It's a Gundam thread!

It was inevitable -

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-07-05/sunrise-legendary-announce-live-action-gundam-film/.133849

Oh hey, I just found out about this.

Holy crap, a full-fledged live-action Gundam movie is happening! And from Legendary Pictures too!

I know details are scarce, but I'm up for anything so long as the Mobile Suits themselves look kickass (and also there's no whitewashing)!

Hopefully it turns out to be good.

Good effects are a given.... hopefully.

Now what we need is a good team, a good director, good writers, good actors, etc.

And to keep the Pacific Rim: Uprising team far, far, FAR away from this.

Edited by slimcoder on Jul 5th 2018 at 3:03:26 AM

From what I understand, a good chunk of the crew are actually Japanese. Although, I'm a little wary because of how other recent Live-Action Adaptations of anime have gone down.

It needs to be more like Edge of Tomorrow and less like...all the other ones.

Too my recollection the last Japanese live-action anime movies released in recent years were Gintama, Fullmetal Alchemist, Jojo part 4, Terraformars, & a Death Note spin-off sequel.

My knowledge is scarce but I believe the Gintama one is actually good, the Death Note spin-off is mediocre, while the Terraformars & Fullmetal movies were bad.

Don’t know about the Jojo movie, I think it was middling maybe.

I feel shallow as hell. All the ways they could screw up the story and it's the Mobile Suit designs I'm most worried about.

Yamato's adaptation was pretty good as far as sci-fi action movies go.

Edited by amitakartok on Jul 5th 2018 at 12:32:49 PM

No that makes sense; we’ve already had dumpster fire shit like Destiny, G-Saviour, G-Reco & AGE depending on who you ask. But even in those the mobile suits have been at least serviceable to outright good. Mobile Suit designs for this are going to be incredibly important, both for informing how combat in this is going to be and of course for gunpla purposes.

Edited by TheAirman on Jul 6th 2018 at 8:21:53 AM

So, a few predictions on that front...

I'm betting verniers might be de-emphesized even more than they were in the One Year's War era, unless this is set in space. I say this because I imagine them deciding having them fly or boost dash would interfere with the sense of scale.

Mobile Suits will likely all be Mo Cap Mecha, since I can not think of a single live action production featuring giant robots where this wasn't the case (even live-action intros from the PSX-era like Crazy Ivan and Omega Boost featured these). I get the practical reason; to show the actor actually doing more than pushing joysticks and throttles, though it feels a bit played out by this point.

Beam Sabers are probably out on account of Star Wars having a monopoly on live action laser blades.

On that note, I would not be surprised if combat were roughly closer to IBO on account of giant robots in film typically being more about melee combat than ranged.

Mecha design wise, I'm expecting the Gundam's head will only have the bare minimum of recognizable qualities, and even those might get downplayed. Mostly on account of Optimus Prime with his mask active already has a lot in common with the classic Gundam head, and I can totally imagine producers trying to avoid coming off as the ripoff.

Is this movie going to be set in the Universal Century like G-Saviour? Or is it going to be in a completely different universe?

We don't know yet, but my guess would be a very loose adaptation of the original TV series, since one set in the UC canon would risk Continuity Lockout with a casual film audience, and I don't see Hollywood being imaginative enough to create an AU whole cloth. So I'm guessing a work that uses familiar names from the first TV series but probably has as much in common as the '80s film pitch (albeit I imagine it'll be different in completely different ways).

I think this is that foreign drama that was part of the UC 100 plan? So I'd expect an original work in the UC, but probably relatively detached from any other major events

They mentioned a Western drama code named “UC 2” which probably was a cover up name that meant something else.

This is gonna be our Origin adaptation, just wait.

Edited by Beatman1 on Jul 5th 2018 at 9:39:44 AM

Ooh, cautiously optimistic. It will be neat to look at at the very least.

