Customer Reviews

G-Saviour - The Movie

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Lets get right to it:

The Good:

1) Nice mecha designs and the CG looked good.
2) Good (but too brief) battle scene towards the end.

The Bad:

1) Wooden characters. Ironic that the the first 3D version of Gundam would have such 1D characters. Besides the Mecha, Gundam has always had great characters and this movie had none.
2) Slow pacing. It takes way to long to get to the big Mecha battle at the end and then its over much too quickly.

The Ugly:

1) This should have been a Japanese production. In Western hands it just came out unimaginative and boring. It happened with Godzilla (which luckily is back in Japanese hands) and its happened here with Gundam.

I am a die hard Gundam fan. Everything from the 0079 series to Turn A and even Wing. Gundam has a very big cult following and for us fans it is an animated world full of action, drama, mystery and suspense. It is sad to see how G-Saviour bastardized the Gundam universe. The only thing worth watching is the 5 minutes of CG which isn't really all that great. The plot is REALLY bad, the acting is horrible, the characters are VERY plain and one dimensional. If you are a Gundam fan please don't purchase this lame excuse for a movie...if you do they'll only start making more garbage like this. Unfortunately this was an impulse buy and I am stuck with it (the people I have offered to give it away to don't want it). Spend your money elsewhere...perhaps start exploring other Anime/Mecha titles such as Getter Robo or Big O. If not go ahead and burn your money...it's probably more enjoyable to watch than this movie.

The year is Universal Century 223 and the Congress of Settlement Nations, or CONSENT, controls the Earth Sphere. At this time, the world is plagued with global famine that is taken the notice of everyone. Mark Curran, an ex-consent soldier, is forced to become the pilot of the Gundam G-Savior and to protect the discovery of a new type of Bioluminescence that could solve the world hungar crisis found by the Gaian Cynthia Graves and Dr. Reva from a conspiracy to have selective famine around the world by the corrupt Consent. They head towards the colony of Gaia where there will be a clash between Consent forces, Gaian defence forces, and the rebel faction called the Illuminati.

The Mobile suits look as if they were made from the One Year War Era and the plot seems to be slow in development. The only advanced technology that this movie has are the Beam Shield element from the series V Gundam. It is an okay movie, but it is suggested that you should be at least familiar with the world of Gundam or you will be completely lost in this world of giant robots, space ships, human emotion and trials, and corrupt world governments.

I know what you're thinking. "Lovely, a live action version of anime. Could it get any worse?" Yes, it could. However, in my opinion, it wasn't as bad as it could've been. This movie was done fairly well, and the acting was decent. No big names, but I wasn't expecting any. The best part, of course, is the big battle between the colony Gaia and the Earth forces. All suits are done exceptionally well in CGI, and even show off some suits I don't think are in any of the anime.

Save for the colonies (Sides) and the design of the mobile suits (the word "Gundam" is never said in the course of the movie), the story, while good, has nothing to do with either the Mobile Suit Gundam series or the Gundam Wing series. It's completely out on its own. Definitly worth the time it takes to watch it. Though, I would've only given it 3.5 stars, but there's no halves here.

I picked up a HK DVD of this in an online auction last year. They had the best of intentions when they made this, but it fell short. Despite a lot of what Ive heard, the special effects are actually well done. The company responsible (Digital Muse) also handled the special effects for the Star Trek Voyager series. The acting isnt horrible, but it isnt great. Id call it lukewarm, at best. On the plus side, the original voice track is English, so you dont have to wonder about anything being left out as there is no translation to English. The story is disjointed. Again, it seems like they had a good idea, but couldnt quite pull it off. If I remember correctly, the entire production schedule was rushed and cut short.
If youre a fan of the various Gundam series, your time is better spent watching something like The 08th MS Team or Gundam 0080. Both of these are much more engrossing.
If youre a sci-fi fan, this is probably B-movie grade, at best. The special effects are good, but not worth sitting through the rest of the movie to get to.
Unless you get a real good price, this movie is probably worth watching, but not worth owning.

There are certain themes that run in the classic Gundam series. Corrupt politics, corrupt military, the latest advance in Mobile Suit technology, betrayal by the one you most trusted, etc, tec...

And of course, the pilot that didn't WANT to be a pilot. But HAD to be.

In this, G-Saviour comes full circle. It's about 130 years AFTER the original series. Politics and the like are all so different, and still somewhat the same.

