Mobile Suit Gundam 00 the Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer (2011)

Long, long, long time Gundam fan here, . I have the honor of being born the same year (actually one week before) the first Gundam series premiered in Japan. I have been a huge fan since I was a wee tyke. I was very impressed with Gundam Seed and Gundam 00 (we won't mention Gundam Seed Destiny which was pretty much a nearly exact repeat of Seed, just with a few new faces). I actually hesitate to give this three stars, because I think that is too high of a rating. But being that it still holds true to the Gundam roots, I'll keep it at 3.

To give a little back story to the production; Seiji Mizushima, the regular director of Gundam 00 and Fullmetal Alchemist was brought in to write and direct this film. Sunrise gave him license to do what he thought best as long as he kept true to the anti-war message of the series and used the characters that were still around at the end of the series. Perhaps Sunrise forgot that Bones let him have free reign for a Fullmetal Alchemist film and we were given the awfulness that was Conqueror of Shamballa.

In this film, a ship from Jupiter is headed towards a crash landing on Earth. The new Earth Federation forces destroy it, but fragments crash to Earth and begin taking over machines, trying to kill anyone who has Quantum brain waves. Ala Maximum Overdrive (terrible 80s flick with killer machines led by Optimus Prime I mean a big, killer 18 wheeler). Then we see a zombie version of an early Innovator (who looks like Ribbons). Then we find out that the fragments actually contained alien life forms from Jupiter. They get pissed and amass a fleet to conquer Earth. First wave is stopped and so a second, meaner fleet comes from Jupiter towards Earth. Since they are seemingly brainless, all they do is kill. But wait, they're misunderstood and all we need is Setsuna to talk with them, then all will be well.

The problem is that this film never really becomes cohesive. One of the brilliant aspects of ANY and EVERY Gundam series is that it comes together nicely in the end. Everything ends up weaving together. The characters end up pivotal to the story. The viewer roots for them. In this film we never really get that feeling of 'everything coming together'. I'll elaborate in a second.

The second main issue, which stems from the first issue is the lack of a central villain. Gundam has ALWAYS featured insanely maniacal and really interesting villains. From Char to Rau Le Creuset (whose family was in the pots and pans business Le Creuset! but j/k). In this series I actually thought Shaman might end up as the 'villain' but alas... instead we have the Borg like metal lifeforms which seem to act as a hive mind and don't really communicate. At least not to the extent to where the viewer gets treated to insane monologues like Rau or Ribbons give as they try to eradicate all life. The lack of entertaining villains is a huge minus for me.

The other issue with the 'villain' from this film is that when your favorite supporting characters start dying, you think "well crap, they outlasted the Innovators and survived against insane villains such as Ali-Al-Saachez but they got owned by unexciting little metal cones". And what's even a greater transgression is when some of these characters show up then get killed right away. It really does lessen the impact of the death of a character you knew for several dozen episodes of the main season. In fact, we hear that over 70% of the fleet is taken out by the midway of the battle. And against little metal aliens. The most interesting part is when the aliens actually start forming Gundam shaped entities to better combat the Federation.

But most of the battles consist of hundreds of CG cones following a Gundam in a row, looking a lot like the line of seagulls from Finding Nemo chasing a fish. When there are multiple mobile suits on screen and hundreds of these aliens, the battles form a mish mash of lasers, streams of aliens, and explosions. I would have preferred the battles to run more like the amazing Zaft vs Earth Forces battles in SEED (like the one where Flay's dad gets it) or the battles between Celestial Being and the A-Laws in 00. Even the finale battle in 00 was watchable, despite the high number of objects.

I won't spoil what happens, but the ending is kind of disappointing, though if you roll through the credits you get the anti-war message. Which is actually printed on screen. Something like "Peace cannot be maintained through force, but only by understanding". I loved the message, I just wish that I had enjoyed getting there a bit more.

