Mecha Talk 2.0

Thanks all for the updates/info.



Definitely. Especially since the introduction of the Trinities really starts a tone change in the series; and also, there might have been time to explore Laguna Harvey and better explain the Observers and how they were all allegedly offed by Ribbons pre-Season 2.

I liked Ming, for as little time as he got in the series. I wanted more reoccurring minor soldiers like him. His speech against Al/Hal helped define the HRL and set up this atmosphere of doom for Celestial Being...even though it never quite happened. (Losing one carrier, a handful of Gundams, and a few asteroid bases over two seasons isn't really punishment. And being outlaws to the Federation? Well, they were already that from the start with the 3 blocs, so that's not really punishment, either).

From hearing about SE1...it makes me feel like Season 1 was merely an intro for the "Innovation" plot, and little more. This still kind of surprises me, even though it shouldn't after seeing Season 2. But they sold the 3 blocs and the "Intervention" plot pretty hard early in Season 1, so I guess I can't be blamed for thinking that'd be more central to the story than just a plot device to get to Ribbons and co. Regarding Season 2, given the fact that they're giving it 2 Special Editions, I hope they're able to make improvements rather than doing a rushed clip-show of an already fairly rushed plot. I would think the latter 13 episodes are the ones they're going to have to do the most work on as far as the time skips there.

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"May you rest in peace, the betrayed and outraged Milliardo Peacecraft."

Eh, they're not wholly important to the overall story anyway. Except for maybe Laguna, but his motivations are pretty simple anyway, not much further elaboration is really needed there.



Are you forgetting that several of their members died as well?



I don't think that's necessarily true. It seems to me that each segment of the overall 00 story correlates to each phase of Aeolia's plan. Season 1 was about unifying the world through armed interventions; Season 2 was about unifying the will of the people through Innovation (or in Ribbons' case, oppression via the A-LAWS); and the movie will likely be about the final phase of the plan, migrating into space and "the dialogues to come."

S1 is the first third of a bigger story, not just a plot device to get to Ribbons.

Oh, yeah. Let's see...Lichte, Dr. Moreno, Christina, Neil, Anew, Tieria, and maybe some nameless asteroid techs. Of those, Neil had a body double so to speak, so for me, the memory of that awesome death scene didn't last very long. Moreno was in and out within a few episodes, Anew was a double agent, and Tieria uploaded himself to the Matrix. Lichte and Christina had legit deaths and they were surprisingly missed once you get to Mileina. Still, I just don't know if that adds up to "they paid for the world reformation with their lives" vibe I was getting earlier on. But, oh well.



You're right, by and large. This is more of a misconception on my part. The creators had a different direction for this show from the start than I figured from the early episodes is all. And, when it comes right down to it, I think the evolution of the series going more toward a mix of black-and-white politics, Gundam universe standbys, and supernatural elements alienated me the deeper Season 2 went. Conversely, understanding that 00 is going to move away from the more physical, semi-realworld aspects of "eliminating war" from Season 1 to Season 2 has made me limit my personal complaints of what I wish Season 1 had included, and has made me much more appreciative of what Season 1 did include. So, with the movie, I'm not building it up like I did before the series. I'm just expecting it to be wildly-powered Gundams fighting wildly-powered villains, with maybe some story clarifications on the Aeolia Plan and the Jupiter flashback from Season 1. I'm no longer expecting a big political story with all kinds of subtleties in this AD universe, because that was connected to the first stage of the plan, had its time, and did what it could do within the time constraints of the plot.

Just a few addenda:

*Despite my misconceptions, one piece of evidence for Season 1 as a plot device for Season 2 is in the presentation of the Aces. Season 1 leads you to believe that Graham, Soma, Sergei, Ali, [and Patrick?] are all influential to the overall plot. But once their place in the world, that is, their respective blocs/sponsors are gone, there's little need for them in a plot dominated by Ribbons' schemes. They're more marginalized than ever. Graham, who had already shown us by S1's end that CB has twisted him, becomes an absolute kook who has no influence on CB; Soma becomes Al's sidekick; Ali becomes Ribbons lapdog; Sergei is there just long enough to give us a picture of the Federation outside A-LAWS; [and Patrick is still Patrick/Kati's boy toy]. Even CB members like Al become semi-irrelevant as it comes down to Ribbons/Tieria, and then Ribbons/Setsuna. Now, the other possibility is that the Aces themselves were never important and were plot devices themselves, which would be another misconception on my part of giving them too much value in the story. But in a way, they do represent the world, and isn't that more deserving than plot device?

