Erich Sokol, 1959.

Erich Sokol, 1959.

Happy 45th Birthday to Ralph Bakshi‘s Lord of the Rings. Art by Tom Jung

Thought: I wonder if Gundam 00’s focus on True Innovators is sorta in response to Newtypes in UC not really going anywhere.

(Tomino changed his mind about them when making Victory is the explanation I normally hear).

PC/Computing - September 1996

I still think it's really cool how Amuro starts as the shittiest pilot alive (because he's a 15-year old) that only gets carried because he's in the biggest, fattest stat stick in-universe at the time (a few retroactive additions made in the future notwithstanding), enough that even its crappy vulcan guns are tearing Zaku IIs apart, and when he starts getting a bit too cocky, Char and Ramba Ral show up in objectively inferior pieces of junk and absolutely deliver his pizza, they just drag his face across every available surface in Planet Earth like he's a Yakuza mook, all because they are simply that much better at piloting, and the thing is, Amuro takes that very seriously.

He goes from shitass kid in an unfortunate situation that doesn't want to get in the robot to the most unwell child soldier in the war, which is really saying something, but most importantly, becomes so good at piloting the Gundam that the Gundam physically cannot handle Amuro's piloting. They need to apply "Magnetic Coating" to its joints so they don't fucking snap away from the main frame because Amuro, one, moves too damn well but also in too extreme a way for the frame to handle it, two, despite being equipped with two sabers, a shield, a beam rifle and vulcan guns, Amuro is a stern believer in introducing most everyone in thagomizer range to his Rated Z for Zeon hands, the single most official pair of hands in the business, tax free. He KEEP going Ip Man on these dudes, he does NOT need to do a Jamestown on these mother fuckers but he INSISTS. Somehow even the Gundam Hammer, which is a giant Hannah Barbera cartoon flail-- Ok, look at this thing, words do not do it justice

Even this god damn Tom and Jerry prop is less savage that whatever Amuro decides to do the moment he's done throwing his shield to get a free kill on someone and it officially becomes bed time forever for the unfortunate sap at the business end of his ten-finger weapons of mass destruction.

The RX-78-2, "Gundam" for its friends and family, even has a top of the line cutting edge Learning Computer that 'learns' alongside the pilot and their habits. This data extracted from it was so absolutely fucked up that it completely revolutionized Mobile Suit combat afterwards, which is a wholesome thing to think about when The Best Combat Data Ever came from a really angry, really stressed 15 year old that doesn't even like piloting. He was 15! He made Haro with his own hands! Amuro literally just wanted to make funny cute spherical robofriends! Amuro was out there trying to make Kirby real, but fate had other plans for him. His cloned brain put in a pilot seat is one of the setting's strongest 'pilots'.

They made fucking Shadow the Hedgehog with his brain, god damn.

By the end, Zeon is rolling out Gelgoogs out of its mass production lines. These things are in the Gundam's ballpark in terms of overall specs (or "power level"). Amuro is bodying them as if they were episode 1 Zaku IIs.

AND THEN HE GETS FUCKING PSYCHIC SPACE POWERS. Not that he needed them, he bodied a couple Space Psychics without any of those powers before awakening to them. But heaven's most violent child was not done evolving, whether he liked it or not.

Char bodied him in a souped up Zaku II at the start, a machine objectively inferior to the Gundam. Amuro more or less one-sidedly beats the shit out of Char when he's in a custom Commander-type Gelgoog that you could consider to be equal spec-wise to the Gundam. Amuro is the embodiment of Finding Out. He is Consequences. You tell him he better make it hurt, better make it count, better kill you in one shot, buddy, he needs half a fucking shot. The complete transformation. One could consider the central 75% of the show as long drawn out training montage turning a kid into the Geese Howard of giant robots.

I felt like writing something short today, so let’s talk about the New Gundam Seed Freedom trailer (it was either this or a quick review of SD Gundam CROSS RAYS).

I think I’m gonna genuinely struggle to take this movie seriously.

Now I’ve already done a few posts about my feelings on the Cosmic Era (and I’ll probably do more at some point), but in brief; I like both SEED and SEED Destiny. I like Destiny more because it feels like they had more freedom (ugh) with what they wanted to do, as opposed to vaguely retelling the original series, but I think SEED’s a bit more coherent.

(Stargazer’s a decent little yarn about Phantom pain pilots, I’d say it’s almost the cosmic era in miniature)

And I know it’s because it’s a scene taken out of context from the trailer, but-

Lacus: It’s my wish as well

Kira: UWA!?

Lacus: to fight alongside you

Kira: UK-GHA?!

He can emote, ladies and gentlemen!

Speaking of emoting, maybe it’s just that I haven’t seen Cucuruz Doan’s Island, but everyone seems to be really pushing that facial animation in this. Like, in another scene, Lacus turns around, looks faintly disgusted, then moves right along to joy. And I misread Shinn’s expression something like twice when rewatching the trailer (is it horny rage, or is it anguish?). It was odd.

Though I will say the new music (op? Inset song?) sounds really good, though I find the Cosmic Era’s always had good music.

Even though we have another moment of unintentional parody, where the music lulls and Kira says dramatically “I can’t see an end to this war, all I can do is……” (soundtrack) FREEDOM. And my mind immediately went to “metal gear protagonist”.

Admittedly while I don’t think I’ll be able to take it seriously, I do think it’ll be fun to talk about. But all the same, I was feeling oddly cynical. Not really sure why.

Unrelatedly, there was another announcement today, Mobile Suit Gundam Silver Phantom. A, uh, virtual reality narrative interactive experience as one news site has dubbed it. Gonna be honest, I feel the the top comment on the YouTube video sums up my thoughts “I was hype until the meta quest appeared”. Anyway, we know basically nothing about it, so I’m going to indulge in some baseless speculation for the moment. Presumably it’s a spin-off, I don’t think they’d make a whole new AU just for this. So then as a guess I’d say it’s likely either a Universal Century sidestory or SEED (since we got Gundam Seed Eclipse a little while back). But I did see one interesting theory while browsing earlier:

It could be this “Silver Phantom”. Unlikely, I think, but a neat theory.