The Official Gundam SEED FREEDOM Anime Thread Mk I

[Seto Kaiba]

It's too bad Shinn didn't get a bit more development earlier on, though they would have to radically change the story's plot to accommodate.

More development would almost certainly not have helped Shinn.

The problem with Shinn as a character isn't that he's underdeveloped, it's that he's unlikeable. Like Kamille, he's a more emotionally volatile take on the prior Gundam protagonist. Kamille could be abrasive and had a temper but he was still a decent person in Zeta. Shinn, on the other hand, channels his trauma into being the biggest arsehole possible. He's rude, he's selfish, he has a hair-trigger temper, and he loves to blame other people for everything that doesn't go his way. He was so exquisitely unpleasant as a character that his transition from main character to secondary character came as a relief, and his transition to villain felt far more natural than it otherwise would have.

It probably did not help that he was a suspiciously similar substitute for Kira, and that Destiny came hot and fast on the heels of SEED... so Shinn wasn't just unpleasant, he was a highly visible reminder that a much better protagonist existed.

Spoiler

Shinn's role is ultimately an emotional pawn, manipulated by a seemingly benevolent mentor (sort of like if Kamille was manipulated like Quess, the manipulator even has the same voice actor), even so if Shinn had changed during the finale instead of afterwards, it might've helped more

That's not the role he was intended to have, it's the one he was hastily crowbarred into after the show's creative team realized a heel turn was pretty much the only believable character development for the little psycho.

On a similar note to Shinn's issues

Spoiler

Did Shinn ever figure out Mu and Neo were the same person? Did he forgive Mu, as technically Neo wasn't exactly him. Does he even know?

Probably, in one of the audio dramas he does meet Mu.

[Mafty]

Seto Kaiba Said: Kamille could be abrasive and had a temper but he was still a decent person in Zeta. Shinn, on the other hand, channels his trauma into being the biggest arsehole possible. He's rude, he's selfish, he has a hair-trigger temper, and he loves to blame other people for everything that doesn't go his way.

Totally, several characters that could have shown Shinn in a more positive light were mistreated. I 've already mention the issues with Luna, however when Shinn mets a child resistance member Conille Almeta, he's as hostile to her as to anyone else (Granted she's not interested in being pushed around, but given how close Shinn was to Mayu, you'd think he get along better with someone younger).

Then there is the issue with the Extended

Spoiler

Namely the only one Shinn cares about is Stella. Granted she's largely presented more sympathetically, but still Shinn never thinks about how the other Extended were raised like Stella. To him Stella is innocent, the other extend are evil despite being in the same group as Stella

By contrast what does everyone think of Sven from Stargazer? He almost seems like a redo of Shinn, both being troubled orphans who end up doing morally questionable things

Spoiler

Of course Shinn never blew up a Refugee Camp.

. But Sven winds up being a more complex character in much less screentime.

In any event, I am actually glad Shinn got much more likeable come Freedom; even though it comes at the cost of him basically becoming like Star-Lord in the later Marvel movies (i.e., the character seems actively disliked by even the writing staff for the most part).

On another note , now that the Seed movie is out, what will happen to SEED Eclipse?

Spoiler

it seems to be wrapping up, but there could be more arcs.

[yugioh54]

I wouldn't say he was a useless character in Destiny though, he was the minervas ace pilot, granted you could say it was all Durandal but Shinn must've had some skill and training to be able to pilot those suits. and his SEED mode. But I understand his development comes way too late. Stella's Death and his victory over the freedom wasn't a turning point like Nicol's Death in Seed. Parallel Meer's death doesn't hit the same way Flay's did. But the whole Athrun mentoring Shinn did not workout well storywise as Rey was in the background. His hostility towards the Auths and Cagalli was understandable as his family died in orb. I wouldn't say Kamille was a great character either, paralell Zeta ended on a Cliffhanger, and Kamille became more interesting in ZZ.

[Mafty]

Shinn and Kamille do enter a downward spiral towards the end of their respective shows. Kamille breaks down over the endless trauma and tragedy, while Shinna becomes increasingly manipulated by those around him.

