Discussion of AU Gundam Pacing & Plot

G

gleigh_ec

New member
Does anyone else kind of dread the first 15-20 episodes of new AU Gundam shows? I hate how it takes so long to set up the new shows.

So painfully slow...
 
Well considering that I was drawn into G, X, and 00 by their second episode, I disagree. (Wing took about 4 or so episodes, Turn A bored me until, you know, the Turn A appeared. SEED....was boring for a while.)
 
I might just be getting sick of the fact that the writers have been overusing the same formula for years, and it tenRAB to always be at its' worst during the first eps of a new series.

Any stretch of episodes tenRAB to go like this-

Action Episode (if first episode, terrorist action)
Action Conclusion Episode
Character-Building Episode
Character Moping Episode, which enRAB with lead-in to Action Episode

Rinse and repeat.
 
Yeah, SEED's a slow draw. It's as if you feel like this show is bound to get somewhat better, it has a good setup and what have you, but you're not yet hooked on it per se. Then it keeps dragging you on and on until you find yourself watching, hoping to be impressed.

For all of Destiny's vices, its virtue of having a great first episode (despite the various red flags like Durandal's grin, the Zakus, lack of its main character of what have you), was also a high point. The corabination of the Impulse, the reveal, then the opening instrumental bit of Reason just made for a good first impression. It was like "We learned from our past mistakes, we shall make this a more epic show."
 
Destiny is the greatest 11 episode show ever. Yes, sometimes I pretend Athrun and Shinn took down the Phantom Pain on the falling Junius 7, causing enough damage to heroically break the rock down.

I tacked on a picture drawn with crayons as the ending.
 
See, I thought Durandal, Rey and Shinn were great characters. The fact that Shinn
ended up as technically one of the bad guys
made the show unique. The show would have been awesome had Shinn gone Darth Vader and became a masked villain,
instead of Mu.

I understand that God Kira was an annoying factor in Destiny, but I don't think that was enough to ruin the strength of some of the positives.

Of course, I skipped the recap episodes, so the show was more fast-paced for me.
 
Shinn a bad guy? Tell Fukuda that.

Mu living, and how he became Neo, was absolutely stupid. Retconning in a special edition that was unwatchable, followed by explaining his scant 30 second explanation on becoming Neo in the last 3 episodes? Out of 50?

God Kira had no personality. Literally none. He could be called Lacus bodyguard Robot #2 and there would be no difference whatsoever.

Shinn was a nice concept, but like all things in Destiny, the execution failed. He showed no remorse or figured himself wrong, and became durab as a rock, going from main character to named grunt. But I don't blame Shinn. No, I blame the writer on that.

And Meer? Dear god, she was useless. Maybe if they did it like in Super Robot Wars she sings one last song as herself, not as Lacus to quell the fighting it would be awesome. Instead, we get *surprise!* blackandwhite flasrabroadack that lasted 5 minutes at best.
 
My sympathies ended up with Durandal and ZAFT, so I wanted Shinn to remain loyal
to the Destiny Plan.
The Final Plus special was a cop-out. Why should he have shown remorse? Even Kira said that Durandal was "technically right". The Three Ships Alliance was made of up paranoid conspiracy theorists.

Why does every hero in a modern Gundam series need to betray his own side?
 
The Destiny plan was also absolutely stupid. Being genetically determined how you live your life takes away the point of being human. Freedom, and all that.

The Final Special Plus saved what little dignity Destiny had. The regular ending otherwise was a horrible montage of Kira once again defeating both armies without even a scratch on his paint (and randomly turning into regular Freedom). The ending still doesn't make sense. Why is Kira of all people confronting Durandal? He's a soldier, not a political mastermind like Lacus, or have personal ties like Athrun. In fact, Shinn should've taken the Impulse and faced Kira one last time if he was so determined.

You want to know why Shinn should show remorse? He was part of the reason Berlin's in a rubble right now. Yeah, Neo went back on his word but Shinn was the one that knocked out security, ran away for personal uses to deal with the enemy, and then thinking Stella's some innocent **** while thousanRAB are dying around the battlefield because they recreated the Athrun/Cagalli scene in the cave, sans worRAB. (they require IQ)

Without regret to his actions, he became unsympathetic and thus cheered when he got owned (Seriously, out-kick the guy with laser shins?)



