Contrasting Gundam/Zeta Gundam to Seed/Seed Destiny

Personally, I feel that Gundam really hasn't done ambiguous morality all that well since some take on the "Earth v.s. Space" conflict had proven to make them (Sunrise and Bandai) lots of money.

so Gundam really can't really branch out as a science fiction piece because of being a Cash-Cow Franchise. and you'll notice that writers and directors of the "less sucessful" stuff to come out of Sunrise (Dougram, VOTOMS, Layzner) and things like the Studio NUE productions (Macross, Orguss, etc.) were able to just experiment more and take risks that Gundam couldn't. Not that it matters much, because Sunrise runs all of their IP like Gundam now, which is a shame and stifles creativity.

edited 30th Mar '12 6:05:34 PM by Clawshrimpy

I think that's more true of everything after MSG. Zeta and everything after it ''reeks' of Spacenoid Rhetoric whereas in MSG Newtypism was just a thing that existed in the world.

So far the Gundam Origin Manga has lacked Spacenoid rhetoric being retroactively shoehorned in (besides the obviously BS Propaganda of the Zabi's I mean). And for that I'm thankful.

edited 30th Mar '12 6:10:19 PM by Scherzo09

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

It's funny though that for a show that had more freedom than the rest of the franchise it spawned, a lot of content seemed to have been cut from it, just judging from Gundam Sousei

edited 30th Mar '12 8:00:36 PM by Clawshrimpy

I think a lot of the diminishing returns in Tomino's work are due in part to a combination of his depression and the editorial mandates imposed on him. Mobile Suit Gundam was a labor of love for him; I don't think the same can be said for much of what followed.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

Well, that's what I was getting at. Pretty much every antagonist's goal in UC Gundam (with the notable exception of CCA-era Neo Zeon) boiled down to attacking the Earth Federation in order to Take Over the World, while the Feddies defend themselves. CE, however, has a much more nuanced conflict — while the core cause boils down to Fantastic Racism, both sides have legitimate issues with the other beyond "you stand in the way of my World Domination, prepare to die!" and both sides have done horrible things to each other instead of it being entirely one-sided like UC Gundam is (though even in CE, Earth gets the short end of the atrocity stick).

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

That's not what I mean. That's a case of Black-and-Black Morality to me; both sides being demonstrably wrong. UC is Grey-and-Gray Morality to the extent that the actual people fighting the war on both sides are by and large portrayed to be good people who have justifiable reasons for fighting for what they are fighting for. It's just the Zeon side has the unfortunate moral deficit of being lead by a Sociopath.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

^multipl sociopaths?

Zeon is doing it to "destroy the imperialism of the Earth Federation/Sever the Evil Grip of the Earth"

Yep. Got English Dub and was released in the USA on DVD.

I treated it more of alternate-history/future-history Hawaii. Given the MANY polynesian references to its' culture and technology, and there's plenty of japanese and other Asians on Hawaii as well as white people.

LOL YAH. To be fair it's the Earth Alliance in general, but American Empire MK II does do the more questionable things personally (shitting on their allies at JOSH-A, burning rebel eurasian cities, etc)

is it really the US or just Earth though. In Seed Destiny it's more blatantly the US ("atlantic federation") but in seed at least you dont see that emphasized until orb is being invaded and uzumi nara athha mentions the at lantic federation by name.

that was an episode of seed, and it wasnt exactly that but something more of "a country of peace" for the ep when le cruset team sneaks into Orb to look for proof of the Gundam.

You could argue Orb's government is one weak place there, their 'stick ot neutrality' was good for humanity in general, both factions of it but their 'be neutral and let the EA invade us without asking for ZAFT help' isnt logical from a 'keep your country intact' POV (though that would prove the EA justified in invading arguably). Also the factionalism shown in Seed Destiny is a problem, and ineffective of their fighting forces changing based off their leadership. having 4 nobility run the country sucks in wars. though part of that is due to the suicidalism of uzumi and the athha clan who stayed behind.

edited 30th Mar '12 11:03:07 PM by fourtwenty

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It's pretty much the Atlantic Federation in SEED as well. They're the most heavily influenced by Blue Cosmos.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

Though initially it seems like Eurasia are the bad guys of the EA since they gave the heroes a bunch of trouble during the early part of the show. And after that you have noble Atlantic Federation Halberton. The background episode, Thirteen, I think, shows the darker aspects of the AE but only after halfway through does the leadership show they are a bunch of douches.

I would've liked to have seen more politicking between the constituent states of the EA, it was a unique thing that made it different than UC. But then they fell into lockstep behind the corrupt AF.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

Don't think the story would've given us much of a chance to see that but yeah, it would've been interesting. Though from what I recall, half of the EA's members were pressured into joining and once JOSH-A was blown up, the big rival that was Eurasia was a non-issue.