And if you want to add to the well of good Live Action Anime adaptations. Rurouni Kenshin Had a good trilogy. Even the director of The Raid Redemption liked them.

Maybe it'll be as good as The War For Earth :3

Inb 4 it’s a shot for shot remake of G Savior

...

Actually this could easily be Universal Century without Continuity Lockout, just stick it sufficiently late in the timeline and you don’t need to worry about the details of the first century of UC

Why does everyone think this is going to be a sequel? It’s Hollywood. I will be stunned if this is anything except the first of a planned trilogy adapting Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin.

Edited by Beatman1 on Jul 6th 2018 at 9:42:58 AM

Live-action anime has traditionally been a high-risk investment for a risk-averse industry. Expect a one-off, self-contained story with room for expansion, not the first in a planned series.

Yeah, I expect this to be a one-off self-contained story. Or may or may not be heavily influenced by MSG, but I'd be surprised if it was actually an MSG remake. MSG is just too long of a story for a single two-hour movie — even a bare-bones Cliffs Notes version (which would be a terrible movie) would likely be longer than that.

Shot for shot remake of Gundam Thunderbolt.

Would we get the same amount of FREE JAZZ though?

Ok, I'm back on Zeta Gundam.

Man, Scirocco is a good villain. He's so slimy. I feel like he's going to show up in my DM's at any moment asking for feet pics. Resigned to Bask and Jamitov largely doing just about nothing.

I like Gady. It's neat to see such a contrast between him and Jamaican especially because Gady actually seems to like Jerid. Real shame about Mouar though. An effective death but honestly Jerid is a lot less interesting now without someone to play off of. Love the Byarlant though. Happy when that gunpla comes out.

It was chilling to see Jerid come up with the gassing plan especially when the tropes page says he was just following orders. He came up with the order.

Reccoa is a mixed bag. I like the idea of someone like her who's just lost to combat and how she was basically a child soldier in the OYW, but the whole part about needing a strong man is really hilariously pathetic. Intentional maybe, but silly nonetheless. The whole bit about the differences between men and women is silly. And for Scirocco it works. I'd totally send him pictures of my feet. But it's like the bit about "gravity weighing our souls down" and the idea that Newtypes are the future. It's really corny.

That and the Reccoa/Char love thing is really mishandled. We only get like three scenes and it's the backbone.

Scirocco's backstory is so fascinating though. In MSG humanity barely succeeded the moon and now they've got what seems to be a society and enough resources to make a giant ass ship like that all the way out at Jupiter? I want to know the story behind that.

Dumb relationships aside, I like Char a lot. I like how he's made up with Amuro and Hayato and there's a respect there. I like how he's still a bad person but there's a sense that he's trying. I like that he hides his inability to give a shit about people so well like with Blex and how they "can't mourn now." But other times there's a genuineness to him like stopping Kamille from going down the whole path with dating an enemy pilot because that leads to heartbreak, something which Amuro agrees with.

Where exactly did Shinta and Qym come from? Char just seems to show up with them and never bothers to interact with them again. I saw some stuff about them being in Char's Deleted Affair, but did I miss something in show? Where'd the Dijeh come from? We gonna get an HG set of that Bandai?

And, I like Katz. He's obnoxious as all hell, but he's endearing. It's cool to see a minor character from last series pop up as important in this one. Like seeing Mineva again or even minor stuff like seeing Bask in Stardust. What I like about Katz is that the narrative doesn't justify him. He's an over-eager fuckup and he's not somehow "right", no he's an idiot. He's going to get himself or someone killed. I like how he develops into a more rule following person. I also like him in a Nemo. Good to see Grunts get some milage.

So there's some leaked footage from the 00 10th anniversary celebration. I'm not linking it in case it violates this site's anti-piracy policies, but it involves Setsuna appearing to Neil Dylandy in the afterlife, telling Neil that he is tired of this world and then apparently sacrifices his life to resurrect Neil.

Yeah, this sequel is probably going to be a trainwreck.