Spoiler

Kamille almost gets to start over with a clean slate, upon recovering. While Shinn is ultimately given a second chance from Kira's group.

Again maybe if they somehow had Shinn change during the shows run (even if it was in the last few episodes) things might have been different.


For another question, what exactly is the political status of the CE world come Freedom?

Spoiler

Blue Cosmos is on its last legs and finally gets wiped out completely

, But what of the rest of the Earth Alliance? Foundation has Seceded, but what about the other territories the EA controls?

Spoiler

In general it seems that both ZAFT and EA are greatly weakened.

[Seto Kaiba]

In any event, I am actually glad Shinn got much more likeable come Freedom; even though it comes at the cost of him basically becoming like Star-Lord in the later Marvel movies (i.e., the character seems actively disliked by even the writing staff for the most part).

Based on Fukuda's commentary, the "more likeable" Shinn was basically a hard reset on his entire character... they dumped all of the development he had throughout Destiny and basically made him into a mauve shirt named background character. The only thing of Destiny-era Shinn that is left in Freedom is everyone else's complete and utter (and entirely justified) disdain for him.

I wouldn't say he was a useless character in Destiny though, he was the minervas ace pilot, [...]

He wasn't useless, he was unlikeable. Those are two very different things.

Mind you, he was only the Minerva's top ace for like five episodes before Athrun fell back into the cockpit and promptly stole his thunder.

[...] granted you could say it was all Durandal but Shinn must've had some skill and training to be able to pilot those suits. and his SEED mode.

It's undeniable that Shinn had the skills and talent to rank near the top of his class at the military academy. His red duty uniform attests to that.

That said, that's only a relative measure of ability and the creative team keeps doubling down on Shinn not actually being that good. Like the movie's short stories establishing that Shinn ranked well below Agnes and even the relatively unremarkable (in the series) Lunamaria in the academy. Or that by the time of Freedom even other characters are aware Shinn only got a Gundam because Durandal singled him out as a useful idiot.

I wouldn't say Kamille was a great character either, paralell Zeta ended on a Cliffhanger, and Kamille became more interesting in ZZ.

Kamille was a very well-rounded and developed character by the end of Zeta, and very well liked by the audience even before ZZ. Indeed, the character he'd be measured against in SEED in terms of popularity would be Kira, not Shinn.

For another question, what exactly is the political status of the CE world come Freedom?

Spoiler

Blue Cosmos is on its last legs and finally gets wiped out completely

, But what of the rest of the Earth Alliance? Foundation has Seceded, but what about the other territories the EA controls?

Spoiler

In general it seems that both ZAFT and EA are greatly weakened.

We don't know, because that information isn't relevant to the movie's story and neither the movie itself nor the handful of pamphlets and mooks that have been published about it offer more than the bare minimum level of detail about stuff that's actually IN the movie. It's your usual Gundam situation where the available info on most important topics is no more than "a picture and 2-3 sentences".

It's only been about a year since the end of Destiny at the time the movie starts, so it's safe to assume that the geopolitical situation hasn't really changed apart from the formation of the international peacekeeping taskforce COMPASS as a joint effort by ORB, the PLANTs, and the Atlantic Federation.

[yugioh54]

Finally seen the movie, not bad, but great, a decent finale for the CE, it was a love story, I'm not sure this is the original plot Chiaki Morosawa planned. It felt like a reunion movie rather then a direct continuation of Destiny. If they want to expand the CE, as we've discussed, I thought the callbacks and the characters switching suits was creative. I get Fukuda wanted this to be the series finale. But I think the CE is too popular to rest, at least a manga spinoff will always around like WING. The Black Knights had zero personality, I wouldn't say that one loved Orphee despite having no interest in her and one had huge respect for Athrun Zala. It was only a two hour movie, I just wish the cast wasn't so powerful, granted there machines are consdiered outdated so maybe that could comeup in a future installment. I do see an 5 minute ova, epilogue that follows up on this movie. I sound like I didn't like it but after seeing what the Digimon movies did recently. I just wish the movie stood on it's own a little more. Didn't mind the redo of the Destiny Plan but I wish characters like Mu or Shinn had more screentime, they even used Athurn less this time after overusing him. This was Kira and Lacus story, I just don't think the movie dealt with ironcially the civilians in ORB problem(which movtivated Shinn) and the Stargazer ONA and Astray problem(where people are dying and there could be mini conflicts like the Astray mangas show). It just doesn't feel like these smaller threats shown throughout the CE have been explored. Kira can't just fix everything and compared to Destiny's ending, I liked Cagalli in this movie, she became better at running ORB, stuff like that I wish was shown more in the movie.

