Anime / Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer

All spoilers for Mobile Suit Gundam 00 are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

Only seven days remain until Humanity will be extinct.

"This will be Celestial Being's... No. This is going to be our final mission."

— Sumeragi Lee Noriega

The first completely new Gundam feature film in 19 years, Mobile Suit Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer is the continuation of the 2007-2009 series Gundam 00, and is intended to be the Grand Finale of the Anno Domini universe.

The year is 2314. Two years have passed since the defeat of Ribbons Almark, the Innovade who called himself "God", and the world is gradually moving towards peace. In this new world, other people around the planet are beginning to Innovate, including a mysterious man named Descartes Shaman. However, an abandoned probe from an expedition to Jupiter 130 years ago (the same expedition that built the original GN Drives) approaches Earth bringing a new crisis with it, one that threatens all of mankind. Celestial Being, still recovering from their battle with the A-Laws and Innovades, are forced into action to save humanity, and the first true innovator Setsuna F. Seiei finally obtains the Gundam he always wished for. Aeolia Schenberg's plan has moved into its final stage...

In the same way Gundam 00 introduced several new ideas into the Gundam franchise, the film lives up to its name of "Trailblazer". For the first time in the thirty year history of Gundam, A Wakening of the Trailblazer introduced a living alien race, known as ELS (Extra-Terrestrial Living-Metal Shape-Shifters).

It was released in Japanese theaters on September 18th, 2010. A US Premiere took place at the New York Anime Festival on October 10th, 2010, the DVD/Blu-Ray version was released on December 25, 2010, in Japan, and July 5, 2011, in America.

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Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer provides examples of the following tropes:

• Ace Custom: The ESF forces give aces and commanders specialised Commander Type units - Patrick and Andrei pilot GN-XIV Commander Types, while Graham has his Brave Commander Test Type.
• Actor Allusion: Tōru Furuya, best known for being the voice of Amuro Ray, voices a character named E.A. Ray.
• Adaptation Decay: Parodied hard in the movie within the movie Celestial Being in which none of the Gundam Meisters depicted in that movie looks like the real ones. It also fulfills pretty much prevalent Super Robot Anime stereotypes as well:
  • The sword-wielding 00 is piloted by the hot-blooded leader who rocks a Rugged Scar;
  • Cherudim is piloted by a slim, bespectacled Bishonen (And then for meta-tropic irony, Lockon is shown wearing similar glasses in the opening credits of the main movie);
  • The largest mech, Seravee is piloted by a big, black guy
  • And the frail but zippy Arios is piloted by a Girly Girl.
  • And they have a Combination Attack, complete with rainbow colors and a whopping serving of Ham.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Due to the Adaptation Decay of the movie within the movie, Setsuna becomes a Fiery Redhead, Lockon has blue hair, Allelujah was Gender Flipped as a rose-haired girl, or alternatively he and his Action Girl Friend Soma/Marie are made into one person , and Tieria was Race Lifted as a Scary Black Man.
• Advertised Extra: Descartes Shaman and his mobile armor, Gadaleza, are heavily promoted along with the Gundam Meisters and their units as the main characters of the movie. He dies half-way through and his assimilated mobile armor didn't even show up afterwards.
• Animation Bump: The whole movie's animation quality is far beyond that of the series, which is to be expected. What really stands out, though, is how much attention the production team gave to small details.
• Arc Words: "Unlock(ing)/blaze a trail to the future". Alternatively, "Believe". There's also "To understand (each other)."
• Arm Cannon: The Braves' GN Beam Machineguns, and four of the Zabanya's GN Missile Pods.
• Assimilation Plot: The ELS, who utilize it as their primary means of understanding new objects and concepts.
• The Atoner: The Federation, especially the soldiers who were members of A-Laws.
• Attack Drone
  • All four Gundams have some form of remote weapon, with the Raphael Gundam getting a whole other unit that can itself separate into other Attack Drones.
  • The Gadeleza has 14 Large GN Fangs (each the size of a mobile suit and packing their own GN Drive) that carry 10 Small GN Fangs apiece, for a grand total of 154.
• Award-Bait Song: "Qualia", performed by UVERworld which plays over the end credits.
• Battle Couple: Doublelujah and SoMarie.
• Beam Spam
  • Gundam Zabanya and the Gadeleza. It is glorious.
  • Gundam Harute can use its GN Cannons and GN Swords Rifles to shoot down four targets simultaneously.
