[Flaser]

I know some of the mods will want to kill me for doing this, but recently having watched what SEED Destiny fansubs are availible (hey it wasn't licensed in Europe yet!) and finally getting a copy of Zeta I felt the need to ponder my relevations.

Namely Zeta. It's hailed as the best goddamn Gundam show ever.
Undeniably it was a landmark in animation history, and a major selling point of the Universal Century saga.

However all these said I somewhat think the title is hyped.
Simply put compared to the original I found Zeta inferiour.

This thread is to discuss your similar experiences, and to tell why a particular show, movie or OVA of this huge franchise brought some value into your life beside mere cell action orgy.

The original trilogy:
Part of my opinion is based on having watched the compilation movies of the original show - which is IMHO vastly superior over the show.
In the movies Tomino could cut the filler, and a lot of mecha nerdity that the toy makers forced him into animating.

The trilogy beside being the "original" can hold its own even today.
Cliche and nowadays forced themes do have an immpact as they are both believable and create and atmosphere that immediately brings the horrors of war into the viewers realm and does so without
Themes like a crew of young warorphans forced into war, a reluctant but brilliant pilot forced to grow up too soon and brutalized by war (this sounds early like Evangelion doesn't it?), a charismatic villian who turns out to be a hero whose own vendetta has shallowed surrounded by other equally likeable people caught on the "other" (I simply can't write "wrong") side of the conflict.

The battles were well coreographied easy to follow.
Moreover there's just Mosomething about Amuro's frantic emotional style of fighting, weaving the gun around his mecha, shooting over his shoulder, from the hip like his cowboy, so very well countered by Char's samuraish strikes with great precision and timing and a mask of resolved confidence that simlply breathed life into the otwise aged cells of mobile suit warfare.

Sum
To sum my thoughts, in Zeta while the characters themselves are a lot more interesting I found the development lacking and way too much of the dialogue was about being a goddamn killing machine - or how to be the best damn pilot there is.

Come on, I liked Gundam 'cause the prime conser of the people wasn't winning or fighting but plainly just trying to sort out how a human could deal with war.

Moreover compared to the original the battles were far less well coreographised and lacked that punch.
The only show that comes of if not surpasses MSG is the 0083 OVA, which while suffers a somewhat lacking cast or poorly realized protagonists (and has the best goddamn antagonist ever beside Char Aznable) had the best representation and outlook of battle - it actually made you feel like you're in the cockpit next to Uraki trying to dodge and weave around that Zaku as you try to hit him first.

PS: I just realized I missed Char's Counterattack from the poll.
Since the Zeta compilations aren't done yet I would apreciate if a mod put it in after ZZ and removed the Zeta compilation.
thx

[Grey Wolf]

I'd vote, but as I've only seen 08th MS Team out of the list, I don't really have information to make an informed choice.

[Flaser]

Darn I should subscribe to Cavinton.
I also forgot Victory Gundam between ZZ and F91.

@Grey Wolf

The 3 OVAs are pretty much top quality works IMHO, though from one aspect or another don't live up to the original.

Both 0083 and 8th MS failed to properly flesh out their characters as much as MSG or tell their personal drama.
It could be atributed to though that both had a director switch midway through (the original director of 8th MS actually died AFAIK).

0080 is simply not a warmovie as the other Gundam shows are, never the less its one of my favorites, albeit I handle it more of as personal wardrama, then epic wardrama.

[Taristin]

I've only ever seen 0083 Stardust memory. So I voted for that

[NGTM-1R]

The animation of the original Mobile Suit Gundam has not aged well; neither has the voice acting. Perhaps the worst strike against it, though, is scale. It's tiny. White Base carried three mobile suits; a Musai carried three or later five. A Zeon battleship only had twelve. The most opponents I can recall Amuro engaging at one time is five. Five, and this is the man that practically won the war for the Federation! Zeon supposedly had hundreds of mobile suits, so where the hell were they all?

Later giant robot series, none of them Gundam, operated on slightly larger scales. Then Macross/Robotech came along, and blew everyone else away with animation that really conveyed a sense of these being epic battles, with dozens of fighters and pods in the same frame. MS Gundam's saving grace is Char, who practically carries the whole show through sheer force of personality. Amuro reminds me far too much of Speed from Speed Racer for me to like him. But even Char can't save the show when it's compared to the newer incarnations.