EDIT
Saw it again, liked it much better this time with less expectations, mecha wise everything was cool except I didn't care for flight mode freedom. The Meteors piloted by Yzak and Dearka was a nice nod to those machines, Athrun piloting Gzok and freedom was also fun. Bummer the Archangel is gone but it's considered out dated along with the rest of the machines except they added new equipment but it's only been like a year or two since destiny. Yet these machines seemed overpowered. The whole psychic thing felt very UC, newtype, did not like the new seed visual effect, I know they wanted the vision to include dna but it seemed unnecessary.

Story wise I think they cramped to much, hence the back and forth between the locations. The final battle being about there partners makes the series feel too much like a soap opera , sure it happens in both series but it feels not as well written. I'll defend the black knights at least they had some personality, one respects Athrun and one wants to love Orphee, but Agnes might as well be a black knight as she feels like she fits the mold better. Kira being called some superman was called out on it and it's true. The finale was also pretty soap opera-y.

Cour 1 Athrun is retired and restless, Kira is retired and restless, Shinn is in combat
Cour 2 Athrun is active, still confused his orb allies are interefering, on the chairmans side, Kira intervening in battles that aren't his, Shinn is in combat
Cour 3 Athrun more confused and questioning his recent choices, loses his machine to Kira, branded traitor by Rey and leaves ZAFT
Kira traveling and defeats the EA Destroy Gundam with Stella in the process and then loses his machine to Shinn, Shinn in combat
Cour 4 Athrun decided to fight for his beliefs rejoins archangel, Kira returns with a new machine fight for his beliefs, Shinn in combat, fighting for his beliefs

Destiny was not perfect, Fukuda made sure Shinn do all those things in the opening themes, whether he was likeable or not and his story was derailed and still felt like a protagonist or at least active in the war and didn't have the luxury Athrun and Kira had, which ironically made Lacus seem like a female Durandel by giving kira and athrun those machines.


the movie somewhat improves the stale way episode 50 and final plus finishes the storys. I liked Destiny's ending but none of the characters from that ending are alive (rey, talia, durandel) plus as seto kaiba said they already rejected the plan in Destiny.

It's just Kira and Lacus didn't have any real conflict in Destiny and that's what this movie delivers. What bugs me is that there could be so much story about how the Black Knights and Requiem killed all those people in the movie. It's those small details which ironically was the jumping on point for Destiny and Stargazer
EDIT

My final thoughts, I still think the EA and Blue Cosmos looked really bad by the end of this universe, if this is the last edition to the cosmic era. It's a shame as they were painted badly after SEED and if it wasn't for stargazer, there'd be no representation of EA not being totally corrupt. I think the whole powerup by there girlfriends in the finale was very much a mix of (code geass)fantasy/super robot inspired, not bad but didn't quite fit into CE. The fanservice in the movie was very Cross Ange esque and while Fukuda tried putting everything he learned from every project he worked on into the movie. Including his thoughts on nudity from saying the censorship in the 2nd cross ange opening was something he was disappointed with that he promise would be corrected.