• Better to Die than Be Killed
  • Graham's Heroic Sacrifice was induced at least partially by the fact that his mobile suit and himself were in the process of being assimilated by the ELS.
  • Ditto for Andrei, who mounted a suicidal charge against a large ELS ship knowing what would happen.
  • Patrick decides to go out like this as well when his GN-XIV begins to get assimilated, but since this is Patrick he manages to survive. Again.
  • Also Tieria when the Raphael gets hit by the ELS
  • Incidentally the preferred method in all four cases as well as several others involving nameless grunts is Deliberate Overclocking of their unit's Trans-Am System.
• BFS: The 00 Qan[T] uses an improved version of the Raiser Sword that gashes a massive scar into the ELS' mothership, which is the size of a moon.
• Big Damn Heroes: The movie loves this trope. It happens no less than four times.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: One of the few sci-fi works to accurately portray just how alien two intelligent species evolving in different solar systems/environments would actually be to one-another. Not to be confused with Lockon's Haros.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: In the climatic battle, the Earth federation brought out every fight capable mobile suit and ship. That includes Tieren's and Laohu carriers.
• Body Horror: Assimilation. Your whole body is slowly converted into an alien substance from the inside out that you can actually feel happening...
• Call-Back
  • Remember the 4th ED, "Trust You"? Watch the ending of the movie, and ask yourself if it isn't at least ironic.
  • Also, the flower that Setsuna was given at the end of season two makes a return and plays a role in the plot.
  • And Setsuna, in his dream sequence/vision, gets to look at a similar flower growing in the desert, like what Setsuna did in the 4th OP.
  • Lyle pilots the rebuilt Dynames while rescuing H/Allelujah and SoMarie/
  • When the Ptolemios Kai starts getting assimilated by the ELS, Feldt refuses to follow Sumeragi's command to abandon ship if worst comes to worst stating that Christina tricked her on doing the same thing during the penultimate episode of the show's first season.
• Canon Immigrant: The Flag used by Setsuna to save Marina is an Orbital Colony Guard-Type Flag with a modified GN Sword in place of the linear rifle.
• Captain Ersatz: Meena Carmine to Nena Trinity, though it's justified. In fact, it may be the other way around. See Identical Stranger below for details. Meena has the same hairstyle that Sumeragi had in the first season of the TV series, which is a smart move for somebody trying to seduce Billy.
• Chewing the Scenery: What little we see of Celestial Being: The Movie is so hammy that it makes Mobile Fighter G Gundam look kosher.
• Continuity Nod: An event or character in the series is mentioned once in a while.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: An interesting case in that both sides take turns curb-stomping each other. Seriously, it's like watching a game of Pong.
• Dare to Be Badass: Graham gives one to Setsuna, during the latter's sortie in the 00 Qan[T]:
  Graham: WHY ARE YOU HESITATING?! You were the one who told me to keep fighting in order to live. You taught me that! Even if it's a contradiction, you must continue to exist! You said that is what it means to live... (Activates Trans-Am) Go on, young man! LIVE AND BLAZE A TRAIL TO THE FUTURE!
• Dead Person Conversation: Setsuna was able to "talk" with the original Lockon, Christina and Lichty while in a coma.
• Defensive Feint Trap: This is the standard tactic of Graham's Sol Braves against the ELS. One of them lures the largest swarm available into chasing them, and then their wingmen carve it apart. For his own part, Graham is skilled enough to do this solo by rapidly decelerating to put his pursuers in the crosshairs of his Wave-Motion Gun.
• Demoted to Extra: After a rather long stint of being an active member of Celestial Being, Saji only has several very minor scenes in the first half of the movie, and none after that (except for a short appearance in the epilogue). Ditto for Louise, who is always shown to be with Saji (and hence both are a confirmed Official Couple).
• Detachment Combat: The Raphael and Seravee II, in more ways than one: Seravee can detach its legs to create Attack Drone Wave Motion Guns. Best summarized by an internet-goer: "Wait, the Gundam has a giant set of legs on its head. Also the legs are funnels. Also the funnels are a Gundam."
• Disappears into Light: While it doesn't involve dying, this is what happened to Setsuna and the 00 Qan[T] after the battle with ELS. They do come back though... 50 years later.
• Explosive Overclocking: Guess what happens when a GN Drive Tau-equipped mobile suit in Trans-Am is pushed beyond its operational safety limit?
• Expository Hair Style Change: Too many characters to list.