The mobile suit designs are hit and miss. Celestial Being's suits are rather lackluster. The idea of the 'rifle bits' for Lockon's new suit was good, but the weird floating wing was odd. Hallelujah's Gundam was interesting with the double cockpit, but it was a boxy version of Kyrios and Arios. Setsuna gets 00 for most of the series, and his new suit looks like a copy of Exia with a small backpack. It seems the more creative suits are being designed for Gundam AGE (though not character design apparently zing!).

The intro song is amazing. I would expect nothing less from UVERworld. Then ending song is... eh. It seems the singer rushes the song to cram in too many syllables. But there is a pretty good insert song near the end of the series. I did enjoy that.

Now it seems I am bashing the film, but I'm not completely. It is still an entertaining film, albeit it deviates from the 'style' of Gundam. It does remind me quite a bit of what the director did with the Fullmetal film, just going off on a weird tangent. Perhaps a plot with dissidents planning to overthrow the Federation government and acquiring a new Gundam (piloted by an evil and maniacal Innovator) would have been interesting. Hell, they could have cloned an evil Aeolia Schenberg and put him in a new Gundam and I would have been more impressed. It was just hard to watch my favorite characters battling a lackluster enemy.

I do also understand that the message was about gaining 'understanding' with beings completely different than humans. But by the end of the film I didn't care anymore. The 'villains' were so lackluster that as a viewer I just wanted them all dead. I didn't want understanding.

Oh, by the way, for the 'misunderstood life form' style anime, Eureka Seven pulls it off PERFECTLY.

All in all a decent Gundam flick with plenty of action but very little plot. As a sequel to Gundam 00 it fails on many levels. It seemed to drag down the high we all had when Celestial Being destroyed Ribbons and the false Innovators. Perhaps this director should stick to directing series and stay out of the feature length animated film segment. I feel that might be best. But if you liked Gundam 00, you might want to watch it. If you would hate to see a few good characters get killed in silly battles then you might not want to watch it.

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Update: I just read Ender's Game, and this movie seems to have borrowed liberally from that novel. Just sayin!

This movie wraps up the Gundam 00 anime. If you haven't seen the series, you'll be in the dark with some of the details and a handful of characters who don't get much more than their names mentioned, and some who don't get even that, but you'll get the basics explained to you near the beginning in some flashbacks, off hand comments, and a brief clip from a historical drama-type movie,"Celestial Being". If you have seen the series, you might get annoyed at the overly simplified explanation of events leading up to the movie, but you'll most likely see your favorite characters at least once and probably get a laugh from "Celestial Being".

Musically, it has one of the best scores I've heard in a movie in long time and the fight scenes are amazing, if a few are a tad short, with some of the best mech a design in the series. Unfortunately, if you are expecting anything in the way of bonus features, you will be sadly disappointed, as the disc contains the movie, at about 2 hours long, chapter select, audio options, and a few trailers.

If you watch and enjoyed the series, I fully recommend this movie as a great conclusion to it.

Buy Mobile Suit Gundam 00 the Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer (2011) Now

As of the writing of this review, the Gundam 00 movie is not yet released on bluray, so I will review the movie itself.

I managed to see a copy of the orignal film in english subtitles a few months after it was released in theatres in Japan. This film follows up directly after the 2nd season of the 00 TV series bringing back all the characters you know & love/hate from the TV series to follow a new threat.

This section is spoilers so if you don't want to read, then close this review.

While the first and second seasons of Gundam 00 focused on the efforts of the Gundam Meisters to end all conflict between nations on Earth and unify humanity for the 'dialogues to come' (I put this is quotes because it's referenced several times in the TV series) the film fast forwards a couple years in the future and addresses the true purpose behind these 'dialogues'.

Following the conclusion of the 00 TV series, humanity is starting to manifest it's next stage of evolution, namely the Innovators, of which Setsuna was one of the first. With the human population showing signs of next stage humanity, it attracts the attention of long dormant alien lifeforms of unknown origin and purpose, who seemingly attack humanity for no reason. Dubbed the 'ELS' the unifed Earth Federation forces ready themselves for an upcoming war with these mysterious alien life forms with whom communication seems impossible but the Gundam Meisters, now reunited with the Ptolemias crew seek to combat and find the truth behind the meaning of this new alien presence.

