Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space is the best of the _Gundam 0079 _compilation trilogy by a considerable margin. Of the three compilations, this one has the most new animation, making it feel closer to a do-over of the last stretch of episodes. The visual upgrades are felt in the battle scenes, which look stunning and are a major step-up from the TV version. In the previous movies, the battles were largely edited down from the TV version and subsequently felt slightly off in their flow. With the battles almost entirely redone from the ground up in this one, they feel even more dynamic and spectacular than the TV battles. Even the sword battle between Amuro and Char outside their mechs gets a big upgrade in this movie. The space scenes in general feel more grandiose as a result of the boosted animation, giving the film the sense of being a grand finale to an epic.
This film's narrative also suffers the least from the compression, due to a combination of having a longer runtime than the other two (giving extra room to breathe) and keeping the focus centered on the dynamics between Amuro, Char, Lalah, and Sayla. While the other compilations had at least one major cut I was disappointed in, this one had very few noticeable omissions. (M'Quve's final battle is cut, but he already had a heavily reduced role in the compilations anyway, so it's hardly felt.) Moreover, the film enriches the Amuro/Char/Lalah love triangle by adding extra scenes exploring Amuro's psychic bond with Lalah and Char's personal romance with Lalah (most notably, a scene where Char is unmasked around her, showing how deep their bond is before her death). Speaking of Char, he also has his characterization fleshed out, placing a greater emphasis on his emerging ideas on Newtypes in a way that sets the stage for how he acts in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and especially Char's Counterattack*.
Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space is a solid film, and the compilation film that most justifies its existence of the trilogy. The new animation is stunning, the bulk of the narrative changes are for the better, and the score is as great as the previous two films. It's not quite the gold standard for compilation films or cinematic retellings of mecha anime (Macross: Do You Remember Love? firmly holds that title), but it's damn close.
Notes:
*Btw watching both the TV version of 0079 and the compilation movies only further convinces me that Char's actions in Char's Counterattack are perfectly in-line with his established characterization contrary to what others say, but that's a topic for my review of that film.
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