Forum - View topicGundam 00 -- Q & A (spoilers).
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TranceLimit174
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Hello everyone, I know I'm a bit late but I just got around to finishing Gundam 00. Needless to say I have several questions. The best way I can organize them right now is through a list and I'm sure more will pop up later. Anyway I would also like to ask fans of the series why did you like this series outside of the animation itself (which yes, was jaw droppingly gorgeous).
1. The Innovators and The Super-Humans: How were these people different? Both can use Quantum Brainwaves at roughly equal levels as far as I can tell. Just because the Innovators were created by Veda instead of humans they're better? And as a side note, was the idea of an Innovader really necessary? 2. How the heck did Aeolia Schenberg not only predict the events but be able to develop ALL of the technology that would be used by humanity's military 200 years in the future? Based on the show he's the reason for everything as far as I can tell and his ultimate goal was to create a Pure Innovator for a "coming dialouge with other beings." On that note... 3. The Innovators' plan being in line with Aeolia was to eventually get everyone to move out to space? Last I checked we already have space colonies in this series. 4. Going back to question 2...couldn't Aeolia have skipped the whole war part of his plan and just try to inject people with GN Particles instead? Or maybe try to get them to release these particles through Quantum Brainwaves? I guess the idea is that the only way to get such a strong response is through tragedy..but my understanding is it's not tragedy that creates such power but really it's a question of how far can you push 00? (i.e. Trans-AM and go crazy). I think you could get this through a mechanical test rather than planning the killing of millions. 5. Is it just me or are the pilots not very skilled? Until 00 Raiser pops up (nothing is allowed to beat the title unit by the way) the solution to every lost battle was to get a better unit. First Gundams were the best. Then everyone got GN Drives. Then the Thrones beat the GN Drives. Then the Gundams got Trans-AM (read: Super Saiyan). After that season 2 kinda repeats. Ex. Ali has his new Gundam unit and beats Setsuna in 00. Next time they meet 00 has Raiser and decimates him. This really bugged me because it put no value on human ability. Sheesh back in 79 (both U.C. and A.D.) Char told Amuro that his Gundam would only take him so far if he doesn't sharpen his skills. 6. So let me understand this whole Saji/Louise thing. That all started because she lost her left hand. Even though she had a right hand that's perfectly a.ok, because only the left one is gone they can't get engaged? So then...after this they don't exchange so much as a phone number, e-mail, or God knows what form of Gundam technology they have for communication so that they wind up being estranged for 4 years? If you still love each other wouldn't you want to stay in touch? And then in 4 years they GET the regeneration technology to bring her hand back. Granted it's not her first but hey she has a full human hand back. Problem solved. So many people would kill for such technology and one of the best anime series is around (technically 2) is all about a couple of guys trying to do exactly that. The only reasoning I have on this is it's very superficial and childish. 7. Am I the only one who thinks Soma Pieris should have been dead in that episode where Alellujah discovers his other personality? If Halellujah is so crazy for blood why would he shoot her mobile suit several times with a beam rifle with such low power? Alellujah wasn't fighting back then and in usually in Gundam I'm pretty sure if a beam hits a mobile suit cleanly it blows up. This was very difficult for me to get past. 8. And shouldn't Sergei have lived? Sergei went to Hercury as a Federation appointed diplomat and the two say so themselves during their meeting that "the world is watching." How could Andrei not have known about this? I thought that meeting was being broadcast. 7. Then again...when Memento Mori fires...Sergei looks out at the blast...and gets swallowed up by the light follwed by Mary shouting out "Papa! Run!" And then he later he pops back up. In any other story such a sequence would ensure death. So Memento Mori is a concentrated blast that doesn't result in huge explosion. 8. A similar thing happens with Kati in her battleship. There were a few moments where they made it appear that characters died and yet that was not the case. 9. This whole idea of "Tactical Forecasting." This is just a question of "Will my strategy beat your strategy?" Neither side adjusts for anything...they have an idea, and just commit to it full force and don't adapt at all. I don't feel they were able to overcome situations, they just had the better robots and gambled on the right initial plan. 10. Did everyone have to constantly refer to each other by their FULL names? This was overkill. 