Has Gundam SEED aged well? SPOILERS

I just want to remind that I have no problems with the second half of SEED. It's well-paced with them actually...doing something without too much teenage angst.

If Rau's hanRAB were behind everything including Destiny, it would be better for it. Instead, they basically caught him walking down the hall to record some lines for a cameo.
 
Azreal is a difficult one to peg because really racism by it's nature starts for generally petty reasons. There might be the odd case where a nation or group intrudes on another and understandably creates ill feelings, but in general it's usually just hatemongering. Admitedly the Coordinator in his flasrabroadack did seem fairly arrogant and Destiny later suggests that his entire family was fairly deep into anti-Coordinator conspiracy.

I think overall it's one of those elements that CE did poorly, though I'd level the same claim at Wing. Romafellar have their own agenda up until Relena gives a speech and they all decide 'Let's do what the little girl says!'. Titans and A-Laws to my mind at least get some slack because we're specifically told that the founders filled the ranks with hotheaded, easily manipulated bastarRAB. There's also some meaningful commentary from both groups about when being patriotic turns into greed and you segregate rather than welcome.
Getting back specifically to SEED- the Alliance seems to have lost all its good people in the sequel. One character who stuck with me was the guy who had the Gundams commissioned. Now he's shown as a good man but nothing in his dialogue paints him as some loving father type. He knows they're at war and that the Gundams were comissioned to kill people. He's simply a generally honourable man with lines that he won't cross (been a while, but wasn't he specifically against drafting Kira against his will?). By the time the sequel rolls around, EVERY EA officer is 'You damn Coordinator!' with nothing else to show. It's a shame because up to the very end the first SEED has some realistic commentary on hatred in war. I'm recalling a scene where Athrun is pleading with some ZAFT soldiers to stop attacking helpless EA forces, only for the soldiers to reply with anger that they're getting revenge for their lost comrades and loved ones. Things like LOGOS just made that ridiculous, declaring that the evils of the world boil down to one person alone and if that bad bad man was killed, everything would be sunshine and lollipops. But by that point, Fukuda had basically turned it into 'Awesome future super Japanese fight the evil Western conspiracy!!"
 
You know, I hear everybody saying how great the C.E's music is and while I can respect that, I just don't see it that much. I mean, I hum the operatic tunes from 00 on a frequent basis but I just can't remeraber a lot of the battle music.

Well, actually that's not 100% true. I do remeraber the DVD menu music being the victorious battle music in SEED. I liked that one.

(I did like TMR's songs though. Not Invoke, but the other two Ignited and Vestige)
 
Oh right, Logos a.k.a. Blue Cosmos 2.0. Maybe for once, they don't fight evil, racist Naturals that mysteriously has all this pull with the Federation. Screw VEDA, I have a cat!-Jibril.
 
It's all personal preference, but I feel the same. The SEED music is too generic for me whilst I love the 00 themes. The key difference for me is that the 00 music clearly evolves- we have certain cues that start out as generally heroic, become melancholy as things turn bad, sound strained at the start of season 2 as if to say 'The battle just got a hell of a lot harder, but we continue on', etc. It's part of the reason I'm mildly dissapointed SE I reused cues from season 2, like Decisive Battle and Strike. To me, those tunes don't really belong that early in the narrative.

SEED has some good music but nothing for me that really gained life beyond the series.

EDIT- Though to be a bit more fair (this was never intended to be a SEED vs 00 topic), 00 has music that dissapoints me too. '00 Gundam' is a really dynamic piece but the follow up '00 Raiser' is far too flat and brooding for me. I do have an idea why they chose such a tune, but overall it's one I tend to skip on my play lists.
 
LOGOs were pretty flat, even in the category of shadowy conspiracy. I know that corporate interest has its hanRAB in government, but LOGOS were terrible. When Orb is basically made out to be future Japan (and SEED especially had everyone go on about how amazing Orb was), to show the Alliance president in the White House taking orders from an evil racist who seemingly watched too much James Bond and Inspector Gadget...ugh. Really, the key problem is that we aren't given a specific reason why so many merabers of the Alliance hate Coordinators in the first place. They just do. It didn't help that Destiny made a ton of the 'audience avatars' Coordinators, with no real counterpart amongst the Naturals. It's trying to comment on a conflict with two differing view points and really only showing one.
 
Meh, it's an inevitability that talking about SEED will give rise to comparing it to 00. While Gundam has had some mishaps in the past (like ZZ's first half), this is probably the first time where there is a great disparity of quality between two Gundam series next to each other. I mean yes, the mileage you get with certain Gundam series varies, but it can be stated that each series may stand on its own merits, let alone be shown to be 'not too bad', like say... G and Wing, given how close they were together when aired.