CE is also much, much better at Grey and Gray Morality than UC ever was, which I find hilariously ironic because most UC fans praise its supposed rejection of Black and White Morality to the skies (nevermind the fact that it's tremendously clear who the good guys and who the bad guys are in UC, far more so than ZAFT vs OMNI).

I don't think it is, really, because while UC generally presents one side as "better" it is still a very flawed system, and it takes pains to make sure we have decent (if not good) people on all sides, as well as showing how even major antagonists can have humanizing aspects to their personality.

SEED and Destiny cops out by introducing a "Third Faction of Goodness". Essentially rendering any greyness to the conflict moot. Now, Zeta and ZZ do this to some extent with the AEUG, but nowhere near as blatantly. And they make sure to show more politicking and conflicts within the AEUG as well.

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent

CE drops into Black And Black by the end when each side is trying to genocide the other, but I was referring more to the background of the conflict. The Earth Alliance nations want to keep control of the PLANTs they spent trillions building, so they impose restrictions to keep them from going rogue. The Coordinators living there want to create a country for Coordinators, by Coordinators, so they rebel. The PLANTs are hit with a terrorist attack, so ZAFT his back with a terror attack of their own. It's much, much greyer than UC with Zeon suddenly deciding to attack the Earth Federation out of nowhere and murdering half of humanity in the process, while the Earth Federation is simply acting in self defense and notably refrains from mass murder.

True, but even that's handled somewhat subtly. In Seed, the Three Ships Alliance manages to stop the fighting and end the war, but leaves the underlying conflict unresolved... which results in the war continuing on unabated just two years later. Seed pulls a sort of Debate and Switch in that way — the issue of who's right and who's wrong in the Earth Alliance vs ZAFT conflict is never addressed, because the message becomes "Orb is the only good guy" instead.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

but in Destiny, the earth is unjustifiably argry over Junius Seven being dropped even after the Minerva had broken it, and everyone on Earth just blindly swallows the rhetoric, rather than asking things like "Why was the EA army not helping ZAFT break up the falling colony" or "So what if some black GIN Ns dropped it, this does not prove Durandal and his administration wanted us dead." or "But....there are a growing number of Coordinators on Earth, espcially after the treaty. Why would they kill their kin?" but nope, eveyone on earth is magically racist again.

and everyone in ORB treats the stupid stuff from the EA as more authorative that the word of Cagali, and Cagali was freaking there on the Minerva. Cagali could have even said "The Earth Alliance didn't lift a finger to help." and ORB sure has a lot of reasons to trust the EA.... what with trying to take over their entire country over a mass driver.

Not that the Titans were about as hamfistedly written at times, though. What with having to keep Titans millitary presence in so many colnies just to keep an eye out for ANYONE who might say an opinion they can label as "Zeonist" Gundam just seems so "all or nothing" at times, at least in MSG Zeon kept things quiet until they launched their attack, and their was some dissention in their own ranks throughout the entire show (Char's revenge against the Zabis) Only thing is we see so little of the EF because the show mostly focuses on White Base, and other material had to cover that, like the side stories. But that had mostly to do with the show's Troubled Production and subsequent cancelation.

edited 31st Mar '12 2:32:10 PM by Clawshrimpy

In UC it was the result of tensions that had built up over the span of two decades as well as Gihren's Ambition/Greed. I like it because it doesn't reduce to a war based on petty racism. Not to say that Patrick Zala doens't have reasons for feeling that way; but as my friend said people who just want to watch the world burn almost never get into power. They all have pragmatic reasons for doing what they are doing.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

They do point out how the AF just pressured/bullied everyone to side with them after JOSH-A and Eurasia lost enough of its' military forces to follow the Atlantic Federation more.

LOL, that's less morally gray.

Erm, the Earth Federation applied some questionable pressure to suppress Republc of Zeon and also put sanctions on Principality of Zeon, forcing the war on them. Also the Earth Federation DOES engage in counter-nuking, see the Battle of Loum

ZAFT ADMITS that "even if the Earth Alliance deployed from the Lunar Base it would not get there in time" ANYWAY.

They also have a benefit from that as well, and the Earth Alliance could understandably claim that the ZAFT was harboringgenocidal terrorists - after all the Earth Alliance would not be open to claims that "oh we didnt know about this" - hence the Earth Alliance's statements abotu having alliance overseers on PLANT as that was REALLY hard for them to swallow.

Ask Patrick Zala when he wanted to use GENESIS on Earth, or hie leftover followers who dropped their "home" on Earth

The population of Earth ALWAYS had some racism, and the Atlantic Federation has the most racist citizenry, which would make sense given the GOVERNMENT is the most racist. Having a colony dropped on you when you tried to forget the war and forgive "them" for fucking up large swathes of the Earth and killing a few million from N-Jammer cancllers to see THAT hit you wll ignite a lot of popular racism in the Earth's peoples. And naturally, the government officials will respond to fit in with the will of their citizens, ESPECIALLY given those same officials are subject to the same biases as the citizens they work for.

