Back when this film came out, I was in pre-production on my own Gundam-inspired film (check out Angels of Asgard on YouTube or Amazon Prime) and chose to avoid it at the time, but with the release of the second film in this trilogy this weekend, I figured it was time to catch up on some Universal Century Gundam... and I'm glad I did!

I loved the vibes through and through. The political thriller espionage stuff is super well directed, the dialogue and machinations of the war feel very rich in detail and all the locations were so beautifully rendered, I loved seeing the characters in and about Hong Kong and the Philippines and on planes and whatnot. It was also interesting to see a Gundam film so modern in its influences (like Mamoru Oshii films, GAINAX, Contemporary Bond etc..) while being rooted in the very storyline/story that influenced many of those franchises itself. One homage I found particularly effective was how the Penelope Gundam was designed to appear a lot like the apocalyptic weapon Zetton from Ultraman, as well as evoke it's sound whenever it's flying about, making the key Mobile Suit of the formerly heroic Federation feel more like a harbinger of devastation. My biggest hold up is how, even though this film was sent to Netflix due to pandemic complications, the incredibly low contrast dark aesthetic of most of the action in this is totally lost to streaming compression and makes most of the night scenes difficult to parse. Otherwise, I am very excited to check out the sequel to this at some point soon, hopefully in theatres but I fear I may not find a window of time to make it with my work schedule. We shall see!

Back when this film came out, I was in pre-production on my own Gundam-inspired film (check out Angels of Asgard on YouTube or Amazon Prime) and chose to avoid it at the time, but with the release of the second film in this trilogy this weekend, I figured it was time to catch up on some Universal Century Gundam... and I'm glad I did!

I loved the vibes through and through. The political thriller espionage stuff is super well directed, the dialogue and machinations of the war feel very rich in detail and all the locations were so beautifully rendered, I loved seeing the characters in and about Hong Kong and the Philippines and on planes and whatnot. It was also interesting to see a Gundam film so modern in its influences (like Mamoru Oshii films, GAINAX, Contemporary Bond etc..) while being rooted in the very storyline/story that influenced many of those franchises itself. One homage I found particularly effective was how the Penelope Gundam was designed to appear a lot like the apocalyptic weapon Zetton from Ultraman, as well as evoke it's sound whenever it's flying about, making the key Mobile Suit of the formerly heroic Federation feel more like a harbinger of devastation. My biggest hold up is how, even though this film was sent to Netflix due to pandemic complications, the incredibly low contrast dark aesthetic of most of the action in this is totally lost to streaming compression and makes most of the night scenes difficult to parse. Otherwise, I am very excited to check out the sequel to this at some point soon, hopefully in theatres but I fear I may not find a window of time to make it with my work schedule. We shall see!

Back when this film came out, I was in pre-production on my own Gundam-inspired film (check out Angels of Asgard on YouTube or Amazon Prime) and chose to avoid it at the time, but with the release of the second film in this trilogy this weekend, I figured it was time to catch up on some Universal Century Gundam... and I'm glad I did!

I loved the vibes through and through. The political thriller espionage stuff is super well directed, the dialogue and machinations of the war feel very rich in detail and all the locations were so beautifully rendered, I loved seeing the characters in and about Hong Kong and the Philippines and on planes and whatnot. It was also interesting to see a Gundam film so modern in its influences (like Mamoru Oshii films, GAINAX, Contemporary Bond etc..) while being rooted in the very storyline/story that influenced many of those franchises itself. One homage I found particularly effective was how the Penelope Gundam was designed to appear a lot like the apocalyptic weapon Zetton from Ultraman, as well as evoke it's sound whenever it's flying about, making the key Mobile Suit of the formerly heroic Federation feel more like a harbinger of devastation. My biggest hold up is how, even though this film was sent to Netflix due to pandemic complications, the incredibly low contrast dark aesthetic of most of the action in this is totally lost to streaming compression and makes most of the night scenes difficult to parse. Otherwise, I am very excited to check out the sequel to this at some point soon, hopefully in theatres but I fear I may not find a window of time to make it with my work schedule. We shall see!

