Customer Reviews

Gundam Mobile Suit Zeta: Movie Complete Collection

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

 

 

After watching these movies in their entirity I can say they are incredibly enjoyable. While a little disjointed due to the need for some considerable editing to fit the movie format, those who have viewed the Zeta series will have no issue with following the story. The added new animation is simply superb. And the matted subtitles are easy enough to follow. Now, this series was not created for an English speaking audience, funnily enough it was made for Japan. While I too would have loved an English dub, Bandai have at least provided us with an opportunity to view with subs. Now this gets my goat, there are reviewers who criticise the Japanese 'dub'. There is no Japanese dub, it is the original soundtrack, created for their own market. To profer reviews at a lower rating due to this takes away from the value of the films themselves. Hell, you don't see a bunch of idiots giving Pan's Labyrinth the thumbs down because there's no cheesey English 'dub' on that. Zeta is easily one of the better entries in the Gundam canon, but I guess we all have different priorities when watching.

If you've already seen the original Zeta Gundam series and liked it, please press "add to cart" and skip this review. If you haven't, read on...

First off, I am not new to Gundam. I've watched all of Mobile Suit Gundam, Char's Counterattack, War in the Pocket, 08th MS Team, Stardust Memory, Gundam Wing, Endless Waltz, 00, X, Turn A, Igloo and Unicorn. Every other series (except Zeta, Double Zeta, F91 and Victory) I watched enough episodes to determine I wasn't interested.

I wanted to experience Zeta Gundam, and I chose to go with the movie compilation over the original TV series because I no longer have the time to dedicate to a 50-episode series. I'm not sure that this was the right decision. I'll get straight to the point: It was all kinds of confusing.

Trying to boil down 21-22 hours of TV series into a 5 hour movie trilogy just doesn't work that well, even when a lot of the original scenes are re-done. The problem is that, while you can easily read a summary or watch a recap, trying to watch massively cut scenes that are presented as a coherent story is stupendously taxing on the brain. Even if you know where you came from while watching a scene in the Zeta movies, you're not likely to be given even the briefest moment of reflection before you're suddenly in a totally different location and a new plot point is shoved into your face, accompanied by dramatic music saying, "Stop thinking, pay attention to THIS scene!"

Of course, trouble keeping up with the plot can be solved by hitting the pause button or pressing back for the previous scene. The director made sure that the main plot is all there. What can't be fixed, however, is the brutally truncated human story and character development. If you are like I was and haven't seen Gundam Zeta, you will be frequently wondering things like "Who is this person?", "Why are those two pissed at each other?" and "What happened to so-and-so?"

The end result is that I now know what happened, I know who the important people are, I enjoyed sopping up the Zeta suits/tech, and I was impressed by the new animation (especially the well executed battles). But watching this trilogy was strenuous and ultimately left me feeling nothing for the characters other than "Oh. So that's how it ended." Not a very fulfilling experience.

So, if you haven't seen the original Zeta series, or ESPECIALLY if you aren't familiar with Gundam, I highly recommend you don't watch this yet. If you *have* seen Zeta, buy it now. I'm positive you will be blown away by the new animation.

There is a lot of story and events from the original Zeta series to ram into a three movie trilogy. I can't say that was done well in this series. I was totally lost in the first movie. Its important that you either read the story in advance before you watch the movie or invest the hours into watching the original series. The new animation is quite nice. The first movie is almost all put together with original footage but the last two videos are mostly new animation. Not having the English dub is quite annoying. You practically miss all the new animation because there is so much text to read and you need to keep up with it or get lost with the story.

For those who don't know, the original Zeta Gundam tv series was released back in 1985, as a sequel to Yoshiyuki Tomino's original, groundbreaking Mobile Suit Gundam series.

Considered a favorite among 80s mecha and gundam fans for it's complex politically driven plots, great characters and cool mobile suit/mecha designs which are still considered cool looking and iconic even 20 years later, Zeta Gundam was my first introduction to the gundam franchise and still one of the favorite series. Once again exposing characters to the horrors and brutality of war, unlike the original MSG, this series turns the original on its head by making the Earth Federation the villains with their brutal police force, the Titans, and the rebels, including former MSG villain Char Aznable, known as the AEUG, as the heroes. This 50 ep series climaxes in a final battle that costs all the characters far more than anyone expected.

In 2005-6, Tomino decided to give Zeta Gundam the original MSG film treatment by creating a new trilogy of films based on the sequel with a big difference. While the movies used the original story and some of the original TV footage, some of it was replaced with all new updated animated sequences and new scenes with dialogue rerecorded by the original voice cast (whenever possible). As a result you get a somewhat disjointed visual look when the films switch from older footage to newer, but all in all they are still good compilations.

The first film uses about 40% newly animated footage and by the third movie its closer to 70% new footage. I assume for production reasons they didn't reanimated the entire films from scratch, but still it would have been nice knowing that they could.