*Irregardless of whether it was a good idea or not, who could have foreseen a story about a secret organization intervening in a multi-polar governmental Cold War would come down to the machinations of a robot-youth trying to create biological replications of himself for "peace"? (I always thought Ribbons could play a part in it given his evident link to Veda when he helped Corner, but I didn't know he'd be the mastermind with a whole posse and give us a Titans-esque organization).

*Minor, minor comment. I've been curious--what was with the standardized CB uniforms of Season 2? Did Sunrise tell the designers to do that? (Was that necessary to have them in those all the time? For me, it made things feel more conventional and sterile than when everyone had their own style in S1).

*In an interview in the last few months, the 00 director talked about adding new characters. Was that in regard to SE2 & SE3, or the Movie?

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"May you rest in peace, the betrayed and outraged Milliardo Peacecraft."

Yeah, it's certainly no substitute for watching S1, but it's still a fun highlight reel imo. Some of the new additions or music edits (e.g. Decisive Battle in the Setsuna/Alejandro battle) make it worth watching for me.



Well regardless of what impact it had on you, the point is that CB has lost friends, family, and lovers to their cause. I can't say I was shedding any tears over Dr. Moreno, but that doesn't change that he died all the same.

Mizushima has said that major characters will be dying in the movie (which he was planning to do in S2 before he was told to make a movie), so CB isn't exactly out of the clear yet. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if Lyle and Al get bumped off.



Well if you're thinking of it that way, then don't their roles in S2 make sense? Their respective power blocs have dissolved and the whole world is essentially dancing to Ribbons' tune. So their seeming out of place compared to their positions in S1 seems to be appropriate in that regard. And opposite of your experience, I personally never cared much for those characters in S1 (except for Graham and Ali), and they only became really interesting to me in S2. For example, for me Sergei's death was one of the show's saddest moments, comparable to Lockon's death, but I never would have felt that way had he died in S1.

A note about Graham: his role being marginalized in S2 was another consequence of Mizushima and Kuroda being given the orders to make a movie and rewriting S2 as a result. Mizushima said that Graham will end up playing a large role in the movie.



Probably. We know that the mech designs in S2 were simplified because the ones in S1 were too difficult to animate. I could see them wanting to standardize the clothing for the same reason.



The movie.

Rawinder, I appreciate the clarifications. That note about the mecha is very interesting to hear and makes a lot of sense. I've got to give them credit for being ambitious and giving those angular, intricate designs a go in Season 1. They were something to see.

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"May you rest in peace, the betrayed and outraged Milliardo Peacecraft."

Plenty of new Flags to see in the movie, so they aren't gone for good.

Some tiny scans of new scenes for SE 2

Looks like we'll get to see the Sakigake use the beam guns built into its thrusters to shoot 00 in the face.

"HARDCORE!", he says.

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Something clever. WITH ARROWS!

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Here's to hope that they will finally use the underused weapons from the series (aka ones that weren't used at all).

Oh God. *laughs*
This is almost exactly what happened with Char and ZZ/CCA - Char got cut from the script because Tomino got the okay for CCA; Graham got marginalized because Mizushima was told to do a movie.

Yeah, it's official: Graham is indeed a Char:
Blonde hair? Check
Mask and nickname? Check
Distinctive color scheme to his machines, interrupted by one unit but subsequently resumed? Check(with Char it happened twice)

EDIT: Huh. For some reason I always thought Graham's eyes were blue. Oh well, my bad.

Now the only thing he's missing is the loli complex.

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On Gundam Sentinel...