11. Was there any relation to all of the Innovator names? Ribbons Almark, Revive Revival, Bring, Healing, Divine, Anew Returner (I'm sorry...terrible name because of the giveaway), Tieria Erde, Regene Regetta. This really sounds like they pulled names out of a hat save for maybe 3 to 4 of em. 12. Lockon 1 and 2. So we're going to kill a character, then bring in his twin brother who has the exact same voice, demeanor, skills, and even goes so far as to get the same Gundam, uses the same catchphrase (this I can appreciate), and even gets to use the same name as his brother? If you wanted this character so badly why did you kill the first one off to begin with? I've told a couple of friends about this and they all tell me they pulled the exact same move in Beerfest. Oh and Feldt gets totally screwed in the process. This isn't right. 13. Setsuna became a Pure Bred Innovator...that amounts to what? 14. I think GN Particles are to Newtypes what Monochlorions are to the Force. 15. Katagiri: "Do you have any special requests for your new suit?" Mister Bushido: "The fastest speed and the strongest sword." Really? This guy who has a personal vendetta against Celestial Being and the Gundams isn't gonna try to do that? 16. Veda in a very short amount of time creates hundreds of Bring clones and Veda didn't have enough time to put some A.I. in these guys so they could actually pilot the Trans-AM units? If those mobile suits were gonna be missles, couldn't they have been put on auto-pilot? 17. Marina Ismail wanted to be Relena Peacecraft. But she ends up becoming a daycare teacher who writes a song. I know they wanted to show meaning in the little things amidst war. But they are already in some dismal circumstances and Marina couldn't even lead her country from what I could tell. Relena had some leadership ability. I think Marina should have had a much larger impact outside of helping out Setsuna and preventing him from killing Ali who totally deserved it. And considering this is Gundam, there isn't a "no kill" rule. 18. Veda has to be self evolving. I understand suspension of disbelief but for 200 years Veda was sitting on all of this technology and is able to just churn this stuff out on top of filtering the proper information to the right people? And Veda, a system of such sophistication was created 200 years ago and the entire human race hasn't caught up? Maybe in the movie Veda will be revealed to be alien technology. 19. Speaking of...possibility of aliens in Gundam? I'll bite. 20. How did Wang Liu Mei get involved in all this? We never really saw her plan. Just another person trying to manipulate the world? If that's so there are too many in this show. Just like how Setsuna fought too many key characters. So that's what I have for now. Let me say that I loved the Gundam designs. At least the main 4. I'm torn on Flags and none of the others I find all that memorable. The concepts were great and even though I'm not crazy about this show I wouldn't mind the model kits so I guess it was successful in that regard. 00 Raiser is slick with fun abilities but I don't think the other Gundams were given equal footing which is a shame. Seravee was the only one that barely came close. Arios got shafted by the way. It's essentially Zeta + Air Master and given the other units it seems kinda weak (save for the Trans-AM endgame). The fights were a lot of fun and were a joy to watch. I think the staff took a few pages out of Gurren Lagann but couldn't quite pull off the same level of quick storytelling and make it smooth. This series seemed to introduce plot points one moment and then dismissed them the next. It's a real shame such a beautiful series is so held down by such a poor story. It was a very nice concept that was poorly executed. The way I felt when I watched it was the staff basically played some Super Robot Wars games without really paying attention to the dialogue and trying to build a show around it. There were some nice moments, an example being Nena telling Lousie "Don't think you're the only one who had a family." Sadly the moments didn't have any good build up and the Innovators were little more than boss battles (unless they fight 00 Raiser). For all I have said though, at the end of the day I can say that Gundam 00 was better than SEED Destiny. |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8511 Location: Penguinopolis |
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1. Well, of course the idea was necessary, it was the entire point of the series, the Innovators being charged with preparing humanity for the "dialogues to come", but Ribbons having ideas of his own. The Innovators have more control of Quantum Brainwaves, and are essentially bio-computers that are connected to Veda.