Animation and visuals aside, there are some cool new OP and ED credit themes performed by jrock fan favorite singer Gackt, who, unbeknownst to many, despite his rock star status, is actually a pretty hard core gundam fan and allowed his inner geek to come thru by performing music for the movies, and they actually work pretty well. The majority of the film score still retain the original symphonic soundtrack of the original TV series, which is well done even by today's standards.

Now here is where some fans of the original TV series may take issue. The loss of many key parts of the story can be considered unavoidable when you try to condense 30 hrs of story into 6, but certain scenes that were critical to the Zeta Gundam storyline were omitted from the movies (like Char's speech at Dakar) and others were radically altered (like the ending). Also character development is changed in someone because of the altered sequence of events. Still these movies are great to watch, if possible, watch both the TV and movies and decide for yourself which ones you like more.

I liked this better than the television version of Zeta and recommend it for anyone that hated the television show ending.

This movie trilogy is awesome, I saw it when it originally came out in 2005-06. Unfortunately since it was all Japanese with no subtitles I couldn't understand the whole thing (especially the new scenes). That being said, when it comes to anime, I prefer subtitles over poor quality dubbing. Something just seems to be lost in the emotions conveyed by the characters when it comes to english dubs, especially when the english voices themselves are generic and emotionless. Instead of complaining, just be happy it's finally released here in the U.S. 5 years later after the original release. If it bothers you that much, don't watch it.

i never had a chance to watch original tv series of z gundam and now i got one as a Movie trilogy and I loved it!! i enjoyed it. its worth it for gundam fans

If you are considering purchasing this compilation, chances are you have already seen the Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam TV series. And if you haven't I suggest you watch the original Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) so that you may have a better foundation for the forthcoming story...but I digress. Zeta Gundam take places seven years after the "One Year War". In order to combat the splinters of what was once the mighty Principality of Zeon; the Earth Federation establishes an elite force known as the "Titans". The Titans soon obtain vast influence and develop tyrannical characteristics, eventually fixing their sights on controlling the entire Earth Sphere. Two resistance groups emerge know as the Anti-Earth Union Group (AEUG) and Karaba. Kamille Bidan, the main protagonist of the series, is a colonist on Green Noa 1 when it is attacked by a reconnaissance party of the AEUG looking for Titan's advanced Gundam prototypes. Out of resentment for the Titans, Kamille finds himself stealing a Mark-II prototype for the AEUG and eventually joins them in their quest to destroy the Titans.

This new iteration complies the 50-episode story into a film trilogy; "Heirs to the Stars", "Lovers", and "Love Is the Pulse of the Stars" respectively. Yoshiyuki Tomino, the director and writer of original wanted the movies to not only celebrate the show's 20th Anniversary but to also introduce the series to the influx of newer viewers from Gundam SEED. A large portion of the series was digitally re-mastered, putting the trilogy's visuals (IMO) more on par with Gundam UNICORN, but with distinct stylistic differences reminiscent of the Zeta Gundam series. Some of the storyline; which I won't spoil, has also been changed, most notably the ending. This aspect is lover or hate and I doubt it will have any bearing on newcomers. However there is a major deterrent in this trilogy for me--it is a Japanese dub with English subtitles (somewhat ironic considering its subtitle is "A New Translation"). I am a devout Gundam fan which is why the announcement of this trilogy was so exciting. However, as you would imagine, my excitement quickly turned to disappointment after discovering this fact. Some might argue that a Japanese dub adds to the authenticity of the movies but I for one couldn't care less when reading subtitles distract from enjoying the visuals and being immersed in the experience. Thus I do not understand what Bandai was thinking if they were under the impression that a Japanese dub would sell well in North America. Who knows, maybe it will sell well and I am in the minority, but the lack of an English dub is why I cannot give this movie trilogy the rating it deserves. However, for those of you who did enjoy the Japanese dub from the original, the majority of the Japanese cast have reprised their roles except for some female characters such as Fa Yuriy and Four Murasame.

Over all, if you are a Gundam fan, Zeta Gundam fan, or Mecha fan, or all three, you will enjoy this movie trilogy, that is if you can get past the Japanese dub.

Each DVD in this package is a therater release of a reproduction of Z Gundam's 50 episodes. It use some of the old scene from the TV episodes and mixed with new CG scene. The only thing that annoys me is the Japanese dub. I was hoping that it has the English sub title. Also, the old closing music theme is being replaced.

It is well documented and established that in the US, English-dubbed anime outsells non-dubbed by at least three or four times. So why does Bandai continue to dump their old GUNDAM material on the US market without dubs (they did the same thing with the original MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM movies on DVD)? The dubs clearly exist [they are available on VHS] so they are only shooting themselves in the foot by not releasing them. How do they expect to attract a new (younger) audience by releasing them in a form that will not sell? (My kids unfortunately won't watch anything in black & white or not dubbed). Note that this short-sighted action is equivalent to releasing DVDs of old TV series and then stripping out all of the original music but without the excuse of "not being able to release the music due to excessive royalty costs (examps- WKRP IN CINCINATTI, THE FUGITIVE, etc". People won't buy them because they "are not what they remember seeing".