Warning: Spoilers Off applies to Awesome pages.
The culmination of over 20 years of the Cosmic Era result in one of the most awesome
Gundam movies ever. Both the casts of
SEED and
SEED Destiny get to show off just how far all of them have come in one grand spectacle.
- Once "Meteor" starts up, the good guys show the Foundation who's boss:
- Kira and Lacus, together piloting the Mighty Strike Freedom, proceed to tank a barrage of attacks with a new force field, annihilate the Foundation's entire fleet with a barrage of lightning, and split the ruins of the MESSIAH in half, with one shot from it's new Disruptor Cannon. And to top it all off, they stab Orphee's Cal-re. A with its Futsunomitama, the same way Shinn destroyed his Freedom in Destiny. Not only has he learned well from his partner, karma truly is a bitch for Orphee.
- Shinn in the Destiny Gundam Spec II completely manhandles four members of the Black Knight Squad by himself, dancing around them while moving so fast that he looks like he's teleporting at points (notice that all the Black Knights involved are heavily damaged even before the Theme Music Power-Up), before the Destiny creates various after-image clones that are capable of a Doppelgänger Attack, and then killing Liu, Griffin, and Daniel in the process. And he does this without getting damaged once. Not even Kira or Athrun managed that. Just a reminder of how unstoppable Shinn is in his berserk piloting mindset, except now he has the emotional maturity and mental integrity to truly bring out his incredible potential. And his Zeus Silhouette truly makes the Destiny capable of destroying a super weapon like the rebuilt Requiem in one shot.
- In addition, the Black Knights mocked Shinn earlier about being the "Freedom Killer", and he shows them exactly why he had that title. They also mocked him to sortie with the Destiny Gundam, now judged outdated by their standards, the Black Knights are quickly and fatally proven very wrong. The novel emphasizes that it was Shinn's skill that made the battle rather than the new Destiny Gundam, confirming that the Immortal Justice had better firepower than the Destiny. Shinn's ability and the Destiny being tailored to him was what determined the fate of the Black Knights and his victory.
- And mind you, he still has time to recharge Lunamaria's Impulse before going back thrashing the Black Knights; during the fight he even mocks the Black Knights' after-images are just "sleeping". The four are just that weak in front of Shinn and his Destiny.
- Even better, it's revealed that Shinn's impulsive fighting style makes an effective fighting style against mind-readers, as when the Black Knights try to predict Shinn's movements, they realized that Shinn doesn't think during combat, making it hard to fight against him.
- Hilda gets a good moment when she hides behind the Destiny Spec II's afterimage to kill Redelard.
- As the Black Knights try to Mind Rape Shinn, who else should come to his rescue but Stella Loussier in spirit, as she transforms into some kind of Humanoid Abomination to make the Black Knights collectively shit their pants and giving both Shinn and Hilda the opening they need to finish them all off in one fell swoop.
- Murrue ordering the Millenium to go full ramming speed directly at Aura's flagship, and then unload its entire arsenal at point-blank range.
- Lunamaria wrecking Agnes' Gyan Strom the same way Athrun did to Shinn's Destiny Gundam to save her life in the climax of Destiny. And not only that, she spares Agnes' life even after her Face–Heel Turn, making her receive the award for the second Houko Kuwashima character in a Fukuda show to not die after Vivian. And that's before she gets the METEOR Unit to utterly destroy the Requiem alongside Shinn.
- Speaking of kickass music, after losing it due to his increasingly darkening role, and, of course, switching from the Impulse to the Destiny, when it's time for Shinn to sortie in the Destiny Spec II, we get the glorious return of his original heroic theme, "Shutsugeki! Impulse!". Sure, Lunamaria in the actual Impulse sorties right behind him, but the fact that Shinn in the Destiny Spec II is first up when this plays makes it clear that this is for him, and in the machine that originally marked his Protagonist Journey to Villain, now as fully heroic as he has ever been!
- Athrun in his Infinite Justice Type II defeating Shura, the strongest Black Knight, with the assistance of Cagalli. Together, they devised a stratagem to counter his mind-reading ability which worked perfectly, throwing Shura so much off his game that leaves him open to the last beam saber hidden in the Justice's head.
- Although they quickly get usurped by Foundation as the real bad guys of the film, Blue Cosmos was pretty much on its last legs here thanks to Compass's slowly weathering them down over the last two years. Their resources were so low they had to deploy outdated 105 Daggers, while their final Destroy Gundams are taken down by Kira and Shinn during the film. The novel subverts this slightly as it confirms that Blue Cosmos started stirring trouble again after the events of Freedom. On the other hand, their last Destroy Gundam deployed was missing its entire backpack and a whole arm means that they are probably a very small threat.
- Bonus points for Compass being able to take down the first Destroy Gundam without using any nuclear-powered suits. With Kira even taking one down by firing into its firing port just as it was about to fire its chest cannons, causing it to self-destruct. Even without a nuclear-powered suit, he is still a force to be reckoned with.
- Later, Shinn and Kira double-team a Destroy Gundam, showing why Kira chose Shinn for the Justice.
