Wonderfully offbeat film!

Such a frustrating disappointment

One of my all time favorites.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

(This is my first anime review bare with me)I always secretly admired Mobile Suit Gundam. A lot more than other children did who where just into Optimus Prime and Transformers. (Armada wasn't cool with the 2000's kids) Gundam's first introduction in the US was a rough one and started at the worst time. When DBZ was around ranking up the scores everyone saw G- Wing and weren't interested in it. I wasn't interested in it. But the robots always got me into it besides the frequent melodrama and stupid characters. But however Mobile Suit Gundam though different is much more genuine even though it has aged so badly. But it has a charm. Which I'm going to get into.-PLOT/STORY- The main plot about Mobile Suit Gundam is about a young boy who has lives in space colony but must evacuate. One day there was anti Earth colony who wanted independence from the Earth federation called Zeon. So they send 3 mobile suits to attack side 7. Once the colony is attacked Amuro Ray has no choice other than to fly the Gundam and destroy the mobile suits and go on a journey to stop Zeon from destroying Earth colonies. The dreaded Zeon's are helped by no other than the Charming Char Aznable. This is not a fun kiddy monster of the week super robo anime. This is serious. It's a drama that will leave sadness and disappointment in your heart. You will feel loss but triumph. There are episodes where characters must survive and look for salt for food. 49 episodes and have tense moments. -CHARACTERS- Gundam has many characters. Amuro Ray is an every man character. He is not like all the other shounen anime protagonists. He is just a kid that wants to contribute to his school work and society. He starts out as careless but when he is thrusted into battle he becomes caring. But he doesn't want to fight. He wants peace. And peace now. Sooner or later he Bright Noa is the captain of the team. Who is stern but kind. Doesn't take **** from Amuro or anyone and will slap him if he doesn't listen. The rest of White Base group are sensitive but smart. The antagonists of Gundam are space Nazis. They want true superiority of Spacenoids (humans who live in space AKA NewTypes) and independence. The big antagonist is the charming Char Aznable doesn't like the Zabi's though so he sets to kill all of them. Char is the most interesting character in the series. He has a better reason to be here than anyone. He instructs Lalah Sune. She is a young Indian girl with a heart of gold. There is little comic relief other than cute little robot Haaro, Kikka, Katz, Letz, and the snide Kai Shidan. The main characters won't be too memorable. I mean, this is a mecha anime selling toys. But a lot better than most of what American's market. But still you will care about them. -ART AND ANIMATION- Like I said MSG 0079 has not aged well. Will not impress many people especially new anime kids who are spoiled by sakuga moments and shiney digitized graphics with intense shading and highlighting. It especially won't impress your mom. However I couldn't help but be impressed. There is a degree of realism in every frame. All this is helped by the cinematography that isn't too straining compared to most Anime of today which has an overdose of camera pans, shakey cam with motion blur, and cringeworthy zooms. Rather cropped in frames of mechanical and tall proportioned characters. The realistic mech designs of the shogun Gundam RX-79, and the Zeon Zakus are just wonderful . Detailed mechanical designs to plains, tanks, and other robots. The cloths are nice. Life like suits There are tons of special effects like flashes that make traumatic moments feel real to them. The blocky 70's backdrops reminiscent of Star Wars, the clean backdrops that look like the cover of a 60's science fiction novel by Brad Raybury or some generic hard scifi novel with lavish covers, makes it feel very real. Gundam 0079 may have jerky animation (as most TV anime is), dated Miyazaki quality character designs, hilarious tons of animation errors, lack of shading, but it has stains a sort of realism. It's very retro and rough but charming. Kind of like watching an old Hannah Barbera (Johnny Quest) animation. But more cinematic. It's a mixed bag. So if you can appriciate it compared to I don't know Mazinger Z (not saying that's bad). This is no kid show. It's violent and has scenes of blood and violence. -SOUND AND MUSIC- I really enjoyed the dub of Gundam. Brad Swaile did a good job with Amuro. All the cast sound very good. It has a very old school quality to it despite it being made in Canada and sometimes talking like Canadians. For example Fraw Baw (Kristie Marsden) when she say's "sorry" it sounds more like "Sourey". It's cheesy. But I like this dub better than the original. Sorry guys, but I prefer better sound effects than the synthesized noises. I like that metal actually sounds like Metal. The Music is 70's funky disco military goodness. It's very good. I can't help dance to military Funk. But it's all so good. I think it's uniqueOverall 8/10 MSG is not for everyone and takes a long time to get into. It is for people who love Star Trek and Metal Gear Solid Saga. Overall, a Mecha classic for all ages to enjoy. If you don't like it. Watch the OVA's or some of the other Gundams (anything before the 2000's really)

