UC 0123. Almost
thirty years of peace have followed Char’s rebellion. That peace comes to a crashing halt when the
mobile suit forces of the Crossbone Vanguard invade Side 4. Their endgame is a mystery but their methods
are brutal and casualties from the initial attack are immense. At the center of this conflict are Cecily
Fairchild and her best friend Seabook Arno.
The Crossbone Vanguard capture Cecily, revealing she is their long lost
heir. Determined to save Cecily and as
many people as he can from the Crossbone Vanguard’s slaughter, Seabook agrees
to pilot a mobile suit developed by his estranged mother, the Federations new
prototype Gundam F91.
Following the chapter ending Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s
Counterattack, the powers that be sought to relaunch the Gundam franchise
without Amuro Ray, Char Aznable, or the One Year War as it’s story basis. As such, two attempts were made, both set in
the Universal Century. Gundam 0083 was
an OVA set up for Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam while Gundam F91 set things up 30
years after Char’s Counterattack for a fresh start. However it was anything but fresh.
Originally, Gundam F91 was created to be a 50 episode
series, written and directed by franchise Godfather Yoshiyuki Tomino. However, after the success of Char’s
Counterattack, the studio thought that a feature film would fare better. Thus, Tomino was forced to compile 13 already
written episodes into a two hour feature.
And man judging from the final result, that was a complete pain for the
poor guy. The story of F91 can be summed
up almost as a much harsher retelling of the original Mobile Suit Gundam…just
without the proper character development of edge of your seat story. This is highly obvious from the rapid fire
pacing and character change ups that are as annoying as they are meaningless
and instances happen for no explained reason whatsoever. The first few minutes of the film echo the
original series: enemy Mobile Suit infiltration of the colony and the resulting
battle that ensues. From that point on,
we get introduced to characters who come, vanish and change character
motivations at the drop of a dime simply for sake of moving the “plot”
along. There’s barely any time to get
attached to this cast and we are supposed to feel for them, or mourn like
Seabook does…a lot, when they die, which I personally couldn’t cause I was
thinking, “who’s that guy again?” One
character even keels over dead for no explained reason. He just…drops dead…no signs of struggle, gun
shot or stabbing…just…HUH? There’s
plenty of evidence that almost every scene hosts some idea of what certain
episodes of the series would be, but they don’t help to do anything but confuse
and/or bore.
Our two main leads for this film are Seabook Arno and Cecily
Fairchild. Seabook is supposed to be the
real lead of this story but he doesn’t do much to stand out from any other
Gundam pilot come before him. He usually
just whines a lot about how he doesn’t trust adults (like Kamille from Zeta
Gundam) and doesn’t want to fight (early Amuro). Cecily’s story is a bit more interesting at
first glance. She’s a tough and
beautiful red head who discovers she is the long lost daughter of the Crossbone
Vanguard leader and has to decide what to do with this revelation. But again, the jumbled together plot forces
her to become evil, abandon a rescue attempt and then defect over the course of
twenty blink and you’ll still never spot the transition minutes. Cecily eventually becomes as whiny as Seabook
and even admits she can’t do anything without him giving her advice…that’s a
fail.
To be honest the only other character who stands out in
this film besides Cecily and Seabook is Cecily’s father Iron Mask. Like Char before him, he sports a villains
mask, this time modeled after Darth Vader.
But even though he never becomes a more complex villain with deeper
motivations other than world domination, you have to give him credit for one
thing. He’s a bad guy and is a bad guy
throughout the entirety of the film.
Iron Mask is consistent unlike everyone else who pulls out motivations
from a grab hat. It’s hard to tell that
there is a main hero in Gundam F91 but Iron Mask clearly wins as the main
antagonist. The rest of his Crossbone
Vanguard fall prey to the “we either don’t really know enough about our
motivations OR we don’t know what the hell we’re supposed to be doing right
now” plot of the film. One eyed captain
of the Crossbone Vanguard Mobile Suit forces Zabine looks bad ass enough but is
such a tool like everyone else he becomes aggravating quick.
So on the whole, Gundam F91 isnt great but is there good
to it? Personally, I think there are
moments where the animation of this film dwarfs Char’s Counterattack, especially
early on. It may have been fast tracked
from series to film but the animation quality for a feature length film is
there. It’s also one of the most brutal
Gundam entries I’ve ever seen. The
opening battle shows debris falling on everyone without cut away. A mother running away with her baby is even
hit on the head by a bullet shell from a Mobile Suit weapon and struck
dead…that might’ve been the most chilling but memorable scene of the entire
film, is that sad (I mean yeah sad for the motherless baby but I mean for the
film itself)? The use of killing
machines known as Bugs is a good look at what probably was the basis for Gundam
Wing’s Mobile Doll units…man do they do a shockingly good job at exterminating
humans. The F91 itself isn’t a bad machine
and gets to really show off it’s stuff in Seabook’s final battle against Iron
Mask. In fact, the action isn’t totally
terrible either. It drags sure and has
all those pesky “we think we have motivations” surrounding it, but action is
one thing Gundam usually gets right and F91 thankfully is not an exception to
that.
But sadly for all these elements that the film gets
right, there’s a dozen more problems that pop up in the process that do nothing
to save this movie. The story goes so
fast nothing gets established and when it does you’re still wondering what’s
going on. The characters are memorable
in all the wrong ways. And every time
the film tries to up the ante and be a story of dire importance…it just fails
miserably. This was definitely not one
of Gundam’s strongest entries. It was so
bad that this would be the last original Gundam feature film (that wasn’t a
compilation OVA or an OVA merged into a film) for roughly twenty years before
the release of Gundam 00 the Movie: Awakening of the Trailblazer. Heck I even think this hit Tomino himself
pretty hard, being forced to strip down his original vision into the two hour
debacle. I feel for him and while F91 is
worth at least one watch if you’re a Gundam fan…wow I cant even think of a
comparison bit right there. It’s just
not that great a movie, sorry to say.
4.5/10
Well everyone that was quick but we’ve reached the end of
Gundam Month. There will be more Gundam reviews probably
sometime next year but we’ll see. I’m
going through series I want to review in 2015 (and it looks like I may be
starting with Fan Choice, Outlaw Star) and will have an entry on those chosen
shows later on. For now, get ready for a
return to series reviews (albeit a short one).
Starting mid November it will be film reviews for the rest of the
year. So I’m finishing off series
reviews with one I’ve been wanting to do since I started Anime Corner. Black
Lagoon starts next, hope you’re ready : )
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