Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom (Watching Every Gundam)

*Pours herself a gin & tonic* - Hayley, 37 minutes in.

*Pours herself a second, different gin* - Hayley upon witnessing Athrun Zala in a Z'gok

"I think I can press Assault charges against this movie." - Friend of the show Penguinator 

If you made me watch this garbage 100 times I could probably give you 100 different essays on why I hate it.

 

 Written in 2008 then shelved after the complete production nightmare Gundam SEED Destiny turned out to be (over 4000 words and I didn't even mention how Heine was supposed to be around longer so his death would contribute further to Shinn's radicalisation, but he had to be written out immediately as Mitsuo Fukuda gave the role to pop star T.M. Revolution who then had tour dates interfering with how long he could appear), this show assumes you actually remember that piece of shit and think it good enough to warrant a sequel. In practice, it had to wait until it could be sold as a nostalgia project and so it constantly flashes images at you to make you point and say "oh hey, I remember that thing!" no matter how irrelevant they are. Sai Argyle's now in the ORB cabinet! Kuzzey, the guy who left, is briefly seen still slinking around in that hoodie and backpack! We can't find a place suitable for BuCUEs so they'll just be hanging around inside a space colony to stage a coup!

Naomi Shindou no longer voices Cagalli. She recorded a bunch of audio for Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 back in 2005 and every video game since then has used those same files. There's a long running theory that she was in a relationship with director Mitsuo Fukuda and when his girlfriend turned wife Chiaki Morosawa found out, she trashed the character to try and break it up. If true, it's the sort of scandal which would've actually ended all their careers so it's probably false. Naomi Shindou most likely left over creative differences. I know I wouldn't want to work with a production team this awful a third time.

Is it any wonder such a rumour floats about though? The Cosmic Era is fucking obsessed with cuckoldry. Kira fucked his current best friend's girl then started dating his former and now again best friend's fiance in the same goddamn show. Every single woman in Destiny is trying to get with Athrun at the same time an ORB politician is trying to fuck Cagalli. As far as we could tell, Chairman Durandal's main motivation was getting cuckolded by the state itself. Now here we are and Agnes is trying to fuck Kira despite being fully aware of his closed romantic relationship and Lacus is getting hit with magic mind control blasts to make her wanna cheat on Kira with a guy who's also got another girl trying to get with him. Fukuda! Morosawa! Buddies! You can just talk to each other about opening up your relationship! It's a normal thing to do! You don't need your weird suppressed kinks to keep bursting into your sci-fi military drama! Well, you can't anymore. Chiaki Morosawa passed away in 2016. I really do hope they worked their issues out together. Losing a loved one sucks even if they made some really bad art.

 Oh right, a plot synposis. It's roughly 1 year after Gundam SEED Destiny and Lacus is running a new independent peacekeeping force. Shit's still on fire and both her and Kira are burning out while ignoring their dull sexless romance. A new national has emerged named Foundation which seems to be doing okay, so they get into talks about joining the peacekeeping group. Turns out it was actually an evil plan to frame our heroes as treaty violating monsters while they nuke their own country, steal that space laser on the moon nobody really destroyed last time, stage a coup in the PLANTs and become the real masters of Chairman Durandal's eugenics plan. They are stopped despite being able to control and read minds because Shinn is too stupid to be mind read, Lacus gives Kira a new WMD to oblierate all their fleets with and Athrun has become a Wife Guy and is too busy thinking about sex to be read either. Cagalli was also controlling his suit remotely I guess. Kira and Lacus do their best impression of a Gundam SEED opening credits nude shot and presumably fuck for the first time on the beach.

The new villains' backstory fucks with what little motivation we actually had for Chairman Durandal. No longer cuckolded by the state before setting off to rebuild it in his image, it turns out he was actually a mastermind in all the crazy gene therapy programs and worked with Lacus Clyne's mother to make a new group of superior people to rule the world. If this guy knew these people were ready to roll out, why the fuck did he strike at ORB and kill his popularity when he did? He'd de-escalated things enough to the point he could cool tensions for a year, gas up Foundation as a state while slowly rolling out the Destiny Plan and then go on a fresh smear campaign against ORB. The only reason the gang could pull out all their guns is because he resorted to multiple space lasers. They probably wouldn't have tried a smaller scale political assassination! It would've been insanely funny to do that though. Zips by T.M. Revolution blaring while Lacus Clyne tries to justify on television why her boyfriend just shot a popular politician with a sniper rifle. No, this is the sort of plot that only works if you vaguely remember the events of a show from 19 years prior and forget that the events of all three main Cosmic Era stories are all within 3 years of each other.

 I guess the one nice thing I can say is that I guess both Hawke sisters are bi and poly? Lunamaria started dating Shinn in the previous show and she kinda picks up Agnes as a girlfriend at the end. At least that seems to be what the thrust of their arguments and the screenshot I chose to start this post with suggest. Meyrin's always in a weird spot. She's clearly into Athrun throughout Destiny and escapes with him due to circumstances when he defects from ZAFT. Cagalli gave her a look and said "take care of him" before removing herself from that show's plot. Cagalli's shown keeping the engagement ring he offerd her around her neck like the pendant she gave him in SEED rather than on her finger. This movie's closing image shows the three good boys (Kira, Athrun, Shinn) with their romantic partners but Athrun is depicted with both Cagalli and Meyrin. It's never made explicit but hey, good for them. I'll take the representation I guess?

All of my complaints from last March are still here. The movie moves so fast to make you forget details. The villains all give speeches about making a more equitable society right before doing mind control, nuclear strikes and extolling eugenics plans so you'll treat these all as equally evil ideas. The music still sucks and is so unobtrusive that you forget it's even here this time. I don't regret subjecting Hayley to the Cosmic Era as the pain is part of the experience of exploring a franchise holistically but I am so damn glad to be ZGMF-X10A Free of this dogshit continuity.

I'm writing this in the middle of Winter but I think I too need to go have sex on a beach somewhere.