• Expy
  • The 00 Qan[T] has a Bifurcated Weapon, like a certain character in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. The fact that it's called the GN Buster Sword doesn't help.
  • Descartes Shaman looks like a Bishounen version of Aber Lindt from season two. On the other hand, his Gadelaza looks like a Protoss Carrier.
    • The concept is subverted with his intro; because the Jupiter probe's introduced at the same time, it's easy to assume that he was on the probe and just got back, like Paptimus Scirocco. This is not the case, though Shaman seems to still have a bit of ol' Paptimus in him.
  • Several fans have pointed out that the ELS' designs are very similar to that of Vorlon ships. Even the first thing Setsuna says to them can be rephrased as "who are you and what do you want".
  • They also look like the Web Creatures from ReBoot, though this is hardly surprising, considering that ReBoot was crawling with references to various scifi shows.
• Fanservice Pack: Mileina Vashti. She's Let Her Hair Down, and wears Zettai Ryouiki.
• Faster-Than-Light Travel: It turns out that, after analyzing the 00 Raiser's quantization ability, Ian designed the Qan[T] to have a full-blown FTL Drive, called the "Quantum Teleport System". Setsuna uses it to travel to the ELS homeworld, so he can learn more about the ELS and the ELS learn more about humanity through him.
• Fate Worse than Death: Being assimilated. Seriously, no-one deserves that.
• First Contact: For the first time ever in the Gundam franchise. Sadly, things just keep going From Bad to Worse.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The Federation Ace Pilots; Descartes is The Cynic, Graham is The Realist, Patrick is The Optimist, Andrei is The Apathetic.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble
  • The Gundam Meisters: Setsuna = Melancholic, Allelujah = Phlegmatic, Lockon = Sanguine, Tieria = Choleric, Marie = Leukine.
  • The Federation Ace Pilots: Descartes = Choleric, Graham = Phlegmatic, Patrick = Sanguine, Andrei = Melancholic.
• From Bad to Worse: Basically sums up the whole movie, for both sides. To name a few though:
  • A massive fleet of ELS appears, having enough mass to pull two of Jupiter's moons close enough to the planet to tear them apart via tidal forces.
  • ESF mobile suits and Celestial Being's Gundams wiping the floor with the ELS fleet, which is answered by the ELS eventually assimilating a few GN-XIV and turning into them.
  • That huge fleet that appears from Jupiter and has the Earth terrified? Absolutely dwarfed by the appearance of the main unit, a command ship the size of the Moon.
  • The Gadelaza showing up and wiping out a massive amount of ELS on its own, which is subsequently assimilated by the ELS.
  • The Celestial Being firing its Wave-Motion Gun and nearly cutting the ELS planetoid in half, which in return is answered by the ELS creating a barrier powerful enough to stop its second shot.
  • The appearance of the 00 Qan[T], and the Zabanya and Harute subsequently handing the ELS their collective asses.
  • Rather early on, Allelujah and Marie encounter the ELS without knowing what they are. They are nearly hit by a self-driven jeep, which they dodge. They then try escaping, but are being chased by another ELS-jeep. They split up and it chases Marie automatically. Until Hallelujah kicks in and the ELS switch their target to him. He manages to run away, by climbing up on a roof top, from where he shouts: "Haha! See if you can catch me now!"... The ELS respond by having a helicopter rise behind him.
• Fun with Subtitles: To increase the joke value of "Celestial Being: The Movie", at least one subber group has given this section intentionally bad subtitles.
• Gag Penis: The Gadelaza's Alternate Mode.◊ Seriously...
• Gender Flip: Due to the Adaptation Decay of the movie within the movie, Allelujah becomes a girl, or/and he and Marie unintentionally become a Composite Character.
• Genius Bruiser: Tieria Erde and Lockon Stratos II can be classified as such.
• Glass Cannon: The Raphael Gundam, though justified since Tieria has limited resources in creating it in addition to not being equipped with an authentic GN Drive. Because of that, Tieria wasn't able to equip it with GN Fields/Shields and instead prioritize offense. Its Dual Mode Unit, the Seravee II, is also a downplayed version of its predecessor.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: All initial efforts to communicate with the ELS end up in this fashion.
• Gratuitous English: Contrary to the title of this article, the official title of the movie is "A wakening of the Trailblazer." While those may very well all be words, no native English speaker would have such an A mazing Use of Spaces.
