Kidou Senshi Gundam NT

I'm writing a review since I couldn't stand the fact that this got rated in the same ballpark as Gundam Build Divers, which is an atrocity. Most people are comparing NT to Unicorn, which in context took 4 years to develop and spanned 7 episodes. I don't think people should be biased coming into this, since as a stand-alone it definitely doesn't deserve to be rated under 7 (for context Yugioh ArcV is at 6.88). Gundam has been pretty disappointing when it comes to fights recently. But I disagree with the shits who prefer fights from spinoffs like Gundam Build Fighters to Thunderbolt or NT, Thunderbolt and NT's stories may be substanceless but undeniably the art and soundtrack make them much cooler (and the whole point of watching gundam is robot freud manly coolness). The fight from the trailer between NT and Phenex was badass and more hype than some of the Unicorn fight scenes. The final boss fight and ending is kind of meh, but it's passing, a 7/10. The art definitely carries, and I don't think the soundtrack is bad - people hating on the genre probably shouldn't be allowed to rate it, it would be like telling someone who doesn't drink to rate a chardonnay. The MC is kind of a pancake but given the amount of content they wanted to cram and the story direction it's kind of hard to do any meaningful character development. I've seen worse for less satisfaction. A lot of this is really based on how cool the suits looked, the battles, and the consistency.

I'll get this out of the way: I hate this movie. I went out of my way to see it and still almost walked out to stand out in the cold outside rather than watch it to it's predictable mind numbing conclusion. Positives first, the animation, art, and sound are all good, I am going to make this a backhanded compliment by saying that with this budget and time they really don't have an excuse not to be but there you go. If you want don't want your eyes to bleed than this is for you. And while the sound quality won't make your ears bleed, the sounds themselves and the words they form might do that instead. Okay now to dump on the rest of this. First of all the poster Gundam isn't the titular Gundam Narrative, but the Unicorn 3. Yes somehow there was a 3rd one made that was also all gold, for some reason. Part of me liked the first Unicorn's design because it looked like an actual unfinished prototype, that wasn't dressed up for anything other than field testing. The Banshee I was kind of willing to overlook as the finished model but the Phenex (yes that is what they call it because subtlety doesn't exist in Gundam anymore) I don't get what they were thinking with that one. You may be saying "Why is this a problem? It is the main focus of the film as the McGuffin everyone wants." Well it doesn't do anything but fly around for most of the movie, powered by what I can only assume is New Type magic another irritating holdover that doesn't seem to want to go away. The Phenex seems less valuable than the other two Unicorns, it just happens to be possessed by a really powerful 23 year old force ghost. And the problem is that while the ghost just wants to 'fly' because symbolism, at some point you think "Okay but maybe do something about the people chasing you besides flying away?" Oh and the Phenex went wild a year before Unicorn happened and yet it wasn't important to be noteworthy until a year after the whole Laplace thing happened, so figure that one out UC historians. The conflict is completely contrived, the Zeon only really want it because of corrupt politician man, and they only come into conflict because they let an actual barely functioning psychopath lead the operation. The Federation wants it so they can file an insurance claim I guess, or maybe the Vists filed a theft report after they and the Titans got it possessed by a force ghost. Our protagonist wants to find it so he can find his old friend that piloted it. Now if you haven't seen any promotional material or trailers you probably wouldn't have guessed that the pilot was dead, even though I spoiled it twice already, but from the outset it is incredibly obvious that is what happened, which is a theme throughout the entire movie. It would honestly be more shocking to me that someone didn't see where this was all going than what was actually in the movie. And the ending tries to play itself as bittersweet but the emphasis is entirely on bitter with no sweet within the context of the climax. The characters are devoid of personality, except I suppose the crazy person, who still comes off as generic crazy. The main character is a charisma void, something that the other characters and his love interests are willing to overlook because the script needs them to grow attached to him thus making him the main character. These characters might have worked in a medium length series that gave them time to get fleshed out, but as is they are just devices to get us to the terrible ending. And we are introduced to another super New type who makes Char, Amuro and Lala combined look like jokes. And she is just so pure, which means that awful things keep happening to her because this movie is bold and totally unique. Luckily the characters are likely totally self contained to this dumpster fire, meaning that the attempt to rehabilitate Hathaway into a likable character won't be tainted by NT's terrible cast leaving Hathaway's Flash to combust on its own. I said the art was good but the choreography for the action is bland and forgettable, I remember the staging for the action scenes because they were interesting but what was happening was completely uninteresting. Ultimately my rating may seem hyperbolic, and maybe it is, but that is how I feel. After watching all this Gundam I expect more from the franchise now and it really keeps letting me down and this was the biggest let down yet. I'm tired of watching different series paying 'homage' to each other by ripping each other off. I'm tired of New Types having access to the force. Why even watch anything from the franchise when it has become so predictable? No I didn't enjoy this movie at all, it made me question why I like Gundam to begin with, leave me alone. Dammit.

