I was unsure what to score this movie, between 5,6 or 7. Some parts of this movie are really excellent and the art&animation are phenomenal. However, the production disaster behind the movie is on display with the incredibly rushed and patchy plot. I settled on a 6 mostly because, while it is a disaster, it was enjoyable. If you are a gundam fan, it's worth watching if only to see the amazing animation and mobile suit fights and dream of what could've been.
The first 1/4 of the movie is genuinely great as an opening for a gundam series, the middle 1/2 is a complete disaster with some good ideas, the final 1/4 kinda pulls it back together but suffers heavily from a lack of proper build up.
Having watched this, 08th ms team and unicorn all in the English dub, I noticed basically immediately that Seabook (the protagonist) has the same english VA. Overall the dub voice acting was good.
For the first 1/4, there is some of the best looking mobile suit fights in any gundam with a fantastic first battle in the colony primarily from the perspective of civilians. If that had debuted today as the first episode of a new gundam series, I would be very excited. Honestly, it might be worth watching for just that first 40ish minutes.
As it goes on from that amazing start, it quickly starts to fall apart. Things just happen and it's pretty obvious that massive parts of the plot had to be cut. It ends up feeling like watching a clip show or recap of a series. There were a few moments where I had to pause and rewind because I thought I must've missed something, only to find that it was just the movie that had not included whatever scenes were needed to link things together.
Mild spoilers, but there is a character who switches sides in the movie and they're only on screens a couple times before that happens. It feels like it comes out of nowhere. So much of this movie feels like it just comes out of nowhere or, perhaps more accurately, like whatever scenes were meant to build up to that thing were cut.
For the final 1/4, it's a decent conclusion that suffers from lack of buildup. The final villain is painfully underdeveloped. The movie also does the ultimate sin a piece of media can do by ending on a cliffhanger with a "This is only the beginning" only to never get a follow up. (I know crossbone is technically a sequel type thing, but I haven't read it and it isn't animated).
The MS designs were all quite visually appealing. The Crossbone Vanguard MS were all appropriately villainous and avoided being too overtly Zaku clones (Though they were obviously inspired). The final boss MS reminded me of a much much smaller dark/devil gundam, but has this much more inhuman shape - I quite like it. On the Feddies side, an updated Jegan is the main good guy grunt unit. I like the F91 itself, although I'm not picky when it comes to gundams.
Overall, this movie represents a massive waste of potential. It is still somewhat enjoyable, but it is painfully unfinished.
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