Ep. 010 - The Battle Royale! (SRW Original, ST v. MSG v. SW)

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Ep. 010 - The Battle Royale! (SRW Original, ST v. MSG v. SW)

You know what's hilarious?

When your sick for two days, then stay up all-night to edit your podcast, realize you're going to get next to no sleep before you have to go to work the next day. Then when you get to work, you find out that you were approved for vacation on your weekend and that your actually at your job ready to work during your break. And I actually called in sick both days when I didn't have to.

You have no idea how sweet that ride home from the job was.

Why did I come here again? Oh, yeah! The next episode of "Gundamn! @ MAHQ" is finally here! The long awaited episode where we discuss the "Super Robot Wars: Original Generation" series, lock, stock and barrel with MAHQ Staff Writer & Mechatalk.net regular, "Destiny_Gundam", is now on deck for your listening pleasure!

In addition, we "Jump the Gundam" and compare and contrast the our favorite mecha franchise with two other mega-properties of science fiction, Star Trek & Star Wars! As always, Ep. 10 comes to you in "Mixed" & "Straight-up, No Chaser" varieties.


Gundamn @ MAHQ Episode 010: "The Battle Royale!"
Standard Version - Unplugged Version

Topics Featured in this Episode:
- Anime & Game Spotlight - "Super Robot Wars: Original Generation": with guest-host Peter Laliberte ("Destiny_Gundam"), the gang delves into the original universe of Banpresto's hits series! (Extended Segment)
- The Battle Royale!: How will the franchise of "Mobile Suit Gundam" fare when sized against uber science fiction series, "Star Wars" & "Star Trek". (Extended Segment)

Although there's only two segments this time, they are both extended, making this one of our longest episodes. Due to the length and wanting to get it out to everyone, there's no frills this time, but don't fret. The live episode is coming up next! BTW, when we recorded this, the live session was still in the future, and despite being over, I left mention of it in the episode. Serves me right for not getting it done sooner. Expect the duration between Ep. 10 and 11 to be a lot shorter than the lapse of time between Ep. 9 & 10. Especially since the live session is over and I can finally relax. (*Phew*)

Man, did I need this vacation. Enjoy!

Ganbatte, gang!

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Last edited by Soul Bro Ryu on Tue Mar 25, 2008 2:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Wow, not even 10 minutes into the show, but I just had to give Neo props for slaying the entirety of mechatalk. In reality most of the complaining is concentrated in the 00 discussions, but it will in fact spill over every now and then. Man, I laughed hard.

*goes back to listening*
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Bah, I always sound horrible on recording. Apparently my mic's not that great either, though it sounded like I was a guest phoning in like you hear on normal radio. I thought that was pretty cool.

I don't physically talk to people very often, so once I start going, stuff just spills out, so that's why I sound so long winded. Not surprisingly, after the recording was over, I thought of a million different things I could have done better. Bleh.

I should have said "Shu is my Char" to describe my man crush on him.

Anyways, it was a lot of fun and I look forward to doing it again.

As for the rest of the show, well, the reason I didn't stick around for it is because I didn't have much to contribute. I've seen all the Star Wars movies (I like the prequels actually) but didn't really look much into the extended franchise, and I've seen very little Star Trek (just a few eps of the original).

Anyways, I hope all the listeners were able to put up with an amature like me (this was my first podcast).
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I didn't think I would be one to post early on into the topic, but I guess we got to start from somewhere. It was a good show, and I enjoyed it. I think having the Escaflowne soundtrack going in the background made the conversation a lot more epic than it really was!

I'll just have to say ahead of time that I don't follow either Star Wars or Star Trek, and all the experiences I've had with either were more annoying than were enjoyable. (At most, I've only watched two Star Wars movies completely through, and accidentally saw clips of Star Trek whilst channel surfing, haha.) Just Gundam for me, please. I can do without the other two.

Did you guys ever mention the correlation of Darth Vader's helmet and Char's helmet? Maybe I missed it, but I thought it'd be something that would be pointed out by at least one of you. It would have been interesting, too, if the discussion had gone as far as looking that things that influences the three works themselves. The Japanese samurai culture being one for Star Wars and Gundam. I haven't any thoughts for Star Trek on that note. Sorry.

One thing I would like to add in is the difference in how the camera work is handled during action scenes: saber fights, specifically. I remember when I was watching the last fight scene in Episode III, and the whole time I was thinking to myself Dammit, your lightsabers are too bright! That line seems like a bad joke, but I am serious. The camera focused far too close on the saber clashes that all I could see was a long series of seizure-inducing flashes. I couldn't follow the fight whatsoever, not being able to see what kind of moves they were going for or what stances they took.