- Compass being a joint Coordinator-Natural alliance between Orb, ZAFT and the Atlantic Federation dedicated to maintaining the fragile peace between Earth and the PLANTs serves as a firm repudiation of Patrick, Rau, Azrael and Djibril’s ideals in that Naturals and Coordinators can not only co-exist, but also cooperate for the benefit of humanity.
- Lunamaria sniping a nuke using her Gelgoog. Suck it, "Lunamaria's a bad shot" adherents!
- Normally, the Bright Slap method is usually deconstructed in a Gundam series, usually making the protagonists resent whoever slapped them. Hell, even in SEED Destiny it didn't work on Shinn. However, Athrun's beatdown of Kira not only snaps Kira out of his funk, but Kira is ready to fight again afterwards.
- After Lacus rejects his sway time and time again, Orphee drops the gentlemanly facade and straight-up starts to force himself on her. However, instead of being panic-stricken or helplessly accept her situation, Lacus unflappably denounces Orphee for his inability to comprehend her true love for Kira and how even this will not get her to love him. This actually stings Orphee deep enough to get him to take off in a huff. Even though Lacus breaks into tears after the ordeal, actually getting her would-be rapist to back down with just words alone took some serious mettle.
- The Millennium hijacking. In particular, the Orb Military was prepared to put on an epic show to "stop" the hijackers, when in reality they know what Kira and the others are trying to do and play along to make it look like a genuine hijacking. One credit to the antagonists too: the Foundation doesn't fall for it, which leads to the scene bellow.
- Even better, Captain Konoe and Lt. Heinlein already knew that their then-missing allies weren't dead and it would be a matter of time before they'd be back and ready for action. They instantly know it's Murrue and Kira in infiltration gear when they storm the bridge. Konoe even casually chides Murrue for pulling this when he'd happily hand them the ship in a heartbeat, and Heinlein likewise nonchalantly chides Kira for being two minutes later than he expected. We just met these guys in this movie, but they quickly establish immense amounts of faith and loyalty in our heroes and reliable allies, and it's clearly not just because they're Clyne loyalists. Konoe even expresses concern earlier in the movie about Kira not going home to Lacus earlier, showing he cares about his heroes' relationship and personal lives.
- How does Kira announce that he's back while making Requiem waste its shot away from ORB? By taunting Aura and the Foundation, telling them on a public communication channel on how they failed to kill him, they will be exposed, and that he will win in the end. Aura's response? Instead of nuking Orb with the Requiem which was her original plan, she aims the gun at Kira and the Millennium. However, the Milennium crew were just prepared for that as they make a narrow dodge, and using the propulsion made because of the explosion, fires the Tannhäuser guns to boost the ship back into space!
- Meanwhile at the same time, Cagalli immediately orders the Orb Military to prepare evacuating civilians, protecting her people immediately unlike the incompetent Seirans from the last war. It is also revealed that the Kusanagi and the Orb space fleet were also already heading to destroy Requiem. The Orb Military was already ready to move out even before the Foundation declared war on Orb!
- Murrue taking a page from Natarle's book, discarding several remote-timed missiles, and when the time was right, fired them on the Foundation fleet from behind.
- Mu casually tanks a Requiem shot head on..... And comes out unscathed, wiping out the defense fleet and temporarily disabling the cannon. Even better, this was indeed the plan, and not Mu taking a laser to save someone. The Millennium crew and Orb made a plan note the novel states it is actually Cagalli who made this plan, entrusting her Akatsuki to Mu for this specific "secret mission" that involves Mu taking a laser shot to the face because they knew he'd survive. In other words, he's the man for the job to make the impossible possible!
- What are Yzak and Dearka doing when the Foundation's coup begins in the PLANTs? They take the heads of the Clyne loyalists, including Ezalia herself hightail it on a shuttle onto the Eternal for their counterattack! And surely they have to have some new machines of their own to join the fray, right? Say hello to some souped-up old friends: the Duel Blitz and the Lightning Buster Gundams! Yep, as confirmed by the novel, these are exactly the original Duel and Buster themselves! Not only is the Buster A-OK after getting trashed by the Providence after all, but they've both been heavily overhauled with nuclear reactors, ZAKU cockpits, all new weapons, and METEOR functionality. Special mention goes to the Duel Blitz, which, as the name indicates, and as the High Grade reveals, is just a new armor set for the base Duel, all modeled after the Blitz's main weaponry, honoring their fallen comrade.
- Speaking of old units getting to come back for one last round, the Strike Rouge. We thought it getting trashed right before Strike Freedom's debut was the end of it, but seems Cagalli had it fixed right back up and prepared, and kept as a backup unit in case she let someone else, usually Mu, take the Akatsuki. Now, she herself doesn't fight on the frontlines for obvious reasons, but via remote controlling the Infinite Justice Type II, we see that she, in tandem with Athrun, can easily handle Shura with no noticeable drop in skill. Not to mention that they devised a remote control system that allows her to control the Justice, which was on the lunar surface, all the way from Earth, also with no drop in response time, letting Cagalli retain her Action Girl status without putting risking herself as ORB Representative.