Zeta in some ways reminds me strikingly of Wing, and that is not quite in its favor. At least Wing only touched on the "best damn pilot/killing machine" theme as Flaser puts it, Zeta harped on it, and it was rather annoying. Double Zeta is just...wtf-ness? They completely reversed direction from Zeta, and the jarring transistion is too much for me to get past. I'm probably selling the show short a bit, because of this, but still.

I've never seen F91, and so cannot offer an opinion.

I'd argue Turn A is only tenously a UC Gundam show, but we'll leave that aside with the comment that whosever idea that was, they need to be assassinated. Otherwise I might start ranting.

War in a Pocket gets a case of the warm-and-fuzzies from the Alex, which is probably my favorite Gundam incarnation of all time. Still, I indict it for the same reasons Flaser chose to indict 0083. It's unique in that Zeon is really the protagonist in the show, as well, and in the end the Kampfer goes on a suicide run to knock out the Alex and thus prevent Zeon from nuking the colony.

I haven't seen 0083 in its entirety, only bits and pieces, but my general impression is good. Still, I feel I cannot offer a well thought-out opinion on it, and so will leave it aside.

My favorite, then, would be 08th MS Team. Shiro Amada is a worthy main character, ably supported by an excellent cast of secondaries, and I must disagree with Flaser's assessment of its character development. It has perhaps the best fight sequences of any of the series; surely the battles between the Zaku RD4 and Shiro's Ball-K, or the Ez8 and Gouf Custom, must rank among the best ever seen on a Gundam show; personally, I would rate the latter as the best. 08th MS Team feels like the true descendant of MS Gundam. Their scale is the same. Yet it is vastly better because it is not trying to be an epic story. 08th MS Team is the nitty-gritty of the ground war, down at the squad and platoon levels. Certainly some of them do exceptional things, but not counting Aina and Ginas Saharin, these are not really exceptional people.

And one last point in 08th MS Team's favor, a subtlety but vastly important in my eyes. Whoever designed the fight sequences for it was either given more time, more money, or was simply smarter then the person who designed most of the others: there is a believablity to the way that the mobile suits move that the other shows lack. Mobile suits look human, but they aren't really, and they shouldn't move in a completely human manner. And 08th MS Team's don't. On several occasions they move rather like a marionette with most of its strings cut, because of sudden thruster-based manuvers. And that makes sense, really, since they ought to if they're trying to remain balanced and not pitch over and bury themselves in a building or worse. As another point in the show's favor, they do this only in atmosphere: in space gravity isn't seeking to make your mobile suit fall flat and there's no reason to, so they do not behave this way.

[Flaser]

ngtm1r have you seen the TV or the Movie version of MS Gundam?

In the later if the siege of A Baoa a Que isn't THE EPIC BATTLE Return of the Jedi should have been I don't know what is.

Yes, there are hundeds of suits, but come on - a single pilot with a single warmachine decimating hundreds of opponents?

I very much appreciate Gundam's realism, that it's aces turn out to be 'mere' exceptional pilots (even the newtypes) not supermans as the pretty boys in Gundam Wing. Even WWI ace Richthofen shought down a mere couple of hundred bandits and even he never took on exceptionally big forces.

I should better verse my sentiments about 8th MS - right until the 'romance night' between the two protagonists the show proceeds in an episodic manner, but manages to produce a good balance of character exposition and story progression.
It isn't a well documented constant struggle like what the Whitebase* has gone through, but the gist of average "Joe's" war experience who isn't rocket propelled through one battlefield to another.

This I really liked. However then came the whole operation against the HQ of Ghinias - even the begining of the operation fit well with the story....BUT...and this is a very prominent but.

The moment Shiro and his squad makes it to the base and the whole stalemate begins, I can't deny my disappointment with the shift that occurs in the storytelling.

...and this is probably where the new director took over...

...instead a backwater engagement we're treated to a battle as if it was another "epic" verse of the One Year War - the whole focus on individuals, the exegaration of their heroism just doesn't snap with the rest of the story which was a more "humanist" and down to Earth view of the war.
The ending itself shows that the new director ran out of ideas, and while what he finally salvaged was good; the whole execution shows he simply had no idea how to solve the difference between the protagonists.