Comparing this to Char's Counterattack (a movie I'm also a little lukewarm too as it didn't jive with ZZ and Zeta) With that movie I had problems with lack of explanation of Char's character change despite Zeta making him a mentor character and none of the events of ZZ impacting Counterattack and the rivalry between Char and Amuro making no sense

At least Freedom feels like Destiny happened, but the fact that there are supplementary material (such as Liu Goto pamplet stories, the Freedom movie light novel and maybe even drama CDs that were produced after destiny) that should've been in the movie.

What is actually in the movie is a solid yet almost fan inspired movie that tries to cram what's in today's mecha genre (Code Geass, Eureka Seven, Fukudas own Cross Ange) and Super Robot stuff. I feel only Athrun got any respect from the Black Knights and Kira was treated as a chump, While Shinn is looking for approval from Kira. I just don't think this is what I expected as a Destiny follow up, I wish Mayu and Stella were featured more to tie up Shinn's story. While the black knights themselves were Requiem 2.0 and the huge retcon. I can imagine watching the movie and watching destiny episode 1 back to back except for Shinn as final plus resolves it, so the movie doesn't bother to give him an epilogue. If there is an installment after the movie I think they will have to go back to Shinn or at least make a new main character or use Yzak and Dearka.

Still I do think there's some things they can mine now that the Destiny plan is at rest now. Blue Cosmos is gone but I see a good ova about it Earth Alliance trying to rebuild. the Patrick Zala supporters could still pop up like Blue Cosmos as it's anti climatic they get written off screen. But I feel the main cast ran out of drama, there too powerful. The mention that the METEORS, Strike Freedom were outdated could cause a problem for Kira in the future and could be like WING situation.
There's nowhere to go with Kiras character, he's already been retired, He could do what Cagalli did and train future pilots but he didn't do a great job leading a team.

[Dark Duel]

I honestly think, having now seen the movie, that my favorite single scene is the one where Athrun beats the ever-living crap out of Kira while simultaneously delivering what I can only describe as a sorely-needed "The Reason You Suck" speech. Except maybe the look on Hilda's face a short period of time after her recovery of Shinn following the destruction of the Immortal Justice, made even funnier by the fact that Shinn himself seemed to be completely oblivious to what was happening.

Overall? Meh. Setting aside my own hatred of the Destiny Plan as a concept and looking at the movie itself, it was better than I expected it to be going in, but still not great.

Shinn's character was handled well enough overall, and I enjoyed seeing him in, clearly, a much better place than he was in GSD both mentally and emotionally. I know it's a movie so we don't get a whole lot of time with these characters, but from what I saw Hilda seems to have taken on the role of a mentor to the younger pilots, something which they - and Shinn in particular - desperately needed even in GSD, and didn't have.

Other characters I really enjoyed were Alexei Konei and Albert Heinlein(I had to look up that guy's name, I couldn't remember it). I dunno why, Heinlein seems like the kind of character that's right up Jun Fukuyama's alley, and he was entertaining to watch in the role. But Alexei was the shocker. From the character design I expected another Arthur-type character, but he's a lot more laid back than I expected, and his nonchalant reaction to goings-on while the ship was docked in Orb was great.

On the villain side of things...not much to say because there's not much there. Bargain Bin Embryo just ended up irritating me for the most part, though it was fun to see him start to crack near the end. Most of the others are basically generic stock villain archetypes without much in the way of personality, except for Aura, who's...creepy. Just really, really creepy.
The only one that really piqued my interest in any way at all was Ingrid(I had to look up this one too) because she's the only one who had any inkling of personality and the movie kind of teased at something that could've been interesting, only to not really do anything with it and ignominiously kill her off.
The less said about Designated Hate Sink Agnes, the better. With one exception, I don't think there's been a character in Gundam I detested more than her since Quess Paraya, and I admit I was mildly annoyed at her survival.

What was really jarring for me was Cagalli not being voiced by Naomi Shindō. I don't think I'm ever gonna get used to that.

Overall? Better than I expected, but still not great. Probably won't be watching it again.

[HussarZwei]

Destiny[/i] at the time the movie starts, so it's safe to assume that the geopolitical situation hasn't really changed apart from the formation of the international peacekeeping taskforce COMPASS as a joint effort by ORB, the PLANTs, and the Atlantic Federation.