Of course, then they threw in that "Innovade" thing towards the end where none of them are real Innovators, because Innovators need to be built from humans, and Setsuna is perhaps the first real Innovator. It was a bit perplexing. 2. Guy was a futurist. As for how he was able to develop all that technology, he did had tons of other scientists working for them, and it's also possible the ones we'd be "dialoguing" with might have helped him. 3. The idea was to prepare them for "the dialogues to come". Ribbons preferred to control everything himself. 4. I god the feeling that merely flooding people with GN particles isn't going to work, but I can't be sure why. I think the point is to have folks come to an understanding on their own. 5. Obviously, Gundam series are very merchandise-driven. I would have preferred them making the pilots rely more on core skill than their machines, but even Amuro got by mostly on the Gundam's great build for most of the series. 6. The hand thing was symbolic. She was a different person after the tragedy. She didn't feel stable enough to be with him, and she was apparently boiling with feelings of revenge, given that she ended up joining the A-Laws in the second season. She wisely told Saji to go chase his dreams, because her dreams were now about destroying the Gundams. And don't expect teenagers, especially ones like Saji and Louise, who had been cradled and kept from real conflict most of their lives, to act appropriately and wisely given their situations. 7. Well made mobile suit, shut up. 8. How would Andrei know about it? The Federation sent Sergei to his death on purpose, because of his behavior. His superior sold him out to get a high position in the A-Laws. 7. Well, in UC it would assure death. 8. I can't recall. 9. Is this a question? 10. Welcome to the Gundam franchise. Enjoy your stay. 11. Welcome to the Gundam franchise. Enjoy your stay. 12. Except that Neil and Lyle are really nothing alike, and the entire point about these twins is their differences. They set it up that way intentionally. It's not like Kato's brother replacing him after he dies in Be Forever Yamato, one has different mannerisms as the other. Lyle is a bit more deceptive and detached from being a Gundam Meister than his brother Neil, and shuns any sort of concept of family duty or feelings of revenge. It's not until the Anew situation that he changes and becomes more like his brother, but even then he's still different enough to me. Also, stop looking at Feldt like anything more than a bridge bunny. She isn't. She's a prop, like Oscar and Marker in the original series. 13. He's the first person worthy of being involved with the "dialogues", I suppose. 14. That's not a question. 15. Huh? 16. Yeah, the clones were a stupid idea. 17. This isn't a question. 18. Maybe. 19. I'd rather there not be aliens themselves, just an implication of alien life. 20. Wang Liu Mei was playing both sides to see how the world would change, and when Ribbons got tired of her, he got rid of her. I felt like the show got way too ambitious and probably received some stupid studio exec mandates. There were too many characters in the second season and the first season didn't do a good enough job setting up most of what went on. It was a middling Gundam series. Not great, but fairly good. Not really worth my purchase, but at least better than the CE era of Gundam. I do really like Seiji Mizushima, though, and look forward to his next work, even after the movie. |
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TranceLimit174
Posts: 963 |
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First let me apologize for taking too long to respond. And I guess I was too specific when I said I had questions. I also had general thoughts and wanted fans' opinions on these topics and wanted to know what it is they liked about the series. That being said on with the list:
1. Wait, so the "Innovators" were really "Innovaders" and Tieria is one even though he doesn't have Quantum Brainwaves? I'll buy them being super-computers but that was the only real difference between the Innovators and the super humans. Either way I think the identification of people got too dicey. You have humans, super humans, Innovaders (last minute), Innovators, Pure Innovator, and God knows whatever is hanging out at Jupiter. You could cut two or 3 of those. 2. I guess Aeolia had Veda programmed to go after anyone who would break ranks with him over a 200 year period? Even though this coalition of scientists are building the thing? I know this is anime but that's extremely convoluted, so I'm gonna say the "Dialougers" (name for Jupiter people) gave it to him at some point or at least the schematics. 