• Hacker Cave: Aeolia Schenberg's lab in the epilogue, with nine monitors and at least five computer towers.
• Heroic Sacrifice / Killed Off for Real
  • Graham Aker. Fans will miss his manliness.
  • Tieria Erde again, but as this is Tieria...
  • Andrei Smirnov, thus finally getting his Redemption Equals Death for killing Sergei.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: In-universe, in the parody movie Celestial Being, all the atrocities of A-Laws was attributed to Alejandro Corner, who was already dead by the end of Season 1.
• Hollywood History: Celestial Being: The Movie clearly had the scriptwriters operating on Rule of Cool rather than anything approaching historical accuracy, even though the events depicted were only two years in the past (which, given how long it takes to make movies, means that filming must have started within a few months of the A-Laws being defeated) and many people who were present during the major events of that story were still around and easily contactable. Saji notes to himself that he was a member of Celestial Being who fought in the final battle against the A-Laws, and he wasn't in the movie at all.
• Hollywood Tactics: Gloriously averted with the SolBraves. They masterfully display the ability to actually watch each others' backs, use themselves as decoys to draw enemy fire, and behave like a proper squad all around.
• Holy Halo: When the Quanta uses quantum burst, a huge halo forms above and around it.
• Identical Stranger:
  • Mina Carmine looks and sounds a lot like Nena Trinity, to say nothing of the similarity in their first names. What the hell's going on here? Well, according to the novel they're actually very distant relatives, with Mina being born naturally while Nena is a clone of Mina's ancestor.
  • Early on into the ELS invasion of Earth, an ELS enters the hospital attracted to the Quantum Brain Waves being emitted by Louise as Saji and later Setsuna come to save her. After shooting at the ELS, they reel in shock at the ELS' face: Ribbons Almark. Only later is it revealed that this wasn't Ribbons, but rather an ELS Copy of Sky Eclipse: another Innovade that used the Ribbons Template who was part of the ill-fated Europa Mission years prior who was conducted by Celestial Being to construct the GN Drives and was executed afterwards.
• I Was Quite a Looker
  • Marina Ismail bids farewell to her good looks by the end of the film. She doesn't just age well, but also becomes blind. She gets better in the manga adaptation.
  • Possibly subverted by Klaus Grado, who more or less turn into a Cool Old Guy.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Setsuna F. Seiei, in a meta sense.
• Large Ham: The entire cast of Celestial Being: The Movie.
• Last Stand: The ESF forces in the final battle fought valiantly and struggled with more than they had, but it's clear to everyone within a few minutes of battle — if not before — that they are hopelessly outnumbered "ten-thousand-to-one", and stand no hope for victory. The battle ultimately becomes an attempt to fight for just enough time for Setsuna to wake up from his coma and pilot the 00 Qan[T].
• Leitmotif: The ELS have a distinct five note riff that pops up in the music almost every time they appear, usually (but not always) sung via One-Woman Wail.
• Le Parkour: Hallelujah has fun using this to avoid alien-possessed vehicles. He was perplexed at what to do when the helicopter came after him, however.
• Lightning Bruiser
  • Harute, designed for zero-gravity combat. The prototype Brave units qualify, as well.
  • Doubly so for the Gadeleza, considering it’s even larger than the Ptolemaios Kai.
• Lip Lock: The English dub suffers from this in a few places. Fortunately, they're small in number, and the dub as a whole manages to avert this.
• Macross Missile Massacre: Gundams Zabanya and Harute, along with the Gadelaza.
• Male Gaze: Billy's POV shot when Mina hits on him on the ride up the orbital elevator.
• Mid Movie Upgrades: Setsuna pilots three MS in this film, starting off with a modified Flag, then the repaired 00 Raiser (which doesn't have any GN Drives), and finally gaining the 00 Qan[T] near the end of the film. Lockon also pilots his late brother's Gundam Dynames while rescuing Allelujah and Marie, then using the Gundam Zabanya against the ELS.
• Mighty Glacier: Zabanya is the slowest of all the Gundams, but it has tremendous firepower.
• Mind Rape
  • Setsuna's first attempt to contact the ELS puts him in a coma for most of the film.
  • Happens on a mass scale to all the potential Innovators on Earth when the ELS try to communicate with them.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The 00 Qan[T] is a Gundam capable of interstellar teleportation at will and is designed for interstellar warfare. Sounds familiar...
