review provided by Luther

Title: Mobile Suit Gundam Movie Trilogy

Director: Yoshiyuki Tomino

Distributor: Rightstuf

Studio: SUNRISE INC

Release Date: Release Date: 6/6/2017

Format: Blu-ray / 3 Movies / 412

Genre: Comedic, slice of life romance

Audio: Japanese

Age Rating: TV 14

Overall Personal Rating: B –

Synopsis:

Universal Century 0079. Amuro Ray finds himself caught up in the war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon. He unwillingly becomes the pilot of a prototype Mobile Suit called the Gundam. Now he and the crew of the White Base will have to fight for their very lives as the enemy attempts to destroy this new weapon at all costs.

Combatants will face triumph and turmoil as they battle their way through space to get to their final destination on Earth. The outcome of the war lies in the hands of the Newtype in the anime series that started it all!

Commentary:

The original Mobile Suit Gundam series is unquestionably one of the most important anime series ever made. It was the start of one of the biggest anime franchises of all time, spawned a massively popular toy line and has a presence in almost every other type of media. However, the series influence also stretches across the mecha genre as whole. Gundam was a drastic shift from other mecha anime like UFO Robo Grendizer or Mazinger Z, where the robots were more like super heros rather than machines of war. While the main mecha in Mobile Suit Gundam, The RX-78-2, still has some of the characteristics of super robots of older shows, the overall feel of gundam was much more militaristic and and came across as being more realistic.  Mobile Suit Gundam is also quintessential example of a unwilling youth pilot, which is a narrative trope that has become a mainstay of the mecha grene.

While Mobile Suit Gundam is deeply significant for many reasons, it was long since been surpassed in terms of quality and thematic execution. Series like pat Patlabor have a more realistic portrayal of mecha as military equipment, and Neon Genesis Evangelion is probably the most famous case of an unwilling youth pilote in all of anime. However, while Mobile Suit Gundam no longer the front runner in what it set out to do, the series is still worthwhile to watch, both for what it is and for its historical significance.

However, Mobile Suit Gundam in undoubtedly a product of its time, and has not age as well as some series. With subpar animation, and some dated narrative aspects, many first time viewers might not find the original Mobile Suit Gundam in in line with modern tastes. Furthermore, with 43 episodes in the series, new viewers might consider the series to be too large of a time commitment. Fortunately for anyone curious about the origins of this massive franchise the Mobile Suit Gundam Movie Trilogy is a easy way to get into the original series.

The movie trilogy take the T.V. series and condenses it into a set of three movies, each lasting about 2 and a half hours. The movies are primarily composed of footage from original series, and hits all major story points, making it a good overview of the series and considerably easier for newcomers to get into. Original fans of the series will still have new to watch for the movies do feature some new footage, especially in the third movie.

Yet, while the movie trilogy is considerably easier to watch due to its shorter length, the movies are not without their own problems, and the most notable of those problems is the odd sense of pacing. Being composed of edited content from the original series the movies do not have the normal rise and fall of actions as content originally produced as a movie. Rather, each movie has several story arcs in them, thus at the end of each arc the story will hit a point that feels like natural end point for a movies, but still be far from over. This sense of pacing made each movie feel as if it went on for much longer than it really did, and left me feeling hesitant to start the next.

Overall Grade B- :

The Mobile Suit Gundam Movie Trilogy has many problems, some caused by age and others caused by the condensed nature of how the films were made. Despite the problems, the movies are still an excellent way for new fans of anime to be introduce to one of history’s most important series, and for old fans to revisit the series.