Gundam in Review: Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory Part One

The last battle of Mobile Suit Gundam-The battle of A Baoa Wa Qu, where the Gundam and White Base are destroyed-although it’s crew mostly survives to face an uncertain future.

The mushroom-shaped space fortress falls, allowing for the federation and Zeon-now a Republic-to sign a peace treaty. The conflict in the original Gundam later becomes known the “One Year War” (of which MSG is largely set in the later months of.

The battle also claimed the last remaining heads of the Zabi family (If not it’s heir…but that’s another story)…literally. The death of commander Gihren at his sister’s hands does not go well with Admiral Delaz, who-suspecting Kysheria’s hand in it-orders his fleet to withdraw early from the battle.

Delaz takes with him Zeon ace Anavel Gato, who has recently earned the reputation of “The Nightmare of Solomon”. However, unlike a certain other Zeon ace who wears an eye mask and likes the color red, Gato is totally loyal to the Zeon cause (or at least to Gihren Zabi’s perversion of it) and is not doing it out of any personal vendetta. The two retreat to space, to fight another day….

Three years later, in Universal Century 0083, The Federation has resumed it’s Gundam project. The first suit is the GP-01, basically an update of the original suit, but more streamlined-although it has a further upgrade waiting in the wings…

The second is altogether different. It’s more heavily armored, bulky (with it’s “bell-bottom” legs and less streamlined chest somewhat recalling Zeon suits), with heavy thrusters on it’s shoulders and most important of all, a Bazooka capable of delivering a nuclear weapon-something that was forbidden even during the One Year War, after the “Antarctic treaty” was signed. Guess what’s going to be one of the main parts of the plot going forward?

The two Gundams-delivered by the Pegasus class ship Albion-a more advanced version of the White Base carrier- are set to be tested at Torrington base, which is largely where new mobile suits are tested, often with Rookie pilots acting as “bogies”. Among them is Kou Uraki. Kou’s skilled and a somewhat fast learner, but is somewhat emotionally immature, impulsive, stubborn etc. He never quite develops quite into a more mature character in the same way Amuro does (in a way). Also, unlike Gato and other pilots, he never experienced the One Year War, and seems naive about the whole thing in a sense, at least at first.

Then we have our third leading character, Nina Purpleton. She’s the main designer of the Gundam project. Like Kou, she’s somewhat naïve, and awkward, and also has a bit *too* much pride in her creations. Her civilian status, as well as her status as being from the moon, put her in an awkward position in the Earth Federation. She also has a connection with Gato later on,(and one that seems a bit tacked on…). In Part II I’ll move on to more plot details, as to how Gundam 0083 is intended to fit in the larger scheme of things. It is, after all, intended as an “interquel”-in this case, to explain how the Earth Federation suddenly becomes a sort of police state in Gundam’s first sequel, the TV series Z (eta) Gundam.

BTW if Kou and Nina look a bit familiar, there’s probably because they were based in part on Tom Cruise and Kelly Mcgillis’s Maverick and Charlie, although Top Gun’s plot certainly doesn’t involve giant robots, space colonies or nuclear weapons. Their awkward romance however-and certain elements of Gundam 003’s aesthetic are based on Top Gun though. Gundam 0083’s music also has often been criticized for it’s similarities to soundtracks from movies at the time-2010, Quest for Fire, Death Wish IV, Glory etc. all have tracks that sound a lot like Gundam 0083 copied from them….

Gundam in Review: The Original

It is the year 0079 of the Universal Century. A half-century has passed since Earth began moving its burgeoning population into gigantic orbiting space colonies. A new home for mankind, where people are born and raised. And die. 9 months ago, the cluster of colonies furthest from the Earth, called Side 3, proclaimed itself the Principality of Zeon and launched a war of independence against the Earth Federation. Initial fighting lasted over one month and saw both sides lose half their respective populations. People were horrified by the indescribable atrocities that had been committed in the name of independence. Eight months had passed since the rebellion began. They were at a stalemate.

And so begins the first intro of Mobile Suit Gundam. While it describes much of the war, it only visually introduces the Mobile Suits- but this is the main advantage Zeon has in the war-The Mobile suits, in particular, the Zaku. Mobile Suits are basically giant robots, with the Zaku in particular looking like a cross between a tank and a soldier wearing a gas mask. The Federation can only really counter with basic military units like infantry, tanks and fighters…until now.

The Federation is quickly developing it’s own prototype counter to Zeon’s advantage-The Gundam, as well as it’s supports suits the Guncannon and Guntank. Not only is it intended to counter the Zaku, but to surpass it in every way-with a wide variety of weapons including “beam” sabers and rifles (as oppossed to Zeon tech which uses heated blades and giant ammo), head cannons, and heavy armor as well as many other attachments. This is operation V, being developed at a Side 7 colony. An Earth Federation carrier, the White Base, arrives to pick up the Gundam and the other suits.

However, things go wrong when the Zeon find out about this operation, and in a (partially unauthorized) strike, kills or badly wounds most of White Base’s senior crew, and damages the colony, leading to a group of civilians not only having to take shelter aboard the White Base, to serve as it’s crew as well.

