Not gonna lie, I expected worse.
Spoilers for Gundam 00 Awakening of the Trailblazer
So, let me get this out of the way. A lot of people seem to believe that this is the only bad installment in the Anno Domini timeline of Gundam, as well as the worst by that virtue. I disagree wholeheartedly. Yes, this film is insanely dumb, with asspull after asspull, and it is preachy as hell, but the second season had a lot of these same problems, and actually, as controversial as this may sound, that installment's even worse. At least this film doesn't ruin any characters, given that it redeems some of them instead. It's no preachier or more contradictory than the second season either. It's still a bad anime, just not as bad as its predecessor. So, what made this film resonate so poorly with the Anno Domini fans? Well, let’s find out, shall we?
Let me get the only two positives out of the way: I like that they brought back the ability for machines to turn invisible from season 1 since it was only shown once in season 1 and never again. Narratively, that is the only positive I can give it other than maybe continuing its theme, though I'll touch on why I can't give it that one in a minute. The other positive is that I like that there is this cheesy action movie retelling of the events of the end of season 1 with a filler ending that didn't actually happen in real life, sorta like with a lot of movies based on true stories, and how Saju commented on it. That was a nice touch.
The concept of random metallic aliens (ELS) appearing is, to put it lightly, absurd. There was no foreshadowing to it from the main series and if anything, it's just a cheap ploy to reinforce the main theme of the Anno Domini era, that understanding is key to humanity. That has always been a theme of Gundam to some extent, but especially in this timeline. The problem is, like in Second Season, it becomes incessantly preachy with that message; it genuinely can't go 10 minutes without spouting that message, and it is genuinely annoying. That is why I can't compliment bringing back that theme like I ordinarily would. Also, I never attacked this ideology back in my Second Season review over a year ago, but here it goes. This claims that understanding is the key to the end of conflict. The problem is, even with understanding, people aren't always willing to agree, and not everyone is willing to listen, let alone understand. It's human nature, and this entire timeline, including this film, is naïve for thinking otherwise.
Another reason it doesn't make sense is that this era also tries to keep in some interesting bits of realism rarely seen, notably involving G-force (which comes in for half of the Gundam timelines)!during that one time in season 1 when Graham having trouble with his Flag because of that, making it jarring when you see everyone perfectly fine with insanely fast mobile suits far outspeeding anything from the previous seasons. Coming this with pretty much sentient yet not sentient metal alien parasite things coming to this world for understanding via absorbing everything (notice that insane contradiction), and you have absolute absurdity where it has no place.
There are a ton of asspulls aside from that one. First off, only Tieria can come back as some kind of AI thing that can use another host body of himself because he’s one of many Innovades. How come no one else can? Also, Innovades are apparently clones that are meant for information, hence why Ribbons Almark and Nena Trinity are clones of people that appear in the movie. They're the only only ones we see with clones though, and Tieria seems to just clone himself like Ribbons did back in season 1. Apparently there are a ton of people, including random citizens, that have amazing quantum brain wave potential. They never really explained that well in the series but you mean to tell me that people with no combat experience or lab experiments or whatever can do this? I get it, Universal Century did the same thing with Newtypes, except they explained things, that this was a space-induced evolution. Here, nothing.
Apparently Louise and some other random girl, both of whom do nothing in this movie, are Innovators like Setsuna and the new character, Descartes Shaman (who is just here for some reason and we don't know where or how he was discovered to it an Innovator) since only Innovators can feel this strange and painful sensation from the ELS, and other people with Quantum Brain Waves can't, for some reason. 00 Q-T’s Quantum mode is just slapped in there during the final 10 minute mark with no explanation or buildup beyond “this Gundam that Setsuna pilots is the key to understanding”, and other Gundams can do ridiculously crazy things now. Lockon has two Haro units for some reason when he only had one in the series, and they don't explain where or how he got the blue one. I can go on, like about the inconsistency of how TRANS-AM works, but now I’ll just talk about the ending.