My gut thought is that if the first director hadn't died the show would have had bloodshed on both sides.
Ghinias would have turned out to be a manipulating, but in the end forgivable person who in his mad search to proove himself unvitingly destroys his sister; instead the raving psychopath hell bent on destroying everything.
Finally instead the sudden change of heart or even with it, the tension between Aina and Shiro would have been resolved in a less "deus ex machinist" manner, probably playing along the classical forgivness/redemption themes with an truce made between the combatants.

...for all its looks IMHO 8th MS wanted to be an anti movie to MSG - showing that ordinary people can overcome the circumstances, that war can be abandoned and senseless destruction to the end isn't the only path.

*Actually the Whitebase didn't win the war for the Federation that's an exegaration IMHO.
They were the best damn warships of the time through luck and gained talent, and as a result the most famious ship as well.
Never the less they are 'just' a warship and although they do participate in many key battles they don't win the war on their own. The reason why they are still so important is more of a morale and myth factor - despite the absolutly ****ty treatment of high command a ship manages to pull throught time and time again. People need something to look up to, to give them hope (ref. Enemy at the Gates)
The Whitebase, Gundam and Amuro fill this niche; the heroes who aspire the heart of the common soldiers.

[Liberator]

I have to say Turn A is my favorite, simply because the other's are too serious.  Granted, they're supposed to be, but I've never bought into the forced-ness of the Amuro/Char thing or the inherent Good/Evil of either side.  Both sides have commited atrocities that would make most of us cringe.  And since both we're effectivly military fascist dictatorships, I can't really connect with any of their motivations.  

In Turn A, however, both the Earthrace and the Moonrace(under Queen Dianna) do everything they can to not fight.  And as of episode 31, there has been more characterization than fighting, which is something that the other series can't say.

As an aside, I prefer the Alternate Timelines, like SEED or Gundam X(Oh what that one could have been if it hadn't been killed!) or even my guilty pleasure, G Gundam.

[BlackDove]

Best Gundam of all times for me is none of the above.

Gundam Wing is the one for me. Characters are introduced as-is, and the entire premise of it is focused on the philosophy of war.

True, when it came to some of the moments that were supposed to define and expand the characters' personalities, it was a touch corny or sucky, but the rest of it was done fantastically.

I've tried to watch Turn A, but the age of it simply put me off. It is fair to say I didn't give it enough of a chance to impress me (although what I saw of it, I deemed as very nicely done) - but I just couldn't stomach it.

At present time I have all 77 episodes of Gundam SEED, and have watched them like a religion (some of them twice). They're very nice, but I have to say that still Wing is the one for me. Wing and Endless Waltz of course, because Wing isn't complete without it. Waltz dots the "i"'s, and crosses the "t"'s.

Again, not to say that the above listed in the poll aren't good or anything. They just weren't for me.

[Grey Wolf]

Gundam Wing would have been nice if you removed the whoe "Wing Zero" thing.  Deathscythe was a far nicer design, and didn't have the whole "God machine" thing associated with it.  That, I feel, is the main flaw in the series.  Up until the introduction of Wing Zero, there was a fairly good balance between the two sides. Wing Zero, however, was just far too powerful, destroying all balance within the series.

[NGTM-1R]

I've seen both, Flaser. My opinions stand, so I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I'd also point out that Zeon went to incredible lengths to keep the Alex away from Amuro; they were even willing to initate nuclear warfare all over again to do so, at a point when the Federation was quite capable of nuking the Principality of Zeon into oblivion. Zeon was losing by then, but they were willing to risk nuclear apoclypse to keep the Alex from seeing action with Amuro at the controls. They feared Amuro and the Gundam in a way that no other pilot or MS in the entire UC saga is ever feared. In all other cases, someone or something could stop the pilot/suit. Nothing, apparently, could stop Amuro. He killed or repeatedly defeated Zeon's most elite pilots and best weapons with apparent ease.

As to the other shows, I'm going to have agree with BlackDove and Grey Wolf. As a writer of GW fanfiction, Wing Zero has been my bane. It has to be dealt with lest it ruin the story, and since it was never explicitly blown to its component atoms, then it must be assumed to be operational. Gundams in Wing must be atomized to be sure of destruction, and even THEN...

