Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Mobile Suit Gundam I Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 9, 2017

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.

Considering how iconic Mobile Suit Gundam has become over the intervening decades since the first broadcast of the series, it’s almost stunning to realize that the series was in fact considered a monumental failure when it first came out. It wasn’t particularly long lived for an anime outing, even back in those pre-Dragon Ball Z days, and were it not for tie ins like merchandise (some of which sold surprisingly well despite the lack of eyes tuning in to the actual show) and, finally, this and the subsequent films, Mobile Suit Gundam might not actually have ended up having the impact it undeniably has.

Even with this being a redaction of over twenty episodes of the original series, Mobile Suit Gundam I still starts with a summary of sorts (something’s that echoed in the two subsequent films as well), an understandable gambit that is meant to quickly introduce newcomers to the world of a futuristic society where a breakaway group called the Principality of Zeon is engaged in a long running battle with the Earth Federation. Once some baseline plot points have been offered, the first film quickly segues into introducing youngster Amuro Ray, who not so surprisingly becomes the hero of the enterprise.

For those wanting a relatively brief (if two and a half hours more or less can be considered brief) introduction into what ultimately made Mobile Suit Gundam such a memorable enterprise, this first compilation movie is probably as good a place as any to start. The basic outlines of the plot are presented (see my Mobile Suit Gundam: Collection 01 Blu-ray review for a few more details), actually rather early on in this probably overlong film, along with the glut of supporting characters, though there’s perhaps not quite the melancholic spirit that informs the second film especially. A lot of Gundam fans have complained over the years about the kind of weird place this film ends, and that ending might have played better with a simple “To be continued” title card letting the viewer know that several unkempt plot threads would ultimately be woven together.

Mobile Suit Gundam I Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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.

Mobile Suit Gundam I Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

Mobile Suit Gundam I Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

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.

Mobile Suit Gundam I Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.