Hey, Graham has Green eyes. That's right blue eyed folks, he's ours! lol

Though I have to wonder what role he will play. Leading the UN forces against CB then joining them? Would that have been his role towards the end of S2? I'm curious to see how this will develop. They have flipped his personality around so much I swear I see him retired from the military by now.

if he joins CB with billy he better get a GN-VMS or the fed better have one as an mp unit.

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I don't think they've really changed his personality all that much. No matter how stupid Mr. Bushido looks/sounds, it's still a (relatively) logical extension of Graham's personality in S1.

I'm also pretty curious how Graham will factor into the movie. We know he'll be fighting in some capacity in the movie (since we know he has a mobile suit), but the end of his last battle with Setsuna indicated that Graham has gotten over his whole obsessive warrior personality.

Wouldn't the Ekisubo or whatever it's called, that new Flag, fit the bill? It's a variable unit, and it's pretty much guaranteed to be equipped with a GN-Drive[T].

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On Gundam Sentinel...

Ekisubo and GN-X IV are the new grunt suits, and it looks like Graham gets his own custom Ekisubo. And they do use Tau drives.

It is the logical next step for the EF to do an gn based VMS since two of the blocks in the series were up to 2nd gen VMS. and the gundam they captured was the CB-003. I am actually surprised that the gnz line was missing a variable unit. or we never got a transforming ahead model.

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I'm just being a nitpick nazi here, but Kyrios's model number is GN-003, NOT CB-003. AFAWK there is no "CB-003" - the only machines IIRC to carry the "CB" prefix are the GN Cannon(CBY-077), 1 Gundam(CBY-001), and Reborns Gundam/Cannon(CB-0000G/C)

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On Gundam Sentinel...

Graham's personality... He was so tongue-in-cheek during Season 1 I sometimes I didn't know if he was joking or not. The way he talked about his "godlike powers." Like when he talked about Exia's pilot being a young man; he knew that because he "talked" to Setsuna (IE: Oh yeah, and who are you? / Graham Aker the man who...), not because of the 'movements' of Exia, right? Because Billy gives him a look that says, "yeah, right." Do I have that correct?

...Graham is a fairly unique "rival" character. I mean, I see the Char references in the blond hair and the mask, and I even see Zechs references in how he becomes interested in the Gundams so much that it changes his world perceptions...but he has a certain mischievous, lighthearted pompousness and ethereal, sentimental romanticism about him that's different than the typical Char archetypes IMO. However, it's perverted to such an extreme facade with Mr. Bushido, that 99% of the unique charm of Graham was replaced by a one-note, way-of-the-warrior tough guy. I think it hurt his character with fans in that I don't see as much art of him as I do of Patrick or others. It's going to be awkward seeing him revert back after such a twisted representation of his character. But, it'll be nice to have the old Graham back too since he didn't get much screen time toward the last quarter of Season 1, even if it's a bit artificial...

Yet, Graham and Billy, I can totally see them supporting CB. Especially after Billy had that talk with Sumeragi. As for MS, didn't Billy have some MS schematics up in his room at the end of Season 2. Not sure if they were new or not, though.

EDIT: Also, with the movie, I have to imagine the villains will be using actual GN drives from Jupiter. Maybe in "evil Gundams"? Who knows, maybe there'll be some mass-produced 0 Gundams.

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"May you rest in peace, the betrayed and outraged Milliardo Peacecraft."

It was just the Gaga that was up. Though, the lineart for the 'Ekisubo' does mention the booster we see the Gaga's using at the end of the series. Possibly he was using data from his Gaga to add to his Masurao/Sunanowo to create the final Ekisubo.

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On Compromise: Let's agree to respect each others views, no matter how wrong yours may be.

this probably isn't the place to ask but does anyone have a translation for the 4 months for 1312 drama cd? it seems to have interesting plot points fleshed out in it (like lyle first finding out anew was an innovator but neglecting to tell anyone, and a conversation between setsuna and feldt that appears to be mainly about neil.) but apart from that the only thing i can make out with some degree of certainty is that ian can't hold his booze

Time for some more movie news

Line art for all four Celestial Being Gundams

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On Compromise: Let's agree to respect each others views, no matter how wrong yours may be.