definite lulls in pacing.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdZxHfUNmvY" data-time="

This is the opening. What do you think?
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I love the movies personally, but I can also share the perspective of someone who I got to watch them recently -- with no real gundam experience, but a fan of more modern anime. that person thought the movies were just okay, but a bit boring.

like most classic materials, they have a slower pacing and less direct storytelling as compared to modern anime, TV, and movies. the first film in particular has a pretty great beginning and a pretty great ending which feel satisfying to watch, but a good portion of the middle of the film is a series of ongoing battles between two factions. you have to do a LOT of work to really understand and enjoy what is going on during this portion of the film.

one of the original reasons the TV series was almost cancelled, and why the movies ended up being more successful, was precisely because the TV series had a lot of episodes where the two factions would battle each other over some meaningless objective, and then one side would retreat. the movie cuts out a lot of these seemingly "pointless" battles in order to shorten the run time. the FIRST movie is about these civilian soldiers being dragged into war, and how the fighting directly impacts their day to day lives. they were also probably still getting a feel for the editing process that would be perfected in movies two and three. for that reason, this problem of "battle bloat" is still present somewhat in the first movie.

personally, I think the first movie has a lot of great character moments. however, the issue with Gundam, and similar tomino series, is that the character moments are a little too subtle. the characters don't come out and say how they feel. we don't see their internal thoughts. you are shown multiple scenes with the same characters and you're left to figure it out for yourself. look at amuro's facial expressions when he reacts to certain things. see how he talks to bright as compared to how he talks to matilda. amuro hates the military, but he shows respect to matilda. why do you think that is? that is where the characterization lies. and modern media don't really use this style of characterization, so it's a bit jarring for modern audiences. who knows, maybe this method is more inefficient and less easy to digest for the average movie watcher. maybe there's a reason we don't tell stories this way anymore.

so yeah, at the end of the day, I would say I really love these movies, but I could never guarantee that a fresh viewer is going to enjoy them as much -- or even enjoy them at all. I will say that movie two does a great job giving characterization and character moments to a lot of the characters outside of the battlefield. and movie three is a VERY satisfying conclusion to the overall narrative.
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