In Gundam, the "camera work" is much better handled for a fight scene. Maybe it just has the extreme advantage that it is all hand-drawn. When there is a saber fight in Gundam, you can see everything. You're watching how they move and evade, how they make blocks and parries, and yeah, it makes for a great sword fight. The choreography is good and the 'camera' always follows it very well. Maybe I'm just spoiled by watching too many Hong Kong action movies, but yeah, this one aspect in Gundam really made the difference for me.
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I'm about to listen to it right now, but I can already tell it's gonna be great. Since I was a big Star Trek fan and I am still a big Star Wars fan, this ought to be interesting.
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Ah, I just remembered. I'm surprised you guys didn't mention Gundam F91 and how it had Darth Vader mobile suits and ripped off the soundtrack.
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Okay, I've finally decided to get off my rear on this and start listening to these so I'm catching and will get to this episode by the weekend, so I'll have my opinions later.
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Just went to itunes to download ep 10 and there is only the unplugged version I could not get the standard version.


Edit: they just fixed it am currently downloading
Last edited by NastyNate on Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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NastyNate wrote:Just went to itunes to download ep 10 and there is only the unplugged version I could not get the standard version.
Right-click and refresh it. It should appear then. I hope -_-
Destiny_Gundam wrote:Anyways, I hope all the listeners were able to put up with an amature like me (this was my first podcast).
You left the mic smokin'. When it when it comes to recording, you did exactly what Neo, Chris and I do: spoke your mind into the mic device and held court, and although we might have a bit more podcasting experience, that's all there is to it.

Unless I can figure out how to make a living from podcasting (which is HIGHLY unlikely), I'll always consider myself an amateur. ^_^
Destiny_Gundam wrote:Ah, I just remembered. I'm surprised you guys didn't mention Gundam F91 and how it had Darth Vader mobile suits and ripped off the soundtrack.
And that sh_t hit me afterwards too. Lately, after doing these episodes, I think of 20 different things that I should have mentioned during them. Ah, well, gives me something for later, just in case this subject comes up again. At least, we'll talk about F91 eventually when we discuss it as a subject on the show...
VentZX wrote:Wow, not even 10 minutes into the show, but I just had to give Neo props for slaying the entirety of mechatalk. In reality most of the complaining is concentrated in the 00 discussions, but it will in fact spill over every now and then. Man, I laughed hard.
I'm just glad you guys have such a good sense of humor. It was hilarious but I was a little worried how it might have gone over. Hope you enjoyed the rest of the episode. :)
MBF-06/ZGMF-X12A Arbiter wrote:I'm about to listen to it right now, but I can already tell it's gonna be great. Since I was a big Star Trek fan and I am still a big Star Wars fan, this ought to be interesting.
It should be. Honestly speaking, I was never was a big fan of SW, with only "Empire" being the only film I'll go out of my way to watch when it's on. And I was born the year Star Wars came out in theaters and my most impressionable years happened around the time when hype for the trilogy was at fever pitch. I remember that my parents would buy SW figures for me for Christmas and I really didn't care, too busy playing with GI Joes and Transformers to give two flips. What's even worse was that I despised Star Trek until I was in high school when I took a semester of Sci-fi literature class in 9th grade. What was the boring show my father would watch soon became my obsession after that.

Mecha Anime is really the only thing I've stayed a regular, consistant patron of, going all the way back to Robotech in '85, Voltron before that in '84, and even the Spanish dub of Mazinger Z I vaguely remember watching in Puerto Rico in '79 when I was 2. (Jesus, I'm old...)

In wild ways, it's always been there, and for that, I'll forever be the genre's whore.
Wingnut wrote:Okay, I've finally decided to get off my rear on this and start listening to these so I'm catching and will get to this episode by the weekend, so I'll have my opinions later.
I'd be honored to read your thoughts on the episodes, especially on the "Battle Royale" topic.
Seraphic wrote:I didn't think I would be one to post early on into the topic, but I guess we got to start from somewhere. It was a good show, and I enjoyed it. I think having the Escaflowne soundtrack going in the background made the conversation a lot more epic than it really was!

I'll just have to say ahead of time that I don't follow either Star Wars or Star Trek, and all the experiences I've had with either were more annoying than were enjoyable. (At most, I've only watched two Star Wars movies completely through, and accidentally saw clips of Star Trek whilst channel surfing, haha.) Just Gundam for me, please. I can do without the other two.