Many people pass up the Mobile Suit Gundam TV for the Movie trilogy and you would be making a big mistake to pass up the TV series. Why? Because it was the first Gundam series ever. This was originally supposed to be a 52 episode TV series but had to get cut down to 39. Then Tomino, the director and creator, asked for 4 more episodes and he got them to make the count 43 and created the greatest ending to gundam. Though, and I'm not going to spoil anything but the final battle is much more epic in the movie trilogy than the TV series only because the show was getting canceled and things had to be rushed but whatever was rushed in the TV series was fixed or slowed down in the movies. Theanimation, though from 1979 and 1980 looks really good. I've seen anime from the mid-late 80's and in every gundam series animation, character and mecha designs are all high quality and have the power to stand up to newer anime, but if you were born into watching your anime bright and digital, circa. 1997, then you may be put off by it's animation style however that's your problem for missing something so great because of the animation. I highly, highly, recommend that you see the TV series first but only until episode 38 then watch the movie trilogy because it will be well worth it.

In fall of 1979, Kidô Senshi Gandamu (Translated as Mobile Suit Gundam) premiered on japanese television to low ratings and general disinterest among japanese youth. The main problem is that most of the kids who watched Giant Robot animé were used to the thin plots and superheroic meka of the older shows, most of which were little more than thirty minute long toy commercials. They didn't know what to make of the complex plot and deep characters. So the show was canceled, and ended nine episodes early.However, some months later, something unusual happened. While Gundam toys were gathering dust on the shelves, highly detailed scale model kits based on the show's Mobile Suits were selling incredibly well. And while the japanese networks were offering 'more of the same' in first run broadcast, this little known and seemingly unpopular series was gathering a huge fan following in syndication...Now, 20 years later, we in the US finally are going to get to see what started it all. I can't believe that such shows as Macross (Robotech: The Macross Saga) and Armor Trooper Votoms, which are the direct line decendants of Gundam in storytelling and portrayal of realistic mecha, would be brought to these shores years ago, while the show that started it all would be left to languish until now.The way was paved by 1995's visually beautiful, but ultimately empty Gundam Wing. While this was a wise business choice for Bandai, knowing that the spectacular visuals would capture the attention of the 'all important' kids's market, we dedicated fans can't help but wish that the original had been the first one released. Wing, while visually spectacular, is little more than a muddled and overly preachy and pretentious pastiche of the Universal Century saga (Gundam,Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam, and Gundam: Char's Counterattack) with out the cohesion of plot that the original shows contain (Although with ZZ, cohesion of plot can be argued.)Yes, I know that the animation doesn't stand up to Gundam Wing. However, what do you expect? The show was made over 20 years ago. If you want eye candy, go watch Wing. If you want a truly outstanding story and characters, join me to watch the original Gundam, the most influential and important animé of all time, or, if you don't have Cartoon Network, at least watch the compilation movies (Sub only though, as poor Neil Nadelman was for some reason forced to use Star Trek doubletalk in the script for the dub.)

Until this story came out, animated story was considered one for kids. This story talked about a war for the very first time. There were no good guy or bad guy who would confront each other. There were two different justices for both sides and not only just simple purpose as "justice", but also there were intrigues, doubts, treacheries, and personal grudges in both sides. Since this story talked about a war, it also covered for civilian casualities which lead to an uncountable number of orphans, refugees, minors who were forced to fight, and painful separations of such minors and their families.After this, story like simple confrontation of good and evil is considered one for really small kids.