I'm going to have to disagree as to Endless Waltz being a clean end, though. One thing that's struck me repeatedly was that there were hundreds, thousands, of combat mobile suits remaining at the end of the Eve Wars. These were quite suddenly the property of whoever happened to be piloting them at the moment. To dispose of them all would be a vast undertaking, requiring years to complete and astronomical amounts of money. The combat mobile suit is still out there, and so long as humans have nobody else to fight, we'll fight amongst ourselves.

Then there's the small matter of the (optimistically speaking, the number could be 100 higher or more) 200 Serpents of the Mariemaia Army left at the end of Endless Waltz. The Gundams are shot up and out of ammo. Ditto Tallgeese III and Noin's Taurus. There are 200 enemies in advanced suits about, not all of whom may be willing to surrender. Somebody had to clean them up. Somebody else.

[Liberator]

They probably joined(or were forced to join:D) that group that Noin and Zechs got their MS from.

[BlackDove]

Originally posted by Grey Wolf
Gundam Wing would have been nice if you removed the whoe "Wing Zero" thing.  Deathscythe was a far nicer design, and didn't have the whole "God machine" thing associated with it.  That, I feel, is the main flaw in the series.  Up until the introduction of Wing Zero, there was a fairly good balance between the two sides. Wing Zero, however, was just far too powerful, destroying all balance within the series.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Wing Zero was introduced as a "trump card" type of a weapon, matched by the Epyon for the purpose of balance. As far as I was concerned it was signifying that special circumstances do in fact exist, and that there is a limit to power in the battlefeild, whatever the limit may be (as strong as they were, Epyon vs. Zero was a tie until one or the other pilot lost concentration, or yet better, turned out to have weaker willpower). Digging deeper, what was really the superiority of the machines? Zero system. The power to synchronise with the machine, making it responsive so it clarifies one of the destinies people have the capacity to achieve (way I understood was done by pure mathematics, therefore it was pretty logical).

And as much as the original five Gundams were perpetual ass-kickeries during most of the episodes (everything "ordinary" paled in comparison, I'm kind of surprised you don't have a beef about that...), Wing Zero, Epyon, hell, even the Extended Gundams of the original five, kind of prove that upgrades of "machine power" are always possible.

Wing Zero was never meant to be "too powerful" and it wasn't. It wasn't as useful as it needed to be when anyone else beside Heero drove it (power-yes, sense-no), and even with Heero in the cockpit, it wasn't always working correctly - cue Endless Waltz, where it all ends.

Without Wing Zero (and ultimately Epyon - because without Epyon, the premise would be trash - you needed a negative to counter the positive... whichever one of the two were negatives/positives during the timeline) the whole story would be pretty empty and..... sucky. It wouldn't work.

[Grey Wolf]

I liked the idea of upgrades to the basic Gundams, as shown through things such as Deathscythe Hell.  I just feel the appearance of Epyon and Wing Zero raised the power level of the series too high.  I enjoyed the fact that the original Gundams, especially when out of their element, had a challenge in the form of the standard mobile suits (even though this was primarily when they were attacked by groups).

Mind you, I haven't seen the series since it was shown on Cartoon Network (with the exception of Endless Waltz, which I have on DVD) , so my opinions probably should be taken with a grain of salt. I should get the episodes and watch through them again...

[Genryu]

For myself, I voted for 0080, War in the pocket, for the civilian point of view, and a very good melodramatic tale on the horror of war, of desabused veteran and idealist rookies...
Then come 0083, Stardust Memories, if only for the sheer tactical genius of Aiguille Delaz (Bosh in nothing compared to this guy ). And I like Anavel Gato as a protagonist way more than Char. At least, he's not a ****ing hypocritical ******* like the Red Comet.
The rest follows : MSG/Zeta tied for third, 8th Ms Team in fourth, CCA, ZZ, and didn't see the rest.

[delta_7890]

I voted 0083!

[Liberator]

Good for you!

[Getter Robo G]

Char's Counter Attack...

After War Gundam X, (Liberator what do you mean by killed? I believe I saw all the episodes from beginning to the end when Garoad and Tifa are together and those two Fed soldiers are selling themselves for work as "newtypes". Of course there are no more newtypes at the end.)

DOUBLE X !!!

[Liberator]

The network cut it short because ratings were bad.

[T1g4h]

Meh...none of the above...I go with Gundam Wing and Endless Waltz...

[Flaser]

Ahmm....it may be a striking and blashemous realization to most, but neither Gundam Wing, X, Seed, Destiny, G or SD are Universal Century shows.