3. That doesn't explain Regene acting like it was such a big revelation when she told Tieria the culmination of the plan was to get people up into space. It's already happened so the Innovators are a bit late to the party and it clashes with the idea that Aeolia could predict all this. 4. This series was entirely technology based. Battles just got so intense and 00 Raiser was pushed so far that enough GN Particles were released to trigger those Newtype moments. I don't see how the human conflict had anything to do with it. And even then it didn't have a mass effect where several people reached understanding of one another. 5. I would contest that was only at the beginning but even so his Newtype abilities were in play as well. It wasn't all the Gundam's doing like it is in this series. 6. I think a better symbol could have been chosen. They disfigured her in the most inoffensive way possible. I still don't understand why they didn't stay in contact. Not feeling right for someone doesn't equal act like they dropped off the Earth. That situation left off with her in the room if I recall correctly, so that's an awfully quick time to get over shock and make such radical decisions. Yes Saji and Louise were cradled but were they ever superficial? I think carefree is a better term. It would have been much better if say her face was burned off and couldn't be reconstructed. This was a poor choice all around and yes I hold Fullmetal Alchemist over the director on this one because he contradicts himself. 7. Really? Well made when it's clearly been established that the Gundams can shred through any MS by this point like it's paper? 8. He was set up, but that doesn't change the fact that it was broadcasted worldwide and everyone in their MS's were listening in on it. Once again poor set up and execution. I'm not seeing where Andrei missed all of this. It comes off like he was just looking for an excuse to pull the trigger and that makes him even more unlikeable. 9/10. If you go back and watch the episode where Momento Mori is fired, totally comes off as though Sergei died. Similar issue with Kati later on. Poor composition. 11. Not a question but I wanted an opinion. This whole concept was awful and irritating and it made captains seem inept. In any other series they'd have a plan, it'd go wrong, adjust, rinse and repeat. Tactics were never adjusted which made many breaks occur out of convenience. 12. I have to say I am a Gundam vet, and there isn't another series in the franchise I can think of where FULL names were referred to with such frequency. Setsuna is on Ptolemy with Saji for 6 months after being at least aquaintances for 4 years prior and he's still "Saji Crossroad." It was ridiculous, annoying, and I'm shocked no character was ever "corrected" for it. 13. The names didn't add up. Gundam has odd names in general yes but given this organization of characters they clearly wanted some sort of theme. That didn't happen and I'd like to believe those working on the script have a better command of English. To connect all those names requires a lot of logic leaps. I'd look at the bad guys in SRW W for a better executed method of such a naming convention. 14. I think whether or not Neil and Lyle were alike is debatable. To me they had the exact same demeanor and Lyle eventually became the equivalent of his brother idealistically which tells me Neil could have just stuck around. Part of the reason Feldt is a prop is because of this storyline. She could have been developed into someone worthy in season 2 with Neil but no they kill off Neil to bring in a carbon copy and shoehorn a love story with a new character into 2 episodes. I'm sick of so many shows these days having massive ensemble casts. You have so many to try to reach so many different people yet hardly anyone gets developed. Lesson here is work with what you got. 15. At this point he did not change in any way, shape, or form except getting the Amuro sentiment. Clearly these labels as with most other things in the series is purely physical, and since nothing about Setsuna was altered how does he get the label of Pure Innovator and why does it matter if he's absent of such change? I don't see how it makes him worthy. 16. Wanted an opinion. 17. That exchange I think sums up the series very nicely. They wanted to make Mister Bushido badass but this makes him hokey and bland. 19. Another opinion. 20. Wan Liu Mei is another example of a character flushed out by an ensemble cast. Just because her family is powerful that put her in the position to have some part in Aeolia's plan? She wasn't any sort of higher being so why would the Innovators even bother with her? Veda would have served an equal purpose. Once again I think my consensus is too many ideas were thrown out in this show with almost none of them developed. I'd like to hear what other fans of this series and Gundam in general thought of it. |
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