And a crisis is arising. The reason is pretty contrived-- but hey, face it-- the original wasn't? No, in a way, this makes MORE sense.

But what impressed ME was that the actors did this movies and DIDN'T seem lame.

No... they seemed ANIME.

For the FIRST TIME EVER we have live action actors acting like ANIME characters. INCLUDING the sometimes over the top stuff we are used to expecting from anime characters. And, in my opinion, for once it worked.

Ever seen the live action Fist of the North Star? BAD movie. (Although, sadly, it was better than the ANIMATED FOTS movie.)

But G-S WORKS.

Because EVERYONE in the flick is NOT trying for an Academy award. They are being typical Anime characters. They are pulling the SAME bonehead plays that we have all come to know and love. And for once, it WORKS.

It doesn't hurt that the computer generated mobile suits are downright real. I can BELIVE in these suits. It's scary.

90 minutes of mind-candy... not any different from an OAV... just with real people.

Perfect? No.

Good? If you like Gundam, yes. (And for those who ask why the term Gundam was never bought up-- Hey, it's 130 years LATER! Even a GUNDAM can become obsolete...)

Now I want every one here to note I have seen at least one episode of every gundam series ever, in fact I have seen at least 70-80% of all gundam in my time, now this movie is an interesting concept: Live Action movie taking place in the Gundam universe, even though they never say the word "Gundam" at all you can see words like "Mobile Suit" pop up in places.

The movie lacks every thing that makes a good gundam, I can easily get past the fact it is not the best looking film I have ever seen, but the characters lack chemistry, the other UC gundam characters were so great was because they all had a chemistry and all reacted to each other in a diffrent way, and you could easily understand their situations. The characters in here do not seem nearly as tragic as in "Mobile Suit Gundam" or the kill-a-minute "Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam" in fact I would go as far and saying I did not like, understand, and I can not even remember the names of most charcters, unliek the epic motion picture "Mobile Suit Gundam Char's counter Attack" the characters in "G-Saviour" are rather plain and uneventfull, the action ( I know how much you probably love action) is very low, in fact, the show lacks the "full scaleness" of "Mobile Suit gundam SEED" of which it would look like every one was involved and the war was really brutal, "Savior" on the other hand made it seem like a walk in the park. In fact, this movie was actually kicked off the UC calender, because it had WAY to many continuity problems, over all I suguest looking into it if you are curious, how ever the film falls VERY short of being what the other UC shows were.

This movie was a dissapointment. First of all, the placement of it in the gundam timeline was ridiculous. It takes place 150 years after the last animated series ended and the technology had not changed at all. It would not really fit in the timeline anywhere anyways because it is so far from the origonal plot. The plot is hopeless, basing it around some sort of famine and a miraculous, all-powerful, glowing-liquid solution to the problem. The name is not very fitting either. The gundam G-Saviour had a total screen time of about 5 minutes, if that. It was more of a love story than anything else. It would have been better if the movie was made now, since computer animation is easier and better looking(the mobile suits are not very good). The only thing that saved this movie from being a total failure is the fairly good acting. The people retain the anime-like acting qualities of the gundam series'. This movie would be a lot better if one of the actual gundam story writers had participated in its production. You should really only get this if you are a die-hard gundam fan and would not be very offended by its poorness.

unfortunately G-Saviour is only a decent movie. The acting involved is somewhat mediocre, but one thing the movie has going for it is the awesome CG. The CG itself merits a 5 star rating (unfortunately there isn't enough fighting in the gundams), but the acting and storyline are lacking tremendously, which is why i rate this movie 3 stars. i do recommend this movie to any gundam fan, but if you aren't a gundam fan, please don't start with this one, try another gundam title first.

With my goal to watch everything related to Mobile Suit Gundam and the Universal Century on DVD for 2008, I realized that there was a film released in 2000 (DVD released in 2002) to celebrate the Gundam 20th Anniversary.

In a collaboration with Sunrise, Inc. and Polestar Television, "G-SAVIOUR THE MOVIE" was released.

With a budget of nearly $9 million, the film would combine live action with CGI with the majority of the film in live action.

The film would take place in the Universal Century 223, way past the storyline of the anime series and there is no mention of Gundam in this film.

If anything, this film could be seen as one of those films you would catch on the Sci-Fi channel and realize that it has mecha and kick back and enjoy it.