    • The 00 Qan[T] also has similarities with the Nu Gundam, such as being equipped with six Attack Drone units mounted on the left side of their bodies, giving them an asymmetrical appearance, with said Attack Drones being capable of both offensive and defensive purposes, and lastly, both Gundams are equipped with Game Changer systems that has a very wide Area of Effect and emits green light during activity.
  • And even before that, in the Celestial Being movie, the asteroid seen in the beginning looks highly similar to Axis...
• Older and Wiser: Saji Crossroad, now a war veteran who has fought against the A-Laws.
• Old Maid: Marina Ismail and Sumeragi Lee Noriega. Both are in their early thirties and still unmarried.
• One-Man Army: All four Gundams and the Gadelaza, thanks to liberal application of Attack Drones, Beam Spam, Macross Missile Massacre (but only for three of them), and Wave Motion Guns.
• Overclocking Attack: The preferred method of ESF pilots to avoid assimilation; see Explosive Overclocking above.
• Pet the Dog: H/Allelujah and Graham both received this in a meta-sense, given how the two were significantly sidelined (especially the former) in the series. The two were given good chunks of screen time in this film with the latter even being promoted to the Sixth Ranger role.
• Poor Communication Kills: Continues the tradition in true Gundam style, though in this case it's justified by the two parties having no idea how to communicate with each other.
• Race Lift: Due to the Adaptation Decay of the movie within the movie, Tieria becomes a Scary Black Man. Since Tiera is really an Artificial Human, he, technically underwent Adaptation Species Change.
• Redemption Equals Death: Andrei Smirnov finally pays his penance for killing Sergei two years prior.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Marute Mode◊, which not only turns the Harute's eyes red but also reveals four more.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: The Zabanya and the Harute/Marute are taken from figures in The Qur'an, while the Raphael and Seravee II are, respectively, an archangel and the highest class in the Christian angelic hierarchy in the Hebrew Bible.
• Rousseau Was Right: Neither the humans nor the ELS have any hostile intentions; the conflict is born only of misunderstandings on both sides. Once those misunderstandings are cleared up, peace follows very quickly.
• Scenery Porn: The closing shot◊ of the Distant Finale.
• Scifi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale: Two notable aversions exist:
  • The ELS have a giant, spherical battleship that increases the gravitational pull of Jupiter enough to cause two of its moons to be pulled in from their orbit and ripped apart by tidal forces. Later, the battleship approaches Earth, and the effects of something the size of The Moon are pointed out.
  • At first, it seems to be played straight with the Gadelaza: There's no practical reason for making a mobile armor the size of a cruiser packing seven GN Tau Drives and 14 MS-sized "Large GN Fangs" that each store 10 regular-sized "GN Fangs" and boast their own GN Drive Tau. The ESF might have been better off replacing the Gadelaza with an actual cruiser and the GN Fangs with GN-XIIIs, GN-XIVs, or Braves. Then you remember that it's stated to have better performance than five mobile suit platoons.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Played with. Though Graham Aker's suicide did help Setsuna do what he needed to do, when you realize that the ELS never intended to destroy humanity and that it was all a misunderstanding, it becomes even more bittersweet. Of course, that’s all just par for the course in this franchise.
• Serial Escalation: Pretty much the entire movie, but especially the second half/final battle. The scope, as indicated by the director, was so far beyond anything ever done in Gundam before that it was mind-boggling. And awesome.
• Shout-Out
  • The Katharon ship in the "Celestial Being" movie is Axis.
    • An Ahead forming and throwing a giant boomerang seems familiar.
  • Mina channels Catherine Tramell during an elevator ride with Billy, much to the latter's delight.
  • The final fight seems reminiscent to the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi, except Setsuna does not "escape alive" from the "Death Star", which instead of exploding turns into a giant flower.
  • Several to other science fiction works seem to pop up:
    • The hero experiencing a mind-bending, kaleidoscopic tunnel of color? Aliens appearing from Jupiter?
    • An alien race that humanity fights only for the hero to realize their true, less-than-malicious intentions?
  • The 00 Qan[T]'s Bifurcated Weapon is called GN Buster Sword. It has another mode that functions as a "gunblade" dubbed GN Buster Rifle, which itself is an obvious shout out to Gundam Wing. Also, Setsuna's personality is very similar to the wielders of all of the above.
  • The title card itself is a Shout-Out to Char's Counterattack — a shot of the main protagonists' unfinished Mid-Movie Upgrade Gundam as a background to the movie's title.