Back when this film came out, I was in pre-production on my own Gundam-inspired film (check out Angels of Asgard on YouTube or Amazon Prime) and chose to avoid it at the time, but with the release of the second film in this trilogy this weekend, I figured it was time to catch up on some Universal Century Gundam... and I'm glad I did!

I loved the vibes through and through. The political thriller espionage stuff is super well directed, the dialogue and machinations of the war feel very rich in detail and all the locations were so beautifully rendered, I loved seeing the characters in and about Hong Kong and the Philippines and on planes and whatnot. It was also interesting to see a Gundam film so modern in its influences (like Mamoru Oshii films, GAINAX, Contemporary Bond etc..) while being rooted in the very storyline/story that influenced many of those franchises itself. One homage I found particularly effective was how the Penelope Gundam was designed to appear a lot like the apocalyptic weapon Zetton from Ultraman, as well as evoke it's sound whenever it's flying about, making the key Mobile Suit of the formerly heroic Federation feel more like a harbinger of devastation. My biggest hold up is how, even though this film was sent to Netflix due to pandemic complications, the incredibly low contrast dark aesthetic of most of the action in this is totally lost to streaming compression and makes most of the night scenes difficult to parse. Otherwise, I am very excited to check out the sequel to this at some point soon, hopefully in theatres but I fear I may not find a window of time to make it with my work schedule. We shall see!

Back when this film came out, I was in pre-production on my own Gundam-inspired film (check out Angels of Asgard on YouTube or Amazon Prime) and chose to avoid it at the time, but with the release of the second film in this trilogy this weekend, I figured it was time to catch up on some Universal Century Gundam... and I'm glad I did!

I loved the vibes through and through. The political thriller espionage stuff is super well directed, the dialogue and machinations of the war feel very rich in detail and all the locations were so beautifully rendered, I loved seeing the characters in and about Hong Kong and the Philippines and on planes and whatnot. It was also interesting to see a Gundam film so modern in its influences (like Mamoru Oshii films, GAINAX, Contemporary Bond etc..) while being rooted in the very storyline/story that influenced many of those franchises itself. One homage I found particularly effective was how the Penelope Gundam was designed to appear a lot like the apocalyptic weapon Zetton from Ultraman, as well as evoke it's sound whenever it's flying about, making the key Mobile Suit of the formerly heroic Federation feel more like a harbinger of devastation. My biggest hold up is how, even though this film was sent to Netflix due to pandemic complications, the incredibly low contrast dark aesthetic of most of the action in this is totally lost to streaming compression and makes most of the night scenes difficult to parse. Otherwise, I am very excited to check out the sequel to this at some point soon, hopefully in theatres but I fear I may not find a window of time to make it with my work schedule. We shall see!

Back when this film came out, I was in pre-production on my own Gundam-inspired film (check out Angels of Asgard on YouTube or Amazon Prime) and chose to avoid it at the time, but with the release of the second film in this trilogy this weekend, I figured it was time to catch up on some Universal Century Gundam... and I'm glad I did!

I loved the vibes through and through. The political thriller espionage stuff is super well directed, the dialogue and machinations of the war feel very rich in detail and all the locations were so beautifully rendered, I loved seeing the characters in and about Hong Kong and the Philippines and on planes and whatnot. It was also interesting to see a Gundam film so modern in its influences (like Mamoru Oshii films, GAINAX, Contemporary Bond etc..) while being rooted in the very storyline/story that influenced many of those franchises itself. One homage I found particularly effective was how the Penelope Gundam was designed to appear a lot like the apocalyptic weapon Zetton from Ultraman, as well as evoke it's sound whenever it's flying about, making the key Mobile Suit of the formerly heroic Federation feel more like a harbinger of devastation. My biggest hold up is how, even though this film was sent to Netflix due to pandemic complications, the incredibly low contrast dark aesthetic of most of the action in this is totally lost to streaming compression and makes most of the night scenes difficult to parse. Otherwise, I am very excited to check out the sequel to this at some point soon, hopefully in theatres but I fear I may not find a window of time to make it with my work schedule. We shall see!

