It's a Gundam thread!

I'm clearing out the 90s shows, which leaves Stardust Memory, F91, and Victory? But the latter two take place near the end of the timeline from what I'm reading? I'll probably do Stardust first, then the other two.

Yeah, Stardust is an MSG-Zeta interquel while the other two are distant sequels that are only really related to the rest of the Universal Century through mangas.

MS Team is basically "Gundam does Vietnam War", isn't it?

Edited by electricmastro on Jun 8th 2023 at 1:57:04 AM

Pretty much. It's the viewpoint of a group of Federation grunts in the Earthside theater of the One Year War.

Taking place somewhere in Southeast Asia, no less.

"If you have to use quantum technobabble that's poorly understood even in-universe to make the other side understand that killing people is bad, then "hey maybe try to talk things out instead of using violence" isn't the message being sent there. Plenty of humans would have talked things out if they could have. But they literally could not because the aliens didn't understand them, and in the meantime people are dying. I'm not going to give anyone shit for using violence as a last resort to defend themselves against an attacker that they can't escape from and won't leave them alone. But the 00 movie sure wants us to think that they're sadly unenlightened because violence is bad and communication is good."

I honestly agree with this. The 00 movie undermines its own point with the whole ELS thing. Humanity was willing to communicate with the aliens. It's just that these aliens were so fundamentally different from humanity that it was impossible, and for all intents and purposes, the ELS were killing people and were going to cause the extinction of mankind. The movie has to "cheat" by making the ELS undefeatable in battle so that it can enforce its own Aesop.

Both sides were willing to communicate, both sides also had fundamentally different ways of doing so, humanity had to adapt a way that was better for communication while the latters attempts at communication were likewise continuing to fail.

Which was also helped that how both sides got to that point was also different(Aeolia wanted to prepare humanity to communicate with fundamentally different lift to begin with, the ELS left their home world as it’s dying due to their Sun eventually going supernova). The ELS didn’t have centuries to prepare since what pushed them to travel across the galaxy was an environmental threat to their existence.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jun 9th 2023 at 1:10:44 AM

Except that they only managed to communicate because of golden boy Setsuna and his Mid-Season Upgrade, otherwise they would be boned. So... yeah, I'm sorry, but I still agree that the Trailblazer movie shoots its own aesop in the foot.

Using technology and abilities Aeolia spent centuries having prepared for just such a situation, including a Quantum Computer designed to push out noise when using such abilities.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jun 9th 2023 at 1:13:37 AM

Which was tailor-made to fit the intended Aesop, and was pretty much the only way for humanity to reach an understanding with the ELS.

Edited by JG98 on Jun 9th 2023 at 1:24:08 AM

On the aesop of Anno Domini, I figured by quoting Einstein's "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding", they just wanted to explain that you can't achieve peace by force if force was done for political reasons, reinforcing why Aeolia created Celestial Being.

This is just my opinion, though.

Edited by HallowHawk on Jun 9th 2023 at 1:44:53 AM

That does correlate with what Celestial Being were trying to force the three superpowers to do in Season 1, in that they should set aside their differences and work together to defeat a common foe.

The theme of "understanding" has kind of been misunderstood by more modern Gundam series. I recall that in Zeta Gundam, the idea of Newtypes being the easy way to peace was completely debunked: after all, the Big Bad of Zeta is Scirocco, a powerful Newtype who uses his understanding of people to better string them along. And then, of course, we have Haman...

No amount of "understanding" was going to avoid a fight with those ones.

But somewhere along the way, the intended message has been lost, and after what we got in 00 and Trailblazers, we ended up with Kio Asuno, one of the most agreed-upon Scrappies of the franchise...

Edited by JG98 on Jun 9th 2023 at 2:19:20 AM

That message only works if you acknowledge that there are in fact people you can never understand or understand perfectly that a peaceful option is impossible with them

Peace with the Nazis was never an option and we know exactly what the fuck was wrong with them

I'm reminded of that scene in Advent of the Red Comet where Revil after being discreetly let go by Degwin, gave a speech interrupting the peace treaty talks with Zeon to warn everyone that peace with Zeon is bullshit after everything it did, and how despite already having lost a really costly battle, Revil should still have a place in the war effort.

Like sure, war is bad, we can all agree on that, but this entire scene basically " war is bad but THIS war specifically must continue to be fought because Zeon is THAT bad so this chance at peace is bad actually. "

Edited by RedHunter543 on Jun 9th 2023 at 6:27:38 PM

And strangely enough, it was Gundam Wing that ultimately came close to the more nuanced view.

A lot of characters in it are always on about the philosophy of "Total Pacifism", but the whole show is a deconstruction of the concept. The Total Pacifists get their shit kicked in and accomplish nothing, and in the end, the "pacifistic" new world nation immediately starts up a military force just in case.

Because as bad as war is, it's sometimes necessary to prevent an even greater evil from taking place.

And yet Endless Waltz ends with the Gundam Team self-destructing their suits for real, even though the Mariemaia Army had just shown them why throwing their Gundams into the sun in the first place wasn't a good idea.

Not just then though, but any group who’s super gung-ho about war and destruction. I’m sure many would point to various groups that applies to today than just WWII groups even.

yeah, Endless Waltz (and Wing in general really) definitely has some headscratcher writing decisions.

Especially since he then went on to write Frozen Teardrop which has... more Gundams. After EW said that "weapons called Mobile Suits, including the Gundams, were never seen again".

@Slimcoder: 00 does have that with its human villains: Ribbons Almack, Ribbons pawn/sugar daddy from season 1, and Ali-Al Sachez the man who groomed Setsuna and countless other children as child soldiers which is how Setsuna ended up in Celestial Being.

In fact Ribbons saving Setsuna and kid Setsuna seeing Gundam as a God is what started Ribbons God complex.

It’s only the ELS, who are not human and don’t think the way humans do, that the story has a very different message on understanding as humans willingly chose to be violent or cruel to one another. The ELS on the other hand are a collective hivemind.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jun 9th 2023 at 1:30:19 AM

First two episodes of Stardust Memory. Maybe I missed something, but why are the Feddies putting nukes on Gundams? Especially during what's supposed to be peacetime. With how easily Gato stole a Gundam I'm wondering if he should be the protagonist given that's what UC protagonists usually do.

There were already plans for using the RX-78 Gundam back in the OYW as a nuclear delivery platform during Operation Star One, but the EFSF ultimately didn't go through with it. Probably to prevent nuclear retaliation by Zeon.

After the war, however, the issue is moot since the Antarctic Treaty was signed by the Federation and the Principality of Zeon, the latter of which ceased to exist and thus by definition can no longer be nuked by the former, rendering the treaty effectively null and void.

Do protagonists usually steal Gundams? Traditionally, they accidentally a Gundam. Stealing a Gundam isn't particularly impressive since 9 times out of 10 a civilian teenager can accidentally get one. I think Kamille is the only UC protag to properly steal a Gundam.

Not UC. Else we could count Wing where technically all five original Gundams were stolen, though I'd argue only Heavyarms counts in in spirit.

Edited by Larkmarn on Jun 13th 2023 at 12:07:08 PM

Well there was Kamille, who jacked a Titans Gundam just to get back at an MP that was rude to him.

And then there was Garrod. Who actually did steal a Gundam with nothing but wit.

And technically, Mikazuki and Yukinojo stole Barbatos from under CGS' nose.