  • They even left some bits and pieces of Gurren Lagann in the movie:
    • Alejandro Corner's Alvaaron in the Movie-within-a-movie looks horribly like Superior Dragon from the SD Gundam universe... And it moved peculiarly like the Lazengann in Parallel Works 8.
    • DID THAT AHEAD JUST USE A SUNGLASS-SHAPED BOOMERANG!?
    • Also, as an aural variant of Freeze-Frame Bonus in the English Dub, Hallelujah makes a Shout-Out to one of Kamina's quotes, upon his final sortie against the ELS invasion:
      Hallelujah: Time to forget about logic and reason; let's just get it done!^note Given the near-impossibility of survival against the Alien metallic entity - ten thousand ELS for every single federation soldier - , it does make sense...
  • At several points in the Celestial Being movie, Setsuna sounds more like Simon the Digger.
  • During the Raphael's only sortie, it fires both of its giant beam bazookas in opposite directions, while turning around. Just like the Wing Zero did.
  • During the huge battle against the ELS, the Zabanya uses a multi-lock feature (complete with panning shot of many targets being acquired) to initiate a storm of Beam Spam. That sounds familiar...
  • In the Show Within a Show, the 00 Gundam is seen performing a SHINING FINGER SWOOOOOOOOOOORD!!!!
  • Graham's Brave squadron is a homage to the Valkyrie squadron of Alto Saotome in Frontier's ep. 24, who shares the same voice actor with him.
• Show Within a Show: The beginning of the movie starts with Saji and a few of his friends watching a movie glorifying Celestial Being's actions in the series. A certain fansub group even threw in some meta Stylistic Suck along with a Take That! during this scene. Most of the subtitles are in Comic Sans, nearly every line has a completely unnecessary translator's note, words like "kisama", "teki" and "ore-tachi" are left untranslated, while words originally in English like "Celestial Being" are translated to their Japanese counterpart, and called attacks get distracting karaoke fonts. Anyone who has ever watched poorly-done fansubs will be in stitches.
• Silicon-Based Life: The ELS, although they also have properties similar to those of mercury. More accurately, they are metal-based life-forms. As it happens, something similar has been proven theoretically possible in Real Life.
• So Last Season: The 00 Raiser justifies this by no longer being equipped with true GN-Drives.
• Spiritual Successor: The Solbrave Squadron to the original Overflags from Season 1. But while the Brave Commander Type is this to Graham's Custom Flag, the Brave Standard Type is more of a fusion between the Union Flag and the AEU Enact, seeing as it incorporates the design from both.

• The Stinger: After the credits, we cut to 2091 A.D., where we see E.A. Ray talking to Aeolia Schenburg that humanity must unite in order to reach the future. Fifty years later, the ELS is now co-existing with humanity and a ship named after Sumeragi is preparing for travel, the crew featuring Innovators, and Amia Lee, the girl who was attacked by the ELS earlier. We later see Setsuna, now an ELS/Innovator hybrid, visiting an older and blind Marina playing the piano, who embraces her. The movie then ends with the saying, "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
• Storm of Blades
  • Harute's Scissor Bits. It's fun to imagine the Oh, Crap! looks in the ELS' minds when those things let loose.
  • The 00 Qan[T]'s Sword Bits are capable of the same thing, but we never actually get to see it.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Harute's Marute Mode, which was specifically designed to be used by Hallelujah.
• Super Prototype: Played with six ways to Sunday: The Zabanya and Harute use the recycled frames of the Cheridum and Arios from season two of the series; the 00 Raiser Repair is just that: the 00 Raiser but without any GN Drives; the Raphael uses technology derived from the Gadessa series, but aside from packing three GN Tau Drives isn't anything new; the GN-XIV and Brave units are limited production models for elite pilots; and the 00 Qan[T] and Gadelaza are actually Super Prototypes. Now guess which ones do the most damage to the ELS.
• Take That!: The Show Within a Show itself is one to movies and TV shows alike that tend to romanticize the winning side and vilifying the other so much, which are so prevalent in Real Life. The way the Gundam Meisters are casted also mocks the racial and gender stereotyping in Hollywood (e.g. Tieria the Scary Black Man and Allelujah the little hot chick). The message of this show, in other words, seems to be, "Tired of the same old Good vs. Evil stories? We've got a new one!"
• Tempting Fate: After Hallelujah escapes ELS controlled trucks by getting on a roof he says "See if you can catch me now!" (cue ELS controlled helicopter)
• Token Evil Teammate: Hallelujah for Celestial Being, Descartes Shaman for the Earth Federation.