The Gundam in particular winds up in the hands of teen Amuro Ray-son of the Gundam’s designer-before he can board, and he quickly-and almost intuitively-figures out at least some of it’s functions and eliminates two of the invading Zakus, trying to cover White Base’s escape from the colony. Amuro’s experience and reckless nature conflict with the more disciplined, by-the-book Ensign Bright Noah, who has assumed command of White base with the proper crew mostly incapacitated, dead, or not having the same place in the chain of command.

However, the commander of the Zeon mission-Char Aznable-a mysterious masked ace pilot-faces off against Amuro, in the first of many skirmishes between the two, a rivalry that will last throughout multiple series and movies. Char is not only distinctive because of his mask, but also his red colored Mobile suits.

However, Char has his own ambitions. In a twist on the Duchess Anastasia myth, Char-real name Casval Deikun-is actually the son of Zeon Zum Daikun, who started the Zeon independence movement in the first place, but was assassinated by his own second-in-command, Degwin Zabi, who then installed his family as the head of Zeon, who warped Daikun’s ideals into a military dictatorship which led, in part, to the war. Char’s primary motive in becoming an ace Zeon pilot is to get revenge on the Zabis, one by one. Complicating things is that Char/Casval’s sister, Artesia (under the pseudonym Sayla Mass), is among White Base’s improvised crew, having been separated from her brother at a young age when he started his guest for vengeance. Initially serving as White Base’s comms officer, she eventually becomes the pilot of the Gundam support unit the G-armor (or in some versions, the core booster).

Eventually, the crew-who despite being a sort of weird mix and being armed with invaluable prototype technology-eventually join the war on the Federation’s side on Earth and space as a sort of unorthodox unit with a major ace in the hole with the form of the Gundam (and also the Guncannon and Guntank, piloted by Side 7 refugees Kai and Hayato; also eventually joined by Sayla in her G-armor/Core booster). As they fight the war while mostly cut off from the front lines, they develop a sort of bond, and have plenty of heartbreak as well-as this is a war which will claim it’s share of casualties. Plus Char-as well as later aces such as Ranba Ral, the Black Tri-stars and others-are a constant thorn in their side, as are Zeon’s own Mobile suits and giant vehicles called Mobile Armors which outnumber the Gundam in quantity if not in quality,and of course Char’s own agenda complicates things. In addition to Char’s vendetta against the Zabi family, the Zabi family also plots against each other (Which, in a few ways, make’s Char’s task slightly easier).

As Amuro grows more experienced, he starts to exhibit even more extraordinary piloting skills and a sense of new awareness and a sixth sense, in a way somewhat similar to the “force” in Star Wars, but instead of some energy field it’s more of an evolutionary step for mankind and for the most part, does not involve telekinesis. He becomes a “Newtype”, as do other members of White Base’s crew (Char is also a Newtype as well).

Things become even more complicated when Amuro finds a soul mate of sorts with the enigmatic Lalah Sun. Problem is, she’s Char’s soul mate as well….and this will have ramifications going into further series.

The original Gundam of course is not for everyone. The animation is somewhat outdated being over 40 years old on TV, and of course being an older anime there’s a lot of ‘filler’ (One was even removed from most overseas broadcasts due to poor animation and story, so Gundam sort of has a “lost” episode!). Howerver, the story itself is pretty timeless, and while some of the “mecha” animation might be sloppy at times (although the basic designs hold up and are still used in Gundam productions), the character designs in particular, although very seventies, definitely stand out and are somewhat less generic than current Gundan anime. For instance, when I’ve watched Gundam Seed it’s kind of hard to tell Athrun, Kira and Shinn apart sometimes. But nobody’s going to mistake the three guys on the right here-Kai, Hayato and Ryu with each other.

A lot of the goofier aspects of the series-Many of the Mobile armors (especially a weird, yellow one called the Zakarello) and the G-armor-were cut or re-animated for a set of three compilation movies, which shorten the series length down about 1/3rd but still contain many of the important things, although some of the good stuff is cut too.

Incredible Hulk: Transformations Part IV-The Joe variations

After being manipulated by the Leader, Bruce Banner is captured and the Devil Hulk “killed” in a sort of Gamma hell, leaving the Savage Hulk and Joe Fixit the dominant personas. Joe emerges as Banner with a mustache and longer hair, and remains the ‘human’ form. He even has a Coney Island hot dog and beer with the Thing.

Joe can transform into the Savage Hulk, however only a severely emaciated and powered down form.

Joe’s relationship with the Savage version has also changed to more of a protective older brother, which is far different from their original relationship, where they were fighting for dominance as the Hulk.

However, Joe and Savage are “killed” by the U-foes, and once again taken to Gamma hell where the Leader-who has melded with the Demonic One Below All-intends to possess them. However, in the real world, Hulk’s corpse is pelted by the U-Foes’s X-ray in order to keep him from coming back to life, which has an unexpected side effect-Joe absorbs the cosmic energy and becomes a “red” Hulk, taking Savage and fleeing through a “Red door” (The opposite of the Green door which leads to and from the gamma hell).

Hulk’s corpse begins to re-animate, but in a largely different form. He’s no longer emaciated, he talks like Joe and has a Green-Grey hue, plus veins bulging with cosmic energy….