Did you guys ever mention the correlation of Darth Vader's helmet and Char's helmet? Maybe I missed it, but I thought it'd be something that would be pointed out by at least one of you. It would have been interesting, too, if the discussion had gone as far as looking that things that influences the three works themselves. The Japanese samurai culture being one for Star Wars and Gundam. I haven't any thoughts for Star Trek on that note. Sorry.

One thing I would like to add in is the difference in how the camera work is handled during action scenes: saber fights, specifically. I remember when I was watching the last fight scene in Episode III, and the whole time I was thinking to myself Dammit, your lightsabers are too bright! That line seems like a bad joke, but I am serious. The camera focused far too close on the saber clashes that all I could see was a long series of seizure-inducing flashes. I couldn't follow the fight whatsoever, not being able to see what kind of moves they were going for or what stances they took.

In Gundam, the "camera work" is much better handled for a fight scene. Maybe it just has the extreme advantage that it is all hand-drawn. When there is a saber fight in Gundam, you can see everything. You're watching how they move and evade, how they make blocks and parries, and yeah, it makes for a great sword fight. The choreography is good and the 'camera' always follows it very well. Maybe I'm just spoiled by watching too many Hong Kong action movies, but yeah, this one aspect in Gundam really made the difference for me.
As impressive as that fight was (compared to the stiff lightsaber duels of the original trilogy), I'm right there with you about the flashburn my optics felt after leaving that movie theater at damn near 3 in the AM that night the movie was released. Despite all that preparation and development, if mystifies me that those origin movies could have ended up such a mess. If ol' Georgie Luke does go through and remake those flicks into animated CG films, it's my greatest wish for SW fans that he has nothing to do with the story and instead has it re-envented by someone who can still write & direct. Wouldn't it kick ass to have each one re-spun by different creative teams (like ones headed by Bruce Timm, Brad Bird, and Tetsuya Nomura to name a few)?

I'm sure that won't happen, but since Lucas and shop his latest "Clone Wars" series to any network and watching a real director at work on his latest license to print money, namely Indy 4, he'll realize that his a$$ should probably stick to financing these pics and staying the hell away from the set.

Animators are hard-working folks, but for them to play out a action packed beam-saber battle frame by frame is always going to be more accurate than trying to emulate storyboards for a film. For the most part, it's not hard, but it's definitely a detailed and involving process, to say the least.

As for camera work in animation, a lot of the hard work is already done since the only shots you have to set up are when you place the cel in front of the camera lens. I'll give the camera men that worked on that climatic set-piece in "Sith" this much: They have to film scenes according to storyboard, and that wouldn't be so bad, save for one problem. 95% of the set is Green-screen. Any camera-person with that much "vision" and who could have pulled-off the shots in that scene without ILM's post-production burning my eyes out should have knocked King George the hell out and took his place in the director's chair.

As obvious as it is, I can't believe that during the time we compared Darth to Char, we never mentioned his helmet. I didn't even have it on my cheat sheet, and for that I deserve a Bri​ght​Sla​pâ„¢. The Samurai influence is also a very good point that we overlooked and I regret that too, since it would have made for great conversation on the show. At least we have these forums to pick up the pieces.

The Escaflowne OST can make washing the dishes sound epic if you're listening to it. Oh, Yoko...you and your husband did end up making beautiful music together, didn't you? ^_^
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Very enjoyable podcast, guys...

Actually, there's one more science fiction franchise that I would consider as "Iconic"...

America has Star Wars and Star Trek. Japan has Gundam. And Britain has Doctor Who.

I don't really have time now to write a lengthy post trying to make comparisons, but I'm wondering... have any of you seen any of Doctor Who, and if so what do you think of it?
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Vent Noir wrote:I don't really have time now to write a lengthy post trying to make comparisons, but I'm wondering... have any of you seen any of Doctor Who, and if so what do you think of it?
The difference being that Gundam, Star Wars, and Star Trek are all Space Operas and Doctor Who is a Time/Dimension Travelling show. Not to mention the contrast between Giant Robots and Ships vs the TARDIS/policemen's booth. Which means the best American/Japanese franchises to compare against Dr Who are Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Doraemon.

A better British series to contrast Gundam/ST/SW against would be Red Dwarf, if the series weren't a comedy.

EDIT:
Haha, Neo made a newbish mistake saying "GoGaiGar". Would have thought Soul Bro would have caught that in post production ;).
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Thats a good discussion on SRW and now I want to get it on DVD. The question was is the DVDs dubbed or subbed? This makes both Ideon and SRW now on my list of Mecha shows to own and watch.