• Took a Level in Badass: Patrick gained some serious levels since his Butt-Monkey days in the series. All the proof you need is to see him in action during the final battle. Plus, he's the only Federation ace that survives.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Every named character from (or was in Louise's case) The Federation are much nicer than in the series.
• Trailers Always Lie / Trailers Always Spoil: Early trailers used the early, incomplete designs of the Gundams as well as other designs which haven't appeared since. More recent trailers unveiled the complete Gundam designs along with more of their abilities, and included the appearances of the ELS, a repaired 00 Raiser, and Ribbons Almark. Then again, if the trailers are anything like the series’ opening credits... Where should we begin? Decartes Shaman is just a minor ESF soldier, "Ribbons" merely one of the countless Innovades that share the same genetic baseline, the real war is with ELS and not the ESF... the list can go on and on.
• Too Powerful to Live: Descartes.
• Transforming Mecha: Harute, the Braves, and Setsuna's modified Flag. Arguably the Gadelaza as well.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: In-universe, Celestial Being: The Movie is this. Lampshaded by Saji Crossroad after the show, who was actually present at the final battle the movie was "depicting".
• Wave-Motion Gun
  • The Gadelaza's "GN Blaster", which can plow though multiple ships in a single shot and was the only ESF weapon capable of stopping the derelict space station.
  • Less impressive but also present are the 00 Qan[T]'s GN Buster Rifle and the Raphael's GN Big Cannons. Not to be outdone, Harute can combine its GN Cannons and GN Sword Rifles' outputs to create this effect, and Zabanya's Attack Drones have a gimmick◊ that does the same thing.
  • The Veda particle laser is so powerful that it can shoot a beam straight through a Moon sized spaceship.
• Wave-Motion Tuning Fork: The beam rifles used by the new Brave mobile suits, the Gadelaza's Wave-Motion Gun, and the Zabanya’s Rifle Bits. The 00 Qan[T] can make one by attaching its Sword Bits to the GN Sword V, and the Harute can tune it's GN Sword Rifles and GN Cannons together.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The subplot from the series involving Feldt's feelings for Setsuna and whether or not they were requited is still left unresolved, much to the annoyance of some.
  (translation of animage from the movie guide)
  Question: Even if Feldt was that close to him, she did not get close to [knowing] his true feelings?
  Mizushima: That’s right. Feldt was told by Sumeragi, “Think of him”, but Setsuna says, “What is this uncomfortable feeling...?” It is a scene where a different matter can be thought of. It is certainly symbolic. Humans communicate using words, but there are things that are not transmitted. I wanted to show these kinds of communication difficulties in the movie. Vague but seems to imply at least that Feldt's feelings weren't rejected rather Setsuna's true feelings are an open-ended question mark.
  • At the very least, judging from their interaction after Setsuna woke up, there's the implication that they had at least talked things over. It says something that Setsuna directly addresses Feldt right before he sorties. The english dub very slightly adds in some subtext during this scene which adds to the above that may or may not have been intended from the beginning.
  • After the tragic losses he experienced on the first season, getting caught up in the conflict on the second season (and becoming a semi-Sixth Ranger at that time), and introducing the setting of the movie and having his own part in it, it's strange that Saji doesn't get a short screentime among the other characters when everyone was looking at the giant space flower.
  • One that actually happens between the end of the war with the ELS and the final scene of the film: Another war is sparked thanks to the prevalence of Innovators on earth, with Celestial Being again intervening and somehow managing to again widen their technological superiority against the warring sides (one of which have mass produced Gadelazas, mind you). While we do see an upgraded Raphael Gundam (Dominions, which uses an armor gimmick similar to Virtue, the armor itself being made out of bits), the pilot is unknown, and the original Meisters and support crew aren't even heard of or mentioned.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The movie begins with one for the second season, showing where all the major players are after two years. It also ends on this note, showing the world several decades into the future with Earth's first interstellar ship about to launch, but only touching upon the fates of a small majority of the characters.
• Where It All Began: The first part of the stinger shows an interview with Aeolia Schenberg explaining his motivations.
• Zerg Rush
  • The ELS’ tactic against the ESF and Celestial Being. They are also able to absorb any enemy units that so much as grazes them for their own purposes.
  • The Gadeleza packs enough GN Fangs to pull this off on its own.

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Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.