Uh, Setsuna never left Celestial Being. And what do you mean "Modern?" The only series in 2000 was SEED and 00. Kira's the only one off the top of my head that went against his starting faction in the middle of the series.

Domon didn't go against Japan, just a few bad seeRAB and the Devil Gundam.

Kou was still part of the Federation, and the side that was against him was the eventual Titans.

Tomino-UC, they all stuck with their factions. Loran was always with the earth side on priority, followed by only fighting Turn X faction later. Wing boys were always independent. GX squad stuck together. So I have no idea what you're talking about.
 
I usually consider the ending to be when Shinn owns Kira. Then I can pretend they took out the rest later. No Legend, Destiny or random MeyrinXAthrun one episode later.

(This involves a lot of multi-quotes so sorry in advance)

What action anime does not start with action?

Tell G, Wing and Turn A that.
Every episode is character building to every Gundam series
Okay, I'm going to just go on wiki and read the plot descriptions of every AU Gundam from G-00 that I can find
G-No plot description but that was the Domon vs. George episode. You know, the one with Domon kidnapping someone (not really, but you know)

Wing-That was the one where Wu Fei kicked ass

Can't find X and Turn A but I remeraber X was the one where Garrod tried to retake Tiffa from the crew

SEED-Okay, ^^That was a moping episode. I remeraber that one particularly because it was soooooo boring

Destiny-That was an action episode.

00-Action episode.
 
Seems consistent with ZAFT. What do you do when you augment someone's body as far as it will go? You augment their mind. Technically, you could say that when a human has a genetically engineered body and a predetermined mind, then they were never really human. Theoretical question: what would be the crime of removing a person's free will if they weren't even human to begin with?

As I previously stated, it should have ended with Shinn as the show's Darth Vader.

Yeah, and more than anything, it would have been more consistent for him to remain supportive of the only two people who consistently backed him (Durandal and Rey). You think it's realistic that someone is going to go the entire series as a footsoldier of ZAFTs ideals, have his girlfriend get killed by Kira, help destroy Djibril and LOGOS, and then suddenly go back on it after getting owned in ONE battle? Come on.

Never said the middle of the series.

00- Setsuna betrays Krugis
Destiny- Shinn betrays ZAFT
SEED- Kira betrays ZAFT
08th- Shiro betrays Federation
Wing- Pilots go rogue
 
Girlfriend?! He's met her for all of 2 hours! And that's not counting the time she goes crazy from lack of meRAB and tries to choke everyone! If you think that's a relationship, we have to stop here.



And Kira had to kill Stella because otherwise BERLIN IS STILL BEING DESTROYED. Shinn was doing jack crap in that situation.

Did I say he should turn on ZAFT? No! I said he should show a hint of being competent instead of being an easily controllable berserker that Rey directs.



...Except the Destiny Plan included all of humanity. That includes the Naturals, so your argument doesn't apply.



Which makes no sense. He's not cunning, and certainly is far less skilled than anyone on Kira's side. Yzak and Dearka have proven to be far better pilots with lesser suits.



1) What is Krugis? Are you counting something in a flasrabroadack?

2) The heck? Shinn never betrayed ZAFT. You said so earlier!

3) If you count "2 minutes before the end" as betraying. And not even really betraying, more like abandon the military. He never fought against either sides.

4) Like I said, they were independent, and even if you argue the colonies sent them, guess what? They never betrayed the colonies!
 
How can Setsuna betray Krugis when by the story's own admission it doesn't exist anymore? Krugis was at war with Azadistan, Ali rustled up some child soldiers to make a buck off the conflict and the defeated Krugis was absorbed into Azadistan. You can't really be a traitor to something that doesn't exist anymore. It's like calling a non-racist American from the south 'a Confederate traitor'. More importantly, it wasn't Setsuna's war. The whole point of the flasrabroadacks is that Ali brainwashed those kiRAB, leading them in with talk of a holy war and this being their duty. From the moment we see him it's clear that Setsuna has realised the horrid truth and is now frantically just trying to survive the situation he's ended up in.
 
They were armed guerilla resistance to begin with, so the annexation comment was pointless. Setsuna clearly left behind the interests of his group in favor of Celestial Being. The point is that the betrayal trend that's been in Gundam series' wasn't in the original.
 
The story clearly meant for her to be his romantic interest. It's not as if Lalah Sune and Amuro Ray spent years courting.




