Wednesday, April 3, 2019

T5W#190-Top 5 Ideas for Gundams Universal Century Past UC0100


Mobile Suit Gundam Narrative markes the second project in Sunrise’s UC NexT 0010 Project: which will focus on exploring the Universal Century past the year UC 0100.  This era has been the main home for Gundam since the beginning and has been revisited consistently over the last four decades of Gundam existence. Ergo, this weeks Top 5 Wednesday will be tackling my Top 5 Ideas for Gundams Universal Century Past UC0100.  Anything is game, even preexisting stories in that relatively open time period post Gundam Narrative.  What do I mean by that?  Let’s find out.


#5-A True Telling of Gundam F91
There are only two official cannon stories in the Universal Century Past UC0100-Gundam F91 (UC0123) and Victory Gundam (UC0153) (G Savior doesn’t count, don’t try to make it so).  Considering they were both supposed to be fresh jump on points for the Gundam franchise, I cant see why both could get a fresh coat of paint and a chance for some serious edits.  This, however, applies more so to Gundam F91.  The infamously kind of bad Gundam movie was frought with production problems before it was finally released.  Initially intended as a 52 episode series, the success of Char’s Counterattack cause the powers that be to recommision F91 as a film and director Yoshiyuki Tomino was forced to condense 14 completed episode scripts into a two hour feature.  The end result was a stylistically pretty but otherwise messy piece of work.  Considering the F91 looks pretty cool and there’s some potential in a new non Zeon enemy (more on that in a bit actually), I think Gundam F91 deserves a proper lease on life, always have.  Plenty of Anime projects have gone through bad iterations and gotten better ones later down the line (im hard pressed to think of one atm but I know resurgence success stories are out there).

#4-The Return of Familiar Faces

Revisiting old characters is nothing new for any Anime, especially Gundam.  The first era of Gundam saw frequent appearances by Amuro Ray, Char Aznable and Bright Noa with smaller cameos by other original series cast members.  But there are more important faces in the UC than just those three.  While I do think Mineva Zabi and Banagher Links will play a vital role in bringing the UC into the next century, what about some of the characters from other Gundam shows in this period?  How is Shiro Amada doing with Aina Sahalin?  Is my girl Christina Mackenzie still piloting Mobile Suits (Or her own Gundam?)  Have Judau Ashita and his rag tag band of misfits colonized a new world yet?  The only absolute in this matter is probably Bright Noa coming back for the Hathaway’s Flash Trilogy later this year (which is set in UC0105).  Some of these characters have deserved follow ups for a long time.  New century, new stories, lets make it happen Sunrise.

#3-Expansion into the Galaxy
While the Universal Century has seemed content to keep the action to Earth and it’s colonies, other entries in the franchise have either hinted at or pushed their action to other worlds.  Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz and Gundam 00: The Movie both hint that Mars terraforming projects are about to get underway and Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans is predominatly set on Mars.  We heard stories about expeditions being made to Jupiter in Zeta Gundam and Gundam ZZ.  How about taking things a step further Universal Century?  I know this kind of process takes a lot of time but how about some progress reports or even a fight between hard core Earthers who don’t want humanity to expand.  Considering the last time we really heard about any outer space exploration was at the end of ZZ, this could be a good reentry point for Judau Ashita, Roux Louka and their friends. 

#2-The End of Zeon (and maybe even the Earth Federation?)
As pilot Adel noted in Gundam 0083, the Federation has always been haunted by the ghost of Zeon and probably always will be.  Will they though?  While the Federation is still around in UC0123 during Gundam F91, Zeon is never mentioned and seems completely out of the picture by Victory Gundam.  Zeon is an important part of this time period, im not disputing that.  However, it might be time for them or any of their incarnations (The Sleeves?) to finally put their long war to bed.  How much more fight do they really have in them anyway?  And for that matter, is the Earth Federation the only true dominating power in the Earth Sphere forever?  I feel like a new kind of government would eventually take it over eventually, especially after the events of Victory Gundam in UC0153.  Whatever happens, I hope at least the grand finale of Zeon is one of the best battles ever, one to rival Anavel Gato’s doomed final charge of the Delaz Fleet at the conclusion of Gundam 0083.

#1-From Universal Century to Regild Century

Tomino’s so bad he had to apologize for it Gundam: Reconguista in G is getting a compilation film saga in 2019 as part of the 40th Anniversary of the Gundam franchise.  Much like Gundam F91, this could be a chance for him to make some much needed amendments to his own story.  One of those could be a bit of an explanation as to how we made the transition to the Regild Century, the successor to the Universal Century.  There could even be an event OVA or film dedicated to the last days of Gundams flagship era before heading into the new world and be set at the furtherst end of the timeline (UC0500 seems like a good number…maybe less…UC0300 maybe?).  I highly doubt we’ll ever leave the Universal Century behind for good and don’t think it should ever be forgotten.  Times change though and that could lead to bigger and better things for Gundam.  It’s a good goal in any case for the next 40 years at least.

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