Speaking of COMPASS, how on Earth is the Atlantic Federation of all EA members allowed to be part of COMPASS? They're basically the Blue Cosmos domain.

[Seto Kaiba]

Speaking of COMPASS, how on Earth is the Atlantic Federation of all EA members allowed to be part of COMPASS? They're basically the Blue Cosmos domain.

Put simply, because Blue Cosmos lost a lot of its popular support near the end of the Second Alliance-PLANT War and its subsequent descent into a straight-up terrorist organization did not help the movement's public image.

Blue Cosmos had already kind of taken one on the chin in the First Alliance-PLANT War with the death of its leader Multa Azrael. Their many missteps under the leadership of Lord Djibril in the Second Alliance-PLANT War cost them a lot of influence and popular support, but what really did the group in was having Gilbert Durandal publicly expose their secretive parent organization Logos. The ensuing dustup saw Logos's executive council arrested or killed, preventing them from wielding their considerable political and financial clout in support of Blue Cosmos. With the organization's dirty laundry on display for the world to see and without the military-industrial complex's backing via Logos, the public's support for the organization quickly dried up.

By the time of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom, popular support for Blue Cosmos had fallen off to the point that the very nations that had once sheltered them now branded them as full-blown terrorists and a threat to world peace. The Atlantic Federation's participation in founding COMPASS seems like an attempt to clean house and establish their commitment to not having a THIRD Alliance-PLANT War.

[Mafty]

Blue Cosmos is a perfect example of how the mighty have fallen, you can see this clearly in their tech, which is made up entirely of outdated (and half broken in the case of the Destroy Gundam) mechs from previous conflicts (though it was neat to see the Dagger unit as it has only really appeared in the special edition before).

Tied to what Yugi said

Spoiler

Would Chairman Jagannath count as a Patrick Zala Supporter? He sides with compass to protect PLANT, but it's not clear if his ideals match those of the Zala faction.[/spoiler

If they did the movie would also tie up the Zala faction from Seed Destiny (though they were a small group to start with).

[pirx]

Sigh. I hoped to see something along the lines of 00 Trailblazer.
I really wanted to know more about that space whale from SEED.

[Seto Kaiba]

Sigh. I hoped to see something along the lines of 00 Trailblazer.
I really wanted to know more about that space whale from SEED.

It's surprising that they never bothered to do anything further with that... though aliens in Gundam did turn out to be a very controversial move in Mobile Suit Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer, so perhaps it's for the best.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom was never going to be a particularly satisfying movie. It was in development hell longer than Duke Nukem Forever.

[Mafty]

The Space Whale is one of the few things not given even a cursory mention in Freedom.

Is there any word on what the space whale was supposed to lead to? Could the movie had Aliens initially? There were apparently dozens of drafts and it took years so who knows?

[yugioh54]

Opportunity to focus on the first coordinator was wasted in this movie and Destiny, for a retcon to the coordinators, The Mu, Rey,Rau, Kira connection was also wasted in destiny as they brought back Mu but didn't address anything about it. I agree this movie was not the initial plot of the movie but a rewrite. Stella was said to have a big part in the movie years ago and it didn't. I think it was also about people pleasing the audience rather then extend the mythos. I hope there's a sequel or spinoff in the future. Lacus Clynes father said third generation coordinator would die out in SEED, SEED set up a ton of stuff that could still be mined. Whether we liked Freedom or not, it was a commercial success

[Seto Kaiba]

Is there any word on what the space whale was supposed to lead to? Could the movie had Aliens initially? There were apparently dozens of drafts and it took years so who knows?

"Evidence 01" is one of those key terms in the Cosmic Era that is almost never covered by official publications.

On the few occasions that it does get a mention, it's usually only mentioned because it's situated in the PLANT Supreme Council building in Aprilius City's 1st Ward.

All I can think, after several of my fellow translators confirmed they've seen nothing about it either, is that it might be a relic of some abandoned story arc that was cut from the plot before production started.

