I've been a Gundam fan for a long time now, it has been a part of my life since some years, I would (and still do) spend hours and hours thinking about the franchise, the shows I liked, the ones I disliked, how much I adored and agreed with certain characters, etc.
I love Seed, it was my second AU, and it's still one of my favorites even today. When Freedom was announced, I was crazy hyped, it was something amazing to wait for, the grand finale, the end of a rich and well-written story, filled with great characters, amazing action, relatable and well-written politics/philosophy, etc. When it released, I ended up not watching it, not because I wasn't interested in it anymore, it was because I got lazy and shelved it, like I did with the whole franchise. I decided to leave Gundam for a while, to seek new franchises and try to expand my knowledge on mecha and anime beyond Gundam. And well, Solomon, I have returned, and it's time to talk about Seed Freedom, the movie I was waiting for for quite a while.
We start the movie in action, it already showcases the level and quality the animation will be. The CGI MS look wonderful, the ships, the effects, everything is amazing. You can see the budget, the love and care, everything poured in to make a spectacle, and boy, it sure lives up to be one. Visually speaking, Freedom has one of the best productions in the franchise. It takes all the elements from the previous entries and enhances the quality by 10 times. I've already mentioned the CGI, but not the sound design and mecha design, both of which are spectacular. We have new suits, some done by new Mecha Designers, some by old ones, still, they all end up blending well and working perfectly in the narrative.
However, on that same note, I feel like the characters leave a lot to be desired visually. It isn't ugly—Seed won't EVER be ugly—Hisashi Hirai is amazing and talented, but... I don't know, the changes, or maybe the modern look, the weird lipsticks... I feel like they don't look as pleasant as the HD remasters did. Though, it's probably just because I was too attached to them, because around the late half of the film, I was barely thinking about that anymore.
Now, the real part... The story.
First things first, Seed Freedom IS NOT CCA, for better or for worse. It doesn't even try or want to be, so if you go in wanting that, there is a BIG chance you’ll feel highly disappointed. Lucky for me, I don't like CCA (Hot take, I know, might as well do a review about it someday and explain myself) and had no expectations for it to be. Rather, I was afraid it would try to be a new CCA. Oddly enough, it had a similar effect of boosting the franchise and selling an insane amount.
Seed Freedom is nothing more than an epilogue of Destiny—of the message, of the characters, of everything. You will feel that early on; the dilemmas are the same, the ideas, everything. The story spins around the Destiny Plan and the end of Seed Destiny. Durandal's ideals lived on, and the story is mostly about that: the journey to oppose this group called Foundation, which is trying to impose those ideals by force, causing chaos among factions to usurp the situation and take control of things.
That being said, the Foundation is a terrible group—not in the sense of being bad people (which they are), but in the sense of being so weirdly written. They only exist for the sake of propagating the story's message (which I will soon talk about) and to make the story flow properly. The thing is, they are boring, uninteresting, and don't have 1% of the charisma Durandal had. The members are exaggerated (common for Seed) to feel evil and talented, but in reality, they are just background characters with little to no development, just there to show how good the main pilots are. The leader of the group, Orphee, is the worst antagonist of Seed. He is so weird and uninteresting; they try to make you hate him, but you will most likely just not care about him, because his motivations aren't well-written enough to hook you. They are just there to prove the point of Kira and Lacus.
The message of the story is basically that love isn't something forced—it's something built, something born from desire, care, and freedom. Conflict isn't a result of it, and the lack of it takes away the reason for life. Living isn't something that has to have a meaning; you just live because you want to. It's a pretty message, and I summarized it really badly. It's something you should see for yourself and interpret however you want, but that's a short version of what I thought of it.
In the end, true love prevails. If they have to find a way to end conflict, it isn't by taking everyone's desires and freedom—it's by trying to understand each other and relying on each other, seeking new dialogues and ideas. As long as there is desire and love, there is hope and freedom.
The old characters are pretty good. Shinn has become some sort of comedic relief in the story, and it works really well—and also makes me happy for him. My favorite character, freed from that cycle of anger to become a happy boy... he deserves that. It was a great development for him. As for Athrun, he is the same as always—the right arm and the one who puts sense into Kira's troubled head. He is always fun to watch, and his Z'gok was nothing but peak. Kira was also great; I liked his arc—his fear and tiredness from this repeating chain of events, these never-ending wars, which have plagued him since he was 14. It's cool to see him rising up after all of that, and a good contrast to the conformist Amuro, who just accepts everything. Luna was fun—nothing really different, but fun. However, Agnes, the new character, was straight-up bad. She really feels like a Gundam character and reminds me a lot of Reccoa from Zeta, but worse and really unnecessary. Agnes is a character that has no meaning or reason to be in the narrative; she has no meaning or reason to exist, none at all. And Lacus was okay, the story tries to make you dislike her, but it doesn't work really well, because you already know the character and how she is.
The story has many fun and hype moments—some that will get you on your toes, some that will make you laugh a lot. Overall, it's a really fun movie to watch. It has some bad and annoying things (Foundation), but the hype moments and fun characters manage to overcome that. It's not as deep and well-written as Destiny, but it's still a great movie.
Now, listen to this peak!!