Gundam NT is quite the mess that tried, and completely failed, at being a sequel to Unicorn. The timeline keeps jumping all over the place during the first third which makes the story quite confusing to follow and to care about the characters in favor of "dramatic" moments with admittedly quite great cinematography. This movie would've already been leagues better if we actually had time to learn about the main trio instead of getting endless flashbacks to when they were kids talking about mildly related stuff. NT also fails at being a sequel to Unicorn as it doesn't expand on anything that the incredible OVAs put on the table. You might want to know about the state of the world after Laplace's Box got revealed to the world, right? Well tough luck as NT instead decides to focus on two idiots and their chase of the sEcReT tHiRd UnIcOrN that totally always existed, trust. You only get glimpses of Mineva, Banagher or any of the other Unicorn characters, and it serves nothing but tell you "yup, they sure are alive". In the end, it's nothing but another Gundam spinoff in its spirit; "nothing ever happens". Well, if I had to praise anything about NT is that the production quality is still on par with Sunrise's higher standards. Every shot looks great and the Gundams look as amazing and cool and awesome as usual, with minimum CG that still looks great when it's there. I wouldn't say it's a completely worthless experience, but it sure isn't something I'll remember, and watching NT only makes me remember how great Unicorn was and how much I'd rather rewatch that.

Can't escape feeling like a spinoff rather than sequel. I enjoyed the movie and it's quick pace. The core relationship between the three main characters was interesting enough, and the show had plenty of callbacks to prior events in the Universal Century timeline of Gundam. However, beyond some the delving into the power of Newtypes and the Psycommu system, the show can't shake the "direct-to-dvd unofficial sequel" feel. As someone who enjoys the supernatural aspect of the Newtype mythos, this movie was very informative for me, confirming longheld theories I had about what a newtype is and how key events in earlier shows manifested themselves. This is held back by a poor enemy that really has no importance or motives beyond being deranged. Gundam is at its best when the enemy can make a good a point; this one doesn't even give a point besides one throwaway line. As a sequel to Unicorn, it may make some fans of the series sad that such an event happens so soon after the resolution of that series. That is the nature of the world in Gundam though; war always returns. I think as a popcorn movie it is great, for fans of Newtype shenanigans it is good, but for other Gundam fans that are hoping for more relatable and grounded themes I can definitely see where the disappointment comes from.

This special, yet semi-short "Gundam" anime in particular showed a lot things that were in the original mobile suit gundam unicorn series. I just wanted to clarify that the information was accurate, well I want to say is that this event indeed happen during a time when the three main characters where just innocent children caught up in a terrible situation. They did the best hey could to survive, all of them. The fact they made this type go gundam to catch another? proves that both the feddis and neo zeon were both indeed desperate people, bought fighting, but fighting on opposite sides of one another.

For anyone coming to watch this movie after watching Gundam Unicorn and being blown away by how good it was, be aware that this movie is nowhere near as good as its prequel. Its plot is also not significant enough to have to watch before watching the Hathaway movies. At first glance, Gundam NT mimics Gundam Unicorn with its beautiful animations and catchy soundtrack, but it falls short in terms of characters and plot. Despite having seen most of the Gundam series from the Universal Century, including the small ovas, I was left confused as Gundam NT left out a lot of explanations for events that "supposedly" happened between Gundam Unicorn and this movie. I had hoped all of this would be explained later on in the movie, but it never was and it left me feeling like the movie was a waste of my time. In short, just skip this movie and listen to its awesome music soundtrack instead. If you just watched Gundam Unicorn, just skip this and go straight to Hathaway.