I think it was also about people pleasing the audience rather then extend the mythos.

Well, yeah... that's the entire point of a movie like this.

From the first proposal for the film in 2003, the Gundam SEED movie was developed to be the epilogue of the Gundam SEED storyline. They were planning to end Gundam SEED with a movie before Gundam SEED Destiny was ever a thing. That plan just moved out a bit when MBS requested a second series to follow Gundam SEED due to its unexpected breakout hit performance... and then got placed on indefinite hiatus in the wake of Gundam SEED Destiny underperforming until it was revived in 2021 as a 20th anniversary project. The reason it doesn't extend the mythos or create jumping off points for new stories is that it's been written as The End. One last adventure with the characters to tidy up loose ends and provide closure to the characters and the audience before retiring the series and moving on to other projects.

This used to be a very popular sort of project in the 80's and 90's, doing an OVA or a movie to definitively conclude the story in a satisfying manner... or flip one last bird to the audience. That's your Macross: Flash Back 2012, MOSPEADA: Love Live Alive, End of Evangelion, etc.

[Deacon Blues]

From the first proposal for the film in 2003, the Gundam SEED movie was developed to be the epilogue of the Gundam SEED storyline. They were planning to end Gundam SEED with a movie before Gundam SEED Destiny was ever a thing. That plan just moved out a bit when MBS requested a second series to follow Gundam SEED due to its unexpected breakout hit performance... and then got placed on indefinite hiatus in the wake of Gundam SEED Destiny underperforming until it was revived in 2021 as a 20th anniversary project. The reason it doesn't extend the mythos or create jumping off points for new stories is that it's been written as The End. One last adventure with the characters to tidy up loose ends and provide closure to the characters and the audience before retiring the series and moving on to other projects.

I think you have some things mixed up here. Fukuda states in a Gundam Ace interview:

―――Was the film adaptation in the works for some time?

The initial talk first came up just before the SEED TV series ended. There was a discussion of “Should we make one more movie to finish it off?” But what I had conceived then ended up incorporated into DESTINY. So, around the summer before DESTINY ended (the final episode aired October 1, 2005), talk of making it into a movie came up again, and that’s when I started thinking about it. So, for me, it feels more like “it’s finally taking shape.”

The thing about the film is that it was never on an indefinite hiatus. Fukuda even says that it has been worked on this entire time. There was even talks of trying to work it out when the remaster project was being done back in 2012 as he says:

―――The movie was thought to have vanished into oblivion. Can you tell us when the project got back on track and what led to its revival?

While it’s true that the project was temporarily halted, it was never completely abandoned. The producers at Sunrise were quietly moving things forward. Even during the HD remaster in 2012, we had discussions about the movie, but the script had yet to be finalized at that point. We decided we wanted to announce it only once we had a script in hand, which led to the delay.

Fukuda initially said this was supposed to "wrap things up" for characters, but that was an early on interview and by the script was finally dialed in, it's pretty clear that this probably isn't the last we'll be seeing of them. Considering how hodgepodge the film was along with the "tie-in" novella they gave away, plus him showing off a script for the prequel OVA dealing with the Freedom hijacking incident, it's safe to say that there was a lot more "cooking" than was let on.

The project also was not "revived" in 2021, the finalization of the script started happening late in 2019 according to Goto. I suppose I should rephrase that. "Publically" it was announced back in 2021, but work (do we say in earnest to finish the script?) started on it back in 2019.

I'd also hesitate to say that this film wraps everything up as it clearly does not and opens the door for plenty of plug-ins and ways to flesh things out. The film extends the mythos in such a way that it leaves a lot of (dare I say) "holes" for sidestories and spinoffs to solve.

[Mafty]

If they make an OVA/ONA hopefully its about the Freedom Hijack , because that seems like quite an interesting story.

