It\'s far too obvious that the project started off as an OVA series and suffers from being cut down to theatre-film length. But even so, the pacing could have been fine if they had cut out Quess.
But I don\'t think Char\'s actions and his following in Neo-Zeon are any less plausible than those of Gihren, Haman or Delaz. Unlike them he is actually following through on Zeon Deikun\'s ideas about humans being better off in space, and is aiming at catastrophically changing the world rather than wiping out a city. On a personal level for Char, it is likely more about preferring a final showdown with Amuro to the responsibility of ruling Neo-Zeon in peace. However that I have to deduce all this from common fandom theories is the film\'s biggest failure. (There\'s also the abrupt change from Zeta, where Char was becoming rather too heroic.)
And I agree about the ending, it looks impressive but beggars belief and fails to conclude anything.
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
That thing about Char going through such an abrupt change from Zeta was another thing that I think didn't make sense, but I forgot to mention it in the review since I was so focused on this movie and let Zeta slip my mind.
Also that thing about fan-theories is another thing I often feel Tomino works suffer from, they rarely offer anything conclusive. Fans instead tries to fill whatever holes with "what if", "perhaps" or "maybe". The only place I know that works is Turn A Gundam where much of the setting is based around the unknown.
The ending was newtype bullshit. It wasn\'t handled terribly well, but it\'s not entirely outside the realm of plausibility for the setting
On Char, I find it easiest to think of the movie as an alternative sequel to the original rather than a continuation of Z-era. You can try to fill in the gaps with fanwank, but it\'s pretty clear the movie was designed to be viewable without Z or ZZ
Just watched it and I agree. I couldn\'t really make sense of what I was watching. Events happening without much coherence and what was that ending ?
Completely agreed. When I started the movie, I wondered if there was some prequel that I was meant to have watched beforehand to make sense of Char\'s sudden character shift and how everything ended up where it did. The finale completely sucked, and Quess and Hathaway were just painful to watch.
<(0_0<) <(0_0)> (>0_0)> KIRBY DANCELeave a Comment:
Where is the rest of the movie?
When it comes to Tomino, I can see that he has nice ideas, but the execution of those ideas almost always fall flat in his work for one reason or another. This movie is just another example of that.
With this movie it felt like I was watching a series of cobbled together clips rather than an actual movie. Scenes transitioned with little coherence and just gave a feeling of that huge chunks of it was missing.
As for the characters, while Ray and Bright felt like much better characters than in the past, the same can't be said for Char. There is one thing of a character going insane, and then there is this. The sheer stupidity of people even following him and never questioning his plan despite how obviously insane and illogical it is just becomes impossible to swallow. Especially when one considers what I'll mention bellow.
And then there is the ending, oh boy, the ending. Any Willing Suspension of Disbelief I might have had left from everything before completely shattered here. Not only did soldiers suddenly just decide to try and prevent the disaster they where busy causing just moments earlier, but when all hope seems lost a sudden burst of energy burst out and snags the two ends of Axis together and prevents a catastrophe. That would be considered Deus ex Machina bullshit even in a super robot show, and in a real robot show like this one? Do I even have to say it. And after all that it ends just like that without any form of proper conclusion to it all.
Like previously stated, I often can see a silver lining in Tomino's work but they never end up working as well as they could, or if at all.