Yes so its a Gundam story that features aliens and long time or even recent fans of the Gundam franchise might get their otaku undies in a bunch because Gundam has always been about people vs people, not people vs space aliens. Still as non-traditional Gundam 00 has been, I thought this was a fine and original direction for the story to go and while the plot is not without it's faults I felt it to be a solid story with more development of existing characters that you know and love and interestingly, minimal introduction of brand new characters. Most interesting I found was the evolution of Graham Acker from loser villian, to masked obsessed rival, to finally a sempai character of sorts especially to Setsuna and it's touching where his character arch leads to.

Animation quality, it's simply gorgeous if lacking in details but that's always been the visual design aesthetic of 00 and consistent with the TV series, just done with a higher budget, so I'll give it a pass. In addition to the cel animation, this film uses extensive CG animation which melds pretty well with the cel

Soundtrack and music was solid befitting a theatrical release.

Introduction of new Gundam mobile suits are done, but frankly these designs just get weirder and more alien with each iteration, so mecha fans maybe a little dissapointed.

Still it's a good story that provides a solid and satisfying conclusion to the Gundam 00 Universe and has a more hopeful and optimistic tone than a lot of Gundam chapters of late. This is a very sci-fi Gundams series and the film captures this tone well.

I'm definitely buying this film once it's released on bluray

For a solid and comprehensive fan review of the Gundam 00 TV series and film, check out the anime mecha podcast Gundam! @ MAHQ with SBR & the Crew, you won't regret it.

Edit: I've now received an advance sale copy of the bluray disc from Bandai Ent at the Anime Expo convention and sat down and watched the disc:

Video: Excellent 1080p video transfer, as expected for such a new film.

Audio: Both Japanese (which I prefer) and English (for those who can't read subtitles) audio tracks and both languages have separate 5.1 ch Dolby True HD and Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks making for a total of 4 selectable audio tracks. Great dynamic range on my home theater system and voices for both languages same cast as the TV series.

BluRay extras: Special annoucement video, Extra Promo video, Theatrical and TV trailers (all japanese with english subs) and the mock trailer for the fake 'Celestial Being' movie shown in the movie (both english and japanese audio tracks).

Overall a great bluray release for a pretty good movie.

Read Best Reviews of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 the Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer (2011) Here

Lets get something out of the way right now this is a review of this product, not the film that is on the product. There are already other reviews of the film, That say great conclusion to Gundam 00, or Gundam and Aliens say it isn't so! What I am reviewing is a Blu-Ray release of Gundam 00 in the US, First off being that this release was the first G00 title for the states to be released in HD by Bandai entertainment I was very excited and extremely skeptical at the same time. I was very cautous because of past Bandai Blu-ray releases in the states where poorly excuted ( cough, Escaflownea, cough ). Thankfully Bandai has learned from there past releases and actually delivered a decent product. The video quality of this release will show high detail and clairty for which HD video was created for, meaning no pixelation or audio flubs. The disc has a fair amount of extras so when you are done with the movie you have extra content to watch. My only real complaint with this product is the cost, apairently Bandai of America Beleaves that it's American audence will gladly fork over the Japanese Blu-Ray price of $40-$50 for a single disc release. Even the current Amazon sale price of $27.99 is a bit much, this title should realy be selling for about $20.00( as Best Buy did during it's intial release, and they sold out of 2 truckfulls at every store). Now other then the over priced cost it is an exelent realease as for the film itself I will some of the other reviews dive into that. Personally I enjoyed the film that gave a conclusion to the series and if you watch the whole series with this film ending it you will see that the film was planned from the very beggening of the series. Bottom line if you can find a good deal on this film for $20.00 or less I would say buy otherwise it is a bit too pricy for time being.

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This is the best gundam movie ever u most buy in blue ray or dvd u most have it its wroth buying it