"This movie's pace is so fast it gave Theo Fairchild a heart attack." - Hayley, absolving Iron Mask of any murder accusations.
"Seabook Arno is a terrible Gundam lead. He's neurotypical, has a healthy relationship with his parents which improves over time and isn't into MILFs. The suits were right to can this project." - Hayley
Yeah alright let's get the obvious part out of the way: this was supposed to be a 50 episode TV show but plans changed so they had to cram that entire story into under 3 hours. It's going to have pacing issues.
We're now Over 150 episodes plus a movie into Gundam as a franchise. We've had five different lead characters. Yet, this is really the first time we've had a Gundam: The Next Generation moment. The TV shows all had continuity characters and the OVAs were interquels. For the first time in its history, we are moving beyond Earth Federation vs Zeon.
What does this lead to? Why, Earth Federation vs Dollar Store Zeon!
Okay let me go into this. The Federation is continuing to fail to meet the needs of people in space. There's ongoing discontent. No new ideas are on the table in the setting. Instead, the lessons the wealthy who are in space have learned are that you either leave entirely, or you use your money to declare yourself a monarch just like Degwin Zabi did. If you make enough noise and send enough threats to Planet Earth proper, the Federation will just leave you alone to do whatever the hell you want. If you have a skilled enough PR team you can even get the locals you're conquering to cheer you at the same time!
I don't want to harp on "we don't have enough time to explore the ideas present here" too much but there's so much exciting about this work which would have made for a great television show. Cosmo Babylonia is obviously rife with byzantine factional infighting. Cecily's abduction and reintegration into this family of weird rich assholes could've allowed for some great character growth as she learns to navigate and manipulate it in her favour before finally ditching them to do the right thing. Further exploring just how much of a pathetic nerd Iron Mask is could provide weeks of entertainment. The brief glimpses we see of the supporting cast throughout show that we could have had a memorable gang to root for!
Hell, this one doesn't even get weird about women!
While it's all at a breakneck pace, what's here is so damn good. I often refer to around 1996 to 2003 as "Peak Sunrise", the era when this studio had so much institutional knowledge, money and training that even their cheap television shows look so much better than everything else in the industry. We're not at that point in 1991 but this and CCA are such incredible showcases of the skills and talent developed so far. Every fight is crisp, intense and loaded with great ideas. We've traded out the iconic mono-eye cameras of Zeon for steampunk goggles on mechs with lances and beam banners.
That's before getting into just how captivating the horror of this film's first 20 minutes are. We've seen war crimes on civilian colonies before, but never in this depth and detail. The huge masses of bodies. The screams. The stampedes. The discharged robot machinegun bullet cases crushing heads in. Aggressors loudly proclaiming they never have and never will harm a civilian as another child loses their parents. It's more evocative of films like the original Godzilla in its scope than anything Gundam has attempted before.
That this film ends with a message of "THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING" is haunting. Not only was F91 never allowed to tell the story it wanted to, but the Universal Century is itself fast approaching its end. Will it say something new in its closing moments? I sure hope so.
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