[Seto Kaiba]

The thing about the film is that it was never on an indefinite hiatus. Fukuda even says that it has been worked on this entire time. There was even talks of trying to work it out when the remaster project was being done back in 2012 as he says:

They never officially announced it was on indefinite hiatus... but let's be honest, we know it was. The writer had already stopped working on it in 2008 due to health issues, and they had already blown past their planned release date the previous year. Fukuda might have been poking at it for a couple years past that point as a personal objective, but work didn't resume in earnest until at least 2019 per his own statements.

Fukuda initially said this was supposed to "wrap things up" for characters, but that was an early on interview and by the script was finally dialed in, it's pretty clear that this probably isn't the last we'll be seeing of them. Considering how hodgepodge the film was along with the "tie-in" novella they gave away, plus him showing off a script for the prequel OVA dealing with the Freedom hijacking incident, it's safe to say that there was a lot more "cooking" than was let on.

As far as I can find, Fukuda has said nothing to contradict his earlier remarks that the SEED movie was intended to be the final installment in the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED story.

Considering the movie we got was a lazy rehash of Destiny's final story arc, as we know that the Destiny series was developed from original plan for a Gundam SEED wrap-up movie, it doesn't seem like there was much "cooking" going on at all there. To be honest, I kind of suspect that Fukuda simply couldn't bring himself to abandon or substantially alter the screenplay his late wife stopped working on due to health reasons c.2008 and resolved to just work around it as best he could.

Far from being evidence that there's more "cooking", that theatergoers received a backstory dump in novella form is more an indication that the film's development was messy... which we already knew was the case. That novella is an orphaned plot thread from the film that the production team had removed either due to runtime constraints or because it diverged too much from the main plot, but felt was too important to understanding the story or some of the characters to simply discard.

I'd also hesitate to say that this film wraps everything up as it clearly does not and opens the door for plenty of plug-ins and ways to flesh things out. The film extends the mythos in such a way that it leaves a lot of (dare I say) "holes" for sidestories and spinoffs to solve.

What's left? Seriously.

Logos is gone. What's left of Blue Cosmos was wiped out in the movie. The Destiny Plan has been defeated twice and the last adherants of its tenets are either dead or have been arrested for their role in the coup in the PLANTs. The last of the superweapons from the Alliance-PLANT wars is dismantled (explosively). Kira has overcome his insecurities and his doubts and is ready to wholeheartedly pursue a relationship with Lacus and to protect the peace as a leader of COMPASS. Athrun didn't really develop in any meaningful way in the movie, but he's ready to protect the peace and spend time with Cagalli. Shinn got reminded that he sucks but still got a happy end with Lunamaria after earning Kira's trust. COMPASS has been exonerated and will continue to protect the peace thanks to the combined resources of the PLANTs, Orb, and Atlantic Federation with more nations considering joining.

There's nowhere else for the story to go. The wars are over, there's a heavily armed anti-terrorist organization actively hunting anyone who might be planning to start another, the main characters are free to live happy lives with their loved ones.

They can maybe go back and spackle over some of the plot holes with manga or light novels, but the story going-forward is clearly at The End.

[Seto Kaiba]

Incidentally, there's a very interesting piece in the most recent issue of Great Mechanics G that talks about the design process for the movie and how much of it goes back to work done in 2006.

[yugioh54]

I wonder how much the movie was based on Chiaki Morosawa script, retreading the Destiny Plan does not sound like the movie they were gonna make. Plus Fukuda added what he used in Cross Ange into the movie Ange vs Embryo/ Lacus vs Orphee. Even the new freedom and black knight mechs come from there. While also trying to fit in different mech designs inspired from different shows he's worked on! While I see THE END of Kira's story, I still think the CE has some poteinal to do various spinoffs, WING did it with Endless Waltz and then did Frozen Teardrop..., I see this being the end of Kira's story but keeping COMPASS around as a superpower pretty much makes the main cast a bit too powerful. Having the Destroy gundam and the Meteors called outdated means there is a way to weaken COMPASS , there using outdated machines. Only thing I can see is they make it more fantasy heavy, with the space whale and make it like Macross Seven.

Maybe make some new characters like what the Eclipse manga did. Also is the Eclipse manga reaching an end?