The Orb government officials were wiling to suck the Alliance's dick given the last war.... a also

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=116193

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One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the incompetent visual design of the CE works. As older shows, the first two UC Gundam series had to make use of stock footage from time to time to stay within their budget, but they weren't as addicted to it, or to the flashbacks and painstaking scene recreations that made SEED and its descendants such a repetitive slog to get through. Likewise, the character designs, whilst often kind of goofy (especially in 0079) were far more creative and had far more personality than Hisashi Hirai's appallingly bland efforts.

TL;DR: SEED rarely, if ever looked exciting or interesting.

edited 1st Apr '12 3:10:29 AM by Iaculus

What's precedent ever done for us?

F Or me, the flashbacks and recap were more annoying because they repeated plot details to you over and over, was worse than the simple existance of the Stock Footage

Granted, Gundam Wing arguably had that same issue.

I think that ties into my overarching 'meh-ness' on SEED; it just looks and feels too generically 'anime-y' to me. That's how I feel about it at least.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

Yeah, CE character designs have a serious Only Six Faces problem, and the mecha design (the non-Gundams, especially) are pretty generic, too. Compare the GINN, CGUE, and the GUAIZ, or the Dagger and the Windam, or the Astray and the Murasame — each faction gets one general "look" and that's pretty much it. (Though ZAFT does have a bit more variety, if only because they have the the quadruped and the amphibious suits in addition to the standard GINN-style, and the Zeon knockoffs in Destiny.)

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

You are only half right. Yes, the antagonist organisation remains the same (EA, ZAFT), but the (named) characters who they represent change. In fact, all EA antagonists and the most evil ZAFT antagonists are killed off both times. OTOH, Haman Khan and Axis-Zeon survive Zeta and are the true victors of the Gryps Conflict.

The Eurasians were bad guys, it is just most of the AF forces were even worse.

Why? It is not a noble goal, but certainly a very reasonable one. The EA stopped being reasonable then it switched its goal from re-establishing control to NUKE'EM ALL.

Same deal as above. The EF created the space colonies in the first place. Why should they accept Side 3's unilateral declarations of independence and continue to let them benefit from trade with rest of the Earth Sphere?

Nukes are not issue, Zeon's utter disregard for the lifes of non-Zeon non-combatants is, something that the Battle of Loum showed once again. OTOH, the EFSF was saving milions of colonists before and during the same battle.

edited 1st Apr '12 8:44:43 AM by GrandPrincePaulII

Lazy and pathetic.

There's also very little to suggest that the Earth Federation did anything to antagonize Zeon prior to the One Year War. They seemed content to basically ignore them — Side 3 was independent for twenty years before Zeon up and attacked the Earth Federation, after all.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Personally I think that ZAFT and the Earth Forces having a standard design for their machines makes sense. If there's nothing wrong with the basic design, then why wouldn't you simply concentrate on improving things like OS, armour, and weaponry, while keeping the same structure? The one thing I will admit struck me as odd was that the ZAFT Gundams looked exactly like the EA ones.

On the subject of Black-and-Black Morality vs Black-and-Gray Morality, Scherzo and I have talked a little bit about this before in private. The conflict in SEED/SEED Destiny is a straight up ideological conflict for both sides, and those almost inevitably do end up that way in real life. All you have to do is look at the Eastern Front in World War II, or some of the crap that both sides pulled in the Cold War.

edited 1st Apr '12 10:06:19 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I wouldn't say that CE's primary conflict is entirely ideological in origin. At heart, it's a revolution/rebellion/secession/whatever you want to call it. The Earth Alliance wants to retain their territory (the PLANTs) while ZAFT wants greater political autonomy. The economic aspect is also important — the main reason why the Earth Alliance is willing to fight over the PLANTs is because they were built as giant orbital factories and R&D centers. It's sort of the inverse of the relationship that England had with colonial America — Earth sends raw materials to space, and gets manufactured goods and scientific research in return. Giving that up would be a big economic blow, but losing their initial investment in the construction of the PLANTs (and leaving a potentially hostile nation with the ultimate high ground at the same time)? Really, ZAFT, if you want someone to leave you alone, you don't steal their prime real estate in the process.

Of course, it became an ideological conflict fueled entirely by Fantastic Racism over time — but only after there were atrocities committed against both sides and both factions' moderates had been killed off.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Well no, the reason the colonies even exist to the extent that they do in series is not because of population reduction as in UC, but because it was the only place that coordinators could live without being discriminated against after being hounded by Blue Cosmos. The EA reigning them has little to do with spacenoid nationalism, a concept that does not exist in CE, but because the Blue Cosmos wants Coordinators gone, period.

Its basically Black Vs. Black Vs. White, with Orb being the perfect state of Coordinators and Naturals living together in harmony. It's like CE's Sanc Kingdom.

edited 1st Apr '12 1:13:21 PM by Scherzo09

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.