Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

The Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy is, I think, the Japanese equivalent of Star Wars.  The analogy works on all sorts of levels — Gundam is a set of three movies; Star Wars is a set of three movies (the original series, anyway).  Each advanced the genre of sci-fi thematically and visually — Star Wars affected an entire generation of moviegoers, and the iconic design of the RX-78 Gundam can still be seen echoed in anime to this day.  Both trilogies were spawned in the closing years of the 1970s, although the film version of the 0079 saga saw release in the period of time between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi’s run in theaters.  Finally, both managed to tell a story that is epic in scope and yet deeply personal, balancing the fate of billions with the struggles of a select few.  Ultimately, this is what makes them timeless.

Tracing Gundam’s history will, unsurprisingly, bring up another similarity to the Star Wars saga.  The fact that the latter trilogy ended up becoming a key piece of cinematic history was fairly miraculous, considering the myriad production problems it faced and the sheer inventiveness required for its groundbreaking special effects.  Gundam’s road to existence was, perhaps, longer and rockier — the original series, broadcast on television in 1979, didn’t exactly set the ratings board on fire.  It was canceled 9 episodes short of its intended 52-episode run.  But that wasn’t the end.  Thanks to the success of Gundam models in 1980, interest picked up, and the series was reconstructed for a theatrical run.  The second and third entries in the series, entitled Soldiers of Sorrow and Encounters in Space, contained a significant amount of newly-animated footage.  The end result is a trilogy that is even more sobering, serious, poignant, and focused than its television counterpart.  Though its mecha combat may always be Gundam’s lasting legacy, it is the characters and their message that will endure.  From within its disturbingly cold depiction of war as a senseless, hellish slaughter, the desperately hopeful ideal of Newtypes emerges as a powerful, novel concept.

The movie trilogy’s focus was altered significantly from the original series to explore the Newtype theme.  Though it starts as a mechanism to propel a classic underdog story — Amuro and his beleaguered companions on White Base barely survive encounter after encounter thanks to their mysterious battle prowess — it has shifted considerably by the end of the series.  In true human form, members of both the Federation and the Zeon seek to use something they don’t understand to gain the upper hand in war, taking advantage of the young warriors to further a questionable political cause.  There are also those on the opposite end of the spectrum who merely shrug off the possibility of a new form of human evolution.  But the story is predominately told through the many eyes crewing the White Base, and, just as they do, as viewers we hold onto the hope that some magical powers will keep them alive through every battle.

It doesn’t really work that way, of course.  Friends, companions, mentors — the innocent and the battle-hardened — all die throughout the series.  But the most interesting element of the Newtypes is born out of all that death.  Even as Amuro awakens to his incredible potential and begins to decimate his Zeon opponents in battle, he inadvertently kills Lalah Sune, the most gifted and pure Newtype in the cast of characters.  Wracked with grief, desperate for revenge, Amuro and Char play out their vengeful duel, but in the end it is a spiritual connection with Lalah that gives Amuro the strength the continue.  Despite his injuries, Amuro uses his newly-awakened state to communicate with his friends, guiding them to safety.  And it is the children, exposed to war, yet still determined and cheerful, who guide Amuro from the disintegrating remains of A Baoa Qu — because Newtype evolution isn’t about skills in battle or uncanny reflexes.  It’s about a new level of existence, a new form of human relationship transcending the limits of verbal communication.  Essentially, Newtypes embody the hope that humanity can become something more, something better, than we are.

It’s a shame, really, that the rest of the Gundam time line largely forsook Mobile Suit Gundam’s delicately balanced sanguine aspirations for humanity and its bleak depiction of our current existence.  Zeta Gundam and Char’s Counterattack retain the bitter sentimentality of the original, but far too many of the sequels and offshoots became little more than just another giant robot anime.  Don’t swallow those tongue-in-cheek references by Yōji Enokido — the original was anything but.

Though the gradually-building focus on Newtypes and the philosophical framework developed around them elevates Mobile Suit Gundam to a status few works of animation have ever matched, it wouldn’t be possible without a solid foundation to build from.  And that’s what Yoshiyuki Tomino and company created; they broke through the conventions of the robot anime genre, defying expectations for a predictable good-versus-evil struggle.  Ironically, several characters on the Zeon side of the One Year War are the most appealing; Char’s enigmatic cunning has inspired a Red Comet clone in countless productions, and Ramba Ral’s bravery and commitment endears him to Amuro and makes it that much more painful when he dies.  Even the hulking Dozle Zabi is hard to totally hate when he reveals a tender dedication to his family.

Each central character grows significantly over the course of the three movies, and loss is often a guiding factor.  Amuro constantly questions why he is fighting, struggling to understand his own emotions as well as what drives his friends.  He loses a crush, a father, and a love interest across three movies — a hard burden to bear, even in the easiest circumstances.  Sayla is forced to hide her identity, grapple with the harsh realities of combat and deal with the transformation her brother has undergone.  Kai searches for purpose, fights his fear, and has the prospect of love ripped from his grasp before he has a chance to truly experience it.  Bright and Mirai do their own awkward dance, which is only complicated by Sleggar’s brief, though important, time with the crew.  Even Hayato and Fraw Bow change from their first appearance to their last, gaining confidence and settling into a position they carry out to help their friends.

And then there are those who don’t make it — the Lalahs, Ryus, Garmas, Sleggars and Matildas of the One Year War.  The deaths in Mobile Suit Gundam rarely feel contrived or senseless, enforcing that sense of bitter realism that pervades the trilogy.  Their names attach faces and personalities to a statistic each film drops within the opening backstory, which describes the effect of a devastating colony drop onto the continent of Australia.  The influence of Japan’s tragic history with atomic weaponry can be seen throughout their popular culture to this day, and Gundam undeniably shares in that burden.  In a series depicting a war in which six billion die, the depth given to so many characters hammers home the fact that war is people killing people, and even the survival of characters we grow to love means the sacrifice of plenty who did little to deserve their fate.