With the resurgence of news for the Netflix Gundam live-action movie I thought I’d give my backseat-writer’s perspective of what I feel this movie should be.
I’m just having so many mixed feelings at the moment. The main one being, for the love of Jesus Yamato, please don’t F this up. The Gundam franchise has just recently grown so much in the West, and this could make or break the momentum depending on how it goes.
The film is a co-prodution between Sunrise and Legendary Studios. If the name Legendary doesn’t sound familiar, they recently released Godzilla vs King Kong and also Pacific Rim: Uprising. The latter was an okay movie, but at the very least it was at least a good Giant Robot porn movie. A movie which also happened to briefly show the Unicorn Gundam, so at least there’s some comfort there that the people behind this are actually fans of the series and will respect it.
As for the movie itself, here’s what I’d do.
Start with a side-story
First of all, I don’t want to see the original Gundam adapted, or at least just yet. There’s just too much at stake for them to rush straight into a remake of an existing “main-series”. Universal Century is the cornerstone of the Gundam franchise and I would like to see the One Year War though because I feel that’s the most relatable setting out of all the various Gundam universes. War definitely feels like a better match for giant robots rather than trans-humanism and teenagers, especially for first time viewers. However I’d just avoid doing a straight up adaptation of the anime. There’s just too much to cover, and I think there’s too much at stake to bank on a story that needs several movies to complete it’s arc.
Instead prove that you can make a good Gundam movie and earn the right to retell a beloved story. We don’t need to rush into Newtypes and trans-humanism just yet. A One Year War/MSV side story that’s set on mainly Earth actually feels like a great place to start. Just make a good war story with robots, and save the complicated stuff for later. Other multi-movie adaptations like Avatar The Last Airbender and Golden Compass failed because they relied too much exposition and their movie arcs ended with obvious sequel bait.
The Setup
Do a simple revenge story. Earth are the good guys and Zeon are the bad guys. Zeon can be introduced by declaring independence and attacking Earth by dropping colonies which personally affects the Main Character (MC) of the story. You could even copy the style of the opening sequence of Mobile Suit Gundam / Gundam SEED. The MC would then enlist in the EFGF and the main story would begin.
Act 1
Now that the prologue is out of the way, we start the main movie and some universe building. We’re introduced mid-battle to the concept of Mobile Suits and why they are needed. Minovsky Particles block all long range radio transmissions which necessitates these giant bipedal machines, and we are introduced to the main grunt of Zeon, the Zaku. Let the Zaku build some badguy heat by having it crush tanks / buildings / EFGF ground troops first before introducing the MC who takes out the Zaku. Emphasize the ground warfare aspect, we are still using (relatively) low-tech weapons like machine guns, rockets etc.
If you want to have a bit of character development, make the MC utterly a bitter asshole about losing their family from the colony drop or something like that.
The first main mission would be for the team to assault a Zeon base. During the said mission it’s discovered that base houses a massive MA or superweapon of sorts (let’s just pretend it’s the Apsallus II or similar. The massive MA has a massive Minovsky drive that jams all local transmissions. At this point we can introduce some kind of rival ace pilot that may or may not be the main antagonist too. The mission kind of goes to crap, and being found out, the Zeon decide to launch the MA early and head straight for the Federation HQ in Jaburo. The team can’t contact HQ due to the Minovsky particles, so they must outrun it, except the shortest route is through enemy territory.
Act 2
The middle act of the movie is a big chase – the team hurry through enemy territory but are ambushed in the desert/mountains. The MC’s commanding officer is killed/injured at the start of the act, so they are now responsible for the unit as well as completing the mission.
To make things a bit fair, lets just say the MA can’t go over some really tall mountain or something which lets the protagonists stay just ahead of it. This lets the good guys stage some kind of ad hoc ambush on their own to try and stop the MA, however the mission is a failure because they lack the firepower to pierce the MA’s armour.
We can build the badguy heat on the rival by having them destroy the MC’s MS in the encounter, and maybe defeat/kill more of the protagonist’s team. Post battle, the protagonists regroup, and the MC then receives a Gundam (not THE Gundam). Maybe something like the Ground Type or Gundam Mudrock, but at least give us a Gundam design that actually looks like a Gundam, if not something that already exists as a MSV. It’s experimental and high spec, but not quite the level of the grandaddy RX-78-2. Give it some kind of interesting weakness, like the G04’s one shot beam cannon that explodes, or a very limited ammo / power supply or overheats easily. This can be a major plot point for the final battle.
Act 3
Have the final act be the defence of Jaburo from the original series. Said MA can be approaching the base slowly / has to charge up the main gun which gives the scene it’s urgency. At this point we get a tease of the RX-78-2 being ultra awesome, destroying many enemy grunts but being kept out of the “movie” battle, as it’s kept busy by a “Red” Mobile Suit.
Here is where you can essentially have all the mecha porn and CGI fighting, there’s not much else to say. The MC will also fight the rival, they can get the upper hand on them right until the end and maybe they have to make some kind of choice, to either defeat the rival or save the base from the MA using their Gundam. Either way, the MC does not have to survive the film.
Final words
Anyway theory crafting aside, I really hope the film focuses on low-tech 8th MS team style ground warfare in favour of trying to cram the whole Gundam story into one movie. By doing a side story first they can at least prove they can make a Gundam live action and the characters of the main Gundam timeline are at least quarantined from any potential failure off the bat. Also please no love stories, I’d go for more of a Saving Private Ryan camaraderie between the protagonist characters. Much like the recent Kaiju movies, we want more giant mecha fights and the human stories are more the window dressing.
