7.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
The year is Universal Century 0079. For nine months, war has been raging between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon. On the space colony Green Noah at Side 7, the cluster of colonies farthest from the moon, the Federation has completed its new prototype mobile suits. However, the Zeon launch a surprise attack. In the midst of battle, fifteen-year-old Amuro Ray activates one of the Federation mobile suits, and from then on he defends his friends and the new assault carrier White Base from countless Zeon attacks as the war rages on around them.
Starring: Tôru Furuya, Hirotaka Suzuoki, Shôzô Îzuka, Toshio Furukawa, Kiyonobu SuzukiForeign | 100% |
Anime | 88% |
Sci-Fi | 33% |
Action | 31% |
Drama | 6% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Japanese: LPCM 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Sometimes it can be at least a little problematic to brand an artistic enterprise with a year, even if that year is supposedly fictional. In the case of the trio of movies included in this new set from Right Stuf, it's the so-called Universal Century year 079, though not so coincidentally Mobile Suit Gundam, the series these films are derived from, started broadcasting in 1979, and indeed one of the series' alternate titles is Gundam '79. That's not the only Gundam offering to sport a suffix detailing a supposed year, with Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket and Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (among others) also sporting the same titular conceit. While some of these later entries aren't tied to an actual calendar year the way Mobile Suit Gundam '79 is to 1979, including a descriptor like the ones seen in these titles can tend to instantly "date" them, sometimes in unhelpful ways. There are actually examples of this same branding problem in media other than anime. Boccaccio '70 actually came out in 1962 but intentionally sought to modernize the Decameron by positing a future year in its title. Another television outing, Galactica 1980, didn't exactly scream "the future" by announcing the year of its production in its title, in a decision that is perhaps at least slightly reminiscent of the tack taken by Gundam '79. But there are even examples in something as unexpected as the music industry. One of my favorite musicians when I was a kid (and frankly beyond) was Sergio Mendes, but by the time I became aware of him, his signature band Brasil ‘66 was already well past it titular expiration date. Even relatively early in the band's heyday, Bob Hope joked about this when the band performed on the 1968 Academy Awards ceremony, stating that they had been too busy to update their name. Somewhat hilariously, a year or so later a series of ads appeared in Billboard and other industry magazines with a supposed poll asking fans to mail in their responses as to whether Mendes should update the band’s name to Brasil ‘70. That didn’t happen, but ultimately a whole host of new band names tied to various years followed, much as with the case of the various iterations of Mobile Suit Gundam, perhaps one indication that those involved in any medium where a name includes a year might do best to forsake such specificity. (Mendes’ wife once gave a really funny interview about having to reorder stationery and business cards every time the name changed, and one wonders about similar issues that might have been faced by Mobile Suit Gundam's various creative staffs.) As mentioned above, the three films collected together in this new set from Right Stuf are more or less reedited versions of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, the one taking place in Universal Century year 79 (for those who prefer our calendar, that is ostensibly circa 2124). While all three films are rather lengthy (all well over two hours), for those not wanting to wend their way through the entire first series they provide an alternate route toward getting much of what has made Mobile Suit Gundam such an enduring anime property through the years (for a little background, I refer you to my Mobile Suit Gundam: Collection 01 Blu-ray review.
All three films in the Mobile Suit Gundam Movie
Trilogy are presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Right Stuf with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.33:1. Despite the fact that the third film
reportedly has vastly more original animation in it than the other two, all three transfers show the same strengths and weaknesses, and so I'll largely
deal with them as a whole, with some isolated comments specifically geared toward individual films. All three films in this set are comparable to the video
quality that I detailed in our Mobile Suit
Gundam: Collection 01 Blu-ray review, though I'm slightly upping my video score for the television version since some of the newer animation, as
brief as it is in spots, offers at least marginally better clarity, line detail and (in some cases at least) palette saturation. Also, all three releases here have a
more consistent looking grain field than the somewhat variant presentation I addressed in the review of the first volume of the actual televsion series. All
three films have various issues at times, though, including minor but pretty recurrent age related wear and tear, with speckling and white flecks showing
up fairly regularly. There's also occasional wobble and other frame instability, some of which may be source related due to inartful edits between older,
pre-existing material and animation done expressly for the film in question.
The first film has what is arguably the widest variance in overall sharpness, with many sequences looking at least decent, but some others being kind of
curiously fuzzy. The "old school" animation style means that often midrange shots tend to be fairly lacking in detail, with elements like faces not having
"little" things like eyes or mouths on them. There are just a couple of moments of shifting line detail that eagle eyed viewers may catch.
All three films in this set sport LPCM 5.1 tracks in the original Japanese (with optional English subtitles), with no English dub being offered. All three tracks exhibit slight phasiness due to the surround rejiggering, with the first film showing the worst signs of that problem. All three films have rather substantial LFE, with rumbling effects not always limited to the subwoofer but often panning through the side and rear channels when battles are entered. Of course the many action sequences provide a glut of surround activity, even if some individual effects and even the score at times sound a little on the boxy, reverberant side. Dialogue is generally delivered cleanly and clearly on all three tracks.
None of the three discs in this set offer any supplementary material, in a decision that will no doubt be a disappointment to many genre fans.
This opening film gets all the basic plot points out of the way (and pretty quickly, all things considered), while introducing a rather large assortment of supporting characters. There are some deficits in the storytelling that fans of the original series will probably notice more than newcomers, but this is a great place to start if you're wondering what all the fuss about Mobile Suit Gundam is about. As with the Blu-ray release of the original series, video and audio both have occasional hurdles to overcome. For genre enthusiasts if for no one else, this film and the entire trilogy comes Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
機動戦士ガンダムIII めぐりあい宇宙篇 / Kido Senshi Gundam III: Meguriai Sora
1982
機動戦士ガンダムII 哀・戦士編 / Kido Senshi Gundam II: Ai Senshi
1981
機動戦士ガンダム 逆襲のシャア
1988
機動戦士ガンダム サンダーボルト DECEMBER SKY
2016
Part 1 / Episodes 1-4 / 機動戦士ガンダム THE ORIGIN
2015-2018
機動戦士Ζガンダム / Kidō Senshi Z Gundam
1985
機動戦士ガンダムF91
1991
1991-1992
機動戦士ガンダム0083 ―ジオンの残光―
1992
機動戦士ガンダム
1979
機動戦士ガンダムZZ
1986
includes Movie: Miller's Report / 機動戦士ガンダム 第08MS小隊 & ミラーズ・リポート
1996-2013
新機動戦記ガンダムW / New Mobile Report Gundam Wing
1995-1996
∀ガンダム
1999-2000
機動戦士ガンダムUC / Kidō Senshi Gundam Unicorn
2010-2014
トップをねらえ! 劇場版
2006
新機動戦記ガンダムW Endless Waltz / Includes Movie & OVA versions as well as "Operation Meteor"
1998
機動戦士ガンダム0080 ポケットの中の戦争 / Kidō Senshi Gundam 0080: Pocket no Naka no Sensō
1989
トップをねらえ! / Aim for the Top! GUNBUSTER
1988-1989
星方武侠アウトロースター
1998