Back when this film came out, I was in pre-production on my own Gundam-inspired film (check out Angels of Asgard on YouTube or Amazon Prime) and chose to avoid it at the time, but with the release of the second film in this trilogy this weekend, I figured it was time to catch up on some Universal Century Gundam... and I'm glad I did!

I loved the vibes through and through. The political thriller espionage stuff is super well directed, the dialogue and machinations of the war feel very rich in detail and all the locations were so beautifully rendered, I loved seeing the characters in and about Hong Kong and the Philippines and on planes and whatnot. It was also interesting to see a Gundam film so modern in its influences (like Mamoru Oshii films, GAINAX, Contemporary Bond etc..) while being rooted in the very storyline/story that influenced many of those franchises itself. One homage I found particularly effective was how the Penelope Gundam was designed to appear a lot like the apocalyptic weapon Zetton from Ultraman, as well as evoke it's sound whenever it's flying about, making the key Mobile Suit of the formerly heroic Federation feel more like a harbinger of devastation. My biggest hold up is how, even though this film was sent to Netflix due to pandemic complications, the incredibly low contrast dark aesthetic of most of the action in this is totally lost to streaming compression and makes most of the night scenes difficult to parse. Otherwise, I am very excited to check out the sequel to this at some point soon, hopefully in theatres but I fear I may not find a window of time to make it with my work schedule. We shall see!

Back when this film came out, I was in pre-production on my own Gundam-inspired film (check out Angels of Asgard on YouTube or Amazon Prime) and chose to avoid it at the time, but with the release of the second film in this trilogy this weekend, I figured it was time to catch up on some Universal Century Gundam... and I'm glad I did!

I loved the vibes through and through. The political thriller espionage stuff is super well directed, the dialogue and machinations of the war feel very rich in detail and all the locations were so beautifully rendered, I loved seeing the characters in and about Hong Kong and the Philippines and on planes and whatnot. It was also interesting to see a Gundam film so modern in its influences (like Mamoru Oshii films, GAINAX, Contemporary Bond etc..) while being rooted in the very storyline/story that influenced many of those franchises itself. One homage I found particularly effective was how the Penelope Gundam was designed to appear a lot like the apocalyptic weapon Zetton from Ultraman, as well as evoke it's sound whenever it's flying about, making the key Mobile Suit of the formerly heroic Federation feel more like a harbinger of devastation. My biggest hold up is how, even though this film was sent to Netflix due to pandemic complications, the incredibly low contrast dark aesthetic of most of the action in this is totally lost to streaming compression and makes most of the night scenes difficult to parse. Otherwise, I am very excited to check out the sequel to this at some point soon, hopefully in theatres but I fear I may not find a window of time to make it with my work schedule. We shall see!

Luckily, I didn’t need a ton of prior context but the dialogue was a little confusing to follow (that might just be me though). I enjoyed the extreme focus on the political side of the plot (you could probably count the minutes where there’s an actual gundam with your hands) and getting an outside perspective to what it would be like to have gundams fighting above you. However, this feels very much like a introductory movie to this specific story, so a lot of characters suddenly feel irrelevant or suddenly introduced, and the plot structure is a little strange. Excited to see where this goes in the sequel on Friday.

Luckily, I didn’t need a ton of prior context but the dialogue was a little confusing to follow (that might just be me though). I enjoyed the extreme focus on the political side of the plot (you could probably count the minutes where there’s an actual gundam with your hands) and getting an outside perspective to what it would be like to have gundams fighting above you. However, this feels very much like a introductory movie to this specific story, so a lot of characters suddenly feel irrelevant or suddenly introduced, and the plot structure is a little strange. Excited to see where this goes in the sequel on Friday.