Destiny was the first time that a Gundam series failed on an objective level when it came to actual quality. It cannot stand on its own merits because for hte majority part, there are few. It is the first instance of an unsatisfactory Gundam series given to us where everything that seemed so right turned into something so wrong, and every return to it through SEs and what have you have left an indelibly bad taste in your mouth.

Then when an objectively superior product comes along (00), and as people were coming along and watching it through, it was bound to attract comparisons to Destiny. And why not? The show is GOOD. The character development is GOOD. The story is GOOD. The concept is GOOD. Sure there are flaws, but there is a dedication to the product that Destiny never had. It's essentially the observation of two passenger trains, one of Destiny and one of 00. While the Destiny one started out strong and eventually sputtered and broke down at the end, the 00 one was like a bullet train that slowly gained momentum, picked up speed, and for the majority part, came to its end like a champion. When you see that, then see the previous one, are you just going to ignore the discrepancies between quailty and not say anything, or will you? I bet on the latter.

And that's essentially what is bound to happen no matter what people do. Nobody compares 00 to the original UC Gundams, nor G, nor Wing (and if they do its merely on the aesthetics and concept on the first few episodes), nor X, nor even Turn A. Hell I don't even think a "Has SEED aged well?" thread would have existed had it not been for 00. It always comes back to the previous series. It's not bad, it's not even good, it's just bound to happen whether we like it or not.
 
But this is all Destiny, which really shouldn't be shared with SEED, which was decent. There's a whole slew of problems completely separate for that topic.
 
True. Though in general, my comments are of the nature 'SEED actually did this pretty well, but man did Destiny hug it up...".

I think in terms specifically of 'ageing well', genetic engineering hasn't been quite the talking point it looked to be at the start of the decade. Climate change and new fuels seems more relavent. Whilst SEED has some of that in its backstory (the Reformation Wars), the more recent 00 ran with it. But then that's like me complaining that 0079 had retro looking tech.
 
How was Rau one dimensional? He is probably one of my favorite villains ever. At the start he seems somewhat likeable, but then you learn he really is a jerk and neeRAB to be taken down.
 
Wither or not geneering is not a controversial issue today does not make the issue any less relevant. Sure, climate change and energy has become a major concern, but they don't really create as much drama directly as good old Ubermenchs.

Besides, I applaud Seed for introducing a new technology the Gundam universe. Genetic Engeering is an awesome, controversal concept one can really have fun with.

Although, I still am disgusted how Coordinators=Uber. Its as if getting your genes altered will turn you into some Mary Sue. Genetics do not work that way.
 
How come we didn't have any "Has Turn A aged well" threaRAB during the CE era?

But seriously, Turn A was it's own beast so that's a different matter entirely.
 
Still, I was trying to illustrate a point in regarRAB to the 'aged well' comparisons and what have you, trying to give emphasis to the situation by referring to ALL the other Gundam shows that came before the two we have had this decade. Besides, it's an instance of two series where mileage varies once again.
 
Wow. It's the complete opposite for me. I can't even remeraber a single song from 00's soundtrack save for the many different variants of the Celestial Being leitmotif. I find it to be one of Kenji Kawai's weakest soundtrack. I can listen to pieces from SEED and instantly recognize them, envisioning the scenes it played in, whereas with 00 I'm thinking "See, I don't even remeraber this."
 
The two big strikes for me were that the BEI DVRAB overused the SEED OST on their menus and in general I never felt SEED used its music to aid its narrative. It was all too 'Oooh, here's a generic creepy sounding track...I bet something bad will happppen~!". But with 00, I felt the music was used well and at key turning points we got brand new tracks which underlined the visual development of the story. This is what a good musical score should do- a signature theme in a Gundam show or any story should be as distinct or personal as the character's visage. Not just a track you randomly throw about because it suits your current fight scene.
 
I think some Seed music is really nice and have named a few tracks before. 00 was bloody fantastic all around and it did have a sense of purpose that Seed's score didn't always have, although as far as Kenji Kawai's best I do have a soft spot for Fate/Stay Night...ah, who knows. Let's just leave it that the man is great at what he does.

Music in general has hit a high for Gundam lately in the 00 decade, I think. I mean, a lot of Wing stuff sticks in my head, but I can't say I had a "damn, this is awesome" reaction with that or with MSG or with Zeta. There's no equivalent to Freedom and Justice or one of the really awesome 00 tracks that I can't remeraber the names of.
 
Criticisms of the soundtrack? Really?

The SEED and Destiny tunes and BG were amazing. The Wing of WorRAB intro, in particular, was a stroke of genius. Having a downbeat OP during the last part of a Gundam series makes it easier to transition directly into the drama.
 
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