Friday, May 29, 2020

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny Part 10 Episodes 46-50


As Kira, Athrun and Lacus mourn a tragic loss, Gilbet Durandal announces his plans for the future of humanity, as well as the price for not siding with him.  With Shinn, Rey and the Minerva at his side, Gilbert feels the war is as good as won for ZAFT.  But the Archangel and her allies have returned to space and, once again, the future falls to the hands of Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala.  As they face the rage of one man who has lost everything and another who has realized his own horrific origins, Kira and Athrun blaze a path towards a new future, one with a hopefully longer, lasting peace.

Annnnnd it’s DONE!!!!!  And it feels…about as disappointing as I’d expect it.  I got maybe one moment of enjoyment out of five episodes and that was about it.  The funny thing is, the final scenes of Seed Destiny feel like they could’ve had more of an impact had the road to get there been worth it…but it wasn’t.  And weirdly enough, I think I hate this series more than G-Saviour, how the hell is that even possible?  No one should hate anything Gundam related more than G-Saviour?  I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s do this right and get this over with.

The Life and Times of Meer Campbell kicked off the finale, or rather Meer’s life as Lacus from the start of her career until her sad demise.  I feel like this characters story had more potential and was never fully realized.  Maybe if we’d seen more of her prior history, or checked in more with Meer instead of when Athrun was around for her to fawn over.  As it stands, Meer gets a fine send off and joins the list of characters with potential that was squandered.

After that farewell, it was time for the final battle that played out almost exactly like the end of Seed except with minor variations.  Rey finally came clean about being a Rau Le Crueset clone to Shinn.  Durandal announced “The Destiny Plan”, which was basically forced Natural Selection and a way to eliminate the constant wish for war…or something like that, it’s a way more complex “take over the world” plan than needed.  Kira and Athrun got the same Meteor Mobile Weapons Platforms they had last time and went to town on ZAFT suits everywhere.  Yzak and Dearka switched sides to help out.  The Archangel clashed with the Minerva.  Hell if you wanted the biggest case of Déjà vu, NeoMu even intercepted a death blow meant for the Archangel again.  However, thanks to the better shields on his Mobile Suit, NeoMu not only saved the ship and Murrue, he also got his memory back…so he’s Mu again and we’ll never learn more about Neo Roanoke…I hope that mystery was worth the wait for zero answers.  And while there were some major deaths close to the end, no ones life felt in danger, not even for a moment.  Lackluster, boring and totally unoriginal, those are three things a battle for the future of humanity should never be…but here we are Gundam Seed Destiny.

And how about some closure for the worst leading cast in a Gundam series?  Well I talked about Rey coming clean about his origins.  But what about the guy I love to hate and hate to love?  Well…I don’t know.  Shinn was his usual deluded and easily coerced self for much of the finale.  He even came close to killing Luna when she tried to break up the duel between him and Athrun.  Thankfully, Athrun broke Shinn’s Gundam into pieces for that…probably the only moment I really enjoyed of the entire finale (that and him completely disabling the Minerva).  It’s funny.  Kira managed to get through to Rey and convince him to follow his own path, not the path of Le Crueset, in about the span of an episode.  But Athrun couldn’t change Shinn’s mind about pretty much anything over the course of an entire series…what’s up with that?  Shinn eventually met up with Athrun, Lacus, Mey, Luna and Kira at the grave for his family at Orb.  Finally, he and Kira met and…I’ll be damned, Shinn actually accepted Kira’s hand in friendship and took the offer to help Kira and the others protect the peace.  Again, had Shinn been a more enjoyable and less antagonistic protagonist, I think this ending would be perfect: starting out as a kind hero who is seduced to the Dark Side and has to find the light again…that sounds oddly familiar (crap even Durandal’s taste in interior design was ripped right out of Star Wars).  But as it stands, Shinn’s an insufferable douchebag and I’m happy to be done with his journey where he barely budged a step forward before taking fifty steps backwards.

So the good guys win…yay?  We get a nice little montage of what happens next: Cagalli makes peace with the PLANTs and Orb; Murrue and Mu return to Orb to live together with poor Waltfeld wondering if he should stick around; everyone else I guess returns to the military?  We see Yzak acting as a personal aid to Lacus, who I guess is running the PLANTs now?  It was very rushed, where as the series could’ve just ended at Shinn and Kira shaking hands.  Oh and Durandal, Rey and Talia all died together on Durandal’s space station because.  Yeah we learned that Durandal and Talia did indeed have a past romance but they broke it off and Talia had a kid with someone else and Rey’s always seen her as a Mom…kind of what you’d expect from a show cramming in a million and one things at the end.  In fact, Seed Destiny is in such a rush to wrap things up that the good guys just start winning despite the stacked odds.  I wasn’t thrilled by Seed’s original conclusion but here it’s even worse.  But at least it’s over and done with. 

Final Thoughts time.  Hooooo…I hate Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny with the furry of a thousand suns.  There are snippets of potential greatness scattered throughout (the Junius Seven drop, the second Siege of Orb) but they feel minor compared to the rest of the series being nothing but rehashes of clips, flashbacks and other recycled Gundam tropes and ideas.  Characters who were well established got turned into morons or people who refused to react or emote.  The old cast lacked a solid direction and the new cast irritated and wasted screentime even when it had the chance to make something work.  Funny though, even after they made some stupid, stupid choices, it was always more fun to hang out with Kira, Athrun and the old crew more than the Minerva crew hands down.  I think I’ve said all I’ve needed to say about Shinn Asuka by this point but if it’s not clear: this series gets a low rating alone on his existence alone.  His journey is nothing but a rage quest with a dash of insufferable irritableness (and that’s being VERY polite).  Shinn doesn’t grow, is constantly used or manipulated, and gets patted on the back for being the most violent berserker in existence.  The ending he is given isn’t earned because I don’t know if he ever learned his lesson and don’t care to see him ever again if we ever returned to the Cosmic Era.  Like I said, everything else was unoriginal, boring or just plain infuriating to sit through.  I felt myself getting mad multiple times at how often Seed Destiny botched the opportunities it was given.  This was a follow up to a very popular entry point into the Gundam franchise and it crashed and burned almost right after take off.  The one consolation I take away, besides the animation and mecha looking great…until you’ve seen the same recycled footage for the hundredth thousandth time, is that Mobile Suit Gundam 00 came out right after this.  And for all that shows flaws, I love it dearly…unlike this travesty I don’t think anyone needs to waste their time with. 

Final score for Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny is…2/10 (That’s Pilot Candidate bad).  And that wraps up Gundam Month Mark IV-THE GAUNTLET.  We’ll return to the Gundam franchise later this year with After War Gundam X…and find out if it really deserved to be cancelled at 39 episodes while Seed Destiny did it’s entire 50 episode run (spoiler alert: screw Seed Destiny for outlasting Gundam X).

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