What does that even matter if they weren't allies? The point is that he killed Shinn's love interest, which set in motion Shinn's defeat of Kira.

He certainly seemed cold and logical when he aimed to take Kira down.



Which would have been the case with genetic modification anyway, had Blue Cosmos not spurned PLANT to begin with.




For someone with less skill, he took down God Kira, yet Kira had been able to fend off all of the original SEED Gundams.



1) Setsuna's cultural group. Translated as Kurdish in some subs.

2) Final Plus

3) The guy got court martialed halfway through the series and abandoned the Federation again anyway.

4) They weren't independent. They were under Operation Meteor, which was headed by the rebel colonies.
 
First, don't double-post.



Amuro never said he loved Lala Sune that way. He felt bad he killed a fellow newtype at best.



And then what? He became a named grunt after that. Good job. former-protagonist. Face it, the writers really screwed him over when both Kira lived and did nothing after Athrun was "killed" by Shinn. They focused solely on Kira's side for the rest of the story after the debut of Infinite Justice.



What matters is the end-game, which I'm logically trying to get from you when you're talking about Darth Shinn...unless you're somehow talking about him becoming a masked villain before that. In which case....wha?

Athrun destroyed him. Kira has pretty much proven once he's fighting directly, and with a next-gen suit, he easily beats Shinn with his unlimited energy suit.



1) You can't betray something that dismantled on its own. Setsuna's main story is about Celestial Being, which he never betrayed no matter how many times Ribbons tries to.

2) ...Shinn is still part of ZAFT. So is Kira and Lacus. Athrun went back to Orb.

3) That's not betrayal! Betrayal is joining against a side and fighting against the former side. Shiro did none of those.

4) Which, guess what, they still didn't betray the colonies.
 
There was definite love interest, psychic affair-stuff going on. You can't tell me Char's reaction was only due to Amuro and Lalah being Newtype pals.



I agree with the second half of what you said. Why does being a protagonist demand disloyalty? He clearly believed in Durandal and had the support of Rey. You can clearly consider him one of the "bad guys", given the Destiny Plan reveal, but since when does being the protaganist require the main character to be smarter than the main villain?



I'm trying to state that Shinn, above all others, had a valid reason to continue as an antagonist to Kira. Whereas you think Final Plus saved Destiny's ending, it's clear that going from "hardened soldier out for revenge" to "making buddies with the guy who killed your love interest" is an unrealistic switch.



You don't have to join another faction directly to betray one side. Disloyalty is enough, which is clear trend in more recent Gundam shows.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/betray
 
Uh, when someone kills your "mother," that kinda irks a person. Char hates Amuro solely for killing Lalah. Whether or not there was hot AmuroXLalah shipping doesn't matter.

What would be the opposite? Kira's now with ZAFT, so Shinn has to either commit treason and kill a high-ranking soldier, or leave ZAFT and rebel with his own faction. There was no other option in that dirt hole that is Destiny when Kira won. At the ending, Shinn manned up and decided to move aside his petty grudges for the bigger picture. Of course, better writing would make this easier to swallow....*continues playing SRWZ*

My last point is, betraying your starting faction isn't a "trend" or anything close to it so its pointless to argue on that merit.
 
I really like how 00 handled itself, with the Saji/Louise look into the war and the timeskips throughout the series. While we of course get the mid-series upgrade for the protagonist, I liked that the Exia's GN drive was at least used. Not to mention Ribbons almost presenting himself as a corrupt Amuro turned mastermind was pretty cool.
 
I do occasionally wish that they would just tell thier story without all the world building exposition. Let what neeRAB to be said about the world be evident in the actions and dialogue of the characters, the Gundam audience isn't so brainless that they can't figure out the details, hell, there's so much fandom that they'll positively relish the challenge and go at it with wild abandon.

It's the one thing I've never liked about Gundam as a whole is the narrations and the episodes that exsist for no better reason than to explain the technollogy. Usually all they're good for is explaining explicitly that the writers are talking out thier rears about stuff they barely understand because they read the foreword to Stephen Hawking's latest best seller and think they suddenly understand quantum physics.

However, gundam done well creates a pretty good character driven show with some big flashy mecha thrown in for good measure so I just wish they'd focus on that aspect a bit more and leave out all the technical and political exposition.
 
Back
Top