I know this film is not accepted by Gundam fans, not accepted by Gundam co-creator Tomino Yoshiyuki but being the sci-fi fan that I am, I wanted to give this film the benefit of the doubt.

The film revolves around CONSENT (Congress of Settlement Nations) officer Mark Curran and one night, his ship was infiltrated by some unknown group who are looking for some type of lab samples. A gun fight ensues and CONSENT military led by Lt. Colonel Jack Halle (Curran's rival) ends up killing some of the people of this group.

Mark Curran then does his investigation and through interrogation, realizes that this group were actually scientists who were after something in the lab that would lead to the benefit of mankind.

Of course, Curran, being the optimist agrees to help the scientist, Cynthia Graves which automatically puts him in odds against CONSENT and ends up helping the group of scientists and puts him on the wanted list of CONSENT and becomes a cat and mouse film with the military trying to capture Curran and the rebel scientists.

As for how it relates to anything Gundam. Aside from the date which is "Universal Century 229', there is a mobile suit that the opposition to CONSENT has in its disposal called "G-Saviour". Also, the mention of colonies such as "Side-x" were used in the film but no mention of Gundam at all.

I suppose back in 2000, the CGI for the mechas were top notch but the majority of the film doesn't feature too much CGI and I guess that would be a positive thing now because of CGI advances since then.

As for the voice acting, compared to the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to the first season of the modern "Battlestar Galactica" and even Sci-Fi channel films, "G-Saviour" is not a horribly acted film.

Actually, Brennan Elliott does a good job playing CONSENT officer Mark Curran and rival/enemy Lt. Col. Jack Halle plays a good bad guy. The others in the film were not bad as well. I've watched a lot of sci-fi films and by no means is this film terribly acted or the worse one ever created.

The DVD also features a dubbed Japanese track and even though you have talent like Shinohara Ryoko playing the voice of Graves, as much as I enjoy watching Japanese anime with English subtitles, I didn't want to watch an English film dubbed in Japanese with English subtitles.

So, with that being said, I was not disappointed with this film at all. Was it wonderful? No. But it wasn't terrible either.

I had some problems with the pacing of the film. How Curran and Graves start to fall for each other... it just seemed a bit rushed. Also, when I see someone being shot multiple times, I would expect that person to not live through that. But who knows, maybe weapons were set at stun or something.

Another was how Curran became the main pilot of the G-Saviour. A former military officer/friend of Curran says of the G-Saviour, "this was built for you". It was one of those "rolling my eyes" moments in the film and next thing you know, Curran becomes a pro in piloting the G-Saviour and ready to take on colliding objects, space junk, etc. with no practical experience with G-Saviour. Sure, he's piloted many mobile suites and aircraft but for him to master G-Saviour so quickly... that's a big stretch.

The CGI didn't bug me all that much, since its a bit dated and the battle between G-Saviour and other mobile suits were cool to watch. Facial expressions/emotions after a battle were sometimes cheesy but all in all, the balance between CGI and real life actors worked well.

Personally, with the storyline taking place nearly 250 years later after the original "Mobile Suit Gundam" series, personally I didn't think too much after I watched it of how it affects the Gundam universe. If anything, I was more concerned about the Earth Federation collapsing and the emergence of CONSENT. But it would be interesting if Sunrise would create another anime series that did take place in this timeline.

As for special features, there was like CGI and artwork from and for the film. Even the special feature was a let down because there were less than ten images.

It would have been nice to watch a featurette with interviews with the cast or even behind-the-scenes filming. After all, this is the celebration of Gundam's 20th Anniversary at that time. So, you would have expected to see something in relation to that. Maybe even the Japanese premiere.

A lot of people made their judgment to not see this film and some who have seen it enjoyed it or disliked it.

For me, I found it as essential to have in my collection because I'm watching and owning everything "Universal Century" related in the Gundam universe.

I didn't dislike the film, I enjoyed it and for me, it was like catching a sci-fi movie special and that was it.

As for the DVD is concerned, for a 20th Anniversary Project celebrating Gundam, you would have expected more on this DVD and that is where this DVD fails in that there are hardly anything in regards to Gundam or even this film in terms of featurettes, interviews or anything else except CG and hand drawn artwork. And surprisingly, there is not much there for that either.

Fortunately, you can find this DVD around $5 online.