They literally end en medias res. No joke. All that talk about understanding, all that conflict, just to end on Setsuna moving to God knows where in order to talk with the enemy aliens (we don't see him engage in dialogue with them, we just see him go somewhere) and a giant space flower blooms where the ELS Sphere was. I genuinely laughed my ass off at this. I get that this is a connection to Setsuna’s flower from the second season, but this is just cheesy. Still, nothing here is resolved. It's like an even worse version of how Char’s Counterattack ended, except the new characters here aren't as bad as the ones there.
Speaking of characters, for all intents and purposes, the main cast is the exact same as before, except Lyle "Lockon Stratos", who for some reason is now much more jovial and laid back. Most of the other old cast are just as bleh as before with three exceptions I'll talk about in a minute. Let’s talk about the two new characters: Mina and Descartes. Mina is literally a more annoying Nena Trinity with no emotional baggage, who is suddenly introduced as Billy’s lover for some reason. All she provides is awful comedy and some necessary exposition. Descartes is just some random asshole with hardly explored personal lab baggage and that’s about it, especially since he dies halfway into the movie, not even being there to help in the final act.
The 3 main exceptions I wanted to talk about are Billy, Graham, and Andrei. Billy isn't a pathetic and inconsistent cunt this time around. Instead, he’s just a dork with exposition. Still a bad character though is what I'm getting at. Andrei is just there for some sacrifice in the final act and while I don't think this truly redeems his character, it's nice to know that they tried and that even this guy can do a good thing. Now Graham, he is what he should've been in season 2 and not some dead-set weeaboo. Here, he’s still relaxed but cool and powerful, be his sacrifice at the end actually means something to the characters. He gets a salute from me for that and for being the only good character in this film.
This film has a lot of bombastic, flashy action with many sparkly and multi-colored particles, and the animation is up to snuff for a film. At a glance, this film looks gorgeous, as you'd expect from a big mecha action film. The problem is the insane amount of awful CGI hallways and battleships there are, as well as the ELS in most of the second half of the movie. It becomes rather hard to look at sometimes despite the mostly good and flashy animation and action. Again, the film overall looks good, but the increased and equally bad CGI from the previous installments that wasn't very frequent back then, bogged things down.
Conversely, I found the overall OST by Kenji Kawai here to be better in the original series, with a few new and interesting tracks. That said, it's still not that great. The only track I really remember is Last Mission, which was a perfect score to accompany the visually chaotic and overall climatic spectacle of the final battle. The OP, "Tozasareta Sekai" by THE BACK HORN, is a pretty good OP, especially the full version, though some of the other OPs from previous installments, mainly the first season, are better, which proves that if nothing else, this timeline has great OPs overall. The ED, "Qualia" by Uverworld, is a pretty meh Uverworld theme and one of the absolute weakest I've heard from them, which is disappointing.
The dub for the first two seasons was overall sort of decent, despite a few weak performances and equipment issues. Here, no dice. The dub kinda suck here, with Brad Swaile’s repressed role of Setsuna being the only saving grace. Is it just me or did a lot of characters get a casting change, each of which being for the worse since many of these voices don't have good delivery or even feel right with these characters? The worst offenders of this are Tieria and Saji it seems. Regardless, this was a pretty weak dub, especially for the time where dubs were actually at their peak.
Not gonna lie, I wasn't very entertained by this film. The action didn't sit right with me, the characters were still pretty bad, the weird comedy from Mina was insufferable and cringe-worthy to me, and the plot was a preachy, messy disaster. I was almost bored. There were some really stupid moments, particularly the ending, that made me laugh my ass off, but overall, I didn't have that good a time with this film, and when an action film, even a flashy one, isn't engaging, that's a problem.
This movie was the final nail in the coffin for the Anno Domini timeline and embodies pretty much everything wrong with it. The asspulls and inconsistencies, the awful characters, the insane preachiness, everything. I’m not gonna go out of my way to call this the worst Gundam timeline, nor am I going to call this the worst installment of said timeline, but both are pretty bad overall. Even the decent music and flashy visuals can't save it. With all that said, I bid you adieu.
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