As for the discussion of the Big 3 franchises, I agree that Gundam closer resembles Babylon 5 in regards to the politics of the show and how sometimes different factions within can quickly turn such as the Earth Alliance being the good guys in seasons 1&2 but later becoming closer along the lines of the Titans in seasons 3&4 with the Nightwatch organization. Also where as Babylon 5 has telepaths, Gundam has Newtypes. The last similarity is how there is a feeling of realism when it comes to the fact main characters and supporting characters can die in the show closer resembles Gundam.

Now with Trek I believe the fanbase is closer to Gundam than Starwars because there have been Japanese inventors whom were inspired by Gundam and tried to invent new things based off that technology I know there was a show like that as previously discussed in an earlier Gundamn! show and with Trek you did have a few such inventors and of course the PDA is a prime example.

From Http://www.bspcn.com/2007/12/16/5-thing ... star-trek/ the article states: "One well-documented example is the user interface developed in the 1990s for the Palm OS. Its designer, Rob Haitani, an admitted Star Trek fan, claims that his first sketches were inspired by the interface on the bridge panels of the Enterprise. He also claims that aspects of the first Treo were influenced by communicators from the original series."

Trek also has the Trek experience in Las Vegas with the Trek themed hotel and there are the Gundam themed bars in Japan as shown on Gunota. These are my personal opinions so feel free to discuss.
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thehod wrote:Thats a good discussion on SRW and now I want to get it on DVD. The question was is the DVDs dubbed or subbed? This makes both Ideon and SRW now on my list of Mecha shows to own and watch.
The official R1 release of SRW is subtitled only.
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Well you guys wanted a response, so here it comes. (Be careful what you wish for!)

First of all, I wish I'd known what this episode was going to be about ahead of time, I could've given you tons of info to use. But you guys did a great job anyway so that's only a very minor gripe.

Neo, you have to be the first person I have met that just doesn't like Revenge of the Sith.

In any case, I have so much to say about this that I'm gonna have to write a bloody essay. Look out for it.
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MBF-06/ZGMF-X12A Arbiter wrote:
Neo, you have to be the first person I have met that just doesn't like Revenge of the Sith.
I have to introduce to someothers who agree with me. It's not the worst movie in the world, but could've been better, especially with all the hype.
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V2Buster wrote:
Vent Noir wrote:I don't really have time now to write a lengthy post trying to make comparisons, but I'm wondering... have any of you seen any of Doctor Who, and if so what do you think of it?
The difference being that Gundam, Star Wars, and Star Trek are all Space Operas and Doctor Who is a Time/Dimension Travelling show. Not to mention the contrast between Giant Robots and Ships vs the TARDIS/policemen's booth. Which means the best American/Japanese franchises to compare against Dr Who are Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Doraemon.

A better British series to contrast Gundam/ST/SW against would be Red Dwarf, if the series weren't a comedy.

EDIT:
Haha, Neo made a newbish mistake saying "GoGaiGar". Would have thought Soul Bro would have caught that in post production ;).
Yeah, it's interesting that Britain's iconic Sci-Fi series is very different in style to America and Japan's. And it was never really a military-focused show (with the exception of the Jon Pertwee/UNIT years).

The podcast mentioned Gundam being grounded... one of the things that's interesting about Doctor Who is that it manages to be grounded and epic at the same time. The series literally has all of time and space as its domain... and yet, it always seems to come back to contemporary Earth.

Another topic addressed was series fatigue. Interestingly, Doctor Who was beginning to recover from fatigue when it was cancelled. The 6th Doctor (Colin Baker) era is considered the low point of Doctor Who, and the 7th doctor (Sylvester McCoy) stories managed to recover from that, and yet Michael Grade decided to cancel the series anyway.

Actually, another British series (probably fairly obscure to anyone who isn't a dedicated sci-fi fan) more comparable to Gundam is Blake's 7, which is a much darker, gritter sci-fi series than SW or ST, revolving around a resistance movement against a totalitarian federation. Oh, and the finale involved [spoil]killing 'em all[/spoil].

EDIT: Is there a spoiler tag code here? [spoil] and
Spoiler
don't seem to work, and I can't see one in the FAQ or BBCode guide.
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Make the text really small for spoilers like this
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V2Buster wrote:
Vent Noir wrote:
EDIT:
Haha, Neo made a newbish mistake saying "GoGaiGar". Would have thought Soul Bro would have caught that in post production ;).
Last time, I checked I'm not Japanese.

Didn't know there was a specific way I should pronounce it, since my pronunciation of GaoGaiGar is the most widely used.

But next time, I'll check with you first.
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Destiny_Gundam wrote:Make the text really small for spoilers like this
Is there any way to make that readable, other than clicking on reply?
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Vent Noir wrote:Is there any way to make that readable, other than clicking on